If we see military action in Iran in the next several months, you can trace part of the reason back to a redistricting quirk in the San Fernando Valley and a debate between Democratic House Representatives Howard Berman and Brad Sherman, redrawn into the same district. They spend most of the night trying to be the most belligerent to Iran and most solicitous to whatever Israel wants.

Negotiations in Afghanistan on a long-term military agreement are breaking down because of resistance to night raids by US forces and US-run prisons. There’s also the fact that Afghans and Pakistanis, like most people I assume, don’t particularly like it when you kill their citizens and desecrate their most sacred rituals. Just recently, t he US and NATO apologized for inadvertently burning Korans at one of their air bases

While the UN General Assembly issued a formal condemnation and European leaders prepare more sanctions, in the US, the neocon government-in-exile wants to use this opportunity to start another war, at least by arming the Syrian rebels (though they probably couldn’t explain to you who the Syrian rebels are). In order to gin this up to a sufficient level, John McCain has taken to claiming the Syrian regime is being armed by Iran, to justify the US arming the regime’s opponents.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Martin Dempsey, appeared on CNN yesterday and refused to give in to the hot passions of the moment. On Iran, he not only demurred at the idea of the US going to war, but he shook his head at the notion of an Israeli strike, saying that it’s “not prudent” and “wouldn’t achieve [Israel's] long-term objectives.”

It occurs to me that we cannot even really have a Pentagon Papers event in this country anymore. Sure, Wikileaks releases gained a decent amount of attention, but the real evidence for this comes in the past week. Lt. Colonel Daniel Davis wrote an 84-page report detailing his experiences in Afghanistan, which are at odds with the official narrative. Much like the Pentagon Papers on Vietnam, Davis’ report claims that the top military brass has been lying to the public about the state of the war.

Underpinning the bishops’ complaint about the Admistration’s rule to require contraception coverage in health insurance is the idea that nobody in America should have to assent to government policies that violate their personal beliefs. This comes as news to committed pacifists.

At least so far, the attempts from inside the military to warn against an early withdrawal in Afghanistan are not working. In fact, the US appeared to move in the other direction today, aligning themselves more with France than with the military moles.

The focus on Guantanamo over the past couple years has hidden the fact that the number of detainees there has been dissipating somewhat. The number of detainees at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan has exploded, with detainees captured throughout the world moved over to Bagram and shielded from any habeas proceedings. Bagram has become the black hole. So it’s good news, on its face, that the Administration wants to repatriate non-Afghan detainees out of Bagram.

A provocative article in Foreign Policy magazine suggests that Israeli Mossad officers recruited members of the Pakistani terrorist organization Jundallah to aid in the covert operations against Iranian targets, including bombings in the Baluchistan region and potentially the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists. The Mossad officers, according to Mark Perry, posed as American intelligence agents during the recruitment, using US passports.

The Defense Department has identified the four Marines who urinated on dead Taliban soldiers in an infamous video that turned up this week. The military may charge the Marines with war crimes, though a final decision has not been made.