I whole-heartily reccomend an extremely important article in the New York Times today called "Climate Change Seen as Threat to U.S. Security." The article documents a number of the non-environmental threats posed by inaction on climate change, quoting military experts and sources like Gen. Tony Zinni (ret.), the National Intelligence Council, the DoD's National Defense University, and so on. An excerpt:

The changing global climate will pose profound strategic challenges to the United States in coming decades, raising the prospect of military intervention to deal with the effects of violent storms, drought, mass migration and pandemics, military and intelligence analysts say.

Such climate-induced crises could topple governments, feed terrorist movements or destabilize entire regions, say the analysts, experts at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies who for the first time are taking a serious look at the national security implications of climate change....

"We will pay for this one way or another," Gen. Anthony C. Zinni, a retired Marine and the former head of the Central Command, wrote recently in a report he prepared as a member of a military advisory board on energy and climate at CNA, a private group that does research for the Navy. "We will pay to reduce greenhouse gas emissions today, and we'll have to take an economic hit of some kind.

"Or we will pay the price later in military terms," he warned. "And that will involve human lives."

The ongoing health care debate matters, but I would make this point about priorities and political capital: People are hurt during delays in health care legislation, but they are hurt BY delays in climate change legislation.

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Yesterday I took a look at a bunch of critical reactions, mainly but not exclusively from the left, to the calls for Donald Rumsfeld to resign coming from high-ranking military officers. Today I take a look at the reactions to the episode, and the anxiety it is justifiably causing, over on the revolutionary right. Below you'll find a collection of comedic (at least to me) posts from the right, broken down by the lame sophist arguments that the Black Shirts use to try and explain this whole episode away.

First we have this little tidbit from Westhawk, who goes first because he speaks to my favorite subject:

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There has been so much written about the retired officers speaking out against Donald Rumsfeld that it's a bit hard to keep up. Below are some of the pieces- blogs, op-eds, and articles- that you really shouldn't miss, though I'm leaving the comedy pieces (i.e. the Right-Wing attacks on the Generals) for the next piece:

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Al Rodgers diary "Sunday Talk: MUTINY!!" on the front page of DailyKos had one thing in it that did not make me feel too good about our future prospects. That is the LATimes/Bloomberg poll asking if the 2004 election would be held today, who would you vote for with people responding 49% Kerry and 39% Bush. If I'm not mistaken there were polls in 2004 that had better numbers for Kerry (if not for Bush). In such a poll Kerry should definitely be above 50%. That he's not worries me deeply and just goes to show how divided this country really is. It certainly doesn't bode well for any of our candidates in 2008.

So, here comes the X-Factor: Will there be an Independent candidate in 2008? I believe this to be an important question. Whoever he or she is, an independent run could either be a spoiler for Democrats or Republicans, maybe for both. I can already see the mainstream media touting such a candidate saying that if anyone could unite the country it would be an independent President.

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