Preemption and Traffic Accidents

Andrew Sullivan and Steve Soto both include reminders of Dick Cheney's "last throes" comment in their coverage of today's news that the Bush administration has ordered Iraq's main reserve force -- 3,500 men and women -- to put down insurgent violence in Anbar province.

Firedoglake's Christy Hardin Smith points to Dan Froomkin's March 16 piece about the Bush administration's preemption doctrine, which failed so spectacularly in Iraq that, naturally, the president is using it again to justify attacking Iran.

The Mayor of Kabul, in condemning the riots following a fatal collision between a cargo truck and a U.S. military convoy, called the collision a "simple traffic accident"; but it was more like an accident waiting to happen.

The road accident Monday morning follows a bloody two weeks of fighting around the country that has left nearly 400 people dead. Around 30 civiliarns were killed in an airstrike in southern Afghanistan last week during a battle with the Taliban, stoking public resentment already inflamed by the way Coalition forces drive around the country.

"The US use force in the street with their cars. When Americans are in a hurry they cut people off and they don't care how they drive. We all have to wait in line behind them," says an Afghan UN employee who asked to remain anonymous. Coalition forces often move quickly as a safety precaution.

Well, now they will have to move even more quickly, won't they?