C. Remick,
No doubt it is a choice between two appalling options but at least if there was deliberate villainy in bombing the embassy there was a plan. One can then have some small confidence that the plan has taken into account the possibility of failure, and other risks. Mind you, I still don't think there was a real plan for getting into this war or there curently is one for the war in general. This was a war with a 'why not?" instead of a "why". Still, one would like to think that we committed an act of war against a major nuclear power for a reason, with some thinking behind it. Otherwise it's clear that we could simply blunder into a huge catastrophe. War without a plan strikes me as an excellent way to get into a dangerously escalating conflict and then lose control of it.
That is very cold comfort but there is something else: Villains inspire people, idiots just depress people. If some document comes to light, for example that the CIA knows the address and GPS coordinates of every *other* Chinese embassy, people will be inspired to re-examine the government's recently successful claims of righteousness every time it bombs or invades somebody. If the story holds up that the military intelligence people were just idiots, it won't cause anybody to re-examine anything. In fact, that is what they are banking on. Notice how quickly they admitted the mistake? Compare that to previous mistakes that were just as obvious. They are happy for us to think they were just idiots. It makes me unhappy to think so.
peace