Looking at our apparent drift to war with Iran, I wondered if the real US Cabinet driving foreign policy was composed of Black Manta, Zod, Great Cthulhu and Lenin. Really, we just have Darth Cheney. And the reality is that the pro-war commentariat is getting crazier by the day. The cognitive dissonance must be pushing them over the edge, judging by one of their latest heroes.
One of the truly wacky sites out there is the Northeast Intelligence Network. After looking at it, you can be forgiven if you think it is a parody site. They even play out an old Chris Rock routine. Chemical spill? Must be the Muslims! Hold up on the border? The people who say no to pork! My checks are bouncing? Bet it's the Sunnis (sorry, that presumes they understand there are intra-Islamic issues.) Anyway, the site is playing up the latest star of Goebbels radio.....Murdoch from the A-Team. Has to be a joke, yes? No. It's like the right wants to out-crazy the left. I see your Cindy Sheehan and I raise you a member of the silliest TV program of the 1980s. Wasn't it supposed to be a flaw of the anti-war side that Hollywood types were on that side?
I realize there are smart people (a few left anyway) defending the Bush administration's foreign policy. The NIN fools are about as smart as you are after five absinthes and three hits from the bong. Check this quote:
Discussing our handling of the situation in Iraq, Mr. Schultz (Murdoch) offered this well-reasoned analysis :"We are doing precisely what our enemies want us to do, and the more we do what our enemies want to do, the more emboldened they are going to become and the closer we are going to come to the homeland attack – the big one. And that’s my great fear. And its not fear mongering…it’s reality."
4 comments:
Funny coinkadink - Doonesbury today has a kool-aid reference as well.
Is it bad that whenever Bush or Cheney appear on the news that I physically flinch?
Check out the Daily Show clip (sounds like you may have already) of Jon Stewart speaking as Darth Vader to Cheney to "get his attention from someone he would respect." The image of Mordor in the background is a nice touch.
Trudeau is always copying me.
Here is a timely (2/8/07) bit from the Economist:
". . .
Even if it became clear that Iran was on the threshold of acquiring an atomic bomb, an American strike on its nuclear facilities would be a reckless gamble. Without America invading and occupying Iran—unthinkable after Iraq—such a strike would at best delay rather than end Iran's nuclear ambitions. It might very well rally support behind a regime that is at present not conspicuously popular at home, emboldening it to retaliate inside Iraq, against Israel and perhaps against the United States itself. Besides, it is far from clear exactly how dangerous a nuclear-armed Iran would be. Unlike Iraq under Saddam, Iran has a complex power structure with elements of pluralism and many checks and balances. For all its proclaimed religiosity, it has behaved since the revolution like a rational actor. To be sure, some of its regional aims are mischievous, and in pursuing them it has adopted foul means, including terrorism. But the ayatollahs have so far been shrewd calculators of consequences. There are already small signs of a backlash against the attention-seeking Mr Ahmadinejad. Like the Soviet Union, a nuclear Iran could probably be deterred.
. . .
Every effort should be made to stop an Iranian bomb. But there is a better way than an armed strike. In 2002 Mr Bush consigned Iran along with Iraq and North Korea to an “axis of evil”. Since 2004, for lack of good alternatives, he has been helping the efforts of Britain, France and Germany to talk rather than bludgeon Iran into nuclear compliance. Iran claims that its nuclear programme is for civil purposes only. Last year, the Europeans called its bluff by offering trade, civil-nuclear assistance and a promise of talks with America if it stopped enriching the uranium that could produce the fuel for a bomb. When Iran refused, diplomacy led in December to the imposition of economic sanctions by the Security Council.
This is a promising approach. The diplomacy at the United Nations proceeds at a glacial pace. But Iran is thought to be several years from a bomb. And meanwhile the Americans, Europeans, Russians and Chinese have at last all lined up on the same side of the argument. What is required now is a further tightening of the economic squeeze coupled with some sort of an incentive—most usefully an unambiguous promise from Mr Bush that if Iran returns to compliance with the nuclear rules it will face no attempt by America to overthrow the regime. Even then, America and Iran may be fated to lock horns in the Middle East. But the region, and the world, will be a good deal safer without the shadow of an Iranian bomb."
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8668903
Rather level headed chaps, what?
Now that is reasoned analysis. I am leaning to the grand bargain school of thought in regards to Iran.
Post a Comment