It's a good day to indulge in some fantasy, or at least to examine one.
Which reminds me that people have been wondering lately what Obama will do about Iran. By now the answer should be obvious: nothing. Nothing beyond his usual finger-wagging shtick, that is.
A recent headline in the British newspaper The Telegraph read: Obama gives Iran ultimatum over secret nuclear plant
Yeah, right. Stop pursuing nuclear weapons or I'll wave my finger some more, and use stern language in a somber tone. And if you taunt me in reply, I'll give the deadly Obama disapproval stare.
That is the sum total of this foreign policy featherweight's arsenal. It may not blow up many uranium enrichment plants, but boy does it ever play well on the Letterman show. That Obama has honed his act there more times than he's met with the senior commander in the Afghan theater should not distract anyone.
Of course, there are those who disagree. Juan Cole of Salon thinks that "the smartest guy in the room" - no matter whether that room is the Oval Office or the Letterman green room – is actually playing Ahmed-squiggle like a fiddle.
In an article titled: Obama's Shrewd Moves Are Undercutting Iran the professor of Middle East history tells us why. My first reaction was that after a title like that I really didn't need to read the article. But I did my duty and extracted this gem: "Brown erred in charging Iran with having a nuclear weapons program, which U.S. intelligence can find no evidence for."
I was about to write that Prof. Cole is due to be embarrassed soon, but then I remembered that Progressives are incapable of that particular emotion. Then I decided I really didn't need to read the rest of the article.
But thank you for reading this one because I, too, enjoy wagging my finger while giving disapproving looks and speaking in somber tones. And, the second anyone hands over the United States Air Force to me for a day, I'll be shaking it like a metronome accompanied by a highly arched brow. Right after I announce in somber tones that Iran's nuclear facilities are a smoking ruin, and twelve of its leading physicists are now dead or employed by the U.S. DoD.
That, unlike the current occupant of the Oval Office, I'm willing to admit is just a fantasy.
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4 comments:
Perhaps I was absent that day...
Where exactly in the Constitution does it authorize endless "police-action" wars to fatten the pockets of the bankers and munitions manufacturers and prop up a counterfeit currency, debt-based "economy"?
I've looked the document over quite a few times since leaving school. Haven't found it yet and
maybe you can help (sans "9-11! 9-11!" partisan hackery, please).
Ted,
We're on the same team; no need for sarcasm. If you disagree with something, just say so, and say why.
I'm not a Constitutional scholar, but I'd say this covers it:
Preamble
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense,..."
Article I
"Congress shall have Power... To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;"
As to the bankers and munitions makers making money... well, in any conflict lots of people make money, and overall we spend money. (War is an inherently unproductive activity.) But I can't imagine how you could objectively support the case that they're the ones driving the current conflicts.
Is it your view that the Iranians are not, and have not been for many years before 9/11/2001, a real threat to the security of the citizens of the United States? If you look at the link I provided, you'll see many examples in that one website alone. There is much more evidence if you're interested.
Provide for the common defense, yes.
Police the entire world for the glory of the Vatican, not so much.
Nobody seems to be paying attention to how fast the national debt is growing as we stick our noses into everyone's business, wet nurse, bottle-feed and spank all the earth, export everything we have of value, and generally repeat the same bad policy that caused ancient Rome to collapse...
Neutrality was a good idea we should have stuck with, and it was far from isolationist.
To dip into the undercurrent of the Iranophobia so popular among neo-cons, if Iran and Israel go to war, I predict Iran would lose, badly (provided we broke tradition and minded our own business til it was over). The track record indicates Arabs talk a good game, but can't win a fight unless the other guy's back is turned and he's unarmed. Neither of those conditions describe Israel, or U.S.
Further, what does Iran have we did not supply them? It appears from my vantage point that one way to kill a monster is simply not to feed it.
America is a great country in spite of spiritualistic/socialistic altruism, not because of it.
"Brown erred in charging Iran with having a nuclear weapons program, which U.S. intelligence can find no evidence for."
Imagine that - believing something doesn't exist merely because there's no evidence for it? How insane! Just because the IAEA inspectors have determined there is no active nuclear weapons program, and because the U.S. intelligence services have in consensus reached the same conclusion? Yes, they have investigated and inspected and so forth, but against their research, inspection and the accumulated intelligence of all United States intelligence services, the bomb-Iran crowd has... uh... Iran-hate!
I wonder if anyone here could illustrate for me a scenario whereby you people would believe that Iran has suspended its nuclear weapons program. The inspectors charged with determining such have concluded there is none, and the United States intelligence services - no Iran-loving terrorist-sympathizing doves there - have determined the same thing. There is no proof that discredits their conclusions. Apart from the thrill resulting from tough talk and watching bombs explode on television, is there anything else - any conclusive evidence - on which you base your belief that Iran is feverishly working to build nuclear weapons?
Didn't think so. Who needs proof when we have emotion and gut-instincts. And when have such ever failed us is determining who has or doesn't have WMD's?
For all that Obama is every bit the super-centralizing, reckless-spending, constitution-trampling uber-statist his predecessor was, I think we (true) conservatives can thank God that he beat McCain in the last election. We are, at least, spared the indignity of committing indiscriminate mass slaughter to deprive some far-off country of weapons they do not possess - again.
When will you people learn? Americans must choose between a small, constitutional government or one gargantuan enough to rule over and police the world.
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