What In The Hell Is Going On 'Round Here?
Steve Sailer has crunched the (available) numbers and concluded that Iran is no threat militarily to Israel or the US whatsoever. The CIA seems to be acutely aware of this fact, so just as they did when suppressing the intelligence on Iraq, the Bush administration is once again attacking the CIA for not feeding its delusions about Iran. The fearmongering thus continues unabated, with Israeli “intelligence experts” claiming that Ahmadinejad would “sacrifice half of Iran for the sake of eliminating Israel” and Israel threatening to open up a can of whup-ass on Iran if the US does not.
In the meantime, following Iran’s unveiling of a plant which aids in the plutonium enrichment process, the US has come out swinging with the threat of sanctions, warning that it will impose them itself if the UN doesn’t play along. Iran’s holocaust cartoon exhibition, on the other hand, sure isn’t helping Iranian claims that it poses “no threat to any nation, even the Zionist regime.”
Israel says it is “not fooled by such declarations.” I disagree, however. If Israel’s foolish enough to launch a war against Iran, it’s playing right into Ahmadinejad’s hands — and has thus been thoroughly duped. As we’ve now learned from Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, indiscriminately killing civilians and destroying civil infrastructure results in the exact opposite effect than that desired by those seeking to topple Islamic extremism: It turns average folks into extremists and Islamic radicals into heroes.
Or not. Amir Taheri, the oh-so-extraodrinarily-trustwothy Iranian exile who caused a firestorm earlier this year with his bunk claim that Iran was planning to force Jews to wear yellow badges, reports in the Wall Street Journal that Hezbollah’s victory is not nearly as clear as the Western media has made it out to be, a claim that appears to be buttressed by an AP report that Sunnis in Southern Lebanon are revolting against Hezbollah supporters and, conversely, a report by Robert “I Hate Israel But Not As Much As I Hate America” Fisk in the Indepedent that Hezbollah’s reconstruction efforts are winning the hearts and minds of disaffected Lebanese Shia. The truth, as usual, is somewhere inbetween. But the total lack of nuance on the part of Israel’s supporters (who make no distinctions between Arabs, Persians, Sunnis and Shiites) or on the part of Israel’s detractors (who are all but ready to don kaffiyehs and declare “There is no god but Allah and Muhammed is his one true prophet”) results in an ever-thickening cloud of confusion and ignorance that makes ripe conditions for war but creates little opportunity for dialogue and progress.
The real winners in the ensuing chaos? Palestinian boy bands. And newly parplegic KISS fans. At least somebody’s dreams — in a completely sick and twisted way — are coming true.
Me? I’ll be preparing for myself a series of Altoid tin survival kits and strategically placing them around Jerusalem. Cuz hey — you never know when either Israel or Iran will be stupid enough to launch the first strike, and you certainly don’t want to be caught with your pants down.
Mobius,
What created the extreminsts before we “indiscrimnately killed civilians”?!
For that matter, what caused 19 Muslims to fly airplanes into US buildings indiscriminatly killing thousands. How did we provoke them.
You contiuously post with comments incriminationg the US and Israel for formenting the hatred agaist them. This is a very wrong and damaging perspective. I believe the Talmud maintains that a person is responsible for all of his actions, even those performed during his sleep. Even if your ludicrous view that Muslim extremisim is provoked by US and IL, regardless, if you can excuse these people for their actions, how can you condemn the Nazis for theirs? Were they in no way provoked (in their view)?
If it looks like a duck – blow it up.
interesting how you equate both israel and iran to being stupid in the case of a first strike. where would that leave you, in some fanticy dream peace land?
“As we’ve now learned from Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon, indiscriminately killing civilians and destroying civil infrastructure results in the exact opposite effect than that desired by those seeking to topple Islamic extremism: It turns average folks into extremists and Islamic radicals into heroes.”
You’re assuming that US forces or the IDF engaged in these sort of things. In some isoloated cases, they have. But this is not U.S. nor Israeli policy. Indiscrimately killing civilians is the tactic of the terrorists, not of us.
Also, the constant emphasis on the west, or the U.S., or Israel fails to recognize the internal, autonomous, dynamics of these movements and ideologies. It turns Muslims into objects who are simply reacting to us and what we do to them. This is a major mistake in terms of the policy recommendations that flow from this sort of thinking and a manifestation of ethnocentrism as well. More attention needs to be paid on who these extremists are, what they think, and what they are willing to do to attain their goals. The more one does so, the less one thinks that their hatred flows from our actions. I’m not saying that our actions play -0- role but, by and large, U.S./Israel’s actions simply become a justification for actions they would take anyway.
The post is nearly incoherent. Even if we accept Steve Sailer’s blog as the last word on the subject of Iran, did anyone notice that Sailer’s piece addressed only conventional weapons? Kind of a straw man argument, since those of us who want to see Iran deterred or attacked are worried primarily about nuclear weapons and secondarily about terrorism (funding, training, arming, etc.); neither of these have anything to do with conventional warmaking.
Anyone here ever wonder how the identities of the ‘perpetrators’ who were also incinerated by the destruction of the WTC, were made available to the media, so soon? Hey, I was on my death bed — literally — when 9/11 happened, and though receiving gallons of IV Morphine, when a friend called and asked what I thought about the horror, I told him there was no way such a thing could have happened without the involvement of the rogue element of the US military (you know that cryptic military-industrial-complex that Dwight warned us about). I may have even mumbled something about ‘Reichstag Fire.’
Anyone here ever see any buildings imploded through controlled demolition? Looks remarkably like what happened in Manhattan.
As for Iran having the temerity to develop nuclear power, this idea also came from that Republican president, in his ‘Atoms for Peace’ proposal. Nuclear power is much cleaner than petroleum, and fast breeder reactors RECYCLE spent nuclear fuel, which otherwise gets buried, to allow later generations to figure out what to do with the stuff. No one in the msm — or alt media, even — has wondered that Iran is thinking about the future, despite sitting on huge oil reserves.
PS Though I read Fisk with a somewhat jaundiced eye, I could not disagree with his remarks in the documentary “Peace, Propaganda, and the Promised Land” (btw — most of the interviewees are Israelis and US Jews).