Bombing Iran
If an Administration comes in that doesn't meet your approval, it can be highly uncomfortable to see and hear it referred to as "The U.S.," when all you can see is an enormous disconnect between the two.
A lot of people would instantly dismiss this as simply a matter of semantics and too trivial to even mention, but to me it is much more than mere wording, because it explains, for one thing, how such an Administration can perform misdeeds in secrecy or even in plain sight when the nation's citizens are too preoccupied with truly weighty matters like the personal life of Britney Spears, leaving them open to surprise when those misdeeds performed in their name finally and inevitably come to light.
Common Dreams today is carrying an article with the title "U.S Could Bomb Iran Nuclear Sites in 2007: Analysts."
You see a lot of stuff written this way, though actually "the U.S." is doing no such a thing. If by "the U.S." you mean what it ought to mean, which is the main body of American citizens, they are instead contemplating an endless variety of other things, the great majority of which have nothing to do with Iran, much less bombing it. And in fact, if a poll as extensive as a national election could be taken, I'm confident that they would answer that any American leader who would consider such a move is just operating with the brain at the bottom of his spinal column instead of the one at its top. The American military already has its hands full in two tough Middle Eastern countries, yet somebody is going to commit them to engaging a third country that is in the same neighborhood but has three or four times as many already stirred-up people and so figures to be three or four times as difficult to subdue, plus it has had much more time than either Afghanistan or Iraq to prepare? That's insane!
Maybe, in fact, the just-finished elections were such a poll. Meanwhile we should always remind ourselves that while running in 2000, G.W. Bush never dared to mention what was high up on his agenda: "If elected and under the falsest of pretenses, I will set into motion widespread destruction and tens of thousands of early deaths by invading Iraq."
I guess people who now would bomb Iran can't see any farther than the time when, a generation or so ago, the Israelis successfully made a surprise attack on Iraq's nuclear facilities from the air without suffering any consequences beyond the ineffectual Scud attacks later in the Gulf War.
We notice that this time the Israelis, even with a surely much stronger Air Force and armed with nukes itself, would rather have the Americans perform the illegal deed.
That ought to give would-be bombers of Iran pause, and it probably does. So what we see now are the two sides merely blowing smoke at each other out of various unusual orifices, and if there is the slightest bit of rationality left in this Administration or the next, tempers should rise no higher than that purely verbal level far beyond this coming year.
A lot of people would instantly dismiss this as simply a matter of semantics and too trivial to even mention, but to me it is much more than mere wording, because it explains, for one thing, how such an Administration can perform misdeeds in secrecy or even in plain sight when the nation's citizens are too preoccupied with truly weighty matters like the personal life of Britney Spears, leaving them open to surprise when those misdeeds performed in their name finally and inevitably come to light.
Common Dreams today is carrying an article with the title "U.S Could Bomb Iran Nuclear Sites in 2007: Analysts."
You see a lot of stuff written this way, though actually "the U.S." is doing no such a thing. If by "the U.S." you mean what it ought to mean, which is the main body of American citizens, they are instead contemplating an endless variety of other things, the great majority of which have nothing to do with Iran, much less bombing it. And in fact, if a poll as extensive as a national election could be taken, I'm confident that they would answer that any American leader who would consider such a move is just operating with the brain at the bottom of his spinal column instead of the one at its top. The American military already has its hands full in two tough Middle Eastern countries, yet somebody is going to commit them to engaging a third country that is in the same neighborhood but has three or four times as many already stirred-up people and so figures to be three or four times as difficult to subdue, plus it has had much more time than either Afghanistan or Iraq to prepare? That's insane!
Maybe, in fact, the just-finished elections were such a poll. Meanwhile we should always remind ourselves that while running in 2000, G.W. Bush never dared to mention what was high up on his agenda: "If elected and under the falsest of pretenses, I will set into motion widespread destruction and tens of thousands of early deaths by invading Iraq."
I guess people who now would bomb Iran can't see any farther than the time when, a generation or so ago, the Israelis successfully made a surprise attack on Iraq's nuclear facilities from the air without suffering any consequences beyond the ineffectual Scud attacks later in the Gulf War.
We notice that this time the Israelis, even with a surely much stronger Air Force and armed with nukes itself, would rather have the Americans perform the illegal deed.
That ought to give would-be bombers of Iran pause, and it probably does. So what we see now are the two sides merely blowing smoke at each other out of various unusual orifices, and if there is the slightest bit of rationality left in this Administration or the next, tempers should rise no higher than that purely verbal level far beyond this coming year.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 9:00 PM
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