#1
US failure in IRAN + NORTH KOREA-TAIWAN, etal. = enemy armies at the gates and backyards of CONUS-NORAM. It WILL be interpreeeeted as a de facto decline is US Regional-Global power and influence.
The Australian-turned American Rupert Murdoch greeted Australian Prime Minister John Howard on his recent trip to America and Canada, with a cheery, "time for you to think about retiring, mate. Quit while you're on top form."
Howard was probably too gracious to reply, and, indeed, after ten years in office, he shows no inclination of wanting to step down. But it is hard to deny that he certainly seems to be at top of his form.
He is already the second-longest serving prime minister in Australia's history, second only to Sir Robert Menzies, and he is arguably the most successful. He's won three general elections for his Liberal-National coalition and survived three opposition leaders.
By Catherine Seipp, National Review My teenage daughter, who is a more sympathetic person than I am, thinks baldly calling Cindy Sheehan an idiot is a bit harsh, so I'll amend: Cindy Sheehan is a useful idiot, a rattle-headed tool of everyone from Not In Our Name, who even as the Twin Towers were still smoldering worried more about retaliation against the poor Taliban than about women oppressed by the Taliban; to pro-Palestinian terrorist apologists; to your friendly neighborhood Stalinists at various branches of International ANSWER, whose objectives range from freeing Mumia to putting a bright and happy spin on daily life in North Korea.
It's the national Fifth Column, the usual suspects whose names pop up over and over again...
And yet the most idiotic statement in Sheehans new book, Dear President Bush, comes not from Sheehan herself but from Howard Zinn, who writes in the introduction: A box-cutter can bring down a tower. A poem can build up a movement. A pamphlet can spark a revolution.
A box-cutter can bring down a tower. By now, I suppose, we should be used to the hard Lefts extending underdog status to the worst of mass murderers; still, the sheer gall of beginning a series of David-and-Goliath metaphors with that one is breathtaking.
So a spunky little box-cutter took on those big old capitalistic towers, the same way that a brave little pamphlet like Dear President Bush takes on Bush and his evil policies. . . .
It just gets better from there. Go read it all.
Posted by: Mike ||
05/26/2006 13:29 ||
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#1
I wouldn't read the cover, much less the bullshit inside.
1)Bush schemed 9/11 to profit from oil.
2)Al Quaeda did not attack on 9/11.
3)We should support the Iraqi 'resistance'.
4)The US is using NUCLEAR weapons in Iraq.
5)The President has no right as Commander in Chief to order troops into battle because his Daughters are not fighting.
6)The US is 'not worth dying for'.
7)All America has done since it 'stepped on this continent' is cause 'death and destruction'.
8)The sole purpose of the Iraqi elections was to give people 'ink-stained fingers'
9)Her son was murdered by Bush for a "PNAC Neo-con Agenda to benefit Israel".
10)Terrorists who beheaded American and other foreign contracters are "Freedom Fighters".
I could go on and on, but this bitch is making me want to vomit.
None of these Republican politicians will be able to stop Hillary Clinton in 2008 or solve the most pressing problems facing this country.
Naturally, some readers are asking me for an alternative.
I've thought about this a great deal.
Hillary Clinton will be the choice of the Democratic Party. She is a dangerous demagogue who could, as president for four years, complete the destruction of this country begun during the eight years her husband held office.
She must be stopped.
While I have no faith in the Republican Party, given its pitiful track record since grabbing the presidency and control of Congress, it probably represents the only chance to limit the damage the federal government is wreaking on our country every day.
My preference would be a new party. My preference would be to build an alternative to the Republican-Democratic political trap. But time is short. I don't see this happening in 2008.
Unless a person with charisma, money and convictions someone like Mel Gibson arose to the challenge of an independent bid for the presidency in 2008, like it or not, we will be faced with a choice between a Democrat and a Republican.
Therefore, freedom-loving, security-conscious Americans need to rally behind a Republican candidate of principle and courage someone who will speak to the core issues facing us all today.
In my humble opinion, there is one man who fills that bill Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado.
He's a maverick. He marches to the beat of his own drummer. He's not afraid to criticize members of his own party including his president. And that's what I love about him.
There is no one else in Congress or in national public life who has provided better leadership on the No. 1 national-security issue confronting the United States the border and immigration policy.
Tancredo's prescription isn't radical though it might seem that way based on the reaction of the Big Media and establishment politicians in both parties. What Tancredo is advocating are common-sense principles being implemented in nations all over the world including in supposedly "progressive" Europe.
You can read about his plan for turning America around in his new book, "In Mortal Danger The Battle for America's Border and Security" published by WND Books. You can encourage him to make the run by buying it. You can raise his visibility as a national spokesman by sharing it with your friends. You can make your voice heard in Washington and around the country by making it a best seller.
It's real simple. A nation without borders ceases to be a nation. That is the threat we face with as many as 20 million illegal aliens already here and more pouring over the border every day.
I believe this is such a hot-button issue with the American people that Tancredo, a distinguished but otherwise obscure member of the House of Representatives, could actually win.
But even if he doesn't win, it is imperative that the issues he raises get a national debate before 2008. The chickens have come home to roost. This issue I have been writing about for years is now on the front burner. Much of the credit belongs to Tancredo. He has done an admirable job winning over many colleagues in the House.
However, it may take a national political campaign to save this country from the looming disaster illegal immigration and open borders represent.
That's why I am urging Tom Tancredo to make the run. I simply don't know of any other candidate in a position to make the case effectively.
Will he do it?
We need to encourage Tom Tancredo to gear up, raise the money he needs to get his campaign going, start organizing. We need to let him know we will back him. And we need to mean it.
You may say, "Farah, it's only 2006. There's a mid-term congressional election this year. Why are you obsessing over the 2008 presidential race?" Because it takes planning to win. And I want America to win in 2008.
#5
Hitlery as POTUS? Well, that'll guarantee that the notional Biblical End-Times prophesy timeline, with all the attendant human suffering, will be greatly accelerated. (But we believed that to be the case anyway). Kneeling, genuflecting and step-n-fetchism will be the order of the day.
Posted by: as ||
05/26/2006 21:22 Comments ||
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#6
Come on as. It is not that bad. We want the opposite of that doomsday scenario.
Facts are facts, and such is the degree of politicization in the republic today that when a political organization announces a literary prize the perspicacious among us have a pretty good idea who the winner will be.
When the left-leaning New York Times Book Review announced on its cover that a survey of litterateurs had chosen the finest novel of the past 25 years, close students of that tribe knew before opening the magazine that the award had gone to Toni Morrison. Thus, you will not be surprised to hear that the conservative panel that annually awards the J. Gordon Coogler Award for the Worst Book of the Year has conferred the 2005 prize on Jimmy Carter. Jimmy published a book; he wins the Worst Book of the Year Award -- once again. This is not Jimmy's first Coogler. He has now won the award twice. No other literary impostor can make that claim.
Jimmy has actually published 20 books now. Probably he should have been made Coogler Laureate 20 times. The problem is, so vain is this insufferable huckster and so desperate has he become for notice that, as his presidency attracts ever more flies in history's dustbin, he is increasingly likely to show up at our Coogler Awards ceremony -- whether invited or not. There he would stand, clutching his Coogler to his bosom and sermonizing until the janitors turned out the lights. Worse, he might bring Rosalynn, an author in her own right.
Jimmy was the worst president in American history and, in personal terms, the most repellent. That last statement would have been implausible a year or so after he vacated the White House. Today, however, after a quarter-century of caddish behavior toward his successors, it is perfectly acceptable. His public criticisms of sitting presidents have been insulting and usually dishonest. He has oozed vitriol against America even while he was strutting on foreign soil. Before him no president criticized his government from foreign soil. Jimmy has repeatedly broken that rule.
In fact, no prior president has spoken as rudely and dishonestly of his successors or of his country as has Jimmy. The acerbic Harry Truman came to loathe President Dwight D. Eisenhower. In public, however, Harry minded his tongue.
Jimmy's presidential achievements were even more modest than those of Bill Clinton and of Gerald Ford, and his blunders on domestic and foreign policy are unsurpassed and possibly unsurpassable. What is more he writes bad books.
One reason is he is a man of demonstrably bad character. Only a man of bad character would write as he does in "Our Endangered Virtues," "I announced that the protection of [human rights] would be the foundation of our country's foreign policy, and I persistently took action to implement this commitment. It has been gratifying to observe a wave of democratization sweep across our hemisphere and in other regions." Actually the sweeping that went on during Jimmy's years was the sweeping of anti-Western forces into power in places such as Afghanistan, Angola, Nicaragua and, forget not, Iran. The democratization he deviously takes credit for did not begin until the mid-1980s with the military buildup of the Reagan administration and the demonstrated resolve of a president who, along with Margaret Thatcher and Pope John Paul II, bankrupted the Soviets and their satellites without firing a shot. In this tendentious book Jimmy actually accuses the pope's anti-communism of alienating Catholics who yearned for liberation theology -- that is to say Marxist theology.
When Jimmy left office he was dismissed by liberals such as the historian Arthur Schlesinger for being so "conservative." That is to say, his view of economics fit somewhere in between the views of the early Franklin Roosevelt and those of the late Herbert Hoover. Yes, but in social policy he was strictly New Age liberal. He even expressed a belief in UFOs, a preposterosity that Arthur Schlesinger and his ilk tend to forget. In foreign policy he was a pompous procrastinator, lecturing Americans on their "inordinate fear of communism."
Essentially, this Georgian Snopes is simply a back-country huckster, much like Bill Clinton. Mr. Carter began his political career welcoming the support of the Ku Klux Klan. He adjusted his appeal to the dominant forces in the Democratic Party of the 1970s. Now with this book he has adjusted once again.
He is another howler voice in the chorus of the Angry Left, the Halitotic Left. He has earned the J. Gordon Coogler Award for the Worst Book of 2005. I just pray that the day of our gala ceremony he gets on the wrong Greyhound bus.
R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. is the founder and editor in chief of the American Spectator, a contributing editor to the New York Sun, and an adjunct scholar at the Hudson Institute. His latest book is "Madame Hillary: The Dark Road to the White House."
ATLANTA -- Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale have surpassed John Adams and Thomas Jefferson as the president and vice president who have lived the longest since leaving office.
As of Tuesday, Carter and Mondale had lived 25 years and 123 days since leaving the White House in 1981. That's a day longer than Adams and Jefferson, who both died July 4, 1826, exactly 50 years after the Declaration of Independence was signed.
#2
actually, Mondale helped elect Norm Coleman with that dreadful "wake" for Paul Wellstone.
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/26/2006 16:24 Comments ||
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#3
Carter was bad, but he has a ways to go to pass Buchanan for the worst President ever. He didn't let the Russians build and supply bases using our own cash.
Today's ABC News: The Note suggests viewers of this evening's televised joint news conference of President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, "watch closely the nuance, the body language, the bonhomie, and the sheer homo-eroticism."
The next sentence is: "(We are sort of kidding about that last one, Mr. President.)"...
#9
Jeez. In a way, I'm kind of impressed. Just when you think the media has hit bottom with Bush Derangement Syndrome, they come up with something like this.
#10
Update: I just sent ABC a brief, polite *bleep* you and the political commentary you rode in on msg. Normally, I would not bother, but this is simply appalling.
"(We are sort of kidding about that last one, Mr. President.)"...
Kidding, my ass. You're projecting.
Worthless wankers.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
05/26/2006 12:22 Comments ||
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#12
I'm so confused... I thought that homo-erotiscism, being gay, gay marriage, and gayness in general were good things?
The left says that, but they don't believe it. Watch how often they cackle over accusations of homosexuallity, and how many times the insults they make are based on homosexuality.
Posted by: Robert Crawford ||
05/26/2006 12:25 Comments ||
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#13
So, are the boys at ABC confessing that they're hot for President Bush?
Posted by: Mike ||
05/26/2006 12:30 Comments ||
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#15
Blame it on Fraud. Derbyshire on Nabokov on Fraud:
Nabokov detested all theorizing and systematizing about human nature, and nursed a particular animus against Freudianism, which then dominated popular thinking on the subject. Voodoo, was one of the kinder things Nabokov said about Freuds theories. (Psychoanalysts wooed me with pseudoliberations of pseudolibidoes, quips Humbert; and I recall, but have not been able to locate, an interview in which Nabokov derided Freud for trying to achieve cures by the application of Greek myths to our private parts.)
And then there's the Fraudian idea that many hatreds are evidence of affinity with that which is hated - i.e. if you hate terrorists, you must be a repressed terrorist yourself.
Correct. She's the Army private captured, and later rescued, in the early days of the war.
2. Who is Leigh Ann Hester?
Come on. The Kentucky National Guard vehicle commander was awarded a Silver Star last year for fighting off an insurgent attack on a convoy in Iraq. The first woman to receive a Silver Star since World War II, and the first woman ever to receive one for close combat.
If you don't recognize Sergeant Hester's name, that's not surprising. While Private Lynch's ordeal appears in some 12,992 newspaper and broadcast reports on the Factiva news service, Sergeant Hester and her decoration for extraordinary valor show up in only 162.
One difference: Sergeant Hester is a victor, while Private Lynch can be seen as a victim. And when it comes to media reports about the military these days, victimology is all the rage. For every story about someone who served out of conviction and resolutely went on with his civilian life, there are many more articles about a soldier's failure or a veteran's floundering.
It's a sign of some progress that the men and women returning from Iraq and Afghanistan are not spit upon and shunned as Vietnam vets were. Yet there may be something more pernicious about mouthing "Support Our Troops" while also asserting that many of them are poor, uneducated dupes who were cannon fodder overseas and have come home as basket cases, plagued by a range of mental, emotional and financial problems.
The vast majority of vets don't fit that description. Many, like one returned Army guardsman we talked to, chalk up this portrayal to the media's fascination with bad news in general. As for his combat in Iraq, both "going to war and coming home is very overwhelming," he says. "But you make choices in life . . . and through inner strength and support, I am making a choice that I want to be healthy."
In some cases, the depiction of military personnel as damaged goods serves the antiwar agenda. Yet retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel Tom Linn sees more basic impulses at work. "I honestly believe it is guilt" and even resentment, he says. The military type as misfit "is a stereotype that a lot of people from the Vietnam era have held on to." Then, as now, "they saw men and women who did more than they did . . . and they'd compensate by casting those folks in an inferior status." . . .
Posted by: Mike ||
05/26/2006 07:10 ||
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#1
" Then, as now, "they saw men and women who did more than they did . . . and they'd compensate by casting those folks in an inferior status."
#2
Btw, regarding the Viet Nam war myths accepted as truth since they're the official version of the entertainement industry/msm :
Dropping The Bomb on Vietnam Myths
By: Monica Tomutsa/News Editor
Last week, co-author of Stolen Valor: How the Vietnam Generation was Robbed of its Heroes and its History B.G. Burkett, shed light on wide-spread and completely false misconceptions surrounding the Vietnam War. While trying to raise funds for a Texas Vietnam memorial, he realized that the media's influence and false coverage had altered the memory of Vietnam for the worse.(...) Article
I cite these few examples of the now nostalgic past, because it is common to see Iraq written off by the architects of these past failures as the worst policy decision in our history, a quagmire and a disaster. Realists, more worried about Iran and the ongoing cost in our blood and treasure in Iraq, insist that toppling Saddam was a terrible waste of resources. Leftists see the Iraq war as part of an amoral imperialism; often their talking points weirdly end up rehashed in bin Ladens communiqués and Dr. Zawahiris rants.
But what did 2,400 brave and now deceased Americans really sacrifice for in Iraq, along with thousands more who were wounded? And what were billions in treasure spent on? And what about the hundreds of collective years of service offered by our soldiers? What exactly did intrepid officers in the news like a Gen. Petreus, or Col. McMaster, or Lt. Col Kurilla fight for?
First, there is no longer a mass murderer atop one of the oil-richest states in the world. Imagine what Iraq would now look like with $70 a barrel oil, a $50 billion unchecked and ongoing Oil-for-Food U.N. scandal, the 15th year of no-fly zones, a punitative U.N. embargo on the Iraqi people all perverted by Russian arms sales, European oil concessions, and frenzied Chinese efforts to get energy contracts from Saddam.
The Kurds would remain in perpetual danger. The Shiites would simply be harvested yearly, in quiet, by Saddams police state. The Marsh Arabs would by now have been forgotten in their toxic dust-blown desert. Perhaps Saddam would have upped his cash pay-outs for homicide bombers on the West Bank.
Mohammar Khaddafi would be starting up his centrifuges and adding to his chemical weapons depots. Syria would still be in Lebanon. Washington would probably have ceased pressuring Egypt and the Gulf States to enact reform. Dr. Khans nuclear mail-order house would be in high gear. We would still be hearing of a militant wing of Hamas, rather than watching a democratically elected terrorist clique reveal its true creed to the world.
[...]
A geography more uninviting for our soldiers than Iraq cannot be imagined 7,000 miles away, surrounded by Baathist Syria, Wahhabist Saudi Arabia, and theocratic Iran. The harsh landscape rivals the worst of past battlefields blazing temperatures, wind, and dust. The host culture that our soldiers faced was Orwellian a society terrorized by a mass murderer for 30 years, who ruled by alternately promising Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish collaborationists that cooperation meant only that fewer of their own would die.
The timing was equally awful in an era of easy anti-Americanism in Europe, and endemic ingratitude in the Muslim world that asks nothing of itself, everything of us, and blissfully forgets the thousands of Muslims saved by Americans in Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Somalia, and the billions more lavished on Jordanians, Palestinians, and Egyptians.
And here at home? There are few Ernie Pyles in Iraq to record the heroism of our soldiers; no John Fords to film their valor but legions to write ad nauseam of Abu Ghraib, and to make up stories of flushed Korans and Americans terrorizing Iraqi women and children.
Yet here we are with an elected government in place, an Iraqi security force growing, and an autocratic Middle East dealing with the aftershocks of the democratic concussion unleashed by American soldiers in Iraq.
Reading about Gettysburg, Okinawa, Choisun, Hue, and Mogadishu is often to wonder how such soldiers did what they did. Yet never has America asked its youth to fight under such a cultural, political, and tactical paradox as in Iraq, as bizarre a mission as it is lethal. And never has the American military especially the U.S. Army and Marines in this, the supposedly most cynical and affluent age of our nation, performed so well.
We should remember the achievement this Memorial Day of those in the field who alone crushed the Taliban and Saddam Hussein, stayed on to offer a new alternative other than autocracy and theocracy, and kept a targeted United States safe from attack for over four years.
Just recently, Saddam Hussein's former southern regional commander, Gen. Al-Tikriti, gave the first videotaped testimony confirming that Iraq had WMDs up to the American invasion in 2003 and that Russia helped remove them prior to the war. His testimony confirms numerous other sources that have pointed to Russia's secret alliance with Iraq and the co-ordinated moving of WMDs before the American liberation... No real surprises here to any Rantburger, but just to help insure that the history books get it right.
#3
Noone cares. Bush lied. Even if Al Tikriti is telling the truth Bushitler and the CIA had no proof and therefore didn't know that there wre WMDs...ergo....he lied. He lied I tell ya!
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
05/26/2006 16:53 Comments ||
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#4
Ion Mihai Pacepa, who described the shell game long ago, should have been authoritative enough.
But he never stood a chance against the MSM meme magicians.
The enemies within are infinitely more dangerous and are winning / have won the "war" for America's lazy and self-absorbed hearts and minds.
Until and unless we muck out the stable, we will lose to the cabal (of convenience) of socialists and maoists (!!!) and chaos junkies and caliphatists - the pantheon of modern nazis. Slowly, but ever so surely, we are losing the numbers game.
#5
If stories like this are true, why does everyone in the Bush Administration continue to deny them? It makes no sense. If the stories might be true, perhaps it makes sense for the government to say nothing, but if they are true, why deny? The only possibility I can come up with is that the Bush people don't believe they can afford to pursue the WMD to their current resting place, or to alienate those who put them there.
#6
I've given up on this administration. They've botched things beyond hope. The Dems are gonna sweep in '06 and '08 and we'll be paying for another 2 decades. And unbelieveable opportunity to set things right and they pissed it all away. Only hope for some good is the SCOTUS.
Posted by: Rex Mundi ||
05/26/2006 19:16 Comments ||
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#7
Here is the plan comrade Saddam. First of all comrade, the fat Amerikans weel never attack. But, but, but comrade Saddam... vee must be ready with 21 trucks. If, if, if the fat Amerikans attack, our 21 trucks will rush the "special materials" out of Iraq instantly. This will make the fat Amerikan president Poo Poo look like crap for jears and jears! Our agents in Amerikan congress and the senate, along with Jane Fonda and Cindy Sheezhan will see to it. Not to vorry Comrade Saddam. We have joo covered like a blanket!
#8
I say Dubya isn't done yet - iff the American people found out that the Cold War wasn't over, but instead was raised from cold to lukewarm/warm becuz of the covert Commie role(s) in 9-11, would the Amer people be ready to fight the nuclear war they falsely believed was avoided by the end of the USSR-Cold War? Are Communist-controlled/
dominated Fascists still Fascist, or are they Communist? IFF ANYONE SHOULD BE RIDICULED OR LAUGHED AT, IT IS THOSE WHOM ARGUED THAT THE END OF THE USSR-COLD WAR MEANT UNIVERSAL PEACE, AN END TO GEOPOLITICS, THE "GREAT GAME", ANDOR THE SUBSTITUTION OF NATION(S) WID OTHERS, THAT COLD WARRIORS LIVE ONLY IN THE PAST. HOW NOW, BROWN COWS!? NOW LETS ALL BE GOOD CLINTONIANS, OR WAFFLIN' PC FED UNDERCOVER PYWAR AT PENN STATE, AND GO SLAUGHTER BABY ANIMALS IN THE NAME OF NATIONAL SECURITY, THE US CODE ANNO, CFR, UCMJ, AND OUR OATHS OF ALLEGIANCE AND OFFICER COMMISSIONS, ETAL. NO CHEATSIES OR CUTTING IN LINE, D*** YOU, AS WE LINE UP SINGING KUMBAYA AT OUR LOCAL DEATH CAMPS-GULAGS.
#9
If stories like this are true, why does everyone in the Bush Administration continue to deny them?
If WMD in the hands of a rogue state was the [i]casus belli[/i] of the invasion of Iraq then to admit that said WMD have been evacuated to Syria presents a fairly significant problem. Perhaps the administration is negotiating for a handover of the WMD or perhaps they just want to avoid inconsistent policy by not admitting that another rogue state has WMD stockpiles. Layer on the fact that W has never really cared what anyone else thinks and it's fairly easy to understand why they might not be shouting this news from the rooftops. Then, of course, there's the "Bush lied" meme and the Russian issue....
All of a sudden, revolutionary Iran has offered direct talks with the United States. All of a sudden, the usual suspects -- European commentators, American liberals, dissident CIA analysts, Madeleine Albright -- are urging the administration to take the bait.
It is not rare to see a regime like Iran's -- despotic, internally weak, feeling the world closing in -- attempt so transparent a ploy to relieve pressure on itself. What is rare is to see the craven alacrity with which such a ploy is taken up by others.
Mark my words. The momentum for U.S.-Iran negotiations has only begun. The focus of the entire Iranian crisis will begin to shift from the question of whether Tehran will stop its nuclear program to whether Washington will sit down alone at the table with Tehran.
To this cynical bait-and-switch, there can be no American response other than No. Absolutely not.
Just yesterday the world was excoriating the Bush administration for its unilateralism -- on Kyoto, the ABM Treaty and most especially Iraq -- and demanding that Washington act in concert with the "international community.'' Just yesterday, the Democratic candidate for president attacked Bush's foreign policy precisely for refusing to consult with, listen to and work with "the allies.''
Another day, another principle. Bush is now being pressured to abandon multilateralism and go it alone with Iran. Remember: In September 2003, after Iran was discovered cheating on its nuclear program, the U.S. wanted immediate U.N. action. The allies argued for a softer approach. Britain, France and Germany wanted to negotiate with Tehran and offer diplomatic and economic carrots in return for Iran giving up its nuclear weapons program. The U.S. acquiesced.
After two and a half years of utter futility, the EU-3 had to admit failure and acknowledge the obvious: Iran had no intention of giving up its nuclear ambitions. Iran made the point irrefutable when it broke IAEA seals and brazenly resumed uranium enrichment.
The full understanding we had with our allies was that if the EU-3 process failed, we would together go to the Security Council and get sanctions imposed on Iran. Yes, Russia and China might still stand in the way. But even so, concerted sanctions by America, Europe and other economic powers could have devastating effects on Iran and on its shaky clerical dictatorship.
Which is why the mullahs launched this recent initiative. They know, and fear, that if the West persists on its present and agreed course, they face sanctions so serious that their rule, already unpopular, might be in jeopardy. The very fact that Iran is desperately trying to change the subject, change the venue and shift the burden onto the U.S. shows how close the mullahs believe we are to achieving major international pressure on them.
Pushing Washington to abandon the multilateral process and enter negotiations alone is more than just rank hypocrisy. It is a pernicious folly. It would short-circuit the process that after years of dithering is about to yield its first fruits -- sanctions that Tehran fears. It would undo the allied consensus, produce endless new delays and give Iran more time to reach the point of no return, after which its nuclear status would be a fait accompli.
Entering negotiations carries with it the responsibility to do something if they fail. The EU-3 understood that when they took on the mullahs a couple of years ago. Bilateral U.S.-Iran talks are the perfect way to now get Europe off the hook. They would pre-empt all the current discussions about sanctions, place all responsibility for success on U.S.-Iran negotiations and set America up to take the blame for their inevitable failure.
It is an obvious trap. We should resolutely say no.
Except on one condition. If the allies, rather than shift responsibility for this entire process back to Washington, will reassert their responsibility by pledging support for U.S. and/or coalition military action against Iran in the event that the bilateral U.S.-Iran talks fail, then we might achieve something.
You want us to talk? Fine. We will go there but only if you arm us with the largest stick of all: your public support for military action if the talks fail. The mullahs already fear economic sanctions; they will fear European-backed U.S. military action infinitely more. Such negotiations might actually accomplish something.
That's our condition. Otherwise, the entire suggestion of bilateral talks is a ploy that should be rejected with the same contempt with which it was proposed.
#1
Orrin Judd suggests that we should talk to them -- but only if Dubya can go to Teheran himself and speak directly to the Iranian people. He can do a meet and greet with the Mad Mullahs, and then do a few open air rallies with the Iranian people in the various big cities.
Orrin likens this to what Reagan did in going to the Soviet Union.
Posted by: Steve White ||
05/26/2006 15:07 Comments ||
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#2
never gonna happen, and if it did, wouldn't stop the bomb program progress
Posted by: Frank G ||
05/26/2006 16:25 Comments ||
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#3
I think Dubya going to Tehran is an excellent idea! Totally put the MMs turbans atwitter. A complete mindf*ck.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
My teenage daughter, who is a more sympathetic person than I am, thinks baldly calling Cindy Sheehan an idiot is a bit harsh, so I'll amend: Cindy Sheehan is a useful idiot, a rattle-headed tool of everyone from 
No to Condoleezza Rice. 
Facts are facts, and such is the degree of politicization in the republic today that when a political organization announces a literary prize the perspicacious among us have a pretty good idea who the winner will be. 
Jimmy has actually published 20 books now. Probably he should have been made Coogler Laureate 20 times. The problem is, so vain is this insufferable huckster and so desperate has he become for notice that, as his presidency attracts ever more flies in history's dustbin, he is increasingly likely to show up at our Coogler Awards ceremony -- whether invited or not. There he would stand, clutching his Coogler to his bosom and sermonizing until the janitors turned out the lights. Worse, he might bring Rosalynn, an author in her own right. 
