Archive for the Iran Category

Centrist-Conservative Beats Corporatist-Culture Warrior (November 12, 2012)

Posted in Blue States / Red States, China, Elections, Iran, Journalism, Newspapers, O'Bama, Political Parties, Presidency, Press/Media, Romney, Russia, Southern Strategy, Spending on November 12, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

C1        “Or should the headline read ‘Black And Browns Outwit Whites And Green (Paper).’”

C2       “Or ‘Ascetic Triumphs Over Bully.’  The election was a ‘campaign’ conducted in ‘battleground’ states by ‘operatives’ operating in a ‘war room’ who unwittingly are continuing to prosecute the ‘Great American Civil War.’”

C1        “The ‘Republican Southern Strategy’ is the ‘Republican National Strategy’, yet the Republicans were not able to conquer more than the ‘Contemporary Confederacy.’”

C2       “For two score or perhaps two score and four years since Nixon patented the policy, the ‘Southern Strategy’ was the go to play in the Republican playbook but may now need to be revisited.”

C1        “America is divided between the ‘Educated States’ that vote Blue and the ‘Uneducated States’ that vote Red.  States such as Massachusetts, Maryland, Colorado, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, Virginia, New Hampshire, New York and Minnesota are the ‘Educated States’ that vote Blue.  States such as West Virginia, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Alabama, Nevada, Indiana, Tennessee and Oklahoma are the ‘Uneducated States’ that vote Red.  Those who are less educated are motivated by and respond to fear.”

C2       “Nevada is the only exception in that group.  The citizens may not sport as much formal education, but Nevadans are a spunky group of transplants.”

C1        “And O’Bama and Reid also ran a great ground game in Nevada and in all the other battleground states.”

C2       “The residents of the upper Midwestern states such as Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois and the pivotal Ohio do not sport as many sheep skins, but they exercise horse sense in abundance.”

C1        “Wherever you find oil and gas, you find racism and corruption.  Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana, North Dakota and Alaska.  With the discovery of oil, Alaska transitioned from Minnesota to Mississippi.  Astute pollsters note that these states tend to vote Red.  And then along comes North Dakota that elects to elect Heidi Heitkamp as a Senator.  Dead dinosaurs are destiny.”

C2       “Demographics are destiny.  Demo-graphics versus Republica-graphics.  And the outcome is graphic.  The Last Great White Hope is hopeless.  The rich White boys who want power are facing a reality that even the Red States are becoming Browner and Blacker.”

C1        “A strategic planner who seeks to locate a business that exploits the workers and despoils the land migrates to a Red State.  An enterprise that requires an educated populace searching for a sustainable quality of life migrates to a Blue State.  There are exceptions in pockets like Austin and a thousand other havens and oases, yet the general rule is true.”

C2       “Virginia’s senatorial contest between the Klan and Confederate Party candidate George Allen and the Centrist Party candidate Tim Kaine reveals the schism in many states that are described as Purple.  North Virginia went with Kaine and South Virginia went with Allen in a state where there are now more North Virginians than South Virginians.”

C1        “The educated electorate in North Carolina did not do it this year because it is so desperately small.  Curious that Bank of America’s decision to locate in Charlotte years before the 2008 election may have provided enough additional voters to provide the margin for O’Bama in the state in 2008 but not in 2012.”

C2       “South Florida is populated by transplanted Northerners who voted for O’Bama and North Florida is an appendage of Georgia and voted for Romney, but there are more Northern voters in South Florida than South voters in North Florida.”

C1        “And a few Browns.”

C2       “And a few Browns.  In an election that looked like it would be bought by a few faceless billionaires showering money from above and using Anger Mongering radio, billions of ordinary citizens on the ground really did made the difference for O’Bama.”

C1        “And two candidates shot themselves in the foot and then put the foot in their mouths and proclaimed that rape is akin to a sprained ankle or a trick knee.  New Hampshire was in play until Tuesday night and after the smoke and mirrors cleared on Wednesday morning, the smarter gender is in control in the first all-women delegation.  And the neighboring Bay Staters are banking on Elizabeth Warren.”

C2       “Brown did not do well in Massachusetts.  Tammy Baldwin, an openly gay female Senator-elect from Wisconsin, and Krysten Sinema, an openly bisexual Representative-elect from Arizona of all places, were not the pick of the billionaires.”

C1        “Tammy Duckworth, a wounded veteran from Illinois, finally made it.  Unfortunate that Pete Stark, the lone atheist, lost his seat.” 

C2       “The first Hindu member of Congress, Tulsi Gabbard, and a combat veteran.”

C1        “With Pete Stark gone, someone else must take up the Carbon Tax effort.  God voted under the name ‘Sandy’ as a single issue voter this year.”

C2       “Without showing any photo id.  The place is going to look like America.  Blue States such as Washington and Colorado have declared peace in the war on drugs and legalized the recreational use of marijuana.  Chalk up another win for freedom and liberty.”

C1        “And Washington, Maine and Maryland now allow an individual to decide if he or she wants to get married.”

C2       “Another win for freedom and liberty.  And Minnesota voters rejected a proposed constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality.”

C1        “Washington state is awfully pushy.  All the talented folks will migrate there.”

C2       “When the Nobel Committee signals that it will reward the conclusion, someone will connect the dots between freedom and liberty in a state and clean and green growth and development.  The Blue States vote for freedom and liberty.”

C1        “In 2004, O’Bama came to national attention aspiring for one United States of America, but only a little more than half of America will ever give him a chance.”

C2       “And now that petty pernicious pol Mitch McConnell is committed to making O’Bama a two-term President.”

C1        “We are the Red States of America and the Blue States of America.  There is no shame in candid self-awareness.” 

C2       “And yet the two countries confront many common concerns.  Iran is still Iran, China is still China, Russia is still Russia, and the fiscal fiasco is straight out of Wile E. Coyote.”

C1        “Europe may implode; the Middle East may explode.  Someone may want to take a look at the numbers that underpin entitlements and unnecessary defense/offense spending.  They still don’t add up.”

C2       “For decades, the Blue States have subsidized the Red States, yet we may see Illinois, California and/or New York, three small Blue countries in America, in need of major subsidies.”

C1        “Someone will say something about immigration.”  

. . .

[See the “e-ssay” titled America Recycles Day, November 15 (November 15, 2010).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Women are people too.

The odds for the election of the first gay Buddhist Brown woman to the White House should be available soon.

George Will:             Romney:         331;    Obama:        217

Michael Barone:      Romney:          315;    Obama:        223

Glenn Beck:               Romney:          321;    Obama:        217

Dick Morris:              Romney:          325

Carl Rove:                   Romney:          279

“I have been assured that everything is in place for a Romney sweep of the Electoral College and the popular vote.  Talk is cheap.  Are you man enough to put your money where your mouth is.  $100 that Romney takes it.”  “I don’t have any assurances.  There is $1000 where my mouth is.  If you are man enough.” 

“I have been assured that everything is in place for a Romney sweep of the Electoral College and the popular vote.  Talk is cheap.  Are you man enough to put your money where your mouth is.  $100 that Romney takes it.”  “I don’t have any assurances.  There is $1000 where my mouth is.  If you are man enough.” 

Flip Flop and Flim Flam v. NObama and Smokin’ Jo? (September 10, 2012)

Posted in China, Elections, Iran, Iraq, O'Bama, Political Parties, Politics, Presidency, Romney on September 10, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

I1          “I wish that I had been the first one to coin it.  Flip Flop and Flim Flam fits on a sticker.”

I2          “Fading NObama stickers still adorn many bumpers.”

I1          “Lyin’ Ryan is resonating.”

I2         “Smokin’ Joe puts on a smokin’ show.”

I1          “What do we do now?”

I2         “Choose between Tweedledee and Tweedledum.”

. . .

I1          “Yet there is a difference between the two candidates.  I hold O’Bama to the high standards he has set, although he has not met them.  Romney does not have any standards other than the acquisition of money and the pursuit of power at any cost.  He already acquired one and is now pursuing the other.”

I2         “If he runs the country the way he ran the company Bain Capital, then he will run the country into the ground.  He will fire 40 percent of the American workers, leave the country burdened with unmanageable debt, claim that he increased employment by the 60 percent of the population that remains employed, and walk away with all the money.”

I1          “What if China refuses to fund Romney’s desire to invade China.”  

I2         “Dredging up the ‘neo-cons’ who instigated the Iraq travesty is a disturbing development.  Those treasonous chickenhawks are itching to start a war with Iran, even though America may have already committed acts of war against Iran that justify Iran attacking America.”

I1         “Are they ‘old-cons’?  They should be cons, but as always the ruling class escapes indictment and incarceration in public housing.”

I2         “So they are not cons.  With a subtext of racism, this election revives the debate whether America should start World War III or not.”

I1          “World War III still strikes me as a bad idea.”

. . .

[I1 = Independent Voter; I2 = . . . ]

Bumper stickers of the week:

10 percent of those who are allowed to vote in 10 states will dictate the next President

Snipers for O’Bama

LGBTs For Romney

My vote cancels your vote

The Drums of War (February 20, 2012)

Posted in Afghanistan, Foreign Policy, Iran, Iraq, Journalism, Middle East, Newspapers, O'Bama, Press/Media on February 20, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

+          “Can you hear the drums?”

–           “Loud and clear.  Five by Five.  I can smell them; I can feel them; I can taste them; I can see them.  Those who decide have decided to go to war with Iran.”

+          “I sense it too.  O’Bama’s comments before the Super Bowl were not reassuring.  Some of the militaristic rhetoric may be designed to force the players to reconsider diplomatic alternatives.  Von Clausewitz and all.  Most efforts appear to be directed at concocting a ruse or pretext or charade to go to war.”

–           “The only thing left to do is to fool the public.  That doesn’t even require creativity.  The American Empire is now committed to prosecuting two wars at all times.  We lost in Iraq, proclaimed victory and claimed to withdraw.  Now America has a free, but very expensive, pass to invade another country.”

+          “There really is no overriding strategy.  Imposing sanctions is the tactic to date.  The problem with sanctions is that a people may learn how to hunker down and live with them.  That which does not kill me and all.  And God bless the American public.  However, forty-five percent of the public will not even notice the different consonant.”

–           “The ‘Iraq, Iran, who cares, they are all towels’ mindset.  When the war starts, the most likely public reaction will be a quizzical look and a question asking whether we didn’t just leave there.”

+          “The group known as the Press does not seem as united in support of an attack as the gang was in early 2003.  Yet those calling for war are muting the few voices of dissent.  The drums are drowning out the guitars.”

–           “We just refuse to learn from our mistakes.  What if we decided to do something right and learn from our success?”

. . .

+          “Some say Falklands; some say Malvinas.”

–           “If you look at the map, you say Argentina.”

+          “If you wander around the Isla and talk to the folks, you say Britain.”

–           “Geographic location versus self-determination.  History seems to emerge historically and not logically.”

+          “History is like that.  So the only way to settle the matter is to embrace the time-honored tradition of killing batches of eighteen year olds.”

–           “Certainly trendy through the ages.  It is about sovereignty, yes, yet it is always about oil.”

+          “Perhaps they need to respect each country’s sovereignty and work on an arrangement to share the offshore resources in shared waters.”

–           “Deploying Billy was entirely ill-advised, provocative and unnecessary.  We just refuse to learn.”

+          “What if Billy had refused to deploy.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

No war, no sanctions, no intervention, no assassinations against Iran

I’m already against the next war

Jeremy Lin

Peaceful Presidents’ Day

The guitars of peace

The “Gun Show Loophole” (February 6, 2012)

Posted in Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Guns, Iran, Law, Less Government Regulation Series, National Defense Authorization Act / FY 2012, USA PATRIOT Act on February 6, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

GO1       “Since her shooting, the overtly violent language has abated, yet the underlying violence is still there.  In politics and in life.”

GO2       “Here’s a partial solution.  There is no centralized or computerized list of gun owners or gun ownership in America.”

GO1       “Except the list of gun owners maintained by the National Rifle Association.”

GO2       “I am talking about the government.  Look at the actual process.  Before selling a gun, a gun dealer conducts a background check of an individual.  If the individual passes the background check, the dealer makes the sale and keeps a record.  The record is not sent anywhere and is not accessible and just sits in a file cabinet in the back room of the store.  Only if a gun is used in a crime is an effort made to trace the purchase by using the serial number and contacting the manufacturer and then the dealer and then the purchaser.  That is the most decentralized and non-computerized tracking scheme in America.  The system only allows for the tracking of the ownership of an offending gun not of the names of owners of guns.”

GO1       “And the current system does not require us to surrender any fundamental rights.  Look at the rights that have been surrendered in America by Americans without any resistance since 9/11.  The USA PATRIOT Act, the detention provisions in the NDAA of 2012, and so on.”

GO2       “The problem is that a troubled soul can go to a gun show and buy a gun.  Why arm the goons?  Simply require the same background check for any sale at a gun show.”

GO1       “The mayors and the police chiefs know what needs to be done and support the closure of the gun show loophole.  Congress should simply implement their sound and experienced judgment.”

GO2       “Gun sales in a back alley are still a problem.  The most balanced policy may be to require all gun sales to be conducted by a gun dealer.  Gun dealers are all private sector businesses in an industry at the retail level that is among the least monopolized in America.  The gun dealers could compete to facilitate the sales and perhaps offer to handle the sale for free with a fifty dollar purchase of gear.  That should address some of the problem and satisfy the critics.”

GO1       “Except for the insane irrationality of the NRA.”

GO2       “They are coming around.  Institutions change, albeit slowly.  Someone at the NRA may realize that adoption of rational and focused legislation undermines the effort to impose irrational and sweeping confiscation.  We need to keep guns out of the hands of psychos to allow guns to be kept in the hands of law-abiding citizens.”     

. . .

[See the “e-ssays” titled “On Magazines (February 21, 2011),” “Incite, Sarah, Indict? (January 10, 2011),” “O’Bama Arming Industry (November 22, 2010) and “Gun Control, NRA Style (January 9, 2006).”  And “On The Vernal Equinox (March 21, 2011)”]

[February 4 – No War On Iran National Day of Action]

Bumper sticker of the week:

Citizens deserve guns; Psychos do not

Iraq: AGFPT. Iran: AGFPT II? (January 2, 2012)

Posted in Bush, Foreign Policy, Iran, Iraq, Military Commissions Act, National Defense Authorization Act / FY 2012, O'Bama, USA PATRIOT Act on January 2, 2012 by e-commentary.org

. . .

S          “Most members of the uniformed military are leaving Iraq, but America is never leaving Iraq.”

T          “The troops may only be able to take a two week R & R before invading Iran.”

S          “The American populace simply wanted and wants the Iraq quagmire to disappear.  Everyone in positions of influence dutifully obliged and rarely brought it up.  The invisible war.  Out of sight; out of mind.”

T          “Those in power in America seem inclined to maintain at least two wars.  Where next?  Iraq was and is America’s Greatest Foreign Policy Travesty, yet the failure can still be topped.”

S        “Will anyone remember?  Will anyone learn?  History is being written not by historians but by publicists and spin doctors.”

T          “Everything about the invasion was a lie.  Who realizes that the surge was not a surge of troops but rather a splurge of bribes to buy a temporary cessation of violence?  When the funds disappeared, the violence returned.”  

S          “To his credit, Bush seemed to learn something from the Iraq nightmare and didn’t invade Iran and trigger World War III.  It looked close for a few years.”

T          “That could have emerged as the new AGFPT.  However, Iran sporting nuclear weapons is not a pretty sight.  The sanctions sound tidy and elegant, yet they may be as provocative as a missile strike.  The major nations have engaged in clear acts of war.  And no one in power has adequately described America’s fundamental national interests in the region.”

S          “There should be a serious national debate before embarking on World War III.”

. . .

[O’Bama signed the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2012.  His signing statements will not bind or limit future presidents.  See the “e-ssays” titled “Vaclav Havel – Plato’s “Playwright President” (December 19, 2011)“, “Republicans are Enemy Combatants? (May 10, 2010)” and “Gun Control, NRA Style (January 9, 2006).”]   

Bumper sticker of the week:

The “Dirty Half Dozen.”  Let’s never forget:  George Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith

Iraq: Shock and Awe; Shocking and Awful (September 6, 2010)*

Posted in Bush, Iran, Iraq, Journalism on September 6, 2010 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “If journalists provide the first draft of history, historians may be in trouble.”

J          “At least there is some pretense of getting out of Iraq.  In 2002 and 2003 when we got in, too many journalists were cheerleaders for the unprovoked invasion of Iraq which was, of course, a sovereign nation.  The times required more careful observers and critics of those in power.”

K          “Enough works are actually available chronicling the folly of the invasion and occupation and its aftermath.  But has anyone learned anything?”

J          “The conventional wisdom is that history will tell.”

K          “Tell what?  That seems to be a cop-out particularly by those who supported the invasion.  Too many individuals are not observing the obvious.  Some Truths are clear now.  After 9/11, the American people were going to kill someone, but invading Iraq was akin to invading Belize after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.”

J          “What about his daddy’s honor and all that.”

K          “What honor?  His dad handled the prior engagement with much more skill except for the abandonment of the Kurds.”

J          “And the abandonment of the Shiites.”

K          “A President is obligated to protect national interests not to pursue a family vendetta.  The whole WeMaD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) charge was a fraud and a fabrication.  The current spin to blame the CIA when the CIA was forced to modify its assessment to support the invasion.  Colin Powell was conned by the neo-cons into making his February 5 speech, yet he has made a record that the neo-conservatives demanded war in the Middle East simply for the sake of war and to keep the U.S. committed militarily in the region.”

J          “Something happened that kept Bush from invading Iran.”

K          “The public may have had enough.  The surge was not a surge of more troops but rather an infusion of cash to bribe influential leaders.  The military ledger recorded the number of troops deployed rather than the number of dollars distributed.  However, the impact ended when the funding ended.”

J          “Talk about spewing cash.  The conventional wisdom is that the invasion and occupation cost $750 billion, although the real cost is at least $3 trillion.  That is a figure that can be more carefully calculated by thoughtful historians and economists.”

K          “So much could have been accomplished with the money.  Like getting Afghanistan right, if that was or is possible.”

J          “Build schools here rather than build schools there.”

K          “Bush and his buddies did not even know what they were trying to accomplish.  If the government sought to kill Saddam Hussein, they should have killed Saddam Hussein.  One of the grand ironies is that assassination of a foreign leader violates international and American law, yet bombing a command and control center with the leader in residence is an acceptable engagement.  The bombing of Kadafi’s command and control center shut him up.  The U.S. did not need to destroy a country to kill its leader.  The U.S. did not even need to kill its leader to silence him.”

J          “Hussein was not a friendly chap.”

K          “Profoundly bad guy.  We are better off with him out of the picture, but we can’t take all the bad guys out of the picture.  And the next Saddam Hussein is alive and well and currently an ambitious young lieutenant colonel in the Iraqi Army plotting right now to take over and enter the picture.”

J          “And the next Perle, Feith, Wolfowitz, Gonzalez, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush et al. are all aggressively recruited and copiously credentialed by the Ivy League universities that want a piece of those in power.”

K          “Iraq was a spectacular failure in ways that we don’t now even understand.”

J          “An honest history will not vindicate the invasion, it will only highlight the criminality.  Seems that nothing changes.  Which makes the future so predictable.”

. . .

(* Others used the phrase “shocking and awful” in other works.)

Bumper stickers of the week:

“Experience is simply the name we give our mistakes.”  Oscar Wilde

“We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits on a hot stove-lid; he will never sit on a hot stove-lid again–and that is well; but also she will never sit on a cold one anymore.”  Mark Twain

The Audacity of Afghanistan (Dec. 7, 2009)

Posted in Afghanistan, China, Foreign Policy, Iran, Iraq, Military, O'Bama on December 7, 2009 by e-commentary.org

. . .

“We can’t leave and we can’t stay.  But we must leave, because we can’t afford to stay.  But we must stay, because we can’t afford to leave.”

“The graveyard of empires will be the graveyard of the American Empire.”

“And of many American kids.”

“At least in ‘Nam, the long shoreline allowed the Navy to provide much needed cover deep into the jungle.  The ‘stans are all remote caves and stone quarries.  We haven’t even started bombing and yet the whole place looks like it already has been bombed back to the Stone Age.  Charlie could move among a few countries.  Now they can move around the world.  My concern is not that we are signaling when we may leave in 2011, my concern is that they have ample notice to move to another theater.  The world is their stage.”

“The real concern is Pakistan and the Bomb.  And oil.  They don’t want anyone to deploy the bomb or to divert the oil.”

“And no real support on the home front again.  The populace is so disconnected from the sacrifice.  I don’t think I detested anything more than that draft.  The only way to bring the effort home is to reinstate the evil draft rather than the poverty draft.  It still steams me that even with the draft in place cowards like Cheney, Bush, Giuliani and the chicken hawks dodged the draft and then got to deploy kids off to get killed.”

“It’s all about the Bomb and oil.  The only possible way to fund the American effort is to quit funding their effort.  Implement the Terrorist Tax on fuel.”

“You have gotta pay to play.”

“Yet it comes back to the Bomb.  That remains the problem.  They got it.  The surge in Iraq was not military, it was economic.  The surge was a splurge of dollars to buy and bribe the locals for a cessation of violence for a short period of time.  The bribes worked.  The additional troops were incidental and marginal to the military effort, yet served honorably as the paymasters.  In Afghanistan, the US cannot begin to bribe all the tribal leaders and followers and buy peace.”

“The villagers are no different than the villagers in ‘Nam.  They are just trying to get through the day.  At night, when the US leaves, they receive visitors.  They need protection from their own.”

“The US is borrowing money from a very problematic source, China, to put troops in Afghanistan to influence activities in Pakistan so that Pakistan does not deploy the Bomb on India.  The US cannot ask for or accept Indian troops to be stationed anywhere near Pakistan soil, yet a few rupees to support the cause are in order.  Now Iran is bracketed by US troops on both sides, yet the US cannot afford to pay for the grand endeavor much longer.  The tactic mistakenly described as ‘terrorism’ is a greater threat to Europe than to the US, yet the Europeans are not making a commensurate contribution.”

“And because the American people are not making any sacrifices, they are not invested in the discussion.”

“We cannot afford to maintain the American Empire.  Pass the Terrorist Tax.  When the first Bomb is deployed, admittedly a few things will change.”

. . .

Bumper sticker of the week:

Vietnam:  LBJ’s ‘Nam;

Iraq:  Bush’s ‘Nam; and

Afghanistan:  O’Bama’s ‘Nam

Bush Acknowledges World War III (October 29, 2007)

Posted in Bush, Iran, Iraq on October 29, 2007 by e-commentary.org

Bush and Dr. Strangehate are intent on expanding World War III into Iran.  Bush has exhausted the Army and the Marines and will now launch the Navy and the Air Force into the fray.  He may simply hire more mercenaries such as Blackwater, the Hessians who helped undermine Hussein, the Kelly Girls of the killing profession.  Greed in the Green Zone expands.

With a little (a lot of) creative diplomacy, the Iranian people could be converted to allies or at least not adversaries.  When the Iranian people are allied with the West, their leaders will follow.  Bush intends to unite the Iranian people.  In opposition to the United States.  Russia senses an opportunity to pursue its own Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL) or Operation Iran Liberation (OIL).  Bush will encourage the courtship of our enemies.

Organized resistance in America will not develop until Bush calls up the Cub Scouts or reinstitutes the Front Door Draft.  When the children of the Ruling Class must obtain draft deferral consultants in addition to college admission consultants, some influential Americans may quit following their stocks and take stock of America’s situation in the world today.  Bush + Cheney + Giuliani Draft Dodging Consultants, LLC; “When you have other priorities”; Since 2009.

Bumper sticker of the week:

Be nice to America or Bush will invade and bring democracy to your country.

The Right To Give Offense (October 1, 2007)

Posted in First Amendment, Iran, Law on October 1, 2007 by e-commentary.org

A wing nut like Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran, is invited to speak at Columbia University.  Let him speak.  The First Amendment “right to give offense” among other rights does not excuse a fusillade of offensive comments as part of a long-winded introduction.  Why would some wing nut like Lee Bollinger, the President of the U, trash the guy in his introduction.  A university president at a large, profitable corporate American university is primarily interested in the bottom line, the profitability of the entity, the endowment at the end of the day.  Columbia could have run a profit by running a polite conversation.  Again, America looks rude, petty, coarse, uncivil, uncivilized, arrogant and intolerant.  Again.  And again and again.

Bumper sticker of the week:

Love Your Enemies
It Confuses Them

Bush Escalates World War III (January 15, 2007)

Posted in Bush, Iran, Iraq on January 15, 2007 by e-commentary.org

“The war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit, and if we ignore this sobering reality, we will find ourselves organizing ‘clergy and laymen concerned’ committees for the next generation.  They will be concerned about Guatemala and Peru.  They will be concerned about Thailand and Cambodia.  They will be concerned about Mozambique and South Africa.  We will be marching for these and a dozen other names and attending rallies without end unless there is a significant and profound change in American life and policy.  So such thoughts take us beyond Vietnam, but not beyond our calling as sons of the living God.”

–Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam,” Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church, April 4, 1967.

“Succeeding in Iraq also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenge.  This begins with addressing Iran and Syria.  These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq.  Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops.  We will disrupt the attacks on our forces.  We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria.  And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

. . .

We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East.  I recently ordered the deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region.  We will expand intelligence sharing and deploy Patriot air defense systems to reassure our friends and allies.  We will work with the governments of Turkey and Iraq to help them resolve problems along their border.  And we will work with others to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear weapons and dominating the region.”

–Emperor George W. Bush, Address to the nation, January 10, 2007.

Bush is escalating his own World War III.  Bush has lost in Iraq; with the ascendancy of the Shiites, Iran is winning in Iraq; Bush is now planning to lose in Iran.  What has not worked in Iraq is now going to be implemented in Iran and Syria.  There are two truths about the escalation surge in Iraq:

1) Those who have been wrong all along about Iraq are in favor of the escalation surge.

2) Those who have been right all along or have come to recognize what is right are against the escalation surge.  

Bush will get his additional troops despite and in spite of the efforts by some in Congress to reduce the American presence.  Any available Marines and Army troops should be deployed to Afghanistan; the National Guard to the Gulf (of Mexico).  The danger is that Bush is taking action that provides Iran with a moral and legal justification to escalate the situation in the Middle East.  Bush is seeking to provoke a plausible provocation for war.  He seeks to manufacture a “Gulf Of Tonkin” incident to justify doing what he intends to do without justification.  The United States must not invoke the doctrine of “hot pursuit” to justify an invasion into Iran by the additional troops being sent to Iraq.  The United States must defuse Iran without stepping foot on Iranian ground.  At this time, the United States is losing ground and is losing the high ground.

There must be a plan to get out of Iraq immediately because events will force America to “cut and run” without dignity later this year.  American units are likely to be pinned down and beyond anything but limited aerial support.  “Remember Saigon, April, 1975” must be the mantra in 2007.  When America is forced to abandon personnel and posts in Iraq, much of America’s technology also will fall into unfriendly hands.  The technology can be reverse-engineered and manufactured.  The United States should declare victory and redeploy to bases in the region.   

There are alternative approaches discussed in an e-ssay that references a lengthy essay by George S. McGovern and William R. Polk.  [See the e-ssay dated October 30].  The plan is discussed in their book, “Out of Iraq:  A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now.”  The Iraqi Civil War cannot be stopped by American force or American forces.  [See the e-ssay dated April 17].  There is no course of action that will prevent bloodshed except possibly very subtle diplomacy involving every country and player in the Middle East to engage the Sunnis and Shiites and Kurds in a careful balance of power/terror.

Iran has issues with American actions taken in 1953; America with Iranian actions taken in 1979.  Despite this history of conflict and distrust, the situation in Iran requires a diplomatic not a military solution.  There is a percolating civil war within Iran.  The United States must not invade Iran and thereby unite the populace against the invader.  The U.S. must enlist the support of the largely young and secular population in Iran that prefers to carry an iPod rather than an AK, to use a cell phone to text messages rather than to trigger bombs, and to drive a Honda rather than to dynamite a Hummer.  That is the way to neutralize the militant forces in Iran and to bring some stability to the Middle East and even Iraq.  Out-think, out-wit and out-maneuver.

Bumper sticker of the week:

Iran is Persian for Vietnam