Listen to your local leftie
It looks like the US Senate is positioning for another unconstitutional handover of war-powers to the president.* It’s Iran: they’re getting ready to build nukes. Of course they say their nuke plant is just for electricity, which is like saying you only want a shotgun to use it as a can opener.
Iran has good reason to want nukes; a foreign power has invaded, and now occupies two countries that border on their country. Under the same conditions we’d be scrambling to build nukes. But the bigger problem is that Iran’s president has been spouting off all kinds of imflammatory rhetoric.
In our country we have some experience with a trash-talkin’ president, so take my advice, Iran; this guy is bad news. No matter how much fun it is to express your hatred of Americans, you need somebody more moderate at the helm. Hatred needs no care or feeding; it takes quite good care of itself. Find a president who will emphasize your better selves.
What’s bothering me is that this is all so unnecessary. For decades, us radical wierdos have been telling the US not to support monstrous dictators and thugs. The Shah of Iran comes to mind, since his disregard of human rights radicalized the very people who now run Iran. Think also of Saddam Hussein, Somoza, Marcos, Noriega, and Osama Bin Laden as examples – every one of them came back later to bite us in the ass. And every single one of them was on a human-rights watch list.
So next time you get ready to brand your neighborhood leftist whacko as un-American, consider: we are looking out for future threats as well as present ones. One sure way of spotting a leader we shouldn’t support is if they are corrupt, dismiss human rights as antithetical to security, or especially if they practice or endorse torture. A quick check with Amnesty International now could save a lot of trouble down the road.
Notes:
- This would be a really good time for our military not to be tied up occupying a country that wasn’t really a threat to us in the first place. But we were all branded un-American for saying so back then.
- This would also be a really good time not to have burned a lot of international bridges by ‘with-us-or-against-us’ rhetoric. Trash-talking feels soooo good, doesn’t it?
- Seems us leftist whackos have also been saying we needed to conserve oil and develop alternative energy sources, with the eventual goal of telling the Middle East what to do with their oil (luckily oil is slippery).
- One place where many leftist whackos got it all wrong was in opposing nuclear power at home. We need nuclear power, and lots more of it, for the reason mentioned above. Hmm… who knows how to build really good nuclear power plants? Oh, right… the French. I’ll just munch on some ‘Freedom Fries’ while I try to figure out how to rebuild our once-strong friendship with that country…
- I’m using the term ‘leftist’ ironically here, unless you believe that everything to the left of the Radical Right is Leftist. I’d make a poor hippie.
- * Found the link on Socialist Swine, who observes that the Democrats are doing a lousy job as a supposed ‘opposition party’.
Saying that Iran cannot develop nuclear technology because we BELIEVE that they will use it to develop nuclear weapons is just as imperialistic as invading Iraq. The only difference being that one has the possibility of starting a war, the other started a war. While I do believe that Iran has an interest in developing nuclear weapons, what we need to remember is that they also want access to the same sources of energy as we do. It is not up to us to say Iran has to stop all nuclear development. It is up to the US and the rest of the world. And through periodic checks if we find they are developing nuclear weapons, then they should no longer be able to pursue nuclear technology.
Iran’s idea of developing nuclear technology stems from the fact that we gave nuclear technology to Israel in the first place. Iran’s hate is not necessarily with the US, although I presume we pissed them off. Their hate is with Israel. I would feel less safe if I was Israeli than as an American. The last few outbursts from the Iranian president were comments directed toward Israel. If the US would just pull out of the Middle East and go back to the UN and create a peace-keeping force with the help of the Middle-East and the UN, and scraped all if not most of our stupid pro-Israel commitments and policies, Islamic and Muslim radicals would have little reason to be pissed off at us. It is amazing how policy can stop the breading of more terrorists than war can.
Excellent post! I agree with you about nuclear power. It is a shame that ‘the left’ has aligned so strongly against it. Perhaps some alternate source will render nuclear and oil sources obsolete in the future (wishful thinking I know).
I am conflicted about nuclear power. All I know is that if the same amount of research dollars and effort had been put into clean(er) energy sources and delivery, we’d be in a whole different situation right now. It’s never too late to change direction. I hope.
The only thing I would agree with you on is that nuclear power should have been developed here a long time ago. The French can’t even build a half way descent car.
I agree one hundred percent about the stupidity of Americans (who have mostly been Republicans) supporting dictators. But until we get efficient fusion, nuclear power is a poisonous gift that will bite our children, and their children, in the ass. We’d be far better off working on negawatts, public transportation, solar energy…
Most of the thugs that the USA supported came under the heading of balance of power during the cold war with the Soviets. It was either support a thug or see the Soviets grab power and put in their own thugs. There is no moral right or wrong
in world politics just the idea of power and who is going to wield it. It is easy to say back off and let Iran have their nukes and pull out the support for Israel. But, when Israel is no more and the millions of Jews there are slaughted who will you blame? The USA because of its misguided imperialistic actions during the cold war? The Bush administration because they didn’t do enough? The liberal left always manages a way to place blame but seldom has a workable idea about to prevent problems.
The mad mullahs of Islam have been converting by the sword since the inception of Islam. The only thing that they have ever respected was force and power and though they don’t like it unless they are the ones wielding it they will accept it when they have no other choice. The Ottman Sultans ruled with an iron fist because they understood the mullahs thirst for power. A well aimed cruise missle might solve the problem in Iran temporarily but the conflict between Islam and the western world will be there as long as there is Islam and a western world that does not accept Islam as the only legal and religious authority.
I am certainly not happy about the idea of Iranian nukes, but they are an almost inevitable consequence of the West’s constant screwing with that region ever since oil became important.
So either way, the people of that country live under murderous thugs. Moral relativism is nowhere stronger than in politics – people who frown on weed, porn, and public kissing shrug when torture and bombs are involved. Us lefties have been saying for some time now that the world is getting a bit too small to stay in chimpanzee mode forever.
If Communism was as bad an idea as everyone (including me) thinks, then maybe we could have sunk that ship faster with economic/ideological means faster than by dropping bombs and supporting thugs. Regimes don’t last forever, and people have long memories.
I doubt very much Iran would try a pre-emptive attack on Israel unless they believe they could prevent a counterattack. The idea of an Israeli nuke over Mecca would give even the maddest mullah heart palpitations. No one doubts the Israelis could pull it off.
I’m sure you are right, but they need support. Huge numbers of Muslims want nothing to do with them, and we are doing a poor job of courting those Muslims. I won’t say we shouldn’t use missiles but every one we launch puts another 100,000 people on the side of the MM’s. We seem to work pretty hard at proving the MM’s right. We should weigh that more carefully than we do.
Sure, as long as you confine your definition of ‘workable idea’ to violent means. The Right has a toolbox full of hammers, so every problem looks like a nail. But violence is a simple answer that often has very, very complicated consequences – not as ‘workable’ as everyone assumes it is.
If you think of our foreign policy as an investment portfolio, we’re not diversified enough, and connected to too many companies that have unsupportable liabilities.
james old guy: I don’t know what in your past has given you such a view of the French, but it’s a pretty pathetic view, IMO.
Well Wee Dram, working with the french military and visiting that crap hole of a country a few times.
Having worked on both Renaults and Citroens, I have to agree that the French can’t seem to build a decent car (at least based on those two brands). But their nuke plants have an enviable record of reliability, perhaps because they are all the same, well-thought-out design. Maybe all the French talent goes into cooking and nuclear engineering.
As far as nuclear power being a ‘toxic gift’ the same is true of coal (coal is full of heavy metals) and carbon-based energy generally has the huge problem of anthropogenic climate change. And the problem of managing nuclear waste is more political than technological. We really need to add more sources of power to our power portfolio.
New nuke designs including pebble-bed reactors promise to be dead-state safe (in other words, if all systems fail, the thing simply cools down).
That said, a new wind farm is going up in our county. Wind power is not without its problems but on balance I am very happy about it and will certainly post pictures when it is ‘up’.