Yesterday's actions were a warning shot, all right -- but it wasn't aimed at Iran

By imposing sanctions on Iran for its fomenting of violence in the Middle East, for its engagement in weapons proliferation, and for its attraction to nuclear technology for use as international muscle, the Bush administration yesterday hit the granddaddy of all hypocritical trifectas.

There was a time when the U.S. had some moral standing to preach and condemn. No longer. The world, quite simply, now sees us as the global bully and bad guy -- and when it's a 100-plus nations against one, there must be some merit to the world's perception. We're the 21st-century version of the Viking pillager, the British imperial lion, the Soviet cancer.

When it comes to fomenting violence, proliferating weapons of mass destruction and caressing, say, bunker bunkers with that little extra kick, the U.S. has no equal.

Nor will it tolerate one, no matter how far down the road any such equality or competition may lie.

Hence the Bush administration was in full dress rehearsal yesterday for yet another Middle East extravaganza of incalculably moronic proportions.

With the Commander Guy safely tucked away in the smoldering West, the seemingly less threatening Condi & Co. were left in charge of re-introducing all the preliminary hogwash of another war in the smoldering Middle East.

Gosh we're a peace-loving people, but our patience is forever tried by these little upstarts with disobedience and pushback in mind. So here we come, with mere rumblings at first, but then the sanctions, the unilateralism, the demand for Congressional resolutions, the drumbeats of propaganda, the nuclear references, the demonization of a singular human face, the preposterous urgencies.

Deja vu? Hell no. It's bloody verbatim -- an exact copy, a precise replay, a concrete reenactment of 2002. It is far, far more than any eerie sense of a replay.

Said Condi yesterday: "Unfortunately the Iranian government continues to spurn our offer of open negotiations." What she omitted was that all the U.S. asks is that Iran agree to our demands first, then we'll talk. It was but one of the many slimy misrepresentations for which the administration is known, past and present.

She also hammered away at the administration's determination to seek "a diplomatic solution." This, of course, in BushSpeak, means everything but. And we were, in fact, urged in every way, shape and form that we should now anticipate the use of force, since Condi's undersecretary sidekick, Nicholas Burns, assured us that "in no way, shape or form does it anticipate the use of force."

There's a little game played among many of the Beltway intellectual elite that I like to call the Sophistication Game. Its players are the oh-so worldly, the always level-headed, the calm and forever collected, the absolutely imperturbable. They are the wise and sophisticated; it is they who see beyond the hype and hysteria, and they are there for us, always, to lessen the temperature by advising composure -- even when manifest lunatics are in charge.

One such player in yesterday's tournament was Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Observed this calmest of the calmly astute: "This is a warning shot across the bow, not that the U.S. is going to invade Iran, but that Iran has pushed the level of escalation, particularly inside Iraq, to unacceptable levels. In many ways, this kind of warning is more a demonstration of restraint than a signal that we’re going to war."

Right, Anthony. And you've been living ... where, lately?

The Bush administration doesn't do subtle. It may think it's being clever and coy -- and it sure is clever of experts to read some cleverness into the Bush administration's profound lack of subtlety -- but the average man or woman on the street knows better these days.

Yesterday's charade was indeed a warning shot across the bow. But it wasn't hurled at Iran. It was, rather, fired in "Surrender, Dorothy" fashion over America -- originating in California and merely landing in D.C.

And the sky-written message could not have been plainer. We're off and running again.

****

to support p m carpenter's commentary -- and thank you!

Comments

[beamer]

the bloodyminded lunatics are running the asylum..

[Tim Hollis]

Stupid people think everybody's stupid. Even if they know others are smarter than they are, they think logic can be skirted through specialized deception.
Stupidity coupled with madness is what we have here. The problem is that avenues to counter their expression and action have been deviously nullified. Neocons can be assured that they face no competent opposition from the Democratic dolts and cowards currently holding office.

[Nina]

Is it too much to hope that the armed services will finally realize that they must stand up to these lunatics? They must be stopped and prosecuted. They are out of their tiny little minds.

[Shillum]

It is a wonderful thing to behold how softly and smilingly the administration plans murder. This reminds me of a verse in the Bible: "And he (the beast) causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." The U.S. does not permit anyone to freely buy and sell, except that they take the "mark."

[Artist General]

BUSHELZEBUBBANATION--Ghost in the War Machine (WhoYaGonnaCall)

Another bracing 'toast mortem' indeed from the Carpenter's Silver Penhammer, to mixicate a metaphor: Cheers. Here's a poem on the same, er, SOBERING (yes, read SHOUT) theme...

FIRE WHISPERERS

AS A “CROWDED THEATER” OF MORE WAR PASSES
THE CONSTITUTIONAL KINDLING POINT OF CURTAINED RAFTERS, THE ARM-CHAIRED VOICE OF TALKING-HEADED PUNDITRY OFFERS “TO THE MASSES”
SERIALLY-MODULATED WARNINGS OF DANGER LESS RIGHT NOW THAN “DOWN-THE-ROAD”. YES, YES OF COURSE CONCEDING, EVEN POINTING OUT THE “OBVIOUS” ACRIDLY PARTISAN POLITICAL VAPORS, PODIAL-SULFEARIC FUMES, BUSHELZEBUBONIC ‘INFLATULATION’,
WUTHERING MARTIAL GASSE$...etc (IT’S A MESS…

...BUT…
THEIR CREATURE-COMFORT-ZONED
RED-HANDED PARSE-GIVEN TONE
CARRIES POWER’S BROKEN WATER OF UNBORNE BLUE “SMOKE” TO BUY TIME FROM THE PAST UP,
WITH NOT ENOUGH OR TOO MUCH
SHAME OR PRIDE (TOXICALLY “UPHOLSTERED” WITH THE PROTEAN SECURITY THAT ONLY FAUX DEBUNKINGS OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES CAN PROVIDE),

MOST GINGERLY “DISINCLINED ON CONTACT” TO “TEST” FOR EXAMPLE: THE “IN$IDE TOUCH” ($OFT AS A DEAD CANARY’S BREAST)…

AND ALL THE WHILE, ALL THE WHILE NEOCONDESCENDING IN UPBEATEDLY CHIPPER YET ...SOMBER… ADMONITION.

(AND WHAT THEN MOVES THEM TO EVER YELL, WHEATHER AGAINST OR FOR,
SEEMS NEVER TO BE THE RIGHT THING...)

WON’T ASK, WON’T TELL

TRUTH TO POWER...

(ANOTHER war?! what-jus-happened...oh, rite...another WAR)

[Artist General]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYe7D6hJtRU

[Ponyboy]

Dr Strangelove on crack.

[skyreader7]

It's not enough for Bush to get his butt whipped in Afghanistan and Iraq, now he wants a chance to get his nose bloodied in Iran. Hail, to the Commmander-in-Failure.

[Don Robertson, The American Philosopher]

The article is notoriously right on the money.

But, I see virtually no solution even considered.

To look for a solution, we must ask, as so many so easily come to agreement here with the conclusions of the article, what are those who make these decisions thinking? What is going on in their heads that leads them to negate the more common humanitarian feeling so many have here about this surely impending war with Iran?

It is not just the President's Administration that is in favor of bombing Iran back into the Stone Age with yet another stupendous loss of life.

It is the Congress too. They have repeatedly given the green light to this too. No one is pulling the wool over their eyes about what is going to happen.

So what is in the heads of these leaders that makes them think this way?

There are certainly no nascent notions that are propelling this country toward annihilating so many Iranians. There were no nascent notions that propelled the country toward the annihilation of all the Iraqis we have killed.

The closest we had to any nascent notion came from Colin Powell when he infamously said of the invasion of Iraq, that if you invade, you're going to own it.

This notion set up our country for some insidious idea that having invaded looking for WMDs, we then had a responsibility to remain as occupiers of this foreign land regardless of the then presaged total absense of WMDs.

Colin Powell fed us all a nascent ruse was all.

And Iraqis continue to die, and the Iraq's refugees continue to swell anywhere into which they can escape the carnage.

But what is it? What is it that makes these horrible death inducing invasions so worth while for those who vote for them and make up so many machinations about how and why the carnage can't simply just end?

What is it?

You know what it is. Like the fools you all were educated to be, you learned about it in school.

It is the empirical deduction.

Almost everyone in the West with even half an education knows that if the Middle Eastern oil doesn't fall completely into our hands, something much worse will become of all of us.

We must have a good economy. We must have continued economic growth, the kind fostered by the endless stream of foreigners encouraged to enter this country illegally. And to have a good economy, we need the Middle Eastern oil too.

This is the empirical truth staring you in your Western educated eyes.

And as all the credible empirical soothsayers have predicted, pretty soon we will need even more oil than that which comes out of the Middle East.

This is the empirical mindset that wholly negates the humanitarian mindset that believes these things must stop.

The politicians are empirically confident, that if these wars were to stop, you're not going to like the result that will be inevitably worse than seeing so many defenseless foreigners die.

So, you see, it does little good to call the smug little Condolisa Rice a "war criminal."

For though Condolisa Rice certainly is a war criminal by any sane measure, she also believes she is doing what is empirically best and required of her in her position as the U.S. Secretary of State.

Condolisa Rice views herself as an Alexander the Great, a Napoleon, and as the Duke of Wellington all wrapped up into one.

Condolisa Rice is winning the war for her team one Iraqi death at a time.

Condolisa Rice does all this empirically, not humanitarianly.

Why? Because you don't win wars for your team humanitarianly.

Wars are won empirically.

The belief mechanism here is the same with everyone else who is supporting the war tacitly or not.

Empirical reason simply trumps humanitarian blubbering every time.

You cannot win as a humanitarian because there is no reason you should win in the face of good, solid empirical reason.

YOU simply don't have the guns! And that is what you, the Iraqis, the Iranians and all the moms of those fool soldiers are up against.

So blame the empirical-ness of our culture, and not the people who have been taught their entire lives that empirical reason is truth.

If you want to end the wars, then you must defeat empiricism itself.

And, I can tell everyone here, it is possible, though not likely within our feeble collective human grasp on such short notice.

For as empirical reason was to superstition, so too is Categorical Knowledge is to empirical reason.

I am going to suggest everyone here read the immediately preceding sentence at least one more time for cognition. The idea is nascent.

Categorical Knowledge is that knowledge that is true in every instance with no exception.

Categorical Knowledge is a road that leads away from empirical barbarity about which everyone here writes with such horror.

And, if you're really interested in defeating the empiricists of these wars and getting some of your otherwise somewhat foolish humanitarian ideals recognized, and implemented, you can start to learn a little about Categorical Knowledge.

Consider. It is categorically true that empirical reason is going to defeat all humanity sooner or later if it is not brought under the control of Categorical Knowledge.

Don Robertson, The American Philosopher

[Kevin Schmidt, Sterling VA]

If Bush/cheney try to invade and occupy Iran, then WE THE PEOPLE will peaceably assemble and occupy Washington, D.C.

If Congress won't impeach Bush/cheney, then WE THE PEOPLE have a Constitutional right to remove them ourselves.

After all, WE THE PEOPLE are the government, not our representatives in D.C. who just work for us.

[Woody]

I think it's more and more clear to your average American that the Democrats aren't anything different than the Bush regime. We have to organize and funnel that energy into a Left in this country that confronts imperialism.

Also, if and when Iran happens, I would hope for a complete strike by all the students - shutting down campuses like was done during Vietnam.

[schallb]

Come the millennium month 12, in the home of the greatest power, THE VILLAGE IDIOT, will come forth to be acclaimed the leader--Nostradamus,1555.

[Golly Gee]

What can those fools be thinking? There's no soap in these showers!

[Taninc]

Skyreader7:

"So what is in the heads of these leaders that makes them think this way?"

The answer to that question needs to be answered with another question with an answer: "where are their heads?" Answer: Where the sun never shines! For the uninitiated, think anatomically.

[Lilac]

There will be no war with Iran.

Allah will not allow it and Allah is going to humiliate anyone who tries.

Isn't that obvious to everyone already?

[Jerzy]

All the politicians on both side and all the media support America's permanent military occupation of Iraq. Not one demanded a deadline in return for supporting the invasion, nor even set a limit on how long they would support the occupation. Even those "opposed" to the invasion never alleged that the US intenended permanent occupation, or that we would still be in Iraq today. No candidate in the Presidential race will close the bases in Iraq if elected, no one in the media will try to get them to do so. If you can't get the US out of Iraq, you can't stop the same happening to Iran.