Wednesday, July 25, 2007
This is just a quick link to follow -- an "aside." These are links to interesting things that, for one reason or another, I didn't place into a full posting. Click the link to visit the full article. Go to the blog index for a regular listing of posts.
Jeff Jacoby: Why are we rewarding Iran? - '...Granted, threats and gunboat diplomacy are not always wise. But there are times when they are far more effective than "engagement." Faced with the enemy we face -- a hostage-taking, nuke-pursuing, terrorist-sponsoring, apocalypse-invoking, America-hating Iran -- what would [Teddy Roosevelt] have done?'
Jeff Jacoby, in suggesting that the US follow Teddy Roosevelt's lead and use gunboat diplomacy against Iran, seems to have missed the fact that it is no longer 1904 and the age of colonialism and successful bullying is over-- that's why the US and France couldn't beat Vietnam into submission, nor has the US been able to conquer Iraq, or Afghanistan, nor have the Israelis beat the Palestinians into submission-- Technology is in the hands of the oppressee as well as the oppressor, at least enough to make conquest impossible, even if it was the moral thing to do, which it certainly is not.
If the US/Israel wants to be sure that Iran will not acquire nuclear weapons, how about calling for a Nuclear weapons ban in all of the mideast, to include Israel's nuke capability? As long as Israel has nuclear weapons, it is only prudent for every other country in the region to have them as well. Lebanon last summer surely wouldn't have been reassuring to any country in the region.
How can a person with any sanity, or any humanity, call for bombing Iran? Iranians are people, like you and me! Iran isn't just a strategic stretch on a map, between Afghanistan and Iraq... How can these people seriously consider bombing Iran's nuclear research facilities, with or without using nuclear weapons ourselves-- Many hundreds of thousands would die, and the whole area would suffer from nuclear pollution for who knows how many years -- And do the people suggesting bombing Iran miss the fact that there would be payback?
Suggesting bombing Iran is way beyond incautious, it's pathological--