The warpaint's being mixed as we speak:
This morning on Fox News, former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton continued his drumbeat for war against Iran. Adopting Bill Kristol’s argument, Bolton suggested that an attack on Iran depends on who Americans elect as the next President:I think if they [Israel] are to do anything, the most likely period is after our elections and before the inauguration of the next President. I don’t think they will do anything before our election because they don’t want to affect it. And they’d have to make a judgment whether to go during the remainder of President Bush’s term in office or wait for his successor.
Bolton gamed out the fallout from an attack on Iran. He claimed that Iran’s options to retaliate after being attacked are actually “less broad than people think.” He suggested that Iran would not want to escalate a conflict because 1) it still needs to export oil, 2) it would worry about “an even greater response” from Israel, 3) and it would worry about the U.S.’s response.
Coming from a man who then went on to say how secretly thrilled the Arab nations would be if we bombed the snot out of Iran, I don't this this assessment of the benefits of said bombing is particularly trustworthy.
Does anybody else remember a time when there was a rosy picture painted of the benefits of war against a country starting with the letter "I"? Does anybody else remember that that picture turned out to be nothing but lies? It feels like 2002/2003 all over again, only worse.
And here's William Kristol, fucktard extraordinaire, suggesting that how soon we go to war in Iran depends on who's likely to end up winning the election:
As Bill Kristol sees it, if John McCain wins in November (or the White House believes McCain will win in November), Still-President Bush is content leaving a confrontation with Iran to the future. If Barack Obama wins, or appears poised to win, Bush may go ahead and force the issue.
They can trust McCain to carry out their plans for war and more war. They can't think the same of Obama, because he's not a war-hungry, power-mad, batshit insane American imperialist. So they'll just go right ahead and pull the trigger.
Go read the whole set of Think Progress articles. Then come back here and tell me just what the fuck we're going to do to keep America out of a third disasterous war. It's unbelievable just how thirsty for war these fuckwits are. I've seen military dictators with more passion for peace. What the fuck is wrong with the right? Why do they believe that every country that shows the slightest sign of disagreeing with us should be held at the point of a gun?
Then you might want to read up on how sensitive McCain is to other countries' desires and needs. He can't even get Canada right:
It’s not especially unusual for presidential candidates to engage in foreign travel during the campaign, though it may be slightly counterintuitive (candidates usually want to impress voters here, instead of heading abroad). With that in mind, at first blush, John McCain’s speech to the Economic Club of Canada the other day wouldn’t seem especially interesting.
But indicative of the kind of clumsiness and unforced errors we’ve come to expect from the McCain campaign, the brief trip north of the border turned out to be more than a little problematic. McCain said his appearance in Canada had “nothing to do” with the presidential campaign. That wasn’t true.
[snip]
Canadians didn’t seem especially pleased by the campaigning.It’s rare, perhaps unprecedented, for a U.S. presidential candidate to come to Canada and deliver a political speech in the course of an American election campaign. But here comes John McCain, right on the heels of the NAFTA imbroglio that embarrassed Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government.
The controversy over the Canadian leak of a diplomatic note damaging to Democrat Barack Obama has been receding with time. This can only be pleasing to the Harper team. But the appearance in Ottawa of Mr. McCain, set for Friday, is a good bet to reignite the whole business, putting Ottawa’s ignoble deed
again in the mix in the race for the White House.
That’s bad for the Harper government, bad for bilateral relations. As interesting as it is to have the Republican candidate for the presidency here, better that he stay away.
McCain didn’t take the advice.
He never does. He doesn't care who he pisses off or who he hurts. And he likes to sing a little song about bombing other countries...
We don't need this shit.
"Why do they believe that every country that shows the slightest sign of disagreeing with us should be held at the point of a gun?" -- If I had time to draw and post a diagram of how things look to me, this is roughly how it might be described:
ReplyDeletePicture a small clump of powermongers. The movers in the Bush administration (Cheney/Rove/Wolfowitz/etc.) are probably the most obvious example, but there are others (just within the US, think of megachurches and large corporations). These people benefit when wars happen. They are kind of like vampires, only not as warm and friendly.
There are a number of such clumps, but I don't know how many. They communicate and negotiate with each other via backchannels typically not transparent to the public.
Surrounding each clump is a larger cluster of helpers, active collaborators -- people who think like the core powermongers do, and who have specialized skills (e.g. political framing, marketing -- meme-spreading) needed by the core. They aren't in the topmost positions, but they either aspire to be in those positions or else have bought into some form of idealism which blinds them to the evil they are aiding.
Surrounding these clumps are the people they manipulate best -- authoritarian followers. They believe what the powermongers are doing is for the best, because the manipulators have pushed all the right authority-buttons, but they aren't basically evil people. At the outer fringe of this crowd are people who are mostly doing good, but will defend the next layer in when it appears threatened. (I submit, for further consideration, the idea that well-meaning people like Karen are in this group.)
And on the outside are the rest of us schmucks, who are (at best) persuaded to reluctantly go along with the well-meaning majority protecting the non-evil but sheeplike followers being manipulated by the professional manipulators who sell the ideas the powermongers want sold. (At worst, we say "Hell no!" and they call us traitors.)
And right now, they want another war.