“Sophie’s Choice” for Obama: Iran or Palestine? Defining Democracy and ‘Nuclear’. Stewart and Colbert Come Through
Capacity: this is something that I am not certain about. How do you define ‘military capacity’: is it having the technology and know-how, the brain power and the plants, as Bush admin seemed to do? That is something that the Iranians clearly have. Or is it actually enriching uranium up to a certain amount, as the Iranians are alleged to be on their way to doing? Or does it have to do with a time limit?When a potentially devastating war is at stake, it is important to have everything defined.
Sort of like how do you define moderation and democracy.
Is chopping the heads of sorcerers and witches in public squares, and flogging female rape victims considered compatible with moderation under Obama, as it did under Bush?
Or for that matter how do you define democracy. We all, well some of us, agree that Iran is not a real democracy, not outside the region of a stagnant Middle East: it is a theocracy that allows a limited amount of democratic interaction. It is a democracy with a concrete ceiling. But the best thing is that its president changes every four or at most every eight years. It must be refreshing not to have to see, say, Husni Mubarak on TV and on the front pages for thirty years- even Stalin did not last that long, not with absolute power. And Stalin won a world war: remember Leningrad, Stalingrad, Tehran, Yalta, Potsdam, et al!
Is staying in power for 30+ years, then handing power to your son, or is being an absolute monarch considered compatible with democracy, as it seemed to do under Bush? That was the definition of the New Middle East (as per Condi Rice): absolute tribal monarchs, life-long dictators, and armed feudal warlords a la Lebanon. The Lebanese case does have a veneer of genteel but sectarian democracy that occasionally erupts into its true primeval self, through bloody conflict.
“Israelis and moderate Arabs now agree: it is important to tackle the Iranian nuclear issue before solving the Palestinian issue…” Another misinformed analyst to Andrea Mitchell on MSNBC (July 15).
In other words, you can't walk and chew gum at the same time in Washington.
The current Israeli right wing government is quite happy, tyvm, to postpone things while facts are being created on the ground, in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
As for the Arab oligarchies: more than anything else, they probably would like the USA to go to war with Iran and cut the mullahs down to (military) size. The state-of-the-art very expensive foreign weapons that we purchase by the tens of billions, nay hundreds of billions, are just for show- and for commission (and kickbacks: aka bribes, or bakhsheesh, in impolite jargon) value.
Fox News Anthropology:
“For example in Finland they marry Finns only……Here in American, we marry everybody.…” Another silly (male, dark hair) man who co-anchors FoxNews early morning show. Actually he looks like that ‘everybody’ himself.
(I saw this last one on the Daily Show: ever since the Michael Jackson media circus started, I have relied on Jon Stewart and Colbert for my serious news. For three weeks, they were the source of serious news, as they often are anyway).
Cheers
mhg
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