This Space for Rent

Rogue state? If you’re American, you’re soaking in it.

Saber-rattling, or the weapons-grade stupidity we've come to expect from the B*sh junta?

One of the military’s initial option plans, as presented to the White House by the Pentagon this winter, calls for the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites.

--Seymour Hersh, writing in The New Yorker

Now, if there are any sane (fsvo "sane") people left at Mount Doom on the Potomac, you'd have to believe that it's just saber rattling, because dropping nukes on Iran will pretty much guarantee that no oil will be coming out of Iraq , Iran, Kuwait, or Saudi Arabia in the near future. But since this is the Coward in Chief -- a man who redefines the phrase "bubble boy" -- we're talking about, it's quite possible that the Air Force is busily moving a couple of dozen nuclear weapons over to the Near East even as we speak.

The New Yorker article mentions that the EU is "rattled" at the perception that the American Imperium is going to be nuking Iran in time for the midterm elections, but, since the EU isn't really that used to being a superpower yet, it's too busy trying to make nice with the barking lunatics who run the United States. The UK, as befitting their new status as lapdogs, are running around trying to find an excuse -- any excuse -- to resume their now-traditional position of brown nose up against Imperial buttocks, so there's not likely to be any sense coming out of them.

If I was running the EU or Russia, I'd trump the whole thing by telling the United States that I'd given Iran a dozen nuclear devices, and that the USA would just have to sit down with the Iranian government and negotiate about their nuclear program now. Sure, it would trump the American Imperium's grand plan of replacing all the governments (except Israel) in the Near east with fundamentalist dictatorships and Somali-style anarchy, but the American Imperium and Iran have a lot of things in common (both governments hate women, birth control, and gays) so I'm sure that once you get past the initial pleasantries about Great Satans and Evil Empires, they'd get along famously.

Comments


It’s a good point, and while I’m sure you meant it tongue in cheek, it’s extremely worrisome to consider the fact that what will ultimately come of all of this will be a huge increase in nuclear proliferation by sane, stable governments (ie. Canuckistan when we swing back to a reality-based federal government?) who come to understand that it may be the only cost/manpower-effective way to protect themselves against the pre-emption doctrine.

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RossK Sun Apr 9 11:11:31 2006

Oh, I’m not being tongue in cheek. The United States is under the control of a bunch of bedwetting bullies; a country that has the ability, even tenuously, of glassing an American suburb will be treated like an equal, while countries that do not will be treated, at best, as if they were homeless people down at the railroad station. The only choices for the United States now are (a) immediate military coup (except that the only untouched branch of the service – the Air Force – has been compromised by the christopaths, and I’m afraid that the upper layers of command are perfectly happy with the thought that we might nuke ourselves into The Rapture in the next few months), (b) a giant meteor crashes, without warning, into the east coast of the United States, © Maximum Leader Genius is just saber rattling, or (d) Iran gets a nuclear deterrent.

(b) won’t happen, I have my doubts about ©, I’ve not seen any signs of mutinies in Vietaq, so I’m more than slightly sceptical about (a), and given the recent interactions between the United States and Iraq (pathetically weak, no nukes) and North Korea (weak, but has nukes), I think that a nuclear deterrent would cause an immediate redirection of the threats being aimed towards Persia.

David Parsons Sun Apr 9 23:24:35 2006

Ya but if you win a house in November and then go after the junta….

Won’t that work?

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RossK Thu Apr 13 00:21:59 2006

Three reasons:

  1. This whole attack Iraqn thing is being done to bring out the Evil Party vote.
  2. I’m not confident that the Democrats will take either the House or the Senate, and even if they do
  3. I think they’ll be terrified of appearing “soft” on Iran, and will go along with whatever crackpot plans the B*sh junta comes up with.

And, even assuming the best electoral result, remember that the USA is very weak these days – Nuclear weapons are the one military hammer that we’ve not broken on the anvil of Iraq – and the lure of going rogue state to protect our g-d-given right to all the oil on the planet will still be there.

MAD may be, um, mad, but it appears to work. Neither the USA or the USSR nuked each other between 1945 and 1991, and North Korea has managed to protect itself against the USA quite well by just having a brace of uranium bombs and delivery systems. Never underestimate the American desire to keep our precious motherland free of damage.

David Parsons Thu Apr 13 11:42:50 2006

Comments are closed