Letters to the Editor
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Michael Bowen
I'm not sure that one could call Ahmedinajad rational. Like Chavez, Kim Jong-Il, or George W. Bush, Ahmedinajad is a strutting, paranoid, deeply insecure bully who can only hang on to power by positing a powerful, secretive enemy and declaring himself the only one who can keep his people secure. The world would be better off without these kinds of leaders.
Never underestimate an opponent, or just the man sitting across the negotiating table from you, and never buy into your own government's hype and spin that is disseminated for the specific purpose of demonizing that opponent in the public's eyes. It is usually a gross over-exaggeration if not an outright lie. As Martin van Creveld observed, "Obviously, we don't want Iran to have nuclear weapons and I don't know if they're developing them, but if they're not developing them, they're crazy."
To suggest that the Iranians do not have more to fear from our current regime than we from them is "crazy".
Google van Creveld.
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Detainee vs. detainee
The final point of your update is one I wish the MSM would bring up more. It is MUCH more of an affront to international law to hold *diplomats* indefinitely, who were working in Iraq at the request of the Iraqis, who want us to release them. So, the US is saying it has the right to indefinitely detain diplomats in someone else's country, against that country's wishes, while it is evil and war-provoking for Iran to play their catch-and-release game on their own border. We torture, while they parade people around in tailored suits, the bastards.
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See the neo-cons "think"
Harvey Mansfield, William R. Kenan, Jr., Professor of Government, talks about manliness and Theodore Roosevelt: http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/23/mar05/mansfield.htm
And, yes, I understand it's a metaphor justifying imperialism: that only makes it more childish, to reduce international relations to personal egoism and sexual insecurity: dominance and submission on the international scale as an S&M fetish.
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Fourth grade "diplomacy"
Gingrich's neocon strategy is very familiar. It puts me back onto my old fourth grade playground where bullies rule and, "My dad can beat your dad - so there!" When will these guys grow up?!
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Thanks for that link, Jojo
The New Criterion is one of the few sources I can read without becoming nauseous or angry or both. How Glenn and the rest of the good folks who take a close look at the output from the right armpit of the media is beyond me. I can't.
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rc leslie
One of the things I learned quite early was that if you convinced the bullies that you were totally whacked and would fight them no matter what, they tended to avoid you.
Bullies look for victims who won't fight back.
Ahmadinejad may be playing that game.
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"Pelosi . . . YOU ARE ALL MINE!"
It sort of seems the neocons are of the WWE ilk where some gaudily-dressed buffoon grabs the mike and vows there's gonna be a major beat down next week in Islamabad. Or whenever Pelosi returns from Syria. It's likely the rest of the world has already made that connection, too.
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Disgusting ad sharing space with your post
Glenn, great piece, but that ad on the right is revolting, distressing, and offensive. I can't stand to read the part of your text that is opposite that woman with her body being continuously bloated up and out. I know you're not responsible for the ads, but someone at Salon is. Please, can you tell them not to put in ads that are so distracting, and not in a good way?
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Bentonite and Anthrax
Bentonite coated Anthrax....
ABC, All the news that's fit to fake. When I was in college in Duluth I worked loading and unloading foreign boats as a day laborer. Dirty crappy work and one of the frequent shipping cargoes we wouldload was Bentonite. I used to think it was called Betonite but now realize it's called Bentonite. It was a powdery clay like cement and we would ship whole boatloads in 100 pound sacks to India and elsewhere.
The Bentonite would get all over our hands we wore masks much of the time. We were down in the holds and a crane would lift a pallet of 40 or so 100 lb sacks of the stuff and lower in into the hold. You always had to stay out from under the open hatch cover as they were lowering it. Just about every loading the crane operator would catch an edge and someone would scream something about look out below!!! (everyone ran like hell) and the entire pallet would come tumbling down from a 80 feet above and crash onto the bottom of the hold or already loaded sacks. Half the sacks would split apart when the hit and the hold would be filled with clouds of powdered Bentonite. You would have in in your eyes, lungs (the masks weren't worth a damn) ears etc.. We would sit in the hold until the Bentonite dust settled and keep loading. We thought of it as the same as cement which it probably was, but not good to breathe no matter how you label it. We got the stuff by railroad car and another job was unloading the railroad cars onto the pallets. "Laced with Bentonite my butt."
Pete
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Save Your Breath!
If anyone thinks that anyone in the Bush Maladministration has even a shred of ethical behavior, honor, morality, integrity or propriety, let me disabuse you of that thought. These people are playing to win...ethics, honor, morality, integrity or propriety be damned!
When an Administration loses sight of the legalities and niceties of governing and substitutes subterfuge instead, it is, then, no better than a group of Taliban thugs, but, with more expensive suits.
I can nearly always disagree with someone based on philosophy while retaining respect for them or their office; I have NO such respect for Bush nor his acolytes.