Israeli paper calls for war on Iran

To show the true, murderous derangement of Israeli culture, one must see the articles being published by its media outlets.

Haaretz, which is Israel's preeminent left wing paper, published an article by Ari Shavit today titled "Facing an Iranian winter".

In it, the prospect of a US attack on Iran in the winter by the Bush administration, before an assumed President Obama takes office, is contemplated. The article describes a hypothetical decision by the Bush administration to attack Iran as

"without precedent and without legitimacy. It will be perceived as the final, delusional trumpet blast of a raving religious administration."

So far so good. Looks like Haaretz understands the dire consequences of such an attack. The article then begins explaining how Bush and Cheney might rationalize such an illegitimate move:

"That logic might lead the president and his second-in-command to the conclusion that if they do not act, neither will Obama. If Obama does not act, Iran will become a nuclear power. And if Iran goes nuclear, evil will win."

Kind of stupid logic if you ask me, especially when you consider that Iran has absolutely no chance of developing a nuclear arsenal that could ever change the balance of power in the region (Israel would win nuclear war against Iran), but the article is pointing out that this is potentially the Bush administration's logic, not any reasonable people's.

The writer of the article then reveals the extant of his maliciousness and immorality with this startling and remarkably dim-witted assertion:

"There is a genuine possibility that Bush will end his miserable presidency not with a whimper, but with a bang. The scenario is a wild one..

***

In the long run, the wild scenario is good for Israel, as it is good for the United States. A nuclear Iran will endanger Israel's existence, the stability of the Middle East and the welfare of the West. An Iran stripped of nuclear ability will allow the Middle East to become more moderate; it will enable the West to uphold its values and perpetuate its way of life for a long time to come."

So after making it clear how illegitimate a US attack on Iran would be -that only unreasonable people without regard for the will of the American nation would carry it out- the article concludes that this attack would still be good for Israel and the US. The writers' conception of morality and its proper role in guiding policy seems totally deficient. The writer sees no contradiction between an action being wrong and his view that it should be promoted as "good for Israel".

How many more people need to die to assuage the paranoid Israelis' fears that a potential competitor could threaten its power monopoly? If this is the kind of article being published by Haaretz, it's clear that Israeli culture is insane and totally oblivious to its own murderous intentions.

Explaining Ron Paul's foreign policy with Star Trek analogy

It is some times difficult to explain why Ron Paul's position on foreign policy is the wisest to people who have drank from the neoconservative cool-aid served by pundits like Hannity. Recently I was reminded of a Star Trek Voyager episode called 'Year of Hell' and was struck by how well the flaw of its antagonist parallels the follies of America's interventionist foreign policy. Perhaps the retelling of the premise of the 'Year of Hell' episode along with pointing out its analogies to America's foreign policy these last 60 years can open some people's eyes.

The prologue, via Wikipedia:

Krenim scientist Annorax developed a technology that can cause "temporal incursions" which can be used to erase events from history. Each temporal incursion must be meticulously calculated so the removal of one event from the timeline has no negative effects on other events. This is rarely possible, of course. Annorax attempted to restore the Krenim empire to the apex of its power by destroying its archenemies, but by doing so he prevented the development of an antibody in his people, and they became vulnerable to a plague. 50 million of his people died, including his beloved wife, because of his actions. Now he is bent on undoing his mistakes. The more temporal incursions he creates in the attempt only causes more disruptions in the time-line. Civilizations are being erased from existence.

America's middle east interventions are like Annorax' "temporal incursions", causing new unforeseen problems that are worse than the problem they solve.

For example:

1) America responded to the nationalization of Iranian oil by supporting the Shah and mullahs in a 1953 coup against the democratically elected government of Iran and its secular/nationalist allies. This set the stage for the Islamic Revolution of 1979.

2)

a) America responded to the Islamic Revolution and its threat of spreading to the rest of the middle east by supporting Saddam Hussein in the 8 year Iran-Iraq war. Billions of dollars were funneled to Iraq and a blind eye was turned to Saddam's chemical weapons program. This set the stage for Saddam's use of chemical weapons against Iranian troops and Kurdish civilians.

b) America responded to its failure in Vietnam by attempting to draw the Soviets into their own quagmire in Afghanistan. The CIA gave military aid to Islamic insurgents in Afghanistan in the late 1970's to attack the communist government of that nation, in the hope of drawing the Soviet military in to protect its client state. The CIA plan worked, and the Soviets were drawn in for nearly a decade, while America poured over $22 billion into the international mujahadeen to fight the Soviets. The Soviets eventually withdrew, badly beaten, and a ravaged Afghanistan fell into the hands of Islamic radicals empowered by a decade of American aid.

3) America responded to the threat of a middle east dictator who had shown a propensity to invade his neighbors and use chemical weapons by putting Iraq under sanctions and bombing thousands of targets in its northern and southern no fly zones in the 1990's.

4) Al Qaeda, an offshoot of the international mujahadeen of Afghanistan, launched an attack on America on September 11th 2001, in response to American troop deployments throughout the middle east, support for Israel, and the sanctioning and bombing of Iraq throughout the 1990's.

5) America responded to 911 by launching a program to democratize and modernize the middle east starting with the overthrow of Saddam. Today Iraq is more unstable than ever, four million Iraqis live as refugees, a million are dead, and Al Qaeda has recruited thousands of fighters motivated by the American invasion and occupation of Iraq.


Like Annorax's attempts to make things right by changing history, American foreign policy has tried to right the wrongs created by intervention, with more intervention, and every time it does so, the unforeseen consequences of its interventions are seemingly worse than the problems they solve.