What's So Bad About Iran And The Bomb?

It is obvious that at all costs, even the cost of our launching a nuclear attack on them, Iran must be stopped from getting the bomb. This is because Iranians, unlike Americans and Israelis, are not moral enough to have such weapons. Iran is part of the U.S.-identified axis of evil - they are not rational actors, do not have any legitimate self-interests (like, for instance, protecting  themselves from the U.S. and Israel, who both do have nuclear weapons), are fanatical, maniacal, radical death-cultists, unfazed by the certainty of own retaliatory destruction, religiously driven (if a real god like Jesus can tell George W. Bush to invade Iraq, heaven only knows what a false god like Allah could tell Iran to do).

If Iran became a nuclear power it would destabilize the region (it was different when Israel got nuclear weapons, that stabilized the region, because...well, be fair, Israel is the Judaeo in Judaeo-Christian). An example of how it would destabilize the mid-east is that America wouldn't have been able to invade Iraq and Afghanistan which both border on Iran and are universally recognized as two wars which made the region oh so much more stable then it was. Vice President Cheney could not talk openly about launching a nuclear first strike on a non-nuclear Iran because, hey, Iran wouldn't be non-nuclear. You could image how much less stable that would make things. Iran must not be allowed to do anything that limits our ability to attack, bomb, threaten, ignore, or insult them. If the west has to take Iranian interests into consideration, it will be a humiliation of America unlike anything since the failure of the invasion of Canada in 1812.

We need third world or developing nations to remain third world or developing nations so that we are able to do what we need to do to them militarily, to protect our interests. What if Ronald Reagan had let Grenada get the bomb? He would have been unable to invade the island and the US would still be living under the shadow of failure in Vietnam. Do we really want to jeopardize the U.S militarist ego like that? Who will protect us from Iran then?

War is never the first choice but there is a whole private-public, media, political, infrastructure to ensure it will always be the easiest. To start, anyway. Everyone is against war once it's started, but for it before it begins. As soon as a politician has declared war he or she starts talking about how they are bringing the war to a close. Before war starts no one wants to talk about avoiding it. This is because we in the west (and this includes Israel) really do like war. We go out if our way to have them, we rise to power through them, we profit by them, we build economies around them, we are proud of being at war. The fear I have is what if the Iranians turn out to be just as territorially greedy and power obsessed as we are? What if the Islamic state actually turns out (they haven't invaded anyone in 700 years) to be just a nuclear warhead away from being like us. We act like Iranians have some genetic, ethnic, religious, cultural tic that makes them so different from us that they can't be trusted with the weapons France and China and Israel and the U.S. have...but what if they turn out to be just like us?

Rags to Riches to Love?

From The Actual, But Informal News File:

Two brothers in Hungary spent their lives so poor they had to live in a cave and sell whatever they could scavenge or salvage from trash piles. Now in their forties, they have just been informed that they have inherited six billion dollars. Long lost heirs.
   
Their immediate reaction, as reported by MSNBC? That when they were living in a cave no women would look at them, but that maybe now they have money they thought that might change. You think? Six billion dollars?
   
But lest you think that implies something mercenary and unflattering about women, you know that with that much money the brothers will make sure they are surrounded by the youngest, most beautiful, easiest women.
   
It would be a  rare man who inherits three billion dollars (half of six billion) and moves from his cave into the local village and marries a fifty year old woman who works in the local bakery and lives in a cottage the rest of his life.
   
They are quoted as saying they want a "normal life", but my guess is that it won't be a normal life they get, any more than it was a normal (by our standards) life they had before. It may not even be a good life. You and I, we may dream of having three billion dollars, or be afraid of being forced to live in a cave, but the lives we work to build for ourselves, 'normal lives', are most likely, if they work well, to be a stable marriage, a home, friendly neighbours, and grandchildren. Some - hopefully enough, though probably just barely enough - money  as well. Some genuine warmth from people dear to us, comfort and time in our old age. These two didn't have it when they were poor. I hope they, but would not be surprised if they didn't, find it now. Be nice to try, though, wouldn't it?

Israel and Palestine: who's for peace?

Israeli 'extremists' (note, not 'terrorists') have been blamed for the murder of a Palestinian child. The Prime Minister of Israel said said there will be "zero tolerance" toward such Israeli 'terrorism' (that is, 'extremism').

We know what Palestinians are angry about in this conflict: their expulsion from their homes, the theft of their land through expanding settlements, living in prison camps, an economic blockade against them, segregation, no freedom of movement, living behind a security wall (also a theft of their land), being denied their own state, poverty, humiliation, hopelessness, being at the mercy of a hostile military against which they are wildly overmatched, the destruction of their homes as punishment for relative's crimes - compare the life and life-style of the average Israeli citizen with that of the average Gaza citizen and guess which one is harder and which one is easier and better off. By miles.

But what is Israel angry about? Security? They get billions in military aid from the U.S.; the Palestinians have no Air Force, no navy, hardly even an army, more a small group of armed men, no national status, no legal weight (the US veto can be counted on at the UN), and presents no economic competition to Israel. Think of the last invasion. What was it, 2,000 Palestinian dead versus 70 Israelis, most of whom we soldiers killed in the invasion itself? More Americans are killed by other American in Chicago in two months than Israelis are killed by Palestinians in a year.

That is why I think it is time to say it out loud, this thing that has finally gone out into the open with Israel saying it does not want a two state solution, that is to say, that Israel does not want peace. The status quo works for Israel quite nicely. There is no incentive for them to change anything. Israel gets to take over Palestinian land as the mood suits them, they are under no real military threat as can be seen by the devastation of Gaza by the IDF, they get billions in aid from the U.S. (what happens to that money if there is a resolution of the conflict?), the Israeli economic, territorial, military, political and logistical dominance of the region goes on unchallenged, and Israeli politicians and Prime Ministers have a trump card to play every election: the Palestinians. Resolve the Palestinian issues and Benjamin Netanyahu is judged on economic policy, social justice, the environment, minority rights, the status of women, education policy, democracy, likability - he, like all Israeli PMs, is in power because of the crisis. He needs that card to play, over and over, or how does he stay in power? Even Winston Churchill, who won the Second World War, lost the post-war peacetime election.

If Palestine becomes a state, it gets to have an army and airforce. Any settlements or a blockade become acts of war, and any war becomes not a matter of firing missiles into a basically undefended refugee camp, but army against army, air power against air power, tank against tank - a much less favourable war. We can see what the Palestinians have to gain by peace: nationhood, and end to the blockade, self-respect, a chance at an economy, security from Israeli raids, international recognition, the ability to travel, a shot, theoretically, at a middle class life lived among buildings that are buildings and not rubble. But where is Israel's incentive for peace? Peace with the Palestinians can only lessen Israel's economic and military and political power. It can only makes things harder for Israeli politicians.

Peace with the Palestinians would come close to removing the reason for Israel. If the Jewish people are not continually under threat from someone, then what's the point of Israel? Without war or the threat of war, without persecution or the language of persecution, the country's entire history, politics, self-image and status as a powerful symbol of humanity and innocence slips. Could Israel survive a peace? Yes. But could it flourish in a peace? Yes, perhaps, probably. But not the way it is now, not the way it has become accustomed to. Not the way that has worked so well so far.