[lit-ideas] Re: Shall Iran blink or shall we?
- From: "Lawrence Helm" <lawrencehelm@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 09:12:34 -0700
John:
You write "and some presidents, a Harding or Buchanan, for example, were
thoroughly deserving of dispraise. When will you learn that you do you
case no good by cherry-picking evidence?"
One of us needs to learn something, that is without doubt, but I suspect the
"partisan" as is the case with the "master" in Kojeve's example, is
incapable of being educated. Be that as it may, you didn't really read what
I wrote and you really didn't comment upon what I wrote. I wrote,
Presidents, perhaps all of them, [how does one Cherry pick presidents when
he says 'perhaps all of them'?] had people who rabidly [hated] them. We
look back at the evidence of what these presidents did and find they were
just ordinary presidents doing the best they could." Were Harding and
Buchanan doing the best they could? Yes indeed. They were some of the
least qualified for the job, but they did the best they could.
I wrote that some of them made mistakes, but the allegations of those who
hated them were largely unjustified. History looks back on those who hated
them, and virtually all of them had those who hated them, and finds the
hatred largely unjustified. Note that I am talking about "those who hated
them," not those who said they made mistakes. Tony Snow said Bush made
mistakes, but he didn't hate him. I was responding to Andreas who hates
Bush and has a litany of hateful things he says about him. The term
Bush-bashers has a definition. It is a recognizable expression describing a
certain sort of person in our political landscape. As I said, perhaps every
president had such haters. As I said, these haters have become nothing more
than footnotes in America's history. As I said, these Presidents, history
shows us, were doing the best they could. As I said, some of them made
mistakes. History I am quite sure will say the same sort of things about
Bush: he was an ordinary man who did the best he could. He did some good
things here but made some mistakes there. Oh by the way a lot of people,
mostly Leftists who learned to hate during the Vietnam era, hated him.
I've noticed that people who argue from a partisan position rather than from
having done a lot of independent study want to lecture me about reading more
or different and use such expressions as "when will you ever learn," or
express dismay that I haven't grasped some obvious rudimentary concept.
When I respond to them they give themselves away. They haven't studied and
can only voice their partisan position. They, who accuse me of
cherry-picking, cherry-pick the news, but when I respond to one of their
articles they simply switch to another article rather than defend their
author. Did you not write, "Given a choice between Lawrence and Eric or
Brezhinksi and Albright, I'm pretty sure I know who has the more informed
opinion"? And yet when I responded with Gerecht's assessments of your
authorities, you skip on to something else. I looked through your note in
vain for a defense of those worthies or yours.
Your note goes on to repeat old partisan saws rather than attempt to get at
what really happened. One person may have repeated someone's opinion that
Iraq was going to be a cake-walk, and I think an enemy of the administration
sneered that someone expected our troops to be greeted with flower petals,
but your partisan language has it that "all those idiot/ideologues" said
those things. Of course no one who has studied these matters can take such
language seriously, and I don't; so moving right along you speak of the
budget prediction of $200 billion as being way over the top." I recall no
such thing. I recall that money was being asked for as it was needed but
that, the administration said, more money would be asked for as it was
needed. Many Democrats demanded to know how much the entire war was going
to cost - a rather nonsensical demand, it seemed to me, but no one in the
administration, to the best of my recollection, answered that question.
You engage in further rant indicating you have now gone all the way over to
Dr. Michael Strangelove's position: "Your opponents are willing to grant you
that many Muslims hate us (more every day and no wonder given our bull in a
China shop, the bomb is OK for our cronies but not for you, you dirty little
raghead approach to diplomacy)." The dangers of that position have been
amply discussed by Teemu; so I'll say no more about it here.
You then write, "We also acknowledge that an air campaign could mess up Iran
pretty bad.
"But you still haven't told us what then? When chances are the Strait of
Hormuz is blocked, oil from the Middle East is choked off, the number of
terrorists multiplies, fissionable materials in the former USSR remain
unsecured, our ports, bridges, chemical and nuclear plants remain
unsecure....."
I have read a number of discussions of this. Perhaps Gerecht didn't think it
needed to be mentioned again. Iran wouldn't be able to block the straits of
Hormuz. I don't feel like going back through old journal articles; so here
is a recent comment from the Middle East Newsline: (
<http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2006/april/04_26_1.html>
http://www.menewsline.com/stories/2006/april/04_26_1.html)
"WASHINGTON [MENL] -- Iran lacks the capability to block the world's leading
shipping route for crude oil exports. The Center for Strategic and
International Studies said the Iranian Navy, including the Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps, has failed to procure the platforms or weapons
required to block the Straits of Hormuz, the passage for 60 percent of the
world's oil trade. In a report, the Washington-based center said the United
States could block any Iranian attempt to attack Gulf shipping, particularly
from the sea. "Iran could not close the Strait of Hormuz, or halt tanker
traffic, and its submarines and much of its IRGC forces would probably be
destroyed in a matter of days if they become operational," the report said.
The assertion undermined an Iranian warning to threaten the global oil trade
if attacked by the United States. The warning was issued during the Holy
Prophet exercise in the Gulf, which took place from March 31 to April 6."
Your concern that "the number of terrorists multiplies, fissionable
materials in the former USSR remain unsecured, our ports, bridges, chemical
and nuclear plants remain unsecure....." is inconsistent with your earlier
comment ". . . the bomb is OK for our cronies but not for you, you dirty
little raghead approach to diplomacy." Either the bomb is okay for the
Iranians or it isn't. You don't get to hold both positions. If it is okay
for the Iranians than you don't worry that "the number of terrorists
multiplies, fissionable materials in the former USSR remain unsecured, our
ports, bridges, chemical and nuclear plants remain unsecure....." You
become like Mike Geary.
And then you conclude with some utterly bizarre playground bully techniques
by saying, "All you have is the utterly bizarre playground bully idea that
you can secure capitulation from people as nuts as you are by threatening to
kick their ass, and that once we kick some butt, everybodys going to be too
scared to figure out how to hit back. And who are you counting on when they
do? The clowns who mismanaged Katrina sure as hell aren't ready to cope with
anything really dirty going down. Oy, veh." Normally I don't respond to
such partisan rant, but here it is early in a California morning. I am
still working on my first cup of coffee and am not fully awake, so I will.
But actually this isn't something that many people would respond to. Mike
Geary's position is not widely held. Most of us in the West don't want
nuclear weapons in the hands of a Rogue nation. A whole long list of
possibilities emerge, and none of them are pleasant. Most of us don't want
Rogue nations to have nukes.
Now, as discussed earlier, one rogue nation, Libya, did respond favorably to
our pressure and gave up their nuclear development program. But rather than
use the "bull in the china-shop" technique that worked on Qhadaffi, we left
Iran up to France, Germany and Russia, the nations that the Bush Bashers
wanted us to leave Iraq up to. We have stayed out of it up until now. We
have said that Iran's having nukes is unthinkable but we have left it up to
the experts to get Iran to come around. In fact, why do you keep mentioning
the U.S. Leftists in the U.S. have said repeatedly that France & Germany
are much better at such negotiations than the Bush Administration; so, for
whatever reasons, they have been given Iran to handle. But of course they
will not be able to handle it. The European prowess is ineffective because
they wield only the carrot and not the stick. Tyrannical regimes don't need
to pay any attention to them. But they do need to pay attention to a nation
with the potential of being a bull in a China shop. This is the nature of
international diplomacy with Rogue nations.
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: John McCreery
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2006 12:05 AM
And some presidents, a Harding or Buchanan, for example, were
thoroughly deserving of dispraise. When will you learn that you do
your case no good by cherry-picking evidence? When will you
acknowledge all those idiot/ideologues who told us that Iraq would be
a cakewalk, that our troops would be greeted with showers of rose
petals, and that a budget director who predicted a cost of 200 billion
was way over the top?
You opponents are willing to grant you that many Muslims hate us (more
every day and no wonder given our bull in a China shop, the bomb is OK
for our cronies but not for you, you dirty little raghead approach to
diplomacy).
We also acknowledge that an air campaign could mess up Iran pretty bad.
But you still haven't told us what then? When chances are the Strait
of Hormuz is blocked, oil from the Middle East is choked off, the
number of terrorists multiplies, fissionable materials in the former
USSR remain unsecured, our ports, bridges, chemical and nuclear plants
remain unsecure.....
All you have is the utterly bizarre playground bully idea that you can
secure capitulation from people as nuts as you are by threatening to
kick their ass, and that once we kick some butt, everybodys going to
be too scared to figure out how to hit back. And who are you counting
on when they do? The clowns who mismanaged Katrina sure as hell aren't
ready to cope with anything really dirty going down. Oy, veh.
John
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