The idiot is at it again. Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman is leading a group of almost one third of our less intelligent Senators in a resolution that would have us attack Iran if they have even the “capability” to create a nuclear bomb, This is whether or not they actually produce one. Yeah Joe, and you should be the first one out of the plane, hopefully without a parachute, when we invade.
This piece of gross stupidity comes in the wake of our intelligence agencies agreeing that Iran has decided not to build a nuke and our former head of military intelligence proclaiming that an invasion would be “pre-mature.” That’s intelligence speak for “Jesus! Don’t even think about it.”
Both the Israeli and American intelligence communities have agreed since 2007, that Iran had stopped work on a bomb in 2003 and had never resumed. That still holds true. Iran isn’t developing a bomb mainly because they have nothing to gain my having one, and that makes the right wing very sad. These guys think war is fun, mainly because their kids get exemptions and they’ve all got stock in Remington and Uzzi.
Sure, US neocons, Israeli headhunters and the news media want a war. The neocons like to kill things and make big bucks off the process. The Israeli right wants to show how powerful they are, even if they have to destroy their own country to prove it, and the media loves war because it gives even the least talented something to write about.
To deny Iran, the capability of creating a nuclear weapon is to deny them the ability to generate nuclear power and that is a road to war. Where do we get the right to tell another country what kind of power they can use? We don’t, mainly because we’re sitting on more destructive nuclear potential than anyone in the world.
But the stupidity of Lieberman and his war loving cronies is that even if Iran did develop a nuclear weapon, there is no practical use for it. One weapon? Israel probably has a couple of hundred, we have over two thousand ready to go and God knows how many more in storage. Iran will have one! Please!
What’s really amazing is that a couple of Lieberman’s backers are politicians that I used to think were pretty smart, legislators like Chuck Schumer of NY, Mark Udall of Colorado and Kirsten Gillibrand of NY. Of course there’s always the real warmongers with established moron, Lindsey Graham heading up the list. I would expect Graham to be backing a proposal like this but I am surprised at the other three. Maybe it’s just a cynical bow to the up and coming elections with the otherwise liberal senators looking to pick up some conservative votes due to a plan that they never expect to have legs. It’s a very dangerous game to be playing just to get a few votes and they should be ashamed of themselves.
So should the Republican candidates for the presidency; all screaming that we need to invade Iran just because they know that this will instill love in the blood thirsty gun lobby. Any degenerate clown who preaches war with Iran after what this country has been through in the last ten years should, himself, be put down.
When do we have enough of war and killing? What do we possibly have to gain from invading another country in the Middle East? Iran will never attack the US. It would be suicidal, a war they could not win. I was arguing with a right wing friend the other night, and stated that it was illogical to think Iran would do such a thing, My friend argued back that I couldn’t bank our safety on the concept that Iran would act logically. He was wrong. The problem we face is not Iran acting illogically. It is our own country doing so. Iran doesn’t want a war. Why would it? What could it possibly have to gain by being decimated, turned into present day Iraq? The people who are acting illogically are the religious right in Israel and the neo-cons in the US, all screaming to invade. They must be silenced or we will again make the same mistake Bush/Cheney made twice. That is something that our country is in no condition to survive. Not without destroying our economy.
Despite the obvious facts above, we are again on the brink of war. Why? It’s simple. Only one half of 1% of the United States public is fighting our wars. This makes being at war un-American, this is why we have been engaged in 2 wars for the last ten years and despite this we are now talking about getting into a third one.
Jon Krakauer states accurately that we are asking our soldiers to do two jobs when they are only trained to do one. We ask them to fight, which is their business but we also ask them to nation build for which they have no affinity. They are not the Peace Corps. They are trained to kill people, not teach school or run day care centers.
Critics scream that we are always at war and this is true. We are a warlike nation. Maybe this time it’s because most American’s have no skin in the game. We are disconnected because we are not involved. I was a child during WWII. If you walked down any street you could see little flags with stars in almost every window. The nation was at war, the whole nation, not just a small minority who could easily be overlooked. Now a few hundred thousand professional soldiers are at war and the rest of us have nothing to do with it. Once America eliminated the draft, a huge step was taken in the direction of eternal war. Our citizen soldiers are gone and we now have a professional army and that’s what professional armies do – they fight.
I am not advocating the reinstitution of the draft, mainly because I don’t think our politicians have the balls to pass such a law but I do think that it’s time for some kind of national service to be enacted. I think it’s time for our young people… all our young people… to get an idea of what it means to be part of a nation. I’m talking about a national service from which there would be no exemptions, a broad based program hat would allow for military service, social service, infrastructure service, a whole raft of mini programs that would allow for service on enough levels that something would suit everyone and all would benefit, especially the country.
I will have more on this idea in a later blog but the point here is that for us to feel the pain of war or the joy of peace we must have a sense that we are all in it together, a sense that does not exist in this country, today. Maybe if more of us felt the pain of war we wouldn’t be so anxious to partake in its folly.
Maybe if a few wealthy mothers had to mourn the murders of their children fighting meaningless or for profit wars, their husbands would withdraw their investment in the machines that drive them.