"As long as George Bush is commander-in-chief of the US military and he and his advisers are intent on getting the US into a shooting war with Iran, Iran is the issue." Josh MarshallDavid Seaton's News Links
Webster defines the word, "surreal" as, "marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream". That Bush, failed in Iraq, struggling in Afghanistan, could, may very well... in fact, probably will, start another war... very soon, has all the qualities necessary to fill Webster´s definition.
Dream? Nightmare? Why quibble?
Philip Stephens wrote in his Financial Times column that "the White House once again seems hell-bent on being outwitted in the court of global opinion; and, maybe, on making a strategic miscalculation that could make the war in Iraq look like a sideshow."
There is much speculation that all of this is to be done for Israel's benefit: Both the Israel lobby, AIPAC and Norman Podhoretz, a senior foreign policy advisor to Rudy Giuliani and the "godfather of neoconservatism", beat the drum ceaslessly for a war with Iran, but according to the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, Israeli "Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a few months ago in a series of closed discussions that in her opinion that Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel"
David Ignatius wrote in the Washingon Post,"Military action would be irrational for both sides. But that doesn't mean it won't happen. I wish the Bush administration could see that with each step it takes closer to conflict, it is walking toward a well-planned trap."
"Irrational", sister to "surreal" is the operative word.
As Paul Krugman said, "All of this would be funny if it weren’t so serious." Fareed Zacharia wrote in Newsweek, "This would all be funny if it weren't so dangerous." Russian President Vladimir Putin commented, "I think running around like a lunatic -- with a razor and waving a red banner -- isn't the best way to solve this kind of problem". And a New York Times editorial said, “With a different White House, we might dismiss this as posturing — or bank on sanity to carry the day, or the warnings of exhausted generals or a defense secretary more rational than his predecessor. Not this crowd.”
Albert Einstein once said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Los Angeles Times columnist, Rosa Brooks has come right out and accused Bush of being clinically insane. Rosa Brooks is not only a columnist, she is also a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center who specializes in international law, human rights, law of war, state failure, terrorism and rule of law issues. So this is not some bag lady shouting on a street corner. She wrote, "What's a constitutional democracy to do when the president and vice president lose their marbles? The U.S. is full of ordinary people with serious forms of mental illness -- delusional people with violent fantasies who think they're the president, or who think they get instructions from the CIA through their dental fillings. The problem with Bush is that he is the president -- and he gives instructions to the CIA and military, without having to go through his dental fillings."
Certainly the declining months of Bush's raj are reminiscent of those old Hollywood films about the Roman empire... Nero and his magic violin, Caligula and his consul horse. The world hanging on the product of a diseased brain. DS
Michael Hirsh: Another Turn of the Screw - Newsweek
Abstract: For some people, it all felt unnervingly like a lurch back to 2002—the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration's announcement of wide-ranging sanctions against Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Defense Ministry—as well as its major banks—tarred much of Tehran's officialdom as rogues, terror supporters or proliferators. Russian President Vladimir Putin, displaying his gift for anti-American metaphor, likened the Bush officials to "mad people wielding razor blades." Democratic lion Sen. Robert Byrd thundered: "Congress will not be kept out of the loop while this administration plots another march to war."(...) their new approach does seem to cut off the possibility of high-level negotiations with the current Iranian government, at least for the present. Even a key U.S. ally, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, says the sanctions alienate U.S. officials from the only real decision makers in Iran. "The Revolutionary Guards … are the ones who are running the Iranian government," Zebari said last week. While Bush administration officials insist that Tehran intends to build a bomb, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is concerned that Iran wants eventually to become a "virtual nuclear- weapons state," like Japan. That is, it wants to have the technology, industry and expertise to produce a bomb on short notice, but doesn't necessarily want to make or test one. ("Yes, that is what we are doing," a senior Iranian envoy, who was not authorized to speak on the record, told NEWSWEEK last week.) Many Iranians hint that this would be a sufficient strategic deterrent, unless the United States attacks first. READ IT ALL
Webster defines the word, "surreal" as, "marked by the intense irrational reality of a dream". That Bush, failed in Iraq, struggling in Afghanistan, could, may very well... in fact, probably will, start another war... very soon, has all the qualities necessary to fill Webster´s definition.
Dream? Nightmare? Why quibble?
Philip Stephens wrote in his Financial Times column that "the White House once again seems hell-bent on being outwitted in the court of global opinion; and, maybe, on making a strategic miscalculation that could make the war in Iraq look like a sideshow."
There is much speculation that all of this is to be done for Israel's benefit: Both the Israel lobby, AIPAC and Norman Podhoretz, a senior foreign policy advisor to Rudy Giuliani and the "godfather of neoconservatism", beat the drum ceaslessly for a war with Iran, but according to the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, Israeli "Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a few months ago in a series of closed discussions that in her opinion that Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel"
David Ignatius wrote in the Washingon Post,"Military action would be irrational for both sides. But that doesn't mean it won't happen. I wish the Bush administration could see that with each step it takes closer to conflict, it is walking toward a well-planned trap."
"Irrational", sister to "surreal" is the operative word.
As Paul Krugman said, "All of this would be funny if it weren’t so serious." Fareed Zacharia wrote in Newsweek, "This would all be funny if it weren't so dangerous." Russian President Vladimir Putin commented, "I think running around like a lunatic -- with a razor and waving a red banner -- isn't the best way to solve this kind of problem". And a New York Times editorial said, “With a different White House, we might dismiss this as posturing — or bank on sanity to carry the day, or the warnings of exhausted generals or a defense secretary more rational than his predecessor. Not this crowd.”
Albert Einstein once said, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." Los Angeles Times columnist, Rosa Brooks has come right out and accused Bush of being clinically insane. Rosa Brooks is not only a columnist, she is also a law professor at the Georgetown University Law Center who specializes in international law, human rights, law of war, state failure, terrorism and rule of law issues. So this is not some bag lady shouting on a street corner. She wrote, "What's a constitutional democracy to do when the president and vice president lose their marbles? The U.S. is full of ordinary people with serious forms of mental illness -- delusional people with violent fantasies who think they're the president, or who think they get instructions from the CIA through their dental fillings. The problem with Bush is that he is the president -- and he gives instructions to the CIA and military, without having to go through his dental fillings."
Certainly the declining months of Bush's raj are reminiscent of those old Hollywood films about the Roman empire... Nero and his magic violin, Caligula and his consul horse. The world hanging on the product of a diseased brain. DS
Michael Hirsh: Another Turn of the Screw - Newsweek
Abstract: For some people, it all felt unnervingly like a lurch back to 2002—the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The Bush administration's announcement of wide-ranging sanctions against Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Defense Ministry—as well as its major banks—tarred much of Tehran's officialdom as rogues, terror supporters or proliferators. Russian President Vladimir Putin, displaying his gift for anti-American metaphor, likened the Bush officials to "mad people wielding razor blades." Democratic lion Sen. Robert Byrd thundered: "Congress will not be kept out of the loop while this administration plots another march to war."(...) their new approach does seem to cut off the possibility of high-level negotiations with the current Iranian government, at least for the present. Even a key U.S. ally, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, says the sanctions alienate U.S. officials from the only real decision makers in Iran. "The Revolutionary Guards … are the ones who are running the Iranian government," Zebari said last week. While Bush administration officials insist that Tehran intends to build a bomb, Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is concerned that Iran wants eventually to become a "virtual nuclear- weapons state," like Japan. That is, it wants to have the technology, industry and expertise to produce a bomb on short notice, but doesn't necessarily want to make or test one. ("Yes, that is what we are doing," a senior Iranian envoy, who was not authorized to speak on the record, told NEWSWEEK last week.) Many Iranians hint that this would be a sufficient strategic deterrent, unless the United States attacks first. READ IT ALL
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