Outside the Spectrum

  
   The Hammer speaks again today. His opinion piece is largely one long hyperventilation about how bad Iran is, and how they are threatening Israel, and how, in the ominous closing paragraph, “Negotiations to deny this certifiable lunatic genocidal weapons have been going nowhere. Everyone knows they will go nowhere. And no one will do anything about it.”

    Or, put more simply, “Waaaaaaaaaaaah! Waaaaah!” Yes, yes, Hammer, we know. It’s hard to deal with all the nut jobs in the world. But this paragraph caught my eye because Hammer doesn’t really seem to have an answer. He seems to be implying we should impose sanctions, or perhaps invade. He doesn’t explicitly offer any solutions, though.

   What is the world supposed to do? What are we supposed to do, invade a country just because we don’t like its leader? Impose sanctions because we have a right to weapons of mass destruction but others don’t? Or should the U.S. try to impose sanctions because we don’t like the idea of Iran having nuclear reactors (reactors that are legal)?

   Neocons like Krauthammer have this amazing assumption that the United States can invade other countries just because we don’t like their government. Doing so is unambiguously illegal under international law and in the eyes of the international community. The only justification for war is in self-defense or to stop genocide. Neither case would be even remotely applicable.

   Thus we get the whining. The simpering, pathetic scrawling of Charles Krauhammer crying about Iran because there’s not shit-all his imperialist buddies can do about it and they know it.

   Belligerent rhetoric doesn’t justify anything.

   Iran isn’t going to solve this problem with violence. Israel is conventionally more powerful than Iran and Israel has many nuclear weapons courtesy of the U.S. of A. Even if Israel was like a babe in the woods the western world would never let Iran destroy her.

   Krauthammer raises the specter of Iran nuking Israel, though this would certainly result in a counterstrike that would destroy Iran. Iran would gain nothing from this scenario.

   The United States has given more military and non-military aid to Israel than to any other nation on Earth. Haven’t we done enough? Apparently not.

   Mr. Lieberman was blisteringly critical of Democrats who were obsessing on part of the rationale for the United States going to Iraq, made three years ago, and of Republicans who were faltering because they speculate that support for the war might cost them their re-election next year. Mr. Lieberman sees "the big picture" of Iraq and the Middle East, and how the success in building a local representative government there will affect its totalitarian neighbors, not to mention the most important impact of all -- significantly furthering the vital goal of creating a democratic Palestinian state that ends the region's half century of hostility and violence to the state of Israel, our oldest and best ally in the region.

   Brave, brave Barry Casselman in the Washington Times. Still advancing the notion that WMDs were “part” of the rationale for the United States going to Iraq. Let’s reread that one quote from the President’s Speech to the Nation when the war started:

   Our nation enters this conflict reluctantly -- yet, our purpose is sure. The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder. We will meet that threat now, with our Army, Air Force, Navy, Coast Guard and Marines, so that we do not have to meet it later with armies of fire fighters and police and doctors on the streets of our cities.

--President Bush, March 19, 2003, address to the nation

   So what was this war about, now?

   But oh, no. This is just Democrats “obsessing.” Joe L. is a “big picture” kinda guy, willfully striding forward with this administration into the sunny prospects of the Iraqi future, heedless of “little picture” details like the number of people killed or the amount of money spent. That is the way of “defeatists.”