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Tuesday, April 11, 2006

I hope he's wrong

Seymour Hersh, the man who broke the story on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal writes in a recent New Yorker article that the U.S. Government is frighteningly close to invading Iran. Scarier still, apparently an integral part of the plan involves using tactical nukes to destroy Iran's underground nuclear facilities. One government official said, "we used them in Japan and they worked. We may have to use them there [Iran]." A big reason for using nuclear weapons is due to the lack of reliable intelligence in the Mideast.

When do we decide to go ahead and finish what we start (read: Afghanistan, Iraq) before starting new adventures in diplomacy?

If you want to see Hersh's interview with Wolf Blitzer, go to YouTube. (I couldn't figure out how to post it here.)

This is from the guy who writes Get Your War On:

A colleague of mine was expressing his concern about Bush's plan to destroy Iran's nukes by dropping nukes. He said this would be a bad idea, because it would be like throwing stones at a hornets nest. I thought about this for a moment. No, I said. Supporting Isreal's six day war was like throwing rocks at a hornets nest. Supporting the corrupt Saudi royal family is throwing stones at a hornets hest. Overthrowing Iran's democraticly elected president in 1953 was throwing stones at a hornets nest. Invading an oil rich sovereign Muslim nation and killing 150,000 civillians because of what 19 Saudis did to New York on September 11th was just a little bit like throwing stones at a hornets nest.Dropping a nuke on Iran? Dropping a nuke on Iran would be like dropping a tactical thermo-nuclear warhead on a hornets nest. And then, every single hornets nest for a thousand miles would kill absolutely everything in site that wasn't a hornets nest.Imagine if these guys had the Quran memorized...


Comments:
Well, we should totally listen to the guy who writes "Get Your War On," shouldn't we? I mean, he's totally unbiased and reasonable....

Second of all, this isn't going to happen. It's psychological warfare--we're messing with Iran's heads a bit. Cold War tactics. You can have a take on whether or not you agree with these types of tactics, but that is what it is.

We're not dropping nukes on Iran. Cool out with the paranoia.
 
Who should we be listening to?

I don't believe anyone.
 
I'm surprised you didn't bring up the fact that Hersh writes for the New Yorker. I agree that we might be much further away from all of this than he may suggest, but I didn't think we would really go to Iraq either. And we did. I guess I'm just trying to introduce my conscience to the idea before it really happens.

I'm not saying this is gospel, just an interesting take.

By the way, Hersh is not the guy who writes Get Your War On. That guy's take is the bottom half.
 
^^ I know, I can read! Sheesh. (That was supposed to be in whiney/condensending, 5th-grader-ish tone, by the way)

Look, I don't think there is a chance in the world we are going to go in there nukes a blazin'. There's just not. Do I think nothing is going to happen? Uh, no. Something probably will.

That said, shouldn't we? Wouldn't it be safe to say that Iran is a legitimate, no-faulty-intellegence threat? They are openly saying "hey, look over here! We're enriching uranium!"

I really don't know what strategy works here. It seems to me that the threat of a nuclear attack on them does not scare them--it excites them. It gives them legitimacy. And an excuse.

What I do know is them mother fuckers are not clowning around, and are bat-shit crazy. But we also cannot just sit around and say "we like you Iran, and we won't do anything to make you mad." We tried that for 20 years with the Soviets. It wasn't until Ronald Reagan actually stood up and told them to piss off and change, or we would force the issue. It took all eight years of his presidency, but the United States (obviously) prevailed.

What's funny is that the Beltway and New York freaked out at this tactic, and famously called Reagan a "cowboy." Sounds like a familiar movie, doesn't it?
 
I was in single digits when that happened, so I appreciated G.I. Joe's and He-Men. Now that I've aged (not necessarily wisened up), I don't think that force is the best option. We had solid information that Iraq did not have nuclear capabilities when we went in...three years ago. If Iran really does and we go in, we will lose more than a couple of thousands of soldiers. And precisely for the same reason that you said--those dudes are bat-shit crazy.
 
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