So, I’m in a jury selection room. I have no choice but to be there, no control over TV or the volume. And Bush holds a press conference.
In 5 minutes he just praised the intelligence services for getting it wrong, (‘good job, Spookie!’) and then criticized Iran for not puting together a “competent presdency since 1979.” :-/
Q: How do I keep my irony meter from exploding? Is there a way to keep my ears from bleeding? I mean, I couldn’t take this long-winded jerk less seriously if BIFF!WHAMM! and BAP! were showing on the screen behind him…
Did baby forget to bwing his bottle? Ah, poor baby. Maybe next time you could have your mommy write a note to the court to put the channel on the Teletubbies that way your poor wittle ears will not get hurt.
You don’t think it is ironic and disgustingly hypocritical for the US to criticize Iran for not having a proper democracy and a president? Maybe you should read some history. I would be pissed off if I heard that press conference too.
I wouldn’t stop with irony and hypocrisy. The US has effectively declared war on Iran by declaring a portion of its military to be terrorists. (There is, allegedly, a war on terror.) And so, stupid must be added to the list. The foreign policy of this administration trumps even the most expansionist before it. Bush has made us into the Godzilla of the world. He has made it dangerous even to just be an American. I mean God, I just don’t know what to say.
Please illustrate the differences between Bush’s Iran policy and that of presidents before him. After all, it isn’t as if relations were rosy ten or twenty tears ago.
Well, they certainly aren’t better. I know we will not and can not be friends with Iran, but I’d like to see a little more in the way of communication than saber-rattling rhetoric.
I just don’t trust the guy or what he considers reliable intelligence.
Thus, to me, Bush criticizing another country’s president smacks of pot-and-kettle name calling.
An incompetent calling someone else an incompetent doesn’t meet that hurdle? For me, the report yesterday was the last straw. The intelligence services knew since 2003 that Iran had discontinued a bomb program (yes, I know, they continued to enrich) yet the Bush government continued to rattle the sabre as recently as October about Iran’s nuclear plans.
I could be supportive if they were honest. Yes, parts of Iran’s military is supporting terrorism and their president would destroy Israel if he could. Base policy on those things, not on trumped up charges that later prove to be completely wrong.
What I said was foreign policy. The interventionism. The colonialism. The hegemony. The fucking goddamn notion that we know how other people need to live their lives. It seems to me that people on the right ought to understand that, since they complain about it (rightfully so) regarding people on the left.
Not quite true. It is their current assessment that weapons work stopped in 2003, but that wasn’t their 2003 assessment, nor was it their 2005 assessment.
According to the administration (I know) it was not an official NIE assessment until August 2007. I will forgive people for acting under the assumption that Iran wants nuclear weapons, and is actively pursuing them. I think that they still are. But the question “are they a current or imminent threat to the region” still deserves vigorous attention.
I think we should operate under the assumption that Iran is trying to get nukes. Verifying that one or the other is next to impossible. What we should do about that is the key question. “Bomb them” is not, IMO, the right answer.
Now, Bricker, no need to be nasty. I’m making a legitimate point, even if I chose the wrong words to make it. There’s a good reason Iran doesn’t have a democracy, and that reason is the US of fucking A. If you don’t want to address that point, fine, don’t, but don’t criticize my choice of vocabulary and ignore the deeper point.