Spot: Is he dead yet?
Barney: Don’t think so.
Spot: We can’t start eating him until he’s dead?
Barney: Pretty sure those are the rules.
Spot: Oh. So…is he dead yet?
Heh. I needed that chuckle.
[shrug] Get ready for a wide range of wildly conflicting “expert” opinions on that, and not just on the Dope.
I’m sure if there’s some kind of problem with the law about consulates, Bush will just write a signing statement explaining how he’s a god among men and the laws don’t apply to him. If he feels like explaining himself at all.
The U.S. military now says the five men detained “are connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s al-Qods Force, an organization that is active in arming, training, and funding Middle East militant groups, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon.”
Not a consulate.
I note that after we discovered it wasn’t an embassy or even a consulate, the outrage has died down. :rolleyes:
The Kurds, at any rate, are none too pleased. They demand the immediate release of the detainees (based on diplomatic immunity) and that their regional government be informed in advance of any such future U.S. actions in Iraqi Kurdistan.
Iran is insisting the five men arrested are diplomats and is planning to lodge a complaint with the UN Security Council.
Yeah, and the KGB and CIA claimed exactly the same thing when their spies were captured.
Despite the clear incompetence of the Bush administration, I tend to believe them just a bit more than the apocalyptic nutjobs in Iran.
In fact, I would completely discount Iran’s claim, on the basis that it was completely predictable that they would make it, no matter who those people are.
Might very well be true, Sam. There is some question on that. But that question is rather the point, don’t you think? In such a tense situation, doesn’t it behoove the actors to take extraordinary care that their actions are not provocative?
Unless, of course, provocation is more or less the point of the excercise…
“Sometimes our right hand doesn’t know what our far-right hand is doing.” Ronald Reagan
No less than it behooves them to be sure they’re making their decisions on the basis of facts, and unbiased assessments of non-cherry-picked intelligence, of course. It wouldn’t do at all, for instance, to invade Iran and destroy their government, and only *then * start seeing if they had WMD’s. No matter *what * smell was in the air.
But then that should be obvious.
I assume this was tongue in cheek?
You mean like not shooting down the other guy’s airplanes? Not shipping guns and weapons to the insurgency? Not threatening to wipe other countries off the map?
It’s Iran who’s being provocative here. And if in fact those guys are revolutionary guards, that’s yet another provocation. Why go blaming the U.S. again?
Cite. Definitely. I pay some attention to the news, but missed the blaring headlines “Iran shoots down American planes!” How many pilots have we lost, Sam. Over who’s air space? Really, Iran moved an anti-aircraft battery into Iraq and shot down American planes? Wow! Pretty heavy stuff, there, Sam. Soon as you cite, of course.
“The insurgency”? Hmmmm. I presume you mean the Shia militia, since Iran is most closely associated with Shia. Are you suggesting that America attack anyone who is arming and assisting the Sunni as well? Or is your belligerence focused and exclusive?
All efforts unavailing, Israel is not the 51st state of the United States. Other nations are entirely at liberty to hate one anothers guts. What they are not supposed to do is invade under false pretenses of imminent threat. We covered this.
Well, gee, Sam, if we weren’t where we shouldn’t be, this might not be happening, don’t you think? Has it not occured to you that our every action in the past several years has been a whopping big Christmas present to the ruling mullahs of Iran?
And they didn’t even thank us. They are as ungrateful as the Iraqis! Must be a Muslim thing.
Well, they maybe *want * to. That’s the same thing as *doing * it, according to the warhawk arguments **Sam ** treated us to so many lives ago, from his safe bunker in the north country.
Point of order, Mr. Chairman. “Insurgency” generally means Sunni, “militia” means Shiite. One group seems to hate us and want to kill us a little more than the other, not that it matters anymore.
We did shoot down an Iranian airliner, many years ago. Maybe he means that?
Weak.
Real weak.