Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Confirmed: we are homicidal maniacs

Over on turcopolier, Retired Col. W. Patrick Lang writes that we face a difficult moral choice - we either interfere in Iran to get a government we can negotiate with; or else we will end up making war on Iran. The former is surely kinder in the long run to the Iranians.

The latter comes about because Col. Lang is in despair whether the gullible American public will ever be able to see through the machinations of the Israeli lobby, the neocons, and the propaganda in the mainstream media, all of which are pounding out a drumbeat for war.

My response to that is that if we cannot restrain ourself in face of a threat that the reasonable among us know to be non-existent*** or exaggerated, we should throw ourselves to the mercy of the United Nations.

But it does seem clear that this is a nation with the seemingly unstoppable impulses of a homicidal maniac. It can be led to war just like that, like a dog on a leash.

***An unfriendly, nuclear-arms-seeking (and the evidence is mixed about that) Iran with a leader like Ahmedinejad is not a threat to the United States, certainly not one like e.g., the Soviet Union. Certainly not more than North Korea or Pakistan. Certainly not one that must be met with war. Only to those for whom the US is an appendage to Israel is a war on Iran a compulsion. Israeli and US interests, however, do not always coincide, as in the case of Iran.