As long as you get your ignorant flock to back unlimited Israeli aggression (and unlimited American aid to cover the costs), you can say whatever you want. Like how you hope the U.S. will be nuked after Israel provokes a war with Russia.
Durn, Them Frogs Is Better Americans Than Us
They hate the Iranians more than we do:
A majority of people from around the world hold predominantly negative views of Israel, Iran, and the United States, according to a survey [.pdf] of more than 28,000 respondents in 27 countries. …
For Iran, the strongest negative opinions were found in Europe, particularly in France (86 percent), Italy (84 percent), Germany (78 percent), Portugal (77 percent), and Britain (76 percent). Three out of four Canadians and Australians also expressed mainly negative opinions about Iran, which Washington and other Western powers have accused of pursuing nuclear weapons. In the U.S., 63 percent of respondents gave a negative assessment, a remarkably sharp drop from the 81 percent who expressed a negative opinion in a similar BBC poll take in late 2005.
Putin Again
Regarding Putin, NPR ran an anti-Putin story today in which it was stated:
“Parliament is now dominated by a pro-Putin majority that speeds through Kremlin-issued legislation, often too quickly for deputies even to read new bills.”
I don’t know why this is so objectionable. Substitute Congress for “Parliament,” pro-Bush for “pro-Putin,” and Bush administration-issued for “Kremlin-issued” and you have a perfect picture of the U.S. government under Republican rule. Although I realize that the Democrats are no better, thank God for the “regime change” we had in November. And no, I am no fan of Putin (or any world leader), but at least he didn’t send 150,000 Russian troops to Iraq.
Misplaced Sorrow
Lew Rockwell writes:
I know that Scooter Libby, like any high-ranking apparatchik, has blood on his hands. Still, I find it hard to celebrate his conviction. First, punishing anyone for the crime of naming a CIA spy violates the first amendment. Second, he was not accused of this offense, but of lying to the FBI, etc. about it. […]
If the Bush administration had wanted to repeal the Intelligence Identities Protection Act at any time before the Plame incident, thereby making us all a little bit freer in a way we’d probably never notice (and themselves much freer to lie us into war), they could have. Hell, the GOP controlled Congress at the time! It would’ve been a breeze. But they did not wish to decriminalize that behavior, or any other. Moreover, they would have thrown me or Lew under the goddamn prison had one of us done the revealing.
Second, the fact that Libby was convicted of perjury and such instead of mass murder, which he is certainly an accomplice to, should be filed under “Some Guys Have All the Luck.” It’s as if Charles Manson had simply been convicted of hate speech for carving that wacky swastika on his forehead: I’d be against the law, but I wouldn’t be out holding a candlelight vigil for the defendant. And since Scooter has the best lawyers money can buy and a sure pardon coming his way, now ain’t the time for anyone’s tears (except maybe Cheney’s).
John Mueller
Overblown: The Bogus War on Terror
John Mueller, professor of political science at Ohio State University and author of Overblown: How Politicians and the Terrorism Industry Inflate National Security Threats and Why We Believe Them and this great Foreign Affairs article, discusses the bogus “War on Terror,” the Fear Industry (public and private) and the waste and violations of rights that go along with them.
MP3 here. (59:24)
John Mueller holds the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies, Mershon Center, and is professor of Political Science, at Ohio State University where he teaches courses in international relations and is the author of a book analyzing public opinion during the Korean and Vietnam Wars, War, Presidents and Public Opinion and of Retreat from Doomsday: The Obsolescence of Major War which deals with changing attitudes toward war.
Mueller has also published Policy and Opinion in the Gulf War and Quiet Cataclysm: Reflections on the Recent Transformation of World Politics. His Capitalism, Democracy, and Ralph’s Pretty Good Grocery was published in 1999.
Mueller has published scores of articles in such journals as International Security, American Political Science Review, Security Studies, Orbis, American Journal of Political Science, National Interest, Foreign Affairs, Political Science Quarterly, Journal of Peace Research, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, and Foreign Policy, as well as many editorial page columns and articles in the Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New Republic, Reason, Washington Post, and New York Times. He has been a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and the Nobel Institute in Olso, Norway.
Mueller is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, and has received grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has also received several teaching prizes.
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