Political Games - Where the fuck’s the reset button?

So today’s Inquirer Editorial pages featured some of the stupidest clips I’ve ever read. Where to start?

Well we had the one letter to the editor which called for the U.S. Government to institute a draft… on Iraqi Shiites. I’m not kidding. Here’s the text:

In Iraq, the unemployment rate is close to 50 percent. The insurgents are generally members of the minority Sunni Baathist Party and other Arabs, both from inside and outside the country who, for various reasons, hate modernity and the changes it might bring.

The Shiites are by far the majority and the people who held up their purple-dyed fingers to tell the world that they bravely voted for freedom and democracy. Since they’re unemployed, why not draft them? They could raise an army 500,000 strong and easily put down the insurgency.

We’re paying to support the country now, except we are getting very little for our money. By requiring its citizens to serve in the army, we could develop a formidable ally in the Middle East and really bring about change.

Wow. That’s gotta be the dumbest suggestion ever. So many problems with it… first, it’s NOT OUR COUNTRY!! For all our talk of sovereignty and freedom, Americans like this individual act like we own it. Second, this is suggesting that we only draft Shiites. Cause that would really help the situation… by making it even more of a religious war! Third, it’s going to make the insurgency stronger and cause all the Sunnis in the Middle East to support whole-heartedly the insurgency. Last, it leaves us with more enemies and strengthens the movement for a united Islamic world, which would be change, but it would hurt us, and the push for democratic reform.

Then we had the Blog Cabin. Normally, I really appreciate this part of the Inquirer. They keep it balanced, show lots of different opinions… but today… ugh. They quoted exclusively from Littlegreenfootballs. This site is a source of… uh… conservative “intellectualism”. Ok, enough sarcasm: this site fosters some of the most vile, violent, and obnoxious ideas and opinions on the internet. So on the subject on Iran, here’s the enlightened thoughts form lgf… taken excerpt by excerpt:

The only question left at this point is whether Iran has already succeeded in assembling nuclear bombs. Kenneth Timmerman’s highly recommended (and terrifying) new book Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown with Iran argues that it’s too late to stop them.

lgf

Replace Iran with Iraq. Thank you.

Well, at least we have a few thousand H-bombs to their one.

Black George Bush

Did he just call for nuking Iran? Yes, I believe he did.

If we could get some more support from our so-called allies, we could take on this challenge and make sure that Iran doesn’t prepare itself adequately for an attack. Looks like it’s up to us again to make the hard decisions.

MrRight

Well if we hadn’t made the hard [sic] decision with Iraq, maybe the Reform candidate would have won the “election”. But since the U.S. appears to be a threat, the hard-line conservative candidate won. What a shock.

My friend was in the Iranian Army a few years ago during a presidential election. He says that his battalion … [was] ordered to vote for the ruling party seven times. Each time, they were given a new - fake - ID and trucked to the polls. That’s how the [bad guys] “win.” Time to take them out!

Mardukhai

Cause that never happens in America!

I’ve been justifying the Iraq war to people, telling them it’s a tactical set-up so we can enter Iran from four different countries: Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Kuwait. But if we have them on four fronts, when … are we going to do something about them?

I hope Israel at least acts.

Dayenu

Wow. So we invaded Iraq to invade Iran? With what fcking army? Our troops are currently in the quagmire that is Iraq thanks to that brilliant invasion. And by the way… to get to Iran from Kuwait, you have to go through Iraq. Furthermore, this guy’s making the same mistake as the first letter-to-the-editor: we don’t own any of these countries. If they were honestly free democracies, we’d have to go through a whole political process to get permission to use those countries as bases. But they all have puppet regimes. And Israel acting would be momentously stupid.

… [W]hich bunch of crazies will toss the bomb first, North Korea or Iran? At the moment, the odds are even.

harrison

Which is why we invaded Iraq. Wait…

Unfortunately, it will take a nuclear attack on a major U.S. city to forge the consensus necessary to act. That’s the bad thing. The only upside is the war on terror, and all its aiding and abetting states, will end within 60 minutes of it.

kamperken

You heard it here first: conservatives believe there’s an upside to a nuclear attack. Wait, didn’t I hear this before… “the smoking gun could come in the form of a mushroom cloud” -Bush officials peddling Iraqi war. Yep. Nothing to see here…

The forthcoming showdown with Tehran over nukes. The coming showdown with Beijing over Taiwan. And we know that the liberals and the Democratic Party will be right there to lead us … into a nice discussion on torturing Islamofascist killers with Christine Aguilera music.

Mister Ghost

Those showdowns have been in the works for decades. You just noticed them. Oh, and btw: none of the people in our “prisons” have been charged with anything. And 100 have died. I doubt from music.

I hope to God that this week’s comments by the Pentagon and White House regarding the mullahs’ fake elections is the start of the Iranian offensive. If it isn’t, we’re facing a real nuclear winter in the near future.

The Bruce

They don’t even want to try to negotiaite; they want us to bomb the shit out of Iran, now! And again, same stuff we heard about Iraq.

My instinct tends to be to not worry, in the sense that I assume Israel knows exactly how far Iran has gotten and would bomb their program if the Iranian weapon were imminent. The fact that Israel hasn’t started bombing … suggests that Iran isn’t close enough to be a threat yet.

Aristopheles

That’s a scary thought. But wait, wouldn’t Israel have bombed Iraq if they had been a threat? Then why did we invade them? Ugh… look over there! Michael Jackson!

This new Iranian president looks like a shoeshine guy in the Islamabad train station - Savonarola in a cheap suit - the guy at the end of True Lies who rides the missile… methinks we are in for big trouble with this crowd of bully boy religious fanatics

romaine
June 26

As opposed to the bully boy relgious fanatics causing big trouble who are in control of the federal government? uhhhh… look, runaway bride!!

This is the base of the political party that controls all the levers of the U.S. government. Be afraid. Very, very afraid.

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Can we redo the election? Please? Right now? Because ANY Democrat would absolutely destroy President Bush right now.

In the latest state-by-state poll, the President loses at least 10 states that he won on election day (including Ohio and Florida), while gaining 0. That’s right: every state which voted for Kerry in the 04 election cycle really disapproves of the way Bush is running the country. The surprising thing is the large number of red states who are split even or against the President. Indiana is 48-48. Freaking Indiana!

Put a fork in this one boys: it looks like a lame duck to me!

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ok, so I was gonna post something serious… then I found this. Let’s examine this headline…

Bush Anxious to Learn More of Deep Throat

Yes. Somebody at the AP was having a lil too much fun…

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Ok, so Eugene, long ago, signed me up for a couple Republican mailing lists… for which I heartily thank him. They have been an invaluable source of both insight, information, and humor. Today, I bring you the latter. From a recent mailing about the “liberal media bias” [ed: I had to pause about 4 minutes while I laughed about that], we had this brilliant statement:

Anderson tells readers how Americans across the ideological spectrum are taking advantage of new media like talk radio and blogs to rebuff the left. [Emphasis mine]

Just in case you didn’t understand what I was mocking: he called “talk radio” a form of “new media”. I’m sorry, but that’s just fucking stupid. Really, really fucking stupid. Talk radio has only been used as a front since the 1930s and Roosevelt’s presidency [Huey Long, anyone?]. The notion that “Americans” are taking advantage of that new-fangled radio thingamabob is also moronic: talk radio has a pretty narrow selection of hosts to listen to [unless you branch out into, say, AirAmerica and such. But that’s not who they’re talking about]. And about those blogs… blogs are great. It is an excellent chance for anybody, anybody, to influence others, and write about stuff. However, it’s not just conservatives doing it: it’s everybody. Across the entire political spectrum.

And what exactly are “South Park Conservatives”? I’m gonna dig a little into this book…

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