When I watch, listen to or read transcripts of the 2008 Republican debates I am struck, again and again, at what a group of blithering dolts have come together to contest the Republican primary races. I wondered where they found these guys... until I realized that they sound almost exactly like the current administration. It may be through a sort of negative Darwinian selection the entire Republican Party has selected for the traits of foolishness, jingoism, insensitivity and a propensity to respond to uncertainty by wanting to kill someone. Preferably someone belonging to another culture or race, if one is handy, but absent that, anyone will do.
As evidence for the existence of this phenomena I offer the following exchange (below) during the recent GOP South Carolina debate. I am unaware of Fred Thompson or Mike Huckabee having any military experience. That did not seem to prevent either of them from falling into the trap set for them by a small group of Iranians with five fiberglass speedboats. What this group of aquatic pranksters thought they could accomplish by playing chicken with an American naval convoy in the Strait of Hormuz is open to conjecture. Had they come close to any of the vessels they clearly would have been blown out of the water. The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow, crowded and important shipping lane. It is important as the conduit for Iraqi oil to be exported, it is equally critical to Iran, to permit their oil exports. Iran is in the midst of an internal debate over the value of continuing to poke at the west with sharp sticks to cause a ruckus, or finding a more reasoned way forward that would permit the lifting of sanctions and an increase in trade. President Ahmadinejad campaigned on a platform of economic growth and distribution of Iran's oil revenues to the poor, who are struggling with inflation in the cost of basic goods in Iran. To date the opposite has happened and he has become widely unpopular inside Iran, both among the public and also among the ruling committee of Mullahs who wield ultimate political power in Iran, under the terms of the post-Shah Constitution.
What is challenging is to sort out which governing faction in Iran is in control of which branch of Iran's military. The Iranian army appears to have five or more sections, with a somewhat erratic command structure. One of them is called the "Iranian Revolutionary Guard" and that is the faction recently voted on by 75 Senators (including Hillary Clinton) as being a "terrorist group". Except, that would be like voting that the US Marines are a terrorist organization. By definition, any actions taken by any branch of a government are the actions of that government. Governments are (again, by definition) not normally seen as "terrorists". They may be seen as warlike nations, or warlike actions done by a nation, or acts of war, but terrorist acts? No. One of the difficulties of dealing with Iran is that different military units appear to be answerable to different factions within the Iranian government. Some are more moderate, some seem inclined toward confrontation and political theater. It serves the purpose of the most radical factions in the Iranian government to maintain a heightened state of hostility with the United States. The calculation seems to be that the people of Iran will side with their unpopular President against any perceived threat from the US, so a steady level of testing, rhetoric and provocation serves that faction's interests. It is a dangerous game, because the ruling Mullahs are growing increasingly tired of the acrimony. The most important thing for our country to do is not overreact or get sucked in to someone else's political posturing. For that we need political leaders with at least a minimal sense of how to respond to events, and when not to. The rhetoric of a couple of these guys is as overheated and addle-pated as the goofiest things a zealot like Ahmadinejad says to ratchet up anti-western hostility among his own people, to try to stay in office. The key thing for us to do, given the situation, is to not play into his game, to not give him stupid quotes to use to demonize us. I believe the Democratic candidates instinctively have the sense that their comments already are being taken as representative of our country. And they should.
My wife is in Egypt, after nine days in Istanbul, Turkey. She and her childhood friend Gail are on an adventure to someplace they've never been. And learning a lot. The report from Istanbul is that the Turks are warm and surprisingly funny, the food is astoundingly good, and although it is a Muslim culture there are no signs of people frothing at the mouth. Cynthia's report from Egypt is as follows:
The Egyptian people appear abrupt and serious, although they can be so kind and helpful. My first response flying in from Istanbul was one of anxiety, not the case now. Daily we saw sites dating from 3000-1000 BC. It became "old", like seeing cathedrals in Europe. Cairo is big, most of it reddish in color made of sand bricks. Along the Nile and the delta are 20-30 story hotels and buildings. From the airplane, all seemed reddish or white sand bricks. Flying from Aswan to Cairo was desert, miles and miles, with small paved roads that looked like they went from nowhere to nowhere. Most of the women on the street have chadors and the men gray or light-brown long robes with white headdress. In this hotel, the Four Seasons, it is different. Sitting having tea were two Arabic couples, the women wearing western dress (rather short and see-through) and at the adjoining table was the scarf-covered nanny with the children. Other tables appeared to have wealthy, rather arrogant looking Arabs, Europeans, or Africans. The common language in meetings was English - definitely sounding as though it is the universal language...
...we are both worn out. Tomorrow we have a full day visiting the pyramids, Sphinx and the Egyptian Museum. I am told the average wage of a bus driver is 600 Egyptian pounds per month, a coffee 1 Egyptian pound, a donkey 1000 pounds. Before coming I did not realize the biggest industry in Egypt is tourism, second is the Suez Canal and third are the foreigners living in Egypt. The country is crawling with tourists, Americans definitely in the minority. I am bringing home a few newspapers, one from Turkey and one from here. The US election is being watched, the Bush administration is definitely not liked. People seem to think very highly of Bill Clinton and mention his name in reverence. Surprise registers when Obama's name is mentioned, I believe in quite a favorable way.
All of that suggests to me that our world standing can be recaptured by electing the right man, or woman, as President. But again, I fear that none of these guys qualifies. And for cross-cultural insensitivity and saber-rattling, these comments by Thompson and the oh-so-Christian Huckabee (aka "Huck Thin") are right up there with the stupid racist comments one heard in the 19th and early 20th century. I'm sorry to have to put it so bluntly, but these guys are really clueless dumbasses. Huckabee's assumption that he knows who will be assigned to "hell" and who will not is breath-taking to me. The more I get to know him, the more I have come to loathe him. James Dobson of the "Focus on the Family" seems to think Huck farts perfume, which confirms all my suspicions about Dobson.
Asked about last weekend's Persian Gulf incident in which Iranian speed boats harassed U.S. warships, none of the presidential rivals found fault with U.S. naval commanders on the scene. But several took the opportunity to stress their determination to take stronger steps against Iran in the future.
"I think one more step, you know, and they would have been introduced to those virgins that they're looking forward to seeing," said Thompson.
Huckabee said if it happened again, the Iranians "Should be prepared to see the gates of Hell."
McCain, the only candidate with experience in the Navy, refused to second guess the actions of the commander of all the battle groups.
"I believe Iran represents a very serious threat," said Romney. He added he believes the incident was a calculated one to test U.S. defensive responses and was a "diversionary action ... It points out that we have in Iran a very troubled nation," he added. Romney drew mixed boos and applause from the audience when he criticized Texas Rep. Ron Paul for saying the United States must avoid another war. Romney said Paul had been reading "too many press releases by (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad," the Iranian president.
"Make fun buddy," muttered a clearly irritated Paul.
Arthur
As evidence for the existence of this phenomena I offer the following exchange (below) during the recent GOP South Carolina debate. I am unaware of Fred Thompson or Mike Huckabee having any military experience. That did not seem to prevent either of them from falling into the trap set for them by a small group of Iranians with five fiberglass speedboats. What this group of aquatic pranksters thought they could accomplish by playing chicken with an American naval convoy in the Strait of Hormuz is open to conjecture. Had they come close to any of the vessels they clearly would have been blown out of the water. The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow, crowded and important shipping lane. It is important as the conduit for Iraqi oil to be exported, it is equally critical to Iran, to permit their oil exports. Iran is in the midst of an internal debate over the value of continuing to poke at the west with sharp sticks to cause a ruckus, or finding a more reasoned way forward that would permit the lifting of sanctions and an increase in trade. President Ahmadinejad campaigned on a platform of economic growth and distribution of Iran's oil revenues to the poor, who are struggling with inflation in the cost of basic goods in Iran. To date the opposite has happened and he has become widely unpopular inside Iran, both among the public and also among the ruling committee of Mullahs who wield ultimate political power in Iran, under the terms of the post-Shah Constitution.
What is challenging is to sort out which governing faction in Iran is in control of which branch of Iran's military. The Iranian army appears to have five or more sections, with a somewhat erratic command structure. One of them is called the "Iranian Revolutionary Guard" and that is the faction recently voted on by 75 Senators (including Hillary Clinton) as being a "terrorist group". Except, that would be like voting that the US Marines are a terrorist organization. By definition, any actions taken by any branch of a government are the actions of that government. Governments are (again, by definition) not normally seen as "terrorists". They may be seen as warlike nations, or warlike actions done by a nation, or acts of war, but terrorist acts? No. One of the difficulties of dealing with Iran is that different military units appear to be answerable to different factions within the Iranian government. Some are more moderate, some seem inclined toward confrontation and political theater. It serves the purpose of the most radical factions in the Iranian government to maintain a heightened state of hostility with the United States. The calculation seems to be that the people of Iran will side with their unpopular President against any perceived threat from the US, so a steady level of testing, rhetoric and provocation serves that faction's interests. It is a dangerous game, because the ruling Mullahs are growing increasingly tired of the acrimony. The most important thing for our country to do is not overreact or get sucked in to someone else's political posturing. For that we need political leaders with at least a minimal sense of how to respond to events, and when not to. The rhetoric of a couple of these guys is as overheated and addle-pated as the goofiest things a zealot like Ahmadinejad says to ratchet up anti-western hostility among his own people, to try to stay in office. The key thing for us to do, given the situation, is to not play into his game, to not give him stupid quotes to use to demonize us. I believe the Democratic candidates instinctively have the sense that their comments already are being taken as representative of our country. And they should.
My wife is in Egypt, after nine days in Istanbul, Turkey. She and her childhood friend Gail are on an adventure to someplace they've never been. And learning a lot. The report from Istanbul is that the Turks are warm and surprisingly funny, the food is astoundingly good, and although it is a Muslim culture there are no signs of people frothing at the mouth. Cynthia's report from Egypt is as follows:
The Egyptian people appear abrupt and serious, although they can be so kind and helpful. My first response flying in from Istanbul was one of anxiety, not the case now. Daily we saw sites dating from 3000-1000 BC. It became "old", like seeing cathedrals in Europe. Cairo is big, most of it reddish in color made of sand bricks. Along the Nile and the delta are 20-30 story hotels and buildings. From the airplane, all seemed reddish or white sand bricks. Flying from Aswan to Cairo was desert, miles and miles, with small paved roads that looked like they went from nowhere to nowhere. Most of the women on the street have chadors and the men gray or light-brown long robes with white headdress. In this hotel, the Four Seasons, it is different. Sitting having tea were two Arabic couples, the women wearing western dress (rather short and see-through) and at the adjoining table was the scarf-covered nanny with the children. Other tables appeared to have wealthy, rather arrogant looking Arabs, Europeans, or Africans. The common language in meetings was English - definitely sounding as though it is the universal language...
...we are both worn out. Tomorrow we have a full day visiting the pyramids, Sphinx and the Egyptian Museum. I am told the average wage of a bus driver is 600 Egyptian pounds per month, a coffee 1 Egyptian pound, a donkey 1000 pounds. Before coming I did not realize the biggest industry in Egypt is tourism, second is the Suez Canal and third are the foreigners living in Egypt. The country is crawling with tourists, Americans definitely in the minority. I am bringing home a few newspapers, one from Turkey and one from here. The US election is being watched, the Bush administration is definitely not liked. People seem to think very highly of Bill Clinton and mention his name in reverence. Surprise registers when Obama's name is mentioned, I believe in quite a favorable way.
All of that suggests to me that our world standing can be recaptured by electing the right man, or woman, as President. But again, I fear that none of these guys qualifies. And for cross-cultural insensitivity and saber-rattling, these comments by Thompson and the oh-so-Christian Huckabee (aka "Huck Thin") are right up there with the stupid racist comments one heard in the 19th and early 20th century. I'm sorry to have to put it so bluntly, but these guys are really clueless dumbasses. Huckabee's assumption that he knows who will be assigned to "hell" and who will not is breath-taking to me. The more I get to know him, the more I have come to loathe him. James Dobson of the "Focus on the Family" seems to think Huck farts perfume, which confirms all my suspicions about Dobson.
Asked about last weekend's Persian Gulf incident in which Iranian speed boats harassed U.S. warships, none of the presidential rivals found fault with U.S. naval commanders on the scene. But several took the opportunity to stress their determination to take stronger steps against Iran in the future.
"I think one more step, you know, and they would have been introduced to those virgins that they're looking forward to seeing," said Thompson.
Huckabee said if it happened again, the Iranians "Should be prepared to see the gates of Hell."
McCain, the only candidate with experience in the Navy, refused to second guess the actions of the commander of all the battle groups.
"I believe Iran represents a very serious threat," said Romney. He added he believes the incident was a calculated one to test U.S. defensive responses and was a "diversionary action ... It points out that we have in Iran a very troubled nation," he added. Romney drew mixed boos and applause from the audience when he criticized Texas Rep. Ron Paul for saying the United States must avoid another war. Romney said Paul had been reading "too many press releases by (Mahmoud) Ahmadinejad," the Iranian president.
"Make fun buddy," muttered a clearly irritated Paul.
Arthur
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