The American Spectator

Robbins Mitchell| 6.17.09 @ 6:30AM

Well,if the boy continues to insist on playing the perfect fool vis a vis Iran,I may yet have to take a strap to his ass.

drudge ette obama| 6.17.09 @ 6:35AM

I believe that we have just seen what historians will call the largest missed opportunity of the Obama Administration. Obama's failure to quickly act with resolve has bolstered the Iranian president. This nonsense about meddling when he has done nothing but passively meddle since even before the election is incredible. Obama lacks integrity and is not Ameri-centric. He will never be able to stand in the shoes of Reagan or Truman to do the right thing for America. It is not in his DNA.

This uprising where people are losing their lives and risking retaliation reminds me so much of the Poles and Reagan. Reagan gave them grist to keep fighting. If Obama really believed that freedom was a god-given right, he would have had his smug mug out there championing the Iranians' next generation in full force from day before one. Instead he kills an innocent fly in one of the strangest scenes of physical self-awareness that I have witnessed in a while. Obama is very odd and aloof.

As for Carter, of course you wouldn't expect that antiAmerican ex-president to set foot in Iran. He still has a bitter taste in his mouth and probably is afraid. Maybe Iran refused his advances. I have been to Plains, GA - it looks a lot like a Palestinian refuge camp.

As for that

jack| 6.17.09 @ 7:07AM

We have only George Bush and the Republicans to thank for this present crisis. If Bush and Reps had been fiscally conservative and not so enthusiastically moderate on issues,Reps might still be in power.
We now have a socialist lunatic who appears to be a complete imbecile as our leader. This guy is just as moronic as the most far left liberal blogger except he believes. How did someone this ignorant of US or World History or basic economics get out of college? What are we teaching in college? Why would no one hire this harvard grad? Why did hehave to become a comm organizer?
How could someone this corrupt ever become President? Thank Oprah.

WilliamInWien| 6.17.09 @ 7:43AM

As for ex-president Carter, one wonders when the actuarial tables will take over, but then Billy Joel sang that 'only the good die young". There is little to no room to negotiate with the Islamic Republic of Iran, just ask the EU3! Why were the US hostages released before Reagan took office? Some level of fear must have entered into that equation. What has the current despot in Tehran to fear now? Hopefully, true internal dissent and an overthrow of the theocracy.

Siegfried X| 6.17.09 @ 7:58AM

The sub-title of this article is "Playing politics with Jewish lives". Which Jewish lives? Would an Iranian attack on the US somehow only hurt Jewish-Americans? Or is the article implying that the President of the United States is responsible for the safety of foreign citizens?

Old Soldier| 6.17.09 @ 8:05AM

Obama obviously has no regard for the concept of Liberty. Every program, czar, and proposal I've heard out of him so far is aimed at government siezure of my liberties.

It still shocks me that he would so casually watch a popular uprising crushed by dictators. Now we know where he stands.

Howard| 6.17.09 @ 8:16AM

Obama is much like Carter, only worse. At least Carter was fairly conservative on Economics. Obama combines Carters "pie in the sky" foreign policy with a hard left domestic bent. Be scared, be very scared!

Siegfried X| 6.17.09 @ 8:28AM

Obama - man of action

Barack Obama has already proven himself to be a great commander-in-chief. It's because he's a man of action.

Case #1 is Pakistan. George Bush never had the courage to do anything about it, so Al Qaeda, the ones who launched 9/11, sat there year after year laughing at us, facing nothing more than drone missile strikes.

But the first thing President Obama did when he took office was to publicly say that if Pakistan didn't remove the terrorists, that we would. Faced with a man of action, the Pakistani government has taken action. Hundreds of terrorists who were safe during the Bush Administration are dead. Others are trying to flee overseas.

Case #2 is North Korea. For 16 years the Clinton and Bush administration appeased NK, wrongly assuming that with the correct package they would give up their nukes. Obama realized that was a mistake. He has said no more negotiations and has shifted to military action, boarding and searching North Korean ships.

Jack| 6.17.09 @ 8:50AM

Many countries around the world have been beholden to the US for their security. The list is long. All are now staring with disbelief at our Flower child in chief and having serious doubts about their security.
Reagen talked, but with a commited policy towards freedom and librty. Obama just talks and talks and talks.
Isreal, Japan, South Korea, the UAE, Iraq, Ukraine, Georgia, Lithuania, Poland and Chezkoslovakia all better up their defense budgets. We no longer care to meddle in their security.

Mike| 6.17.09 @ 8:59AM

Like many others, I have been reading and listening to commentary about events in Iran. I pay particular attention to those who are critical of the current administration. In each case I am looking for answers to the following questions from these critics.

Mr. Ferrara, I would like to read your answers to the following questions:
1. Exactly what would you do if you were commander-in-chief?
2. From your reading of history and recent events, explain to us the lessons you have learned that led you to your proposed course of action.
3. How do you anticipate other countries around the world will react to your initiative? Who will be your allies? Who will work to block your efforts?
4. If you enact your policy, will other nations continue to extend credit to the U.S.?
5. If you enact your policy, will oil still continue to flow at reasonable rates?
6. How will your plan affect our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan?
7. On what intelligence do you base your expectations concerning these issues? How do you know this intelligence is reliable?
8. What's your alternative plan if events do not unfold as anticipated?
9. How will this alternative affect all of the issues listed above?
10. How much would enacting your program cost fiscally and militarily?
11. How will you pay for these resources?
12. How will you deal with the other problems confronting the United States as you enact your foreign policy?

M. T. Wallitt| 6.17.09 @ 9:12AM

Good article. Jack, I'm an Independent, and I'm still upset at the way the GOP threw away the election. But I think it's time that we held Obama responsible for the decisions that are being made now. They are his decisions, not Bush's. What is coming our way is Obama's to deflect or usher in.

Galen| 6.17.09 @ 9:18AM

Does anyone remember "Chicken Kiev?"

Liberal Reader| 6.17.09 @ 9:59AM

By going to the Middle East and NOT calling Iran a part of the "axis of evil," Obama helped -- or at least did not hinder -- the forces of reform and moderation dominating this week's news.

What conservatives seem incapable of understanding is that belligerent talk directed at Iran gives aid and comfort to anti-American forces. Had Obama called Iran a "rogue state" while in Cairo, it is very likely these demonstrations would not be as wide spread and populous as they are.

Sometimes restraint and diplomacy are powerful revolutionary forces.

Truth to Power| 6.17.09 @ 10:09AM

This is typical Obama. Screw over your friends and play nice with your enemies. It is Jimmy Carter redux. Eventually he will learn that these Islamic fascists are worse than Republicans. Unfortunately some poor Americans will probably pay a price.

Grzmlyk| 6.17.09 @ 10:20AM

Jack is right, but the dilution of the Republican party started well before Bush. The consequence of power is corruption, and Republicans - who ought to be the party of NO - as in NO MORE GOVERNMENT - have proven as susceptible as odious Democrats.

I agree also that Obama is narcissistic and naive. But it should be pointed out that he is no different from Carter and in fact all liberals when it comes to one fundamental reality: They love totalitarianism. The more liberal a person is, the more they love dictators. It's a fact. Look at the ongoing love affair with Castro, to pull just one of myriad examples to the fore.

Liberals love tyranny. That's why the TV networks have dropped any pretense of objectivity; they've achieved nirvana in Obama.

All Hail the State. The State is All. Obama Is the State. All Hail Obama.

How do they live with themselves?

WilliamInWien| 6.17.09 @ 10:36AM

Siegfried X fails to include a few "particulars" in his posting. Leadership in Pakistan has changed, Pakistan is now fighting to retain its stability as a "nation". Did not the Taliban push out of Swat cause concern for the Pakistani government? One forgets how the "world community" castigated Bush for his unilateral actions, and so, we had the 6 Party Talks on North Korea and the EU3 expended time and effort for years seeking to negotiate with Iran on nuclear issues. Afghanistan was a UN problem, remember there was a UN mandate on Afghanistan. As NATO forces continue to diminish, the US is faced with the continuation of the UN mandate, hence a US troop build up. Obama has recognized the seriousness of the conditions in Afghanistan and has gone along with US military strategy, which will, ultimately cost him the loyalty of part of his base. Finally, it seems to me that Jewish people have been targeted in numerous states, not just Israel. (Argentina) While the "Zionist" state of Israel might be the ultimate target, softer targets do exist. The safety of the world-wide Jewish community is a consideration.

ster| 6.17.09 @ 10:59AM

Siegfried: My goodness, you are so wrong, it should be embarassing to you.

A "man of action"? LOL

In your #1 point... It was Pakistan that took action, not Obama. Pakistan's NEW President. All Obama did was send in the drones you mocked - the SAME thing Bush did.

As for #2, it was the UN, not the US that issued the order for searching ships. TO date, we've done nothing. No "action".

In your FIRST comment, you quote the byline "Playing politics with Jewish lives". Then you ask which lives.. Jews in America?

No, you fool, the Jews in ISRAEL -- WITHIN REACH OF AN IRANIAN MISSILE.

My gawd, wake up, man!

Matt| 6.17.09 @ 11:01AM

Godwin's Law took affect in the second paragraph. Weak. Neo-Cons never learn.

ster| 6.17.09 @ 11:01AM

Don't forget, the Democrats and Obama passed the IMF funding in the 'war funding' bill.

That will mean US TAXPAYERS will be bailing out FOREIGN BANKS... and BILLIONS will be going to countries like Iran.

I am starting to think the left dislikes (no, hates) America.

ster| 6.17.09 @ 11:03AM

We need a Conservative Party. The Repubs left the ranch years ago and are not much better than the Demos.

Heck, 40% of the people call themselves conservative. Let's do it!

JP| 6.17.09 @ 11:07AM

"Case #2 is North Korea. For 16 years the Clinton and Bush administration appeased NK, wrongly assuming that with the correct package they would give up their nukes. Obama realized that was a mistake. He has said no more negotiations and has shifted to military action, boarding and searching North Korean ships. "

SiegfriedX,
Since Obama has been President, the Nkoreans have scuttled talks, will weaponize all of thier plutonium, have test fired 3 missles, conducted 3 more nuclear tests, and have kidnapped 2 American citizens. It is a little rich that as a result Obama says he will get tough with them. And, I seriously doubt Obama will order the USN to board NKorean merchant ships. As always, it is best to see what Obama does, not what he says.

JP| 6.17.09 @ 11:18AM

"By going to the Middle East and NOT calling Iran a part of the "axis of evil," Obama helped -- or at least did not hinder -- the forces of reform and moderation dominating this week's news. "

Liberal Reader,
Yes, I'm usre the Iranians protestors feel safe that Obama is in power. This is the man who was all to willing to leave the Iraqis to the fate of Al Qaida and its butchers. In 2006-2007 he demanded that we leave Iraq, and when the Surge was working, it was Obama along with Reid who declared it a dismal failure. No, if anything, the world has learnt that the Democrats and Obama are weak kneed, spineless blow-hards.

Say what you will about Bush, but he didn't leave the Iraqis during thier darkest hour. Unlike HRC, Obama, Reid, Hegel, and Pelosi, he stood with the Iraqis. Bush was called every vile name in the book, he was threatened with war crime trials, proesecution and jail. The Libs hounded him 24/7, but he did not forsake the Iraqis.

Obama, on the otherhand, hides behind his advisors, in the hopes that the Mullahs will survive. As Iranian protesters are beaten, hauled off to torture centers, and murdered, Obama hides in silence. The Iranians know by now that Obama stands for nothing but his own ego.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 11:21AM

What a ridiculous farce this article is. A haphazard collection of outright lies, distortion and idiocy. Why are AmSpec readers not insulted – not up in arms – about this? The piece is disrespectful to you people – the writer assumes you are both gullible and stupid, and too sedated by fast-food and television to even know you’re being bamboozled. Is he right?
“On its current course, the Middle East is headed for nuclear war.”
Sweet Christ – that’s the opener. A fantastically paranoid claim utterly divorced from reality. Iran possesses no nuclear weapons, there is no proof that they are trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and even if they were – let’s pretend they are for a second – for one to believe that Iran would attack Israel with nuclear weapons, one must also believe that the people and leaders of Iran are willing to be wiped out in a nuclear attack. That Iran wishes to cease to exist – that the entire country and all of its leaders wish to be incinerated, and to have their culture and people extinguished. For one to believe that, one would have to literally be *insane*.
As Iran has no nuclear weapons, if it was the case that nuclear war was just around the corner– and obviously it’s not - shouldn’t we be working feverishly to deprive the one actor in this conflict in possession of (illegal) nuclear weapons of their WMDs? Shouldn’t we be working to disarm Israel?
“Like Adolf Hitler,”
Oh my. The Hitler references are out already. How predictable and absurd.
“the theocrats who run Iran have told us exactly what they plan to do. They plan to build nuclear weapons, and use them to "wipe Israel off the map." They have said this plan is rooted in their fundamental religious beliefs and doctrines regarding the return of their God to Earth. They have said they will not abandon this plan for anything,”
Another ridiculous distortion. In *reality* (a place with which few writers for or readers of AmSpec are seemingly unfamiliar) Iran’s “theocrats” have stated will never try to acquire nuclear weapons as they are against their religious beliefs:
“The Islamic Republic of Iran has never been after acquiring the atomic bomb, and would never move in that direction in the future, because making and using the A-bomb is against our religious beliefs and against verdicts issued by our religious sources.”
-Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani
In *reality* the *Supreme Leader* of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, has issued a fatwa “that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are *forbidden under Islam* and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons”
In *reality* they have repeatedly stated they do not seek nuclear weapons and seek nuclear power for peaceful purposes only:
“Allah willing, we expect to soon join the club of the countries that have a nuclear industry, with all its branches, except the military one, in which we are not interested”.
- Iran's former president and an Islamic cleric, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani
In *reality* Iran has declared time and time again that they do not seek nuclear weapons, which Israel has already acquired. In *reality* Iran has signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT), while Israel has not. In *reality* Iran has sought – from the days of the Shah to the current president – an establishment of a Nuclear Free Zone in the Middle East. The major stumbling block to that is that Israel refuses to declare its arsenal, to open its facilities to inspectors or to sign the NPT as Iran has. When will the U.S. call this nuclear-armed rogue nation to account?
And are you AmSpec readers not offended that Peter Ferrara has lied so blatantly to you?*
*keep in mind that whether or not you believe Iran is being truthful is *irrelevant*. What is relevant is the following:

1. Peter Ferrara lied in stating that the leaders of Iran stated they will not abandon their stated plan to acquire nuclear weapons, as Iranian leaders have consistently pledged the opposite.
2. Belief that Iran is lying – and there’s nothing to base that belief on except cultural bias and a passionate attachment to Israel – is irrelevant because for one to believe that Iran would attack either Israel or the U.S. with nuclear weapons, one must also believe that the people and leaders of Iran wish to be incinerated, and to have their culture and people extinguished. For one to believe that, one would have to literally be *insane*.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 11:23AM

REPOSTED AND REFORMATTED:

What a ridiculous farce this article is. A haphazard collection of outright lies, distortion and idiocy. Why are AmSpec readers not insulted – not up in arms – about this? The piece is disrespectful to you people – the writer assumes you are both gullible and stupid, and too sedated by fast-food and television to even know you’re being bamboozled. Is he right?

“On its current course, the Middle East is headed for nuclear war.”

Sweet Christ – that’s the opener. A fantastically paranoid claim utterly divorced from reality. Iran possesses no nuclear weapons, there is no proof that they are trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and even if they were – let’s pretend they are for a second – for one to believe that Iran would attack Israel with nuclear weapons, one must also believe that the people and leaders of Iran are willing to be wiped out in a nuclear attack. That Iran wishes to cease to exist – that the entire country and all of its leaders wish to be incinerated, and to have their culture and people extinguished. For one to believe that, one would have to literally be *insane*.

As Iran has no nuclear weapons, if it was the case that nuclear war was just around the corner– and obviously it’s not - shouldn’t we be working feverishly to deprive the one actor in this conflict in possession of (illegal) nuclear weapons of their WMDs? Shouldn’t we be working to disarm Israel?

“Like Adolf Hitler,”

Oh my. The Hitler references are out already. How predictable and absurd.

“the theocrats who run Iran have told us exactly what they plan to do. They plan to build nuclear weapons, and use them to "wipe Israel off the map." They have said this plan is rooted in their fundamental religious beliefs and doctrines regarding the return of their God to Earth. They have said they will not abandon this plan for anything,”

Another ridiculous distortion. In *reality* (a place with which few writers for or readers of AmSpec are seemingly unfamiliar) Iran’s “theocrats” have stated will never try to acquire nuclear weapons as they are against their religious beliefs:

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has never been after acquiring the atomic bomb, and would never move in that direction in the future, because making and using the A-bomb is against our religious beliefs and against verdicts issued by our religious sources.”
-Ayatollah Mohammad Emami-Kashani

In *reality* the *Supreme Leader* of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, has issued a fatwa “that the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons are *forbidden under Islam* and that Iran shall never acquire these weapons”

In *reality* they have repeatedly stated they do not seek nuclear weapons and seek nuclear power for peaceful purposes only:

“Allah willing, we expect to soon join the club of the countries that have a nuclear industry, with all its branches, except the military one, in which we are not interested”.
- Iran's former president and an Islamic cleric, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

In *reality* Iran has declared time and time again that they do not seek nuclear weapons, which Israel has already acquired. In *reality* Iran has signed the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT), while Israel has not. In *reality* Iran has sought – from the days of the Shah to the current president – an establishment of a Nuclear Free Zone in the Middle East. The major stumbling block to that is that Israel refuses to declare its arsenal, to open its facilities to inspectors or to sign the NPT as Iran has. When will the U.S. call this nuclear-armed rogue nation to account?

And are you AmSpec readers not offended that Peter Ferrara has lied so blatantly to you?*

*keep in mind that whether or not you believe Iran is being truthful is *irrelevant*. What is relevant is the following:

1. Peter Ferrara lied in stating that the leaders of Iran stated they will not abandon their stated plan to acquire nuclear weapons, as Iranian leaders have consistently pledged the opposite.
2. Belief that Iran is lying – and there’s nothing to base that belief on except cultural bias and a passionate attachment to Israel – is irrelevant because for one to believe that Iran would attack either Israel or the U.S. with nuclear weapons, one must also believe that the people and leaders of Iran wish to be incinerated, and to have their culture and people extinguished. For one to believe that, one would have to literally be *insane*.

Terry| 6.17.09 @ 11:31AM

A nonsensical article cloacked in a pretense of serious think-tank language.

Ahmadinedjad never said, quote : wipe Israel off the map. Iran wants to feel secure as Israel wants to feel secure. If the US promises not to undermine its regime and mingle in its internal affairs maybe they wont need the bomb.

And a little history: Hitler wanted Danzig, yes, and he said it. Danzig's population was 95% German and it was a German territoty 20 years earlier. Israel wants the West Bank and East Jerousalem that are 5% Jewish, and it was Jewish 2000 years earlier.

jcsfny| 6.17.09 @ 11:44AM

Siegfried X| 6.17.09 @ 8:28AM

Obama - man of action
MAN OF ACTION? WHAT A JOKE!

Oldefarte| 6.17.09 @ 12:07PM

Extremely well said, Peter----and absolutely true!!!!!

Nick| 6.17.09 @ 12:07PM

Terry,

Hitler wanted Eastern Europe. Ever heard of "Lebensraum"?

Old Texican| 6.17.09 @ 12:10PM

I simply have a hard time believing the tripe our liberal America freedom haters here spit out.

One day...soon...their idiocy will slap them right in their own faces.
You know what their response will be?
First: Wha happened?
Second: not our fault.
Its you free American's fault.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 12:22PM

"Hitler wanted Eastern Europe. Ever heard of "Lebensraum"?"

I think it's kind of coldblooded to compare Israel to Nazi Germany but yeah, Nick, you have a point.

Dustoff| 6.17.09 @ 12:25PM

S.L Todd

What were you saying about Iran and NUKES.
++++++++++++++++++++++
LONDON (Reuters) - Iran wants the ability to build nuclear weapons to gain the reputation of a major power in the Middle East, the head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog said in a BBC interview broadcast on Wednesday.

Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said Iran sees nuclear weapons as an "insurance policy" against perceived threats from neighboring countries or the United States.

Miller| 6.17.09 @ 12:29PM

Ignorant fear mongering aside...

Yes, after installing the Shah we should invade Iran. I'm sure the Iranians would love that idea and support any polyarchical (look it up) government the US wishes to install. We don't even live in a truly free democracy, the interests of big business are held over our own and even propped up with our own pocket books . So, who are we to decide the fate of the Iranian people?

Obama's decision to stay out of it is one of the best one he's made so far. A true Iranian revolution will only happen at the hands of the Iranians themselves, it's the only way it will be accepted and have any sense of longevity. They've done it multiple times within the last century and are fully capable of doing it again.

Grzmlyk| 6.17.09 @ 12:32PM

Liberal Reader, you say: "Sometimes restraint and diplomacy are powerful revolutionary forces."

Can ya give me a few examples?

As for the Turd's comments, if Iran nuked Israel, why would they be incinerated? The only repercussion from Obama would be a ticker-tape parade in NYC. Confetti can bruise sensitive, honest, pure Islamic skin, but it doesn't rise to the level of torture (well, if Bush did it, of course, it would).

Oh, by the way: There's no proof Israel has nukes. Just as you've never seen Iran's nuke program, I've never personally seen a nuke from Israel, so there must be none. Oh my.

And as long as the Mullahs have promised they're not after nukes, that's good enough for me! And while we're at it, why don't we empty all of America's prisons? Pretty much everyone who's incarcerated is innocent - I mean, they said so, right? That's good enough for me!

And what's with your comment about the Hitler references "already?" Don't you remember your own comments about Bush? I think you used the phrase "Hitler" at least 73 times.

I think Peter Ferrara assumes YOU are the gullible and stupid one. Game, set and match to Mr. Ferrara.

Do me a favor: hang onto your ludicrious post, Mr. Turd. It should make for rich irony just a few years hence.

L. Ross| 6.17.09 @ 12:57PM

S.L. Vegetard:

I kind of hate to break this to you, 'cause it sounds like you have a very comfortable hole in the sand you like to keep your head in, but, yes, it is an islamic imperative to wipe out Israel. It is also basic islamic doctrine to rule over all the world by any means necessary, through war, subversion, infiltration, or plain old outbreeding.

Finally, why would you think that the religious leadership in Iran is rational. That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. They are the followers of a schizophrenic child molesting warlord who founded a death cult. They hate women, long for war and above all, long for death. You, sir, are a fool and you have no idea what you are talking about.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 12:58PM

"What were you saying about Iran and NUKES"

Me? Oh - I was successfully refuting Ferrarra's claim that Iran's leaders said they plan to build nuclear weapons so they can wipe Israel of the map and that they will not abandon the plans for anything by quoting Iran's leaders pledging the exact opposite. Was that not clear?

Thank you, though, for quoting that article. ElBaradei - according to the article - based that claim on nothing more than "a gut feeling". Regardless, that part is relevant - what IS relevant is that the article contains yet ANOTHER Iranian leader, further exposing Ferarra as a liar:

"He's absolutely wrong. We don't have any intention of having nuclear weapons at all," Iranian ambassador Ali Asghar Soltanieh told reporters outside a meeting in Vienna of the IAEA's 35-nation governing body.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 1:00PM

"I kind of hate to break this to you, 'cause it sounds like you have a very comfortable hole in the sand you like to keep your head in, but, yes, it is an islamic imperative to wipe out Israel"

That's nice. It's irrelevant, but it's nice. Do you have any evidence that the population and leaders of Iran all wish to be incinerated and have their culture extinguished? Because *that* would be relevant. Otherwise the alleged "imperative" is meaningless.

Red Phillips| 6.17.09 @ 1:01PM

This article is absurd Chicken Little fear mongering, and it is beneath American Spectator. How can you publish a responsible non-interventionist like Doug Bandow and then this hysteria at the same time?

Iran does not have nuclear weapons, it is not a foregone conclusion that they will get nuclear weapons, and it is an incredible leap that if they had them they would preemptively bomb Israel. To state that they will use nuclear weapons against Israel as if it is a fact is extremely irresponsible.

For America to go to war based on Iran might get nukes and they might use them is not even preemptive war. It is preventative war at best, and thus would be IMMORAL by long held Christian standards.

"who campaigned on maintaining our security commitment to Israel"

If America has a "security commitment" to Israel then that is part of the problem because that would obviously violate the wise advice of George Washington to avoid "entangling alliances" and "passionate attachments." And Mr. Ferrara is clearly guided by his “inveterate antipathies.”

russ nc| 6.17.09 @ 1:02PM

The quickest way out of our economic crisis is through war. A really BIG war. Iran will do nicely.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 1:04PM

"This article is absurd Chicken Little fear mongering, and it is beneath American Spectator."

Are you kidding, Red? This is par for the course here.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 1:04PM

"The quickest way out of our economic crisis is through war. A really BIG war. Iran will do nicely. "

Yeah? How'd that work with the Iraq war?

Nick| 6.17.09 @ 1:05PM

Mr. Toddard,

Again, you show that English is foreign to you. Terry compared Israel and nazi Germany. I simply corrected his poor understanding of history regarding what Hitler wanted.

And weren't you the one who compared Israel's defense of herself in the recent Gazan war to the nazi's treatment of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto?

How can you believe Kashani, et al; when, as signatories to the NPT, they are subject to inspections which they have refused to comply with?

Also, did you really expect people to read your drivel twice?

George Washington| 6.17.09 @ 1:08PM

"Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations. Cultivate peace and harmony with all.—Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it?—It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example, of a People always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence.—Who can doubt that in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a plan would richly repay any temporary advantages, which might be lost by a steady adherence to it? Can it be that Providence has not connected the permanent felicity of a Nation with its virtue? The experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles human nature.—Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices? 30

In the execution of such a plan nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated.—The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest.—Antipathy in one nation against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury, to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.—Hence frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed and bloody contests.—The Nation prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to War the Government, contrary to the best calculations of policy.—The Government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and adopts through passion what reason would reject;—at other times, it makes the animosity of the Nation subservient to projects of hostility instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious motives.—The peace often, sometimes perhaps the Liberty, Nations has been the victim.— 31

So likewise a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils.—Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld; and it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite Nation) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity:—gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, and the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.— 32

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent Patriot.—How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic factions, to practise the arts of seduction, to mislead public opinion, to influence or awe the public councils! Such an attachment of a small or weak, towards a great and powerful nation, dooms the former to be the satellite of the latter. 33

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence, I conjure you to believe me, fellow-citizens, the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake; since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican Government.—But that jealousy, to be useful, must be impartial; else it becomes the instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense against it.—Excessive partiality for one foreign nation, and excessive dislike of another, cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real Patriots, who may resist the intrigues of the favourite, are liable to become suspected and odious; while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their interests. 34

The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign Nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little Political connection as possible.—So far as we have already formed engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith.—Here let us stop.— 35

Europe has a set of primary interests, which to us have none, or a very remote relation.—Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns.—Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships, or enmities. 36

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course.—If we remain one People, under an efficient government, the period is not far off, when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected. When belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard the giving us provocation when we may choose peace or war, as our interest, guided by our justice, shall counsel. 37

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar as situation?—Why quit our own to stand upon foreign ground?—Why, by interweaving our destiny with that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor, or caprice?— 38

’Tis our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances, with any portion of the foreign world;—so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty to do it;—for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing infidelity to existing engagements. (I hold the maxim no less applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always the best policy.)—I repeat it therefore let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense.—But in my opinion it is unnecessary and would be unwise to extend them.— 39

Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, on a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies.— 40

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should hold an equal and impartial hand:—neither seeking nor granting exclusive favors or preferences;—consulting the natural course of things;—diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of commerce, but forcing nothing;—establishing with Powers so disposed—in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our Merchants, and to enable the Government to support them—conventional rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual opinion will permit; but temporary, and liable to be from time to time abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate; constantly keeping in view, that ’tis folly in one nation to look for disinterested favors from another;—that it must pay with a portion of its independence for whatever it may accept under that character—that by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from Nation to Nation. ’T is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard. "

George Washington

Sam| 6.17.09 @ 1:10PM

I meet Christians all the time who want to promote Israel, and fund them even if they are Atheists because those Christians believe supporting Israel will bring Jesus back. Israel pays a lot of money to support that idea.

What comes from man's limited understanding of the world is generally a bad thing like genetically engineered food.

"Christ wants you to get thousands of people killed, that will bring him back, and he will bless you for doing it."

It appears we have the pot calling the kettle black.

El Wayne| 6.17.09 @ 1:14PM

SL Toddard....You are a Rascal and an Insolent Fool. I'll see you in the sand...Buffoon and tool that you are!
Lawrence of Arabia

Roark| 6.17.09 @ 1:14PM

Ferara doesn't get it.

russ nc| 6.17.09 @ 1:19PM

The Iraq war worked out quite well. From 9/11/01 to 9/11/08 the Russell 2000 was up 98.5%. For the Math Challenged that's nearly double. The Iraq War wasn't very big though. I'm talking BIG, like 3 million US Army / US Navy / US Air Force. In Iraq we never had more than 1/4 million boots on the ground. But Congress should declare war first. It's the Constitutional thing to do. That hasn't happened since 1941, I know, but Congress should do it anyway, just for old times sake.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 1:20PM

"Terry compared Israel and nazi Germany. I simply corrected his poor understanding of history regarding what Hitler wanted."

No, Terry *contrasted* them, attempting to demonstrate that Israel's seizure of land was less reasonable than Germany's. You pointed out that Germany's quest for Lebensraum in eastern europe was no more reasonable than Israel's. Or do you oppose Israel's quest for Lebensraum?

"And weren't you the one who compared Israel's defense of herself in the recent Gazan war to the nazi's treatment of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto?"

No. I did not reference any "defense" of Israel in any comparison.

"How can you believe Kashani, et al; when, as signatories to the NPT, they are subject to inspections which they have refused to comply with?"

So if a country refuses to comply with nuclear inspections they are untrustworthy?

Also, I wrote this in my original post specifically for you, Nick. Try to keep it in mind:

*whether or not you believe Iran is being truthful is *irrelevant*. What is relevant is the following:

1. Peter Ferrara lied in stating that the leaders of Iran stated they will not abandon their stated plan to acquire nuclear weapons, as Iranian leaders have consistently pledged the opposite.

2. Belief that Iran is lying – and there’s nothing to base that belief on except cultural bias and a passionate attachment to Israel – is irrelevant because for one to believe that Iran would attack either Israel or the U.S. with nuclear weapons, one must also believe that the people and leaders of Iran wish to be incinerated, and to have their culture and people extinguished. For one to believe that, one would have to literally be *insane*.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 1:21PM

"The Iraq war worked out quite well"

Really? The Iraq War is still happening. How is the economy doing now compared to before the Iraq War?

Solomon Ben Isaac| 6.17.09 @ 1:25PM

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 11:23AM

It's the first time I have read a true statement. Another point Ahmadinedjad has never said anything about wiping Israel of the map, it was the Zionist Jews who said, he said that. The Zionist Jews know full well that Americans does not speak Arabic or Farci, so they are easily mislead.

What Israel want is a war, by any means necessary for more Americans to lose their lives end up crippled for life, because it makes them feel important, people fighting over them.

What Israel is doing is taking revenge on America for their involvement in the Nazi war that was funded by the Bush family and their rich banker friends.

By the way Adolph Hitler was Austrian, born to a Jewish mother.

The Swastica is a Christian symbol.

ge205| 6.17.09 @ 1:27PM

Oh yeah, like Bush got any further with the Iranians than Obama! Hello? We had 8 years of failed Bush policies during which time Iran steadily progressed to having nukes.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 1:29PM

"We had 8 years of failed Bush policies during which time Iran steadily progressed to having nukes."

No kidding? Wow. Can you point me to proof of that? That's scary.

rich| 6.17.09 @ 1:38PM

yeah, sure - let's invade Iran also; what the hell, we're the world's cop, right? Look, the planet's on an irrevocable march to destruction no matter what any country does. Let's just turn our back on Iran, Iraq, the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan, etc. Screw em all. Just shore up our domestic perimeters & let Europe & China try to save the planet. Bring home every soldier from every corner of the globe. Party on, Americans !

L. Ross| 6.17.09 @ 1:41PM

Solomon Ben Isaac:

Sorry, dude, the Swatika is not a Christian symbol. It dates way back into pre-recorded history. It is common world-wide, most likely because it is found in the weft and warp of most basket weaving societies. Most recent usage before the National Socialist party is in the Indian subcontinent.

JP| 6.17.09 @ 1:43PM

"No kidding? Wow. Can you point me to proof of that? That's scary"

Mmmm, the AEC of the UN verified that Iran does in fact have over 1300 cetntrifuges that contain weaponized uranium. The last time I checked the UN is no proxy for Isreal. The Mossad, the French DGSF, and the CIA have also confirmed that China has assisted Iran in the development of long range silkworm missle with ranges of over 1000 miles. China also built a state of the art underground bunker where Iran's senior leadership can commit to command and control in case of war. The Iranians have scattered thier labs and nuclear programs in several underground bunkers in the mountains.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 1:45PM

"yeah, sure - let's invade Iran also; what the hell, we're the world's cop, right?"

It's also disturbing in that it reveals how little most people value our soldiers' lives. They couldn't care less when American soldiers die gut-shot, choking on their own blood or with their heads blown apart on the other side of the globe as long as they have another chance to talk tough and wave their little flags. No threat is too small to waste American soldier's lives for these people. "Of course I Support The Troops - I cheer while I demand they be sent across the world to die!"

With "supporters" like that, who needs Al Qaeda?

ThinkTank| 6.17.09 @ 1:46PM

Those who wish war with Iran should consider this: Iran's population of 70 million is more than double Iraq's population (31 million). There are almost 8 million is Tehran alone.

Now imagine the cost of conquering and holding an Islamofascist state, already seething with anti-American hatred.

There are limits to American power. In the meantime, diplomacy is cheaper, even if the results aren't always what we want.

Ideally, the Iranian people themselves will settle this issue for us. The recent events there suggest popular unrest is building...

Grzmlyk| 6.17.09 @ 1:54PM

I love how the Turd calls every inconvenient fact "irrelevant." Since when did the Turd become the arbiter of relevance? Revant to what? To whom?

Actually, though, the Turd is right! Ahmadinejad never said "wipe Israel off the map." According to pro-Iranian sources, he was quoting Kohmeini when he said, "the regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."

Phew! That's a relief! And here I thought Iran was hostile toward Israel!

By golly, if someone in Iran says they won't become a nuclear country, They WON'T! Case closed! I'm sure they're building a lush embassy for Israel in Teheran even as we speak. Not sure what's with all the ovens, though. Oh well.

Don't believe your lying eyes about Iran's intentions! Believe the Turd!

Let me see. . . How'd that work in North Korea - oops. Don't tell me that a rogue nation - gasp - LIED about pursuing nukes! Perish the thought. How can that be? Duh.

I guess the Peter Ferraras of the world have never read Rousseau - they don't realize the pure beauty of the Noble Savage, incapable of mendacity.

I thought The Turd had a monopoly on the truth!

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 1:55PM

"Mmmm, the AEC of the UN verified that Iran does in fact have over 1300 cetntrifuges that contain weaponized uranium"

Verified? Link please?

"The last time I checked the UN is no proxy for Isreal."

Really? Nick believes they are an uber-liberal organization whose word on anything cannot be trusted.

Nick| 6.17.09 @ 1:59PM

Mr. Toddard,

"Compare" and "contrast" are synonymous.
I think you need to take a remedial English course. Which is sad, because English was my worst subject. As people can tell from my poor grammar.

Again, I was making no point at all. I made two simple declarative sentences to correct a prevarication. You made an erroneous inference.

Terry's history lesson was false, ergo, so was his point. Is this so hard to fathom?

Just because you refuse to accept that Israel is defending herself, and therefore won't use the word "defense", does not erase your previous comparison.

"So if a country refuses to comply with nuclear inspections they are untrustworthy?"

If a country is SIGNATORY to the NPT, and doesn't comply, yes they are untrusworthy. Notice the word "signatory" this time, so you don't ask another lame question, OK?

Grzmlyk| 6.17.09 @ 2:01PM

I love how libs anoint themselves in the blood of U.S. soldiers when it suits their purposes! Hilarious. As if the Turd gives a flying rat's patootie about American soldiers.

To liberals, American soldiers fall into one of two categories: They're either long-suffering, oppressed and brainwashed victims of right-wing propaganda who are just looking for a way to get a chance in life when SUDDENLY they are thrust into, you know, a WAR, or they're psychotic baby killers just itching to shed blood.

But whenever they think they have an opportunity to be clever, they soak themselves in the blood of people they'd spit on if they could.

Tres transparent.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 2:11PM

"Compare" and "contrast" are synonymous.

Wrong. "Contrasting", unlike "comparing" emphasises the *differences*.

"Terry's history lesson was false, ergo, so was his point. Is this so hard to fathom?"

No - I agree completely. His point - that Israel's and Germany's quests for lebensraum were dissimilar and that one was more justified than the other - was indeed false, as you so aptly demonstrated. I think we're on the same page here.

"Just because you refuse to accept that Israel is defending herself, and therefore won't use the word "defense", does not erase your previous comparison."

What comparison?

"If a country is SIGNATORY to the NPT, and doesn't comply, yes they are untrusworthy."

So if Iran opted out of the NPT and refused inspections you would support their right to do so?

Rod| 6.17.09 @ 2:11PM

Let's speak the truth here: the only reason Obama is in the White House if because everyone was so damn afraid of criticizing a Black. If a White male brought his family to a racist hate preacher's church for 20 years and had him marry him, he'd be run out of town and would never be a candidate for dog catcher, much less President.

Obama got pass after pass because he's Black, and now America has to deal with the mess.

Grzmlyk| 6.17.09 @ 2:12PM

By the way, Turd, I'll help out JP.

Here's the link. To your beloved NY Times, no less.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/world/europe/24nukes.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Grzmlyk| 6.17.09 @ 2:21PM

Oh, Turd: Here's a bit of background.

From your beloved CBS News, no less.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/11/world/main2458338.shtml

Red Phillips| 6.17.09 @ 2:22PM

"Are you kidding, Red? This is par for the course here."

SLT, Am Spec is conflicted. They publish good non-interventionists like Doug Bandow and reasonable people like Jim Antle and at the same time publish screeds like this that would make the worst jingoists at Free Republic blush.

Red Phillips| 6.17.09 @ 2:25PM

Credit where credit is due though, Mr. Ferrara did get one thing right.

"Sen. Joe Lieberman has been trying to explain that Bush's doctrine of spreading democracy and human rights around the world was originally the liberal Democrat position."

Exactly. And the French Revolutionary position before that. Which is why it CAN NOT BE the conservative position.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 2:29PM

" Here's the link. To your beloved NY Times, no less.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/world/europe/24nukes.html?_r=1&oref=slogin "

I think you posted the wrong link - he said "weaponized". Please link me to proof that Iran has "weaponized" uranium:

"The term “weaponize” or “weaponization” means to incorporate into, or the incorporation into, usable ordnance or other militarily useful means of delivery."

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/usc_sec_50_00002368----000-.html

101st Airborne| 6.17.09 @ 2:29PM

Why do I constantly read here, hoping that expressing out views will change anything? PingBack, SonofSam, et al., express their burning desire to be heard but the Obama "steamroller" continues. Will Emanuel win or do we fight for our beliefs?? Or just keep voicing our opinions here, running to the bathroom, and back to check who responded??
WTF!

Hill 937 A Shau

Nick| 6.17.09 @ 2:35PM

Mr. Toddard,

"Really? Nick believes they are an uber-liberal organization whose word on anything cannot be trusted."

I never wrote anything close to that, although they are a leftist org.

When a liberal says something that is contrary to their ideology, it is because they have no choice. To do otherwise would show their complete bias.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 2:36PM

"Exactly. And the French Revolutionary position before that. Which is why it CAN NOT BE the conservative position."

It IS NOT the conservative position. It's the Straussian Jacobin position - you are at a Straussian Jacobin website. The odd nod to traditional conservatism aside, this is uncontested neocon territory.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 2:41PM

"When a liberal says something that is contrary to their ideology, it is because they have no choice. To do otherwise would show their complete bias."

Oh. So when you agree with the NYT they can be trusted, but when you don't they are a Loony Liberal Rag everyone should dismiss.

Gotcha.

Rantly McTirade| 6.17.09 @ 2:42PM

Implying that a war was/is a success because a certain stock market index rose substantially is simply degenerate.
The only appropriate 'conservative' foreign policy is 'America first(and second and third),
F#@! the rest. Applying this to Iran would involve pointing at Iran, breaking out into deep laughter and saying(essentially)' Majority Muslim nation: Well, of course they elected(and they did) Makmooooed. That's the best a nation with any notable presence of the religion of ignorance and incompetence could ever attain. Then, we should strive to keep the effects of their failure and stupidity off our shores.

Grzmlyk| 6.17.09 @ 2:44PM

From your beloved LA Times, no less:

BTW, just because it may not be proven to be "weaponized" doesn't mean it's not "weaponizable." I do hope you're not hanging your hat on that peg.

But that's ok: I'm sure you wouldn't admit what Iran's up to even if there were video of Ahmadinejad pushing the button, following the missile then showing the mushroom cloud over Israel. That would be Dick Cheney's doing, according to you.

Why? Because you say Iran's not interested in developing nukes. Okie dokie.

But rather than have you injure your google finger, I'll copy the salient point here:

Oh. And this is from June 9 of this year. Hear that ticking?

"Iran's nuclear program comes across to me as if Iran has its head down and burrowing forward," said Jacqueline Shire, an arms control expert at the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think tank. "It's not stopping. It's not looking up. It's not taking the temperature of the political situation. They're just bearing ahead."

The dryly worded [IAEA] reports, delivered to the governing board of the agency and obtained by The Times, say Iran has increased its supply of low-enriched uranium during the last three months by 30%, to nearly 3,000 pounds, and is now feeding uranium gas into about 5,000 high-speed centrifuges, up 25% since February, the time of the last report. It also has an additional 2,000 centrifuges spinning in preparation for being fed uranium gas to turn into nuclear material.

Scientists say 3,000 pounds of low-enriched, or reactor-grade, uranium of the type Iran has would be more than enough to build a single nuclear weapon if Iran were to boot out international inspectors, renege on treaty obligations and further refine its supplies.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran-nuclear6-2009jun06,0,515299.story

Mike| 6.17.09 @ 2:49PM

Mr. Ferrara,

I continue to look for your answers to my questions.

Dustoff| 6.17.09 @ 2:52PM

S.L. Todd
Thank you, though, for quoting that article. ElBaradei - according to the article - based that claim on nothing more than "a gut feeling". Regardless, that part is relevant - what IS relevant is that the article contains yet ANOTHER Iranian leader, further exposing Ferarra as a liar:

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
a gut feeling you say. So when IAEA said they were not working to build nukes, that too was a gut feeling.

The IAEA has been and will always be a joke along with the UN.
So Ferarra as a liar? Ok then, can you prove him wrong.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 2:55PM

"BTW, just because it may not be proven to be "weaponized" doesn't mean it's not "weaponizable."

If it is not weaponized, then it is not "weaponized." Was it weaponized, or was JP wrong?

"Why? Because you say Iran's not interested in developing nukes."

I did? Where?

"...said Jacqueline Shire, an arms control expert at the Institute for Science and International Security, a Washington think tank."

The opinions of a Washington think tank are not germane to this conversation. I do appreciate the article, though, as it (predictably) alludes to no evidence of a weapons program.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 2:58PM

"a gut feeling you say."

No, actually - he did:

"My gut feeling is that Iran definitely would like to have the technology... that would enable it to have nuclear weapons if they decided to do so," ElBaradei told the BBC.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1093689.html

"So when IAEA said they were not working to build nukes, that too was a gut feeling."

No, the IAEA claimed that was a result of investigations, not a "gut feeling."

"The IAEA has been and will always be a joke along with the UN."

And yet you cited their chief. How odd.

"So Ferarra as a liar? Ok then, can you prove him wrong."

I already have. Scroll up to my first post.

Red Phillips| 6.17.09 @ 3:01PM

"The odd nod to traditional conservatism aside, this is uncontested neocon territory."

I wouldn't go that far SLT. I think Am Spec is trying to walk a fine line with nods to both sides in these times of discord on the right. Doug Bandow would not get a forum at National Review. It is important that we reward positive moves toward a reasonable non-interventionist policy. The stance of each article seems to be writer dependent.

Angry American| 6.17.09 @ 3:08PM

If not already clear, it became even crystal clear when the embarrassing, apologizing, weakling, cowardly, muslim-loving, America-hating saudi-bowing excuse for a president did just that... oBOWma bowing and looking under the saudi robes for his fix.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 3:11PM

I wish you luck, Red, but I think you'll find that the discord isn't *on* the right, it's between the neoconservatives *and* the right.

Grzmlyk| 6.17.09 @ 3:15PM

You said:

"Iran possesses no nuclear weapons, there is no proof that they are trying to acquire nuclear weapons."

Forgive me if I interpret that as you meaning that Iran is not trying to acquire nuclear weapons.

As for weaponization, yes, JP was wrong to the extent that there are no photographs of nuclear missles. But the point is there are enough centrifuges, and more than enough weapons grade fissile material, to make a nuclear weapon.

Again, even if there were a photo of one, you wouldn't believe it. Not sure why you adhere to such a preposterous notion. This is where pseudo-intellectualism turns back on itself - you could be standing in the middle of a rainstorm and claim you are not wet. Great for you, but when you walk back in the house, you'll be dripping.

It is your prerogative to ignore reality. You are free to engage in your own classic liberal brand of onanism and flatter your own vanity. You are just a harmless fool.

The tragedy, however, is that we have a president with a very similar mindset. Narcissism is a mere amusement in people like you; in a president, it's very dangerous.

That's ok, though: I'm sure you are safe within the mirrored halls of your own self importance. Reality will never impinge on the world of the Turd!

BTW, I'm a reverse, inverse Straussian-Jacobin: I'm just messing with your head. I'm on your side. Really.

Nick| 6.17.09 @ 3:25PM

Mr. Toddard,

So you know more than Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition?
Whether you compare similarities or "differences", you are still COMPARING, brainiac. Is "dictionary.com" blocked on your computer?

I was confused by your original statement: "I think it's kind of coldblooded to compare Israel to Nazi Germany [...]".

Because on another thread you compared the death toll in the Gazan war with a hypothetical, similar death toll in the Warsaw Ghetto. Care to square these two posts?

"So if Iran opted out of the NPT [...]"
I see you recognize your mistake.

Iran has the right to opt out, so why don't they? But seeing as they fund and supply Hezbollah and Hamas attacks against Israel, I would not support it. For the same reason, I hope they are stopped from acquiring nukes.

And no, when a liberal contradicts his ideology, it is because of the facts. Facts they can't spin. It takes detective work to distinguish propaganda from reality.

Try listening to Rush, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Hugh Hewitt and reading Maulkin. They do this everyday.

Clarence| 6.17.09 @ 3:27PM

Beware the pre-election polls that showed Amajinedad (sp? ... who cares) losing. Most were very poorly done by Iranian internet-types. These are the most liberal out there- a bunch of over-cologned, gussied up disco-boys. The kind of people that insist on being called 'Persians' and not 'Iranians'. The poor LOVE Amajinedad. This is an Islamic Republic- that means deeply conservative, boys. I mean, lets not forget it was only twenty ago, men were signing up by the thousands to be martyrs in the Iran-Iraq war. Of course, I'd love to see Admajinedad get waxed, but lets not be in too much of a hurry to 'save' the Iranian people. And before you jump on me... whether we would want to send in a bunch of paramilitaries to cause chaos and turn Iran into a harmless basketcase is another question. And I'm not opposed.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 3:35PM

"Forgive me if I interpret that as you meaning that Iran is not trying to acquire nuclear weapons."

I said there is no proof that they are trying to acquire nuclear weapons. You claimed I said "Iran's not interested in developing nukes." I am quite sure Iran is *interested* in developing nuclear weapons, but we have no evidence that they are doing so, and quite a lot of evidence that they are not - though of course they'd like to. Not wanting nuclear weapons would be irrational.

"As for weaponization, yes, JP was wrong to the extent that there are no photographs of nuclear missles."

No - he was wrong that it was verified that Iran had weaponized plutonium. Dead wrong.

"But the point is there are enough centrifuges, and more than enough weapons grade fissile material, to make a nuclear weapon."

The point of a different conversation, maybe. Irrelevant to this one, however.

"It is your prerogative to ignore reality."

On the contrary, I have addressed every bit of evidence brought forth. It is you who is inventing evidence-free scenarios ("Iran is working toward a nuclear weapon!!!") out of thin air, not to mention the ridiculous, hysterical author ("the Middle East is headed for nuclear war!!!"). No recent investigations have concluded Iran is developing weapons. The evidence is against your position and *with* mine. Sorry.

"BTW, I'm a reverse, inverse Straussian-Jacobin: I'm just messing with your head. I'm on your side. Really."

I'm quite sure you've no idea what those words even mean.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 3:37PM

"Try listening to Rush, Laura Ingraham, Mark Levin, Hugh Hewitt and reading Maulkin. They do this everyday."

Oh I forgot. You get your worldview from talk show hosts.

Nick| 6.17.09 @ 3:40PM

Mr. Toddard,

"Oh I forgot. You get your worldview from talk show hosts."

Is that supposed to be an argument or your version of a witty retort?

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 3:41PM

"I mean, lets not forget it was only twenty ago, men were signing up by the thousands to be martyrs in the Iran-Iraq war"

I know - how ridiculous is that? Volunteering to fight in a war against Iraq? So bizarre!

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 3:42PM

"Is that supposed to be an argument or your version of a witty retort?"

Oh no not at all. They're very good talk show hosts. Very entertaining.

hinckley| 6.17.09 @ 3:44PM

The ONLY "damn fool" is the author, Ferrara!

Only a damn fool could simultaneously back his way into a weak but, specious rationalization of Bush/Cheney foreign policy AND parrot the overused, ineffective accusation of narcissism against Obama despite the overwhelming support he continues to enjoy from his constituents: the AMERICAN PEOPLE .

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 3:47PM

"Only a damn fool could simultaneously back his way into a weak but, specious rationalization of Bush/Cheney foreign policy AND parrot the overused, ineffective accusation of narcissism against Obama despite the overwhelming support he continues to enjoy from his constituents: the AMERICAN PEOPLE"

Those American People are no less foolish than Ferarra. They've traded one anti-conservative, constitution-trampling, bloodthirsty warmonger for another.

Michael Tomlinson| 6.17.09 @ 3:53PM

Bravo Mr. Ferrara for a passionate denunciation of the Obama Democrat's appeasement philosophy of coddling tyrants, but I must disagree I don't think Obama "misconceives the problem of Iran and Islamic terrorism" I think he actually sympathize with them and their goals. Frank Gaffney makes a compelling argument that Obama is the first "Muslim President" and this inspires his embrace of extremists. (It might be better argued Obama is the first "Islamo-fascist President.")

As the first writer to TAS (maybe in the country) to describe Obama as a narcissist as-well-as a neo-fascist I'm not surprised that he is doing all he can to sustain his spiritual and political soul mates in Iran. Let’s not forget Obama's buddy Hugo Chavez is a close friend to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the mullahs. He even wants to be part of their nuclear terror network someday in order to destroy America (unless his other bosom buddy, Barack Obama, somehow becomes "president for life.")

As for Toddard's rant it is easy to see how so many people are bamboozled by Obama. They simply lack the ability to think rationally or accept the facts. One could say of Obama supporters they lack intellectual curiosity and the ability to think independently. Much like BO's first Supreme Court nominee.

As the author correctly pointed out Iran's quest for nuclear weapons (that many believe will become reality within a year) is to fulfill their understanding of theology and the coming of the Made. Like the suicide bombers that have spread terror around the world dying for their faith is a reward and not a punishment. Let us not forget time and again that extremists Muslim leaders have boasted of their willingness to die vs. the West's desire to preserve life.

Toddard’s defense that the words of the Iranian theocracy can be trusted and are to be believed reveal an incredible gullibility and naïveté. But this should be expected from a disciple of Barack Obama and his neutered and vaginal foreign policy. For an Obama acolyte better to be a dumb derriere defending rogue states than a thoughtful person who understands the dangers Islamic extremism poses not only to Israel, the US and the West, but to the world. This Democrat obtuseness is reminiscent of the shallow minds who pooh-poohed the threat of Hitler’s Nazism, Marxist/Leninism and Pol Pot’s genocide.

As for disarming Israel of alleged nuclear weapons there is no proof that they have them or want them. Israel has never threatened to "nuke and wipe out" any of their blood thirsty enemies or their terrorist agents. Iran and most Arab states/peoples have stated or implied they want to finish what their political ally Adolph Hitler started. (Hitler's favorite cleric was Yasser Arafat’s uncle the Mufti of Jerusalem and during WW II Arab nationalists from Egypt to Iraq were allied to the Nazis.) Again Tollard’s MoveOn.org anti-Semitism reveals he is as hateful as his master Barack Obama.

All that will stop the insanity of the Obama Democrat's appalling domestic and foreign policy mistakes (actions that are destroying our economy, jobs, values and national security) is major Republican victories in 2010 and 2012. Then it will be up to the GOP to quickly and effectively dismantle everything Obama has put in motion and use the opportunity to kill other tax-payer financed Democrat special interest groups and programs. While Barack Obama is as much a threat to the US as are the tyrants he wants to preserve in his case we still have the opportunity of defeating him and his mindless drones with the ballot box and not bullets.

Dustoff| 6.17.09 @ 3:54PM

SL. Todd
The IAEA has been and will always be a joke along with the UN."

And yet you cited their chief. How odd.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++

Your not good at reading are you.

I just noticed the gut feeling he said he had, nothing more.
++++++++++++++++
So Ferarra as a liar? Ok then, can you prove him wrong."

I already have. Scroll up to my first post.
+++++++++++++++++++++

Your opinion doesn't make it fact.

Nick| 6.17.09 @ 3:57PM

Mr. Toddard,

So you concede my other points! Thanks!

This is progress.

Michael Tomlinson| 6.17.09 @ 3:57PM

TAS readers please forgive the error "Made" should read Mahdi. I hit the wrong key when spell checking. Using Barack Hussein Obama' s favortie foreign policy word I "apologize."

Red Phillips| 6.17.09 @ 3:58PM

"but I think you'll find that the discord isn't *on* the right, it's between the neoconservatives *and* the right."

Obviously you are technically correct as neoconservatism is really a form of liberalism. I guess what I meant is the right as it is commonly understood (misunderstood) today.

Self identified conservatives who embrace interventionism are not going to become non-interventionists overnight with few exceptions. They have deeply held internationalist, militarist, etc. biases that will have to be overcome by persuasion.

Having a magazine like Am Spec that isn't entirely hostile to non-interventionists is a start. The trends are in our direction. For example, Joe Scarborough is coming our way. We need to concentrate on making our case. The pro-war bitter enders are making themselves irrelevant.

Dustoff| 6.17.09 @ 4:02PM

S.L. Todd
Those American People are no less foolish than Ferarra. They've traded one anti-conservative, constitution-trampling, bloodthirsty warmonger for another.
++++++++++++++++++++++

HAHAHAHA, are you for real. During the Clinton days all we heard from you dem's war WAR with Iraq.
++++
constitution-trampling

Look up FDR... then get back to me.

zamprelli| 6.17.09 @ 4:24PM

Stopped reading after the first sentence. If you can be that wrong in so few words, there's no point in continuing.

Red Phillips| 6.17.09 @ 4:24PM

Michael Tomlinson, you are a dichotomous thinking, totally unnuanced simpleton. Toddard is not an Obama supporter. Can you not read? Can you not comprehend?

Where have you been the last few years? There does exist this group of conservatives who support a foreign policy of non-intervention. Perhaps you’ve heard of Ron Paul. Wake up. Look around. Get outside the movement conservative bubble you obviously restrict yourself to. Not all opponents of mindless interventionism are liberal Obama supporters. In fact, the most sensible criticisms of interventionism are from the right. And our ranks are growing and your ranks are shrinking. With the fewer and fewer bitter enders getting shriller and shriller.

Whether you realize it or not, Obama and the left are not non-interventionists. They are generally liberal internationalist interventionists which is the flip-side of neocon internationalist interventionism. You have very little to fear from Obama. The true opposition to interventionism whether liberal or neocon is rightist non-interventionism.

Michael Tomlinson| 6.17.09 @ 4:35PM

Red, Joe Lieberman like you is WRONG. The Bush policy was not based on supposed Democrat policies for spreading democracy and/or human rights. The Democrat party has consistently ignored or supported the rule of tyrants. FDR did his best to ignore Hitler and fascism when if he had acted sooner he would have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of other innocent people. JFK gave away the store to Khrushchev and Castro as he drug America into Vietnam, LBJ refused to fight for victory in Southeast Asia and thus opened the door to genocide that Congressional Democrats ignored and abetted, Carter trusted the PLO, the Soviet Union and Ayatollah Khomeini and created our current mess, Clinton made things worse by defending, empowering and emboldening Muslim extremists in the Balkans and around the world.

President Bush’s pro-democracy policy (that is working in Iraq as I’ve seen firsthand and reported in the London Times) is based on the Reagan Doctrine of spreading democracy to undermine threats to the US and preserve world peace. I know so-called paleo-conservatives like Pat Buchannan and Lewis Grizzard (i.e. the right wing or Heinrich Himmler branch of US neo-fascism as opposed to the left-wing Ernst Röhm branch led by Barack Obama) hate the idea of spreading freedom and democracy, but as we saw with Reagan it works.

If you’re such a dedicated isolationist and not a member of the neo-fascist Democrat party you should think about signing up with or some other group that opposes the traditional American belief that freedom is a God given right. As espoused and/or implied in our founding documents.

Dustoff| 6.17.09 @ 4:35PM

RED

What would you call this then?
+++++++++++++++++
S.L. Todd
Those American People are no less foolish than Ferarra. They've traded one anti-conservative, constitution-trampling, bloodthirsty warmonger for another.

Michael Tomlinson| 6.17.09 @ 4:47PM

Do you mean Ron Paul the earmark king? I know Congressman Paul and at times have supported his positions, but on foreign policy and earmarks he is just wrong and since he stands in opposition to the principles Reagan emodied and I cannot support him or those who think appeasement to tyranny is wise foreign policy.

As for Toddard his arguments are those of Obama and his supporters whether he understands that or not. Like you he is the type of person who will bury his head in the sand and ignore the threats till it is too late. Then like the Democrats in Congress scream for war until it benefits them to betray the US military and seek to appease our enemies.

American history is rife with the story of groups and individuals on the right and left who think think we can hide behind the oceans and be safe. The fallacy of those ideas was proven on December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001.

Like Reagan and Bush I think supporting the spread of democracy and freedom is well worth the price of blood and treasure. I price I'm willing to pay every day and did in Iraq and will in Afghanistan. That's why I have no problem in using my real name and not a nickname or psuedonym. I stand by my beliefs.

Red Phillips| 6.17.09 @ 4:58PM

"Red, Joe Lieberman like you is WRONG. The Bush policy was not based on supposed Democrat policies for spreading democracy and/or human rights."

MT, can you pass up no opportunity to score partisan points? My point was not that the policies were (Big D) Democrat, but that spreading democracy and "human rights" is a LIBERAL, in fact revolutionary, conceit.

Besides, your facts are too wrong to correct them all. Briefly, FDR was desperate to drag us into WWII. It was the conservative and populist elements of the country that opposed our envolvement. It was liberal internationalists who supported it.

And Lewis Grizzard as paleocon? I know a lot about paleoconservatism and a lot about Lewis Grizzard, and that is the first time I have ever heard that. Lewis Grizzard was a largely apolitical Southern humorist. I think you have him confused with someone else.

"Those American People are no less foolish than Ferarra. They've traded one anti-conservative, constitution-trampling, bloodthirsty warmonger for another."

Dustoff, that is the point. SLT is calling both Bush AND Obama anti-conservative Constitution tramplers? Hardly what I would expect from an Obama supporter.

jr| 6.17.09 @ 5:02PM

Israel should politely move the Palestinians to one of its borders and tell them they have 24 hours to get across the border. That would solve the Israel-Palestine question. Obama is a marxists and will support a marxist-dictatorship versus democracy. What is left to question? Besides, the Messiah is so busy trying to take the U.S. in the direction of a dictatorship he doesn't have time or the teleprompter speech to handle the Israel-Pal. issue. He is too busy taking over our private businesses. Like the author, I believe in trying to spread democracy but if the intended recipients do not want it, let them alone or blow them to hello.

Paul in Austin| 6.17.09 @ 5:13PM

A nuclear Iran poses NO THREAT to the United States. As a result, we have no business overthrowing the Iranian government. A threat to Israel is a threat to Israel, and I trust that the Israelis will deal with threats to their existence as they have in the past. A nuclear Iran is no reason for the U.S. to go back into George Bush mode and try to bring about regime change!

David | 6.17.09 @ 5:15PM

I am just happy Mr. Ferrara is not our president.

First of all, don't you people learn any lessons? Wasn't just 6 years ago we thought the Iraqis would welcome us with open arms and flowers? We have no idea how the Iranians will react to our 'help'. They certainly have not asked for it. Buy I can gurantee you our immediate interference will be a death sentence to the opposition.

Second, how do we know this Mousavi guy is great? I had not heard about him until two weeks ago. We do have a history of supporting the wrong guys, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam included. So can we be a little caucious on this one?

Last, many attack Obama for 'missing' this great moment. Excuse me, but without Obama there would not have been such a moment. We certainly did not see any movements of this kind during Bush years. We we have seen is the "Obama Effect" being felt across the region, from Lebanon to Pakistan, people are starting to reject extremetism. Good start.

I think the neo-cons just have a hard time believing we can accomplish anything in the world without a war. It looks like with Obama's Cario speech, and the help of facebook and twitter, we just might have a revolution going on. Remember Reagan? He did not fight a war either. He made a speech too.

I remember similar criticism during the pirate crisis - how Obama is weak and indecisive and so on. Then 5 days later, it turned out Obama did have a plan, and he executed it brilliantly. Now it has been only 3 days since the Iranian election and the same critics are jumping up and down already, singing the same old tunes. And people are tired of hearing them.

Red Phillips| 6.17.09 @ 5:21PM

"American history is rife with the story of groups and individuals on the right and left who think we can hide behind the oceans and be safe."

Scroll up and read the post by George Washington. He would be one of those.

"The fallacy of those ideas was proven on December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001."

You are hopelessly ignorant of the facts. Both incidents were the direct result of us meddling and not minding our own business. Ever heard of the McCollum memo? Ever heard of blowback?

“I think supporting the spread of democracy and freedom is well worth the price of blood and treasure.”

Robespierre and his Jacobin buddies would agree. I guess they were conservatives.

After you Wikipedia my references, then get back to me.

Sam| 6.17.09 @ 5:25PM

I believe Peter Ferrara is a NeoCon. For non NeoCon perspective from someone who worked in the Reagan administration, check out Paul Craig Roberts "The Difficulty of Being an Informed American" http://baltimorechronicle.com/2009/010909Roberts2.shtml

I'm sure he would add American Spectator as one of the propaganda news sites to avoid, that is unless you want to get duped into another BS war and get thousands of people killed.

Stand Up, Hook Up| 6.17.09 @ 5:30PM

I'll break it down...
Yes, Obama has been, and will continue to get passes on everything he does. Not because he is black... well, maybe... but because of the liberal control of the media. Before I get harped on, let me explain;
Unknown to many, is the fact that President O'blah-blah gave an order to military commanders which stated that: US troops guarding Muslim prisoners are not to engage in the reading of the Christian bible because the Muslims find it offensive.
He has also stuck his wet finger in an outlet with this little gem: A group of Iraqis were seen/found using US issue bibles (the little ones given to troops) for target practice. A soldier caught them, and in turn, used a Qu'ran as a rifle target. This gained the attention of our fearless leader, and he has personally given an order to have this soldier court-martialed.
My points are simply this... Why hasn't this been on the front page of every English-speaking newspaper, AND, could you imagine the fallout that would ensue if Bush would have taken this kind of action?
If we want change, we have to start writing, emailing, faxing or calling our representatives and senators and tell them what we think of whatever is going on in our country that we feel strongly about and how it may affect our vote for or against them in the future. That, ultimately, is what influences them.

Sam| 6.17.09 @ 5:31PM

It looks like links are blocked in the comments? Click on my name to read an article by someone from the Reagan administration who is not a Neocan.

"The Difficulty of Being an Informed American"

Michael Tomlinson| 6.17.09 @ 5:54PM

Red, despite the modern spin of his adoring masses, FDR's policies were consistently isolationist (policies that not only made us vulnerable to our enemies, but worsened the depression) and antagonistic to those who wanted to confront the threat of fascism. Perhaps like Obama (whose ideology has some real similarities with radical anti-Semite and socialist Ernst Rohm) at his core FDR was sympathetic to creating a fascist type state in the US. Granted as we neared December 7th he was glacially moving in the right direction by aiding the British with outdated ships and equipment in their fight against Hitler, but his supporters enthusiastically voted for him a third time, because he "kept us out of Europe's War."

Using your "logic" Ronald Reagan was a “sponsor of liberal conceit.” That speaks volumes about your "conservative" views. The fact is Reagan was a visionary who understood democracy and freedom are the only way to have true peace between nation states. That’s why he eagerly sought to spread it in Eastern Europe and Latin America. If he were alive and able today he'd support its spread in the Middle East too.

Red, you’re correct I confused Lewis Grizzard with a paleo-conservative Lewis Rockwell. I think of the paleo-conservative ideology as a joke as opposed to Reagan conservatism so that may have produced the Freudian slip – my apologies to Grizzard and his fans. But the premise holds true the paleo-conservatives like Obama and his followers are antagonistic to Reagan’s vision of seeing democracy and freedom spread throughout the world. They, like Obama, are quite content to appease Islamo-fascists even to the detriment of the US and the principles of democracy.

Let’s face facts – combat deaths in Iraq (3,200) are roughly the same as the deaths on 9/11. What would have happened had we more aggressively fought Islamo-fascism beginning in the 1960’s or 1970’s? This is one area where I even fault Reagan who refused to take on Iran after their surrogates bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut.

What happens when the Islamo-fascists or other extremists you want to coddle attack our homeland again with even more bloodshed? I guess we should thank Obama for following you ideology and doing nothing to combat evil.

Finally, I stand with Reagan and Bush as opposed to you, Toddard, Dustoff, etc. who actually mirror the beliefs and policies of extremists like Barack Hussein Obama, MoveOn.org, Ron Paul, Pat Buchanan, Lew Rockwell and others who would throw freedom and democracy under the bus in the hopes of supposedly “preserving” it and the Constitution all the while trampling it under foot to secure your own derrieres.

If that’s scoring political points I’m proudly guilty.

William R| 6.17.09 @ 6:04PM

Ferrara is a 3rd rate NeoCon hack. I defy him to provide the quote where anyone in Iran said they plan to use nukes against Israel. You won't find it. Ahmadinejad did say that" Israel would vanish one day, but not due to nuclear weapons. Demographics would be the end of Israel. " Our own CIA says the same thing. NeoCons like Ferrar are just trying to start another war not satisfied that the Iraq war is one of the biggest strategic blunders in our history.

Michael Tomlinson| 6.17.09 @ 6:10PM

Red like the paleo-conservatives you hearken back to George Washington in an attempt to promote your outdated and unworkable isolationism and antipathy to democracy and freedom. While it is true at one time we were able to safely hide behind oceans times have changed if you haven't noticed.

Isolationists (right and left) cost us hundreds of thousands of dead Americans in WW II, because they either admired fascism and Nazism or thought we could appease it. They like you, with your willingness to appease Islamo-fascism, were wrong.

Sadly, it will only be when more innocent Americans are killed in this country by Muslims that you will hopefully wakeup to the stupidity of your ideology. But I fear that you and your kind are proof of the old adage, "Convince a fool against his will he's of the same opinion still."

Personally, I'm not a fan of Wikipedia or the French Revolution, but since you made reference to them I'm guessing you are a user of the former as well as paranoid blogs feeled with Jewish conspiracy theories and sympathetic to the chaos of the latter since it was a war waged against those who wouldn't submit to the tyranny of group think.

William R| 6.17.09 @ 6:10PM

Tomlinson, here what Reagan said about the Middle East in his autobiography.

"Here’s how he explained it in his autobiography:

Perhaps we didn’t appreciate fully enough the depth of the hatred and the complexity of the problems that made the Middle East such a jungle. Perhaps the idea of a suicide car bomber committing mass murder to gain instant entry to Paradise was so foreign to our own values and consciousness that it did not create in us the concern for the marines’ safety that it should have.

"In the weeks immediately after the bombing, I believe the last thing that we should do was turn tail and leave. Yet the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics forced us to rethink our policy there. If there would be some rethinking of policy before our men die, we would be a lot better off. If that policy had changed towards more of a neutral position and neutrality, those 241 marines would be alive today."

The idea that Reagan would have gone into Iraq is laughable. NeoCon fantasies.

William R| 6.17.09 @ 6:11PM

Tomlinson, here what Reagan said about the Middle East in his autobiography.

"Here’s how he explained it in his autobiography:

Perhaps we didn’t appreciate fully enough the depth of the hatred and the complexity of the problems that made the Middle East such a jungle. Perhaps the idea of a suicide car bomber committing mass murder to gain instant entry to Paradise was so foreign to our own values and consciousness that it did not create in us the concern for the marines’ safety that it should have.

"In the weeks immediately after the bombing, I believe the last thing that we should do was turn tail and leave. Yet the irrationality of Middle Eastern politics forced us to rethink our policy there. If there would be some rethinking of policy before our men die, we would be a lot better off. If that policy had changed towards more of a neutral position and neutrality, those 241 marines would be alive today."

The idea that Reagan would have gone into Iraq is laughable. NeoCon fantasies.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 6:15PM

"Dustoff, that is the point. SLT is calling both Bush AND Obama anti-conservative Constitution tramplers? Hardly what I would expect from an Obama supporter."

Red, Dustoff is not the exception here - he is the rule. For most readers here the world is divided exactly in half, with Good on one side and Evil on the other, both easily identifiable. Life for them is no different than professional wrestling. On the domestic front, Good can be defined as "Anything the GOP leadership/Right Wing Talk Radio Hosts say or do" and everything else is "Liberal". I, who attack Bush and Obama from a conservative constitutional republican perspective, and assumed always to be a "Loony Leftist" or a "moonbat" or whatever other term gleaned from talk radio is in vogue because, in their minds, what the GOP says and does is "conservative" and anyone who opposes what they say or do is "liberal", even when the opposition is from a Burkean, Kirkean or Goldwaterite prespective.

Michael Tomlinson| 6.17.09 @ 6:24PM

"And God willing, with the force of God behind it, we shall soon experience a world without the United States and Zionism . . ." Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Since Allah has proven totally ineffectual in fighting the US in Iraq and utimately Afghanistan one can justly surmize that the force that will be used to wipe us off the map will be nuclear. But knowing the complexity of the Farsi language and how Mahmoud Ahmadinejad likes to hide behind obscure phrasings maybe he's hoping will just committ mass suicide so we can become one of the largest Muslim nations in the world as Obama has declared.

I'm sure the pseudo-conservatives who believe in appeasing Islamo-fascists (to be distinquished from conservatives who see them as our enemies) will have a way to defend Iran and validate their titular leader Barack Hussein Obama's policies of promoting tyranny and despotism.

Xanthippas| 6.17.09 @ 6:25PM

I appreciate it when writers put their glaring flaws right at the beginning of their piece. It saves me the trouble of having to read the rest of their nonsense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#.22Wiped_off_the_map.22_or_.22Vanish_from_the_pages_of_time.22_translation

Red Phillips| 6.17.09 @ 6:42PM

MT, are you really interested in learning something? Please read this. (Or click on my name above for the same link.)

http://www.amconmag.com/article/2005/apr/11/00011/

Even if you don't agree, your dichotomous thinking that SLT refers to makes you look unserious. Be willing to learn and make distinctions where distinctions are due.

Michael Tomlinson| 6.17.09 @ 6:47PM

A few quotes found on Conservapedia:

"The house we hope to build is not for my generation but for yours. It is your future that matters. And I hope that when you are my age, you will be able to say as I have been able to say: We lived in freedom. We lived lives that were a statement, not an apology." - January 20, 1981

"A leader, once convinced a particular course of action is the right one, must have the determination to stick with it and be undaunted when the going gets rough." - December 5, 1990

"...peace is the highest aspiration of the American People. We will negotiate for it, sacrifice for it, we will never surrender for it, now or ever." - January 20, 1981

As Jesse Helms said (you can find the speech on the Heritage Foundation web site), "Ronald Reagan made his case to the American people: We should stand up for freedom, he said over and over again, instead of seeking 'peaceful co-existence' with Soviet tyranny. He called for rebuilding America's defense capabilities. He declared that "peace does not come from weakness or retreat--it comes from the restoration of American military superiority.

He condemned immoral agreements such as the Helsinki Accord in which, he said, the Ford Administration had put 'America's stamp of approval on Russia's enslavement of the captive nations...[and had given] away the freedom of millions of people--freedom that was not ours to give.' He called for an end to 'balance of power' diplomacy and declared that our battle with Soviet Communism was not simply a struggle between rival powers, but rather a battle between right and wrong, between good and evil."

Ronald Reagan at the Republican convention said, "Honestly, openly, and with a firm conviction, we shall go forward as a united people to forge a lasting peace in the world based on our deep belief in the rights of man, the rule of law, and guidance by the hand of God." That's a far cry from the whining paleo-cons and appeasers who hide behind words, but sell out democracy.

If anyone believes after 9/11 Reagan would have followed your gutless call for isolation and just getting along with the Muslim extremists you don't know Ronald Reagan. He'd be just as determined to fight them as and their supporters as he was the communists.

As he told the British Parliment the "march of freedom and democracy which will leave Marxism-Leninism on the ashheap of history." Post 9/11 it would be democracy leaving Islamic extremism/imperialism in the ashheap of history.

Unlike those who claim to be supporters of freedom, but seek to appease Iran and Islamo-fascism Ronald Reagan the Hawk would NEVER be in your cynical corner of selling democracy short through appeasement defending tryrants.

What you guys need to do is grow a pair and then you might understand Ronald Reagan and the need to need to fight Islamic extremism with democratic ideas. Something you obviously don't place much hope in.

Patrick| 6.17.09 @ 7:03PM

1. Ronald Reagan "supplied arms" to the Soviet opposition? This is very dramatic news. Mr Ferrara needs to present his evidence for this statement and tell us how he believes it led to Glasnost and the death of the old regime in the Soviet Union. I somehow missed the armed rebellion phase during that transitional period.

2. In a Daily Beast interview published on her website, the former Iranian empress, Farah Pahlavi, says in response to a question regarding President Obama's public statements on the curent Iranian crisis, "the president..was very diplomatic, pragmatic and right."

Michael Tomlinson| 6.17.09 @ 7:11PM

I read it Red it's paranoid tripe and wreaks of the same moral equivalence that animates Barack Obama and the American left. Despite your rhetoric you guys are the mirror image of the Obamanation much like Fascism was the mirror image of Communism.

Bush with his idelaism and personal faith reflects how much like Reagan he was. Based on Jacobin in Chief Reagan is the godfather of that idea, because he said, "If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under" (Aug. 23, 1984)

The real arrogance is with those who distort others love of country, freedom and democracy into an evil conspiracy. It is as disgusting as twisting and distorting a person's faith to create a "straw man" to attack.

Disagreement with a policy is fair and good in democracy, but the paranoia and distortion in Jacobin in Chief reads like something from MoveOn.org not those claiming to preserve America's liberty and traditions.

Your inability to perceive the difference between Bush, Reagan and sometimes Fox News from the Democrats and MSM reveals how shallow and distorted your thinking is.

While you sometimes take pot shots against the tyranny being created by Obama your real enemy is freedom loving and patriotic American conservaitves. You fear us far more than the radical left, because we oppose your radical anti-American ideology as much as that of the radical left.

But it is late and I've been at work since 0630 so it is time to go. Hopefully, one day you will fall in love with the ideals of freedom and democracy that animated Presidents Reagan and Bush as they do the majority of conservatives (traditionalists and neo-cons).

Nick| 6.17.09 @ 7:19PM

I knew it was too good to be true.

Come on, Mr. Toddard, you've never backed down from a fight before, why now?

Just because I showed you were too lazy to use a dictionary or thesaurus and didn't know "compare" and "contrast" are synonymous?

I thought you were a big boy?

William R| 6.17.09 @ 7:22PM

Tomlinson, I haven't heard anyone talk about isolationism. Just pointing out how Reagan even after 241 Marines died in Lebanon thought the United States should be neutral in the Middle East. During the Reagan adm the United States had very good relations with Saddam. The idea that Reagan would have launched some crusade for Democracy via the gun is laughable. Again. Neocon fantasies.

How Reagan Beat the Neocons

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/11/opinion/how-reagan-beat-the-neocons.html

tj| 6.17.09 @ 7:54PM

Watch Obama take credit for the whole thing, if it goes the way it ought to go. And watch the government controlled media trumpet his greatness without so much as a wink or a nudge.

Jefrocks| 6.17.09 @ 8:03PM

SL Toddard, That was funny, "insane", what a joke. So you believe what they say, okay no problem , you continue do that and we will continue not to. Anyone remember the continued denials of North Korea with regards to their Nuclear Program? What do they have now? Think about it before its too late...

Red Phillips| 6.17.09 @ 8:11PM

"If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under"

MT, I agree. Actually being One Nation Under (the Christian) God, which would be scandalously particularistic, precludes the neocon tripe that elevates a rationalistic universalistic faith in liberal democracy to the level of a religion.

No longer do we have Christ the Redeemer. We now have America the redeemer nation. Some neocon rhetoric borders on blasphemy. It clearly has lost sight of the Christian belief in the fallen nature and imperfectablity of man and human societies.

Read this. All I can do is try to teach you.

http://members.cox.net/wcampbell14/2006natryn.htm

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 8:28PM

"As for Toddard's rant it is easy to see how so many people are bamboozled by Obama."

Exhibit A. Red - you have to understand that when you're speaking to folks like Tomlinson you're starting with a blank slate - these people do not understand conservatism as a philosophical tendency or disposition, the history of conservatism, the precedent of Burke or Adams or Calhoun or who-have-you. Tomlinson here assumes I am an Obamophile, because - in his mind - there are only two groups, Conservative and Liberal, or Good and Evil. Therefore if I opposed Bush I am an Obama-supporter, even though I oppose Obama for the exact same reasons I opposed Bush. The idea that there are myriad perspectives and philosophies with profound or subtle or nuanced differences is quite beyond them - it literally never occurs to them! They are quite unaware that there is a conservative opposition, because they equate jacobinism with conservatism. It is a pathetic sort of ignorance that will not be corrected through debate - mostly because a debate with a Tomlinson is not a debate at all. Look at what he considers "arguments":

"As the author correctly pointed out Iran's quest for nuclear weapons (that many believe will become reality within a year)"

Cite which regulatory body's investigations came to that conclusion.

"Toddard’s defense that the words of the Iranian theocracy can be trusted..."

Straw man. Cite where I made that "defense" or retract.

"But this should be expected from a disciple of Barack Obama and his neutered and vaginal foreign policy"

"For an Obama acolyte..."

Let's keep in mind that Tomlinson is a man who cannot even accurately identify an "Obama acolyte".

"This Democrat obtuseness is reminiscent of the shallow minds who pooh-poohed the threat of Hitler’s Nazism"

Ah - the Chamberlain-appeasement comparison rears its tired head. Didn't take long.

"Again Tollard’s MoveOn.org anti-Semitism..."

Cite any "anti-semitic" statement I have made.

"All that will stop the insanity of the Obama Democrat's appalling domestic and foreign policy mistakes (actions that are destroying our economy, jobs, values and national security) is major Republican victories in 2010 and 2012"

See Red? The only thing that can stop this madness - this radical departure Obama has launched - is to get The Good Guys back in office, and get The Baddies out of there! You know, because they'd done such a wonderful job. What a profound and nuanced prescription for what ails America.

"FDR did his best to ignore Hitler and fascism..."

My god. Can you really be that ignorant? Roosevelt campaigned as an isolationist because something like 80% of Americans opposed entering Europe's war, but he worked feverishly to support the Allies and to drum up support for intervention. He began secret correspondence with Churchill and lent massive amounts of economic and military aid to Britain, France, China, the USSR etc. He instituted the first peacetime draft in American history. He argued to the nation in his "Arsenal of Democracy" speech that America must intervene or face the Nazis on our own shore. The man's actions - undisputedly - put lie to the claim of "isolationist". The claim that "FDR did his best to ignore Hitler and fascism" is one that can only be made in jest, as a lie or in utter, pathetic ignorance.

"when if he had acted sooner he would have saved the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and millions of other innocent people."

Really? It would have cost *less* American lives if we got involved *before* Germany had spent a good part of its strength conquering Western Europe, sent armies to invade the Soviet Union and gotten bogged down with their forces spread across Europe and Africa fighting on two fronts? Fascinating. What studies back that up?

"President Bush’s pro-democracy policy (that is working in Iraq as I’ve seen firsthand and reported in the London Times)"

Oh yes fantastically. Only a few thousand American servicemen dead (but who cares, right?) not to mention hundreds of thousands of Iraqi innocents, plus a trillion dollars or so down the hole and the destabilization of the entire region. A smashing success by all accounts.

"is based on the Reagan Doctrine of spreading democracy to undermine threats to the US and preserve world peace"

Reagan's doctrine was to oppose the USSR, a nation that (it could be argued) posed a literal existential threat, as they had a massive arsenal of nuclear-armed ICBMs and could literally end our *existence*. We face no such threat now from anywhere on the globe. And Reagan's doctrine was never to "spread democracy" to undermine threats, it was to oppose communism - even if that meant stifling democracy, overthrowing *democratically elected* communists and installing dictators, which we did all across the globe. Do they not have history courses in whatever junior high you attend?

"I know so-called paleo-conservatives like Pat Buchannan and Lewis Grizzard (i.e. the right wing or Heinrich Himmler branch of US neo-fascism as opposed to the left-wing Ernst Röhm branch led by Barack Obama) hate the idea of spreading freedom and democracy, but as we saw with Reagan it works."

You mean the same Pat Buchanan who was senior advisor to Ronald Reagan? Is that your contention - that anti-communist conservative crusader Pat Buchanan, senior advisor to three presidents including Ronald Reagan, did not understand Reagan's doctrine - which he himself helped to craft?

"If you’re such a dedicated isolationist and not a member of the neo-fascist Democrat party you should think about signing up with or some other group that opposes the traditional American belief that freedom is a God given right. As espoused and/or implied in our founding documents."

Hm. I thought "times had changed" and their beliefs were now "unworkable"? Washington and Adams, Founders both, warned against embroiling ourselves in the business of other, sovereign peoples. As we have witnessed with the abysmal failures in Iraq and Afghanistan, it hardly always works to the best.

"As for Toddard his arguments are those of Obama and his supporters whether he understands that or not"

Perhaps you should try refuting one of them some time. Good luck.

"Like you he is the type of person who will bury his head in the sand and ignore the threats till it is too late. Then like the Democrats in Congress scream for war until it benefits them to betray the US military and seek to appease our enemies."

Ad hominem. Irrelevant.

"American history is rife with the story of groups and individuals on the right and left who think think we can hide behind the oceans and be safe. The fallacy of those ideas was proven on December 7, 1941 and September 11, 2001."

On September 11th 2001 America had troops stationed in over a hundred nations all across the globe and was doling out countless billions to prop up regimes on every continent. What on earth are you talking about?

"Like Reagan and Bush I think supporting the spread of democracy and freedom is well worth the price of blood and treasure. I price I'm willing to pay every day and did in Iraq and will in Afghanistan. That's why I have no problem in using my real name and not a nickname or pseudonym. I stand by my beliefs."

You don't have beliefs. You have idiotic, half-understood slogans and an inexcusable ignorance of America's history and traditions.

"Red, despite the modern spin of his adoring masses, FDR's policies were consistently isolationist (policies that not only made us vulnerable to our enemies, but worsened the depression) and antagonistic to those who wanted to confront the threat of fascism"

I'm sorry, Tomlinson, but I have already laid waste to that idiotic claim. It is false - there is nothing remotely "interventionist" about intervening, as FDR did militarily and economically.

"Perhaps like Obama (whose ideology has some real similarities with radical anti-Semite and socialist Ernst Rohm) at his core FDR was sympathetic to creating a fascist type state in the US."

That is fascinating. What evidence is there to support this brilliant theory?

"Granted as we neared December 7th he was glacially moving in the right direction"

You mean December 7th 1938? It was in 1938 that Roosevelt began talks with the French on how to circumvent U.S. neutrality laws to provide France with war planes. Does that fit your definition of an "isolationist act"?.

"The fact is Reagan was a visionary who understood democracy and freedom are the only way to have true peace between nation states."

Already refuted - Reagan opposed *communism* even if that meant stifling democracy, overthrowing *democratically elected* communists and installing dictators, which we did all across the globe, including in Iran, where we toppled a democratically elected prime minister (Mossadegh) and replaced him with the Shah, whose brutal reign resulted in the Iranian revolution. Blowback. Reagan did not depose Saddam Hussein because his rule was undemocratic and unfree - he propped him up as a bulwark against the Iranians. Reagan did not care that the Afghanis were not democrats but "Islamists" - he armed and aided them against the communists. Your understanding (and I use the term loosely) of history is really quite shabby.

"They, like Obama, are quite content to appease Islamo-fascists"

And like Bush, who supported the Saudi regime. And like Reagan, who supported the Afghani "Islamofascists" (such a silly term).

"Let’s face facts – combat deaths in Iraq (3,200) are roughly the same as the deaths on 9/11."

Indeed - Bush has as much American blood on his hands as Osama bin Laden. Finally we agree on something.

"What would have happened had we more aggressively fought Islamo-fascism beginning in the 1960’s or 1970’s?"

More American soldiers would have died than did? The resources we pulled away from opposing the Soviets may have cost us the fall of communism?

"This is one area where I even fault Reagan who refused to take on Iran after their surrogates bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut."

Indeed - the very embodiment of conservatism saw that there was no threat posed to the U.S. and so pulled out. It's called "common sense", or "realism". Would that Bush were so wise in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"What happens when the Islamo-fascists or other extremists you want to coddle attack our homeland again with even more bloodshed? I guess we should thank Obama for following you ideology and doing nothing to combat evil."

Doing nothing? He's continuing the charade in Iraq, escalading the charade in Afghanistan, launching raids into Pakistan, retaining nearly the whole of Bush's anti-constitutional "anti-terrorism" apparatus, continuing preventive detention, continuing spying on American citizens, constructing kangaroo courts to convict un-convictable captives. If the man had an elephant on his lapel instead of a donkey you would cheer his every move, because you don't support - or even understand - policies, you support *a side*. You are trapped in a simplistic, puerile, childish Good Vs Evil narrative and cannot see that Obama is for the most part continuing Bush's policies - all the substantial changes are rhetorical and meaningless.

Look back through this mess you shat all over this page. Can you pick out an argument anywhere in that pile of ad hominem attacks, puerile sloganeering, loaded terminology, shabby history, and grammar-school level logic?

Me neither. Go find a better man, or a library, hell - wikipedia will serve - learn some things and then come back to us when you're all growed up.

S.L. Toddard| 6.17.09 @ 8:36PM

"I guess we should thank Obama for following you ideology and doing nothing to combat evil."

Haha. Combat evil! We need to go out there and Fight Evil, just like superheros or Luke Skywalker

That is a very serious foreign policy recommendation - "combat evil".

Michael Tomlinson: Evil Fighter, Fighting Evil And Its Evil Minions Wherever They Hide

wvwisdom| 6.17.09 @ 9:24PM

I’d be interested in a Ferrara column on “Why I Am a Neocon.” It’s inexplicable to me that an otherwise level-headed conservative, working at an institute (IPI) that favors lower taxes and a smaller government, can be so wacko when it comes to Iran and Israel. The paean paragraphs about Netanyahu are laughable. Why on earth is Ferrara such a “useful idiot” for Bibi and Likud?

bobf| 6.17.09 @ 9:38PM

I am ready to follow. I am looking for a conservative leader. Will a person of integrity please stand up?

rob| 6.17.09 @ 10:00PM

This article made me laugh. A Harvard graduate wrote this? When did Iran ever say they want to physically wipe Israel off the map with nukes? Did they event a nuke that only kills Jews and spares the thousands if not millions of Muslims living in the "kill zone" in and around Israel? Do you actually believe that we (US) would not retaliate in kind and wipe Iran off the map? You made no mention of our actual military capabilities versus Iran's. I think we have the upper hand when it comes to nukes. Also, what is your argument based on when you say the President is a Narcissist? I see self-confidence, whether he is wrong or right in the end is a legitimate debate for the future but name calling? Really? You stoop to name calling? I doesn't take a Harvard degree to do that. My 2 year old nephew can call our President names if he wants to but even he knows that is not cool. Oh, if you say that using the word narcissist is not name calling your more delusional then I thought.
What is your solution to Iran that Obama is not exploring? Should he follow Bush's example? Because what did that accomplish? Oh wait, nothing. The election in Lebanon is a vindication of Bush's doctrine of promoting democracy in the Middle East you claim. Isn't that how Hezbollah got elected to positions of power? The elections during the Bush years in that arena resulted in leaders who took a hard line towards us and especially towards Bush's policies. Kind of the same reason you GOP folks got ousted last November. In a REAL land side victory. Now we are seeing election trends in the opposite direction in the Middle East and instead of attributing it to Obama's consistent message of greater engagement to reduce hostility and begin the process of dialogue you claim it is all because of Bush's policies of calling Iran part of the Axis of Evil. Wow. It must be convenient to be you, to spin and shape everything that happens in the world to fit the nice little picture in your head. Getting back to Harvard, I am interested to meet the professors who gave you a passing grade. Or maybe you have become blinded by hypocrisy and more delusional since your college days. Whatever the case, you make some pretty far-reaching conclusions based on a warped view of history. Blaming Obama for a Nuclear Iran is also pretty ridiculous. But hey, whatever helps you sleep at night.
Robb

Michael Tomlinson| 6.17.09 @ 10:58PM

Toddard like so many on the fringe you're overly proud of your “intellect” without justification.

Of course FDR was an isolationist – his campaigns and policies were based on it, but since it doesn’t fit into your narrative it is unimportant. That he began to recognize the dangers of fascism and made baby steps to combat it was a very small plus for him. If it isn’t apparent I’m not a fan of FDR anymore than I’m a fan of churlish people like you.

Yes, had we in the US and Western Europe (England and France) stood up to Hitler early when his expansionist policies were unproven it is probable the German military and people would have toppled his regime. The evidence is strong that the resistance was undercut by the isolationist’s appeasement policies (your type of leaders). It was his early successes abetted by appeasement that created his aura of invincibility that eventually led to millions dying rather than thousands defending Czechoslovakia. Of course, isolationist with their extreme nationalism (much like yours and the paleo-conservatives) could not fathom the risk being run by doing nothing and hoping for the best. Sometimes you have to actually live and react to the real world and not the imaginary one you perceive as idyllic.

I know it is hard for modern Chamberlains, but appeasement and ignoring threats is dangerous and ultimately leads to greater carnage. It is your type of thinking that leads to world wars and genocide.

Yes I’m talking about the same Pat Buchanan that has repudiated Reagan’s vision of democracy (he shares your disdain for Reagan’s vision of world freedom too), free trade, skepticism of unions, support for Israel, etc.. Buchanan was a cold warrior, but today he sounds no different than his MSM liberal colleagues and Obamacons when it comes to appeasing expansionist Islam. (He even had the gall to call Hillary and Obama Reaganesque.) Somehow communists were bad, but Muslim terrorists who want to kill Americans and destroy the US are good or at least not dangerous – that is if you ignore the last few decades. Oh that's right according to you and yours its our fault the Muslims hate us and want to kill us. Gee if we were only as wise as you we'd be living in paradise right now with our 72 virgins (the reward of all good Muslim men and not jihadists).

Caspar Weinberger (a great friend of the Saudis) and Colin Powell played a major role in talking President Reagan out of avenging the murdered Marines. His first and right response was to strike and strike back hard. He later did this with Kaddafi, but you probably missed that with your head buried in the sand. That’s why those who imply he was unconcerned with Arab terrorism and thought it posed no threat to the US are distorting the real Reagan legacy. Your argument is weak and flawed by Reagan’s actions and rhetoric against terrorism. Had he not seen Iran as a threat why prop-up Saddam Hussein? Why not let Iran conquer all the Middle-East they surely didn’t pose a threat to us in the 1980’s if a nuclear armed Iran is not a threat today. I know the Middle-East is more complicated than you can perceive, but try to think through things without your apparent sympathy for extremist Islam getting in the way of your simple reasoning abilities.

So sorry you’re offended by the term Islamo-fascists. How about Islamic imperialists or evangelists? What about murdering Islamic bastards? I’d recommend you read the Quran and some history of Islam before crying puppy dog tears for them. Since deep thinking isn’t your forte a quick read like the Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam and the Crusades might be helpful. I’m always stymied how individuals like you are so defensive for Islam, but antagonistic to patriotic Americans who don’t swallow your brand of distorted nationalism and isolationism. Hopefully, actually studying a little bit about Islam will help disabuse you of your sympathy for Islamic extremists and your antipathy for the real America.

Could it be you’re offended by linking fascism with Islam? Have no fear Himmler was a great fan of Islam, Hitler liked the Mufti of Jerusalem and the Mufti like so many Arab leaders, Muslims and right-wing nationalists was a devotee of Hitler.

Not all Afghans were Islamists. The Pashtun Taliban is, but the Northern Alliances and other groups that lost the civil war following the withdrawal of the Soviets were not all Islamists. There is a difference between a Muslim and what I’m guessing you mean by Islamist. Of course, you might know there is a difference. Your simplistic understanding of the complex world is a real trap for such an arrogant person.

How silly to think fighting Islamists would have stymied the fall of communism. That is absurd. Can you not do two things at once? Our country under Reagan was not only ushering in the demise of the Soviet Union, but it was also promoting, to your chagrin, democracy in Latin America, expanding free trade and taking a stab at fighting terrorism. I know for isolationists it is hard to conceive of the US being a capable superpower, but it is.

Ronald Wilson Reagan based on your way of thinking was an internationalist who meddled in other nations business needlessly. To use the “logic” of your anti-Iraq war crowd and Democrats – the Soviets never attacked America, they just said mean things about us and had nuclear missiles like the US, so why did we “attack” them and cause their country/empire to collapse? It wasn’t any of our business what happened in their country/empire. If they murdered their people and persecuted them that wasn’t our business was it? What had they ever done to us? Sort of sounds like you on Iraq and Iran. In fact, I’m surprised you use Pat Buchanan’s former cold war days as a counterpoint knowing how much you hate intervention in other countries. One wonders how today’s Buchanan can stand the old interventionist Buchanan.

I’m curious do you think the fall of the Soviet Union and freeing of Eastern Europe was a good thing?

Unlike you I have principles and if Obama had an Elephant instead of a jackass on his chest I’d still oppose his neo-fascist agenda. I actually care about real policies and not make believe bogey men created in the fetid minds of frustrated and hate-filled posers.

Obama’s agenda of nationalizing business and health care is anathema. (I opposed President Bush’s starting the TARP bailouts. They were a mistake and as Obama daily illustrates a threat to free enterprise and ultimately freedom if not checked.) His empowering unions at the expense of bond holders and changing laws by fiat is unconstitutional. His playing at war is incredibly dangerous to mine and the lives of the men and women I serve with. Haven’t you heard his surrogates talking about losing in Afghanistan? His MSM propagandists are even writing about a potential loss laying the groundwork for defeat. That should make you and the Obamacons happy.

Like the left you really despise conservatism as practiced by Ronald Reagan. He's convenient to misquote when it suits you, but his idealism and belief in freedom and democracy being a God given right to mankind must really get under your skin. Like your fellow-travelers on the left you hate the idea of America being a superpower. American exceptionalism as a positive force and example in the world is foreign to your understanding. And the realities of the 21st century clash with your fictionalized utopia of American isolationism (even under George Washington it didn’t exist, but it does allow you to selectively quote him to buttress your dubious reading of American history).

Hopefully, your nationalist vision never dominates this country or the world, because then we'd be in a hell of a mess and freedom and this great Republic would be a thing of the past.

Nick| 6.18.09 @ 1:03AM

Mr. Toddard,

Ronald Reagan supported the U.S. involvement in defending South VietNam.

How does this square with your "existential threat" threshold for use of military force?

S.L. Toddard| 6.18.09 @ 7:26AM

"Ronald Reagan supported the U.S. involvement in defending South VietNam.

How does this square with your "existential threat" threshold for use of military force?"

It squares perfectly with what I've been saying, but I don't have an "existential threat" threshold. I have a "in defense or in the face of imminent attack" threshold. That was the default position for conservatives until the post-WWII Soviets bared their fangs, and that threshold was abandoned due to the extraordinary circumstance of facing what was considered an existential threat.

Pat Buchanan supported the effort in Vietnam as well, btw. It was widely believed - and I believe both men believed it in earnest - that the USSR posed a literal existential threat (a real one, in that they could literally end our existence as they had a massive nuclear arsenal and dominated a large swath of the globe) and because of that, many conservatives believed they had to put their conservative principles on the back-burner to face that existential threat. William F Buckley was one - his understanding was that we were facing an existential threat against a profoundly determined and mighty enemy and so conservatism would need to be shelved and Big Gov't and totalitarianism accepted:

"we have to accept Big Government for the duration – for neither an offensive nor defensive war can be waged given our present government skills, except through the instrument of a totalitarian bureaucracy within our shores"

I mention Buckley only to illustrate in a particular example what was a general phenomenon. Conservatives who had long been non-interventionist America Firsters believed they were facing a present, existential threat and so recommended an anti-conservative agenda to face that threat. Soviet-backed communism had to be stopped at all costs, wherever it reared its head, due to the domino effect and so forth. It's not that North Vietnam posed an existential threat by itself, it's that they believed the Soviet Empire did, and that North Vietnam and all the other communist countries were proxies for the Soviets.

Tomlinson - I'd refute your rambling screed but there's nothing there to refute. If you claim FDR was an isolationist and I counter with evidence proving otherwise, then "of course FDR was an isolationist" is not a legitimate response or argument. I have already refuted that claim - you must either discredit my evidence or concede.

The rest of my evisceration of your clumsy regurgitation of tired talking points remains un-refuted - unchallenged, even. I've discredited your claims, refuted your arguments and asked you to back up your claims with evidence. You have failed to refute or even directly address my arguments, to justify your discredited arguments or to or provide any evidence to support your ridiculous claims.

If you reconsider and decide you would like a second chance at salvaging this debate you have effectively lost, feel free to address my refutation point by point, providing evidence to back up your claims. Otherwise, have a nice day.

William R| 6.18.09 @ 7:35AM

Tomlinson, the 241 Marines were killed in October 1983. Colin Powell did not become national security advisor until 1987 so the idea that he talked Reagan out of avenging the death of the Marines is just more NeoCon fantasies.

Peace = Prosperity| 6.18.09 @ 7:48AM

You can not fight fire with fire, no more than you can fight evil with evil.

What makes changes in life is the change of attitude. You can not make changes with attitudes that has not the sense to realise where change is needed.

Problems with no solutions remains a problem, problems with people who don't even recogonise they have a problem, remains a problem.

America is like a drug addict, their addiction is the addiction of wars to solve problems, only to create a problem else where.

Like the Afganistan problem, has spread to Pakistan. There is a strong prospect that this will spread to India, and eventually China.

Stupid American foreign policy, based on an Israeli strong hold on what America does, will eventually draw America into a wider conflict, that will result in Millions of loss of life and an ever more destablised world, militarily and economically.

98% of all Americans have no clue what they are fighting for. 98% of Americans think they are fighting for freedom, if that was true why are they in Iraq, or Afghanistan and Pakistan. If freedom in America is not based on Afghanistan or Iraq, and is based on American domestic political and economical, and social policies, how will fighting foreigners in their own country improve the American standard of living?.

If the wars is draining your finance, and at the end of the war if there is an end, what does the average American expect to gain?. If the answer is nothing what is it all about.

Who is benefiting from these wars? the Banks and arms dealers, the losers are the 98% of the population. The Iraq and the Afghanistan war has resulted in hardship in America, and huge job losses. WAR is a fraud against the American people.

Peace = Prosperity| 6.18.09 @ 8:05AM

If two Americans gets killed anywhere in the world the solution is to find the killers, to risk the lives of 100 more Americans = two dead Americans, and the risk of more being killed.

If there was a serial killer on the lose in Verginia, is the answer to try and kill as many people living in Verginia? if the answer is no, why do it in other countries?. The solution is catching the serial killer.

Fools running America is causing the country more problems than it solves.

To run a country it takes a man with wisdom and common sense, which Bush had none of, Obama is thinking, but the problems of the past has an impact on the future.

You can not fight a problem with a problem. If Iran has no Nuclear WMD, how can you fight on the basis of a none existant problem. In Iraq the same problem was tried, the only people who benefited from it was Hailburton, stealing from the tax payers.

It explains why Dick Cheney wants a war with Iran, because it's his Company, and Iraq made him trillions of Dollars, in theft and robbery from the American people in Tax dollars. Creating a weaker America.

Tuco| 6.18.09 @ 8:09AM

Siegried,

"Man of Action"! When I read that, I laughed so hard ol' Mr. Turtlehead made an appearance! I can only hope an action figure is in the works...I'll display it proudly on my desk, right next to my Chia Obama ("Determined" look, of course).

SLT,

Many thanks to you, sir, for dropping the "DM" moniker and posting respectful (yet still inane) comments...well done! I figure it'll only take a couple hundred more schoolings from the folks here at AS 'til you come around.

Rob,

You're right...name calling isn't cool. But you're still a jackass. If Iran thought they could successfully annihilate Israel with a nuke and decided to do so, do you honestly believe they would give two shits about any collateral damage caused to other Muslims? Hell, they'd all be declared martyrs and they'd get 72 virgins or a lifetime supply of pistachios or whatever. But make no mistake...the Palestinians wouldn't even be a speed bump if some Islamist extremist thought he had the goods to take out Israel. Are you also naive enough to think that the typical Israeli finds comfort in your words that the U.S. would "act in kind" if Iran decided to fry them? And are you really stupid enough to think that we actually would "act in kind"? We'd take out their nuke facilities and military, for sure...but nuke Tehran?

I don't even think the "Man of Action" would be up for that...

Tuco

Tuco| 6.18.09 @ 8:22AM

PP,

I couldn't agree more...the fools currently running America are causing the country more problems than they solve.

Tuco

Michael Tomlinson| 6.18.09 @ 10:19AM

Colin Powell was an advisor to Caspar Weinberger in 1983 the year he and Weinberger influenced Reagan's decision not to avenge our murdered Marines and Sailors.

S.L. Toddard| 6.18.09 @ 10:30AM

Nick, what do you think of the massive, illegal, KGB-esque domestic surveillance regime that Bush established and Obama continues to support and operate? The NSA and other intelligence branches have and are intercepting Americans' phone calls and reading their emails, without probably cause, without warrants and without the approval of a FISA court. It is a policy embraced and supported by both liberals and neoconservatives in the house and senate, instituted by a neoconservative president and continued by a liberal one.

Is this Stalinistic policy - of spying on American citizens without warrants or oversight - okay with you? Do you believe the Constitution establishes America as a Soviet-style Surveillance State, whose citizens have no protections against invasions of privacy? Where there need be no probable cause or judicial approval before an American Citizen - previously protected by law and longstanding tradition based on what were considered inalienable rights from such invasions - be surveilled, have his phone conversations eavesdropped upon and his correspondences intercepted and read?

When did self-professed "conservatives" stop fearing tyranny? When did self-professed "conservatives" replace reverence for Liberty and the individual with worship of Authority?

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/17nsa.html?_r=1

Peace is cheaper than WAR| 6.18.09 @ 12:39PM

Truth to Power| 6.17.09 @ 10:09AM

It's America that finds the need, out of desperation to be in the Islamic world, America has a choice stay the f..k out of other peoples countries, they don't want you in their countries nor do they like you.

America is it's own worse enemy, full of shit keeps electing idiots, like George Bush and wonder why the country is Bankrupt.

Where are you going to get the money for the next WAR? let me guess keep printing, and keep the debt growing. And wind up with ever dollar earned pay 0.75 paying off the debts of these wars, I am sure your friend Israel is going to cry over your stupid ass.

Traveler| 6.18.09 @ 2:58PM

Sam, I've been to Israel four times in the past ten years, and to other Middle Eastern nations as well, and I'm an evangelical Christian. Beyond any Bible-based reasons for supporting Israel's right to exist, I have seen that it offers its citizens a wide range of freedoms that are unmatched in any other M.E. country. Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists, everybody can worship as they please -- there is also a gigantic Ba'hai center with gardens that are a tourist attraction. And democracies in that part of the world are very, very few. Israel isn't a perfect country, but I support it for many reasons, and would much rather spend time there than in any of the Muslim-controlled countries I've visited.

Nick| 6.18.09 @ 3:05PM

Mr. Toddard,

Have you learned that "compare" and "contrast" are synonyms, yet?

I'm still waiting for an explanation to my earlier post: "I was confused by your original statement: 'I think it's kind of coldblooded to compare Israel to Nazi Germany [...]'.

Because on another thread you compared the death toll in the Gazan war with a hypothetical, similar death toll in the Warsaw Ghetto. Care to square these two posts?"

Now according to you, Reagan, Buckley, Goldwater, et al, suspended their principles to fight the Cold War; because they "believed" the USSR posed an "existential threat". Sounds like you're not convinced the Soviet's were a threat.

Or did we have to wait for a first-strike to remain "true" conservatives?

Explain how the "Patriot Act" (dumb name) violates the U.S. Constitution.

Here's a hypothetical for you:

If in 1943, a couple of OSS agents in Madrid were tapping a nazi agent's phone, and the nazi phoned someone in the United States, did the OSS agents need to get a warrant to listen to the conversation?

Amon RA| 6.18.09 @ 3:37PM

Traveler| 6.18.09 @ 2:58PM

You are an evangelical Christian, and you think you are worshipping god, which god is that is it the SUN in the sky or the son of god, have you ever met him? Do you know the history of Christanity. Who do you think made up the story, and why.

What you need to do is throw away your Bible and stop being an idiot. The story your have been told andot some sun of god is nothing more then the sun that shines in the sky.

And Moses never existed, that is another lie. The flood they call the Noahs flood, was the last time the Ice Caps melted and flooded the world, and there was no MOTOR CARS then, it a cycle. Sorry to blow your rainbow cloud out of the sky because it said the world would not be destroyed by flood again. if that was true why is the Ice Caps melting again, and will flood the world again.

The Bilbe is a story of things in history but 90% is written incorrectly. You are in the sign of the times but it's a cycle that no man has any control over no more than, you have any control over where the SUN is going to shine or which country it will rain in any given day or time.

Give your money to the poor and stop giving your money to a bunch of deceivers.

Red Phillips| 6.18.09 @ 4:25PM

Amon RA we don't really need the villiage atheist hijacking a thread on foreign policy concerning Iran. Go away.

Richard Baker| 6.18.09 @ 9:10PM

It's amazing,isn't it? Obama supports every dictatorship in the Middle East, (oops, that's all of them), and the one with the most freedom is his enemy.

S.L. Toddard| 6.19.09 @ 7:21AM

"Have you learned that "compare" and "contrast" are synonyms, yet?"

Nick, if you are "comparing" the similarities of two objects, are you "contrasting" the two objects?

"Because on another thread you compared the death toll in the Gazan war with a hypothetical, similar death toll in the Warsaw Ghetto. Care to square these two posts?"

They are already square. What else do you want me to do?

"Now according to you, Reagan, Buckley, Goldwater, et al, suspended their principles to fight the Cold War; because they "believed" the USSR posed an "existential threat". Sounds like you're not convinced the Soviet's were a threat."

I don't know that they posed an existential threat - that they ever would have actually instigated a nuclear war. That would have been suicidal. But I am prepared to believe that if I had been alive early in the Cold War I would also have believed they posed an existential threat, although I am not sure that I would have supported all the measures taken by the US in that period.

"Explain how the "Patriot Act" (dumb name) violates the U.S. Constitution."

Where did that come from?

"If in 1943, a couple of OSS agents in Madrid were tapping a nazi agent's phone, and the nazi phoned someone in the United States, did the OSS agents need to get a warrant to listen to the conversation?"

Not analogous - we are speaking of phone calls and emails being intercepted and listened to/read between people not even suspected of any crime. As it is, the gov't already has the ability to commence wiretapping on a suspect IMMEDIATELY and then has something like ten days after they start in which to file for a warrant.

Nick| 6.19.09 @ 11:17AM

Mr. Toddard,

I see the answer is NO, you have not learned yet. Your argument is with Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition, not me. But of course, you know more than a thesaurus, right? If you are COMPARING differences, are you not CONTRASTING? See how Engllish works.

"They are already square."

So you are admitting to being "cold blooded"?

"I don't know that they posed an existential threat [...]"

Thus proving your ignorance of history and geo-politics. Thank goodness your view did not prevail, although it did dominate during the Carter years. And we all know how CONSERVATIVE the Carter administration was, don't we?

"Where did that come from?"

From this:
"The NSA and other intelligence branches have and are intercepting Americans' phone calls and reading their emails, without probably cause, without warrants and without the approval of a FISA court."

And this:
"Is this Stalinistic policy - of spying on American citizens without warrants or oversight - okay with you? Do you believe the Constitution establishes America as a Soviet-style Surveillance State, whose citizens have no protections against invasions of privacy?"

You were not speaking of the constitutionality of the "Patriot Act"?

Again, you need to look up the word "analogous". If a suspected terrorist; in a foreign country; calls an American in the U.S.; during this war; why is a warrant required?

These people are not CRIMINALS. They are unlawful combatants, i.e. they are waging war illegally.

S.L. Toddard| 6.19.09 @ 12:59PM

Mr. Toddard,
“Your argument is with Roget's 21st Century Thesaurus, Third Edition, not me”

Nick, if you are "comparing" the similarities of two objects, are you "contrasting" the two objects? Answer the question.

“So you are admitting to being "cold blooded"?”

Absolutely. We are talking about geopolitics here, not singing kumbayah around a campfire, hippie.*

“You were not speaking of the constitutionality of the "Patriot Act"?”

No, I was speaking to the illegal eavesdropping and email-reading of American citizens by the NSA and other intelligence agencies. Why am I the only one who answers questions here?

“Again, you need to look up the word "analogous". If a suspected terrorist; in a foreign country; calls an American in the U.S.; during this war; why is a warrant required?”

That scenario is not being discussed - we are speaking of phone calls and emails being intercepted and listened to/read between Americans.

“These people are not CRIMINALS. They are unlawful combatants, i.e. they are waging war illegally.”

Who are? The only person in this discussion talking about “criminals” or “unlawful combatants” is you. I’m speaking of conversations of American citizens – no one is alleging they were talking to, or WERE, terrorists. NO WARRANT IS REQUIRED TO WIRETAP A SUSPECTED TERRORIST ON FOREIGN SOIL. We are talking about something ELSE entirely – the warrantless, illegal wiretapping of American citizens who are NOT speaking to suspected terrorists. Domestic phone calls and emails.

I ask AGAIN: Is this Stalinistic policy - of spying on American citizens without warrants or oversight - okay with you? Do you believe the Constitution establishes America as a Soviet-style Surveillance State, whose citizens have no protections against invasions of privacy? Where there need be no probable cause or judicial approval before an American Citizen - previously protected by law and longstanding tradition based on what were considered inalienable rights from such invasions - be surveilled, have his phone conversations eavesdropped upon and his correspondences intercepted and read?
When did self-professed "conservatives" stop fearing tyranny? When did self-professed "conservatives" replace reverence for Liberty and the individual with worship of Authority?

*just messing with you

Nick| 6.19.09 @ 2:20PM

Mr. Toddard,

Why are you being so pigheaded about this? Just admit your mistake and move on.

I did answer the question. The fact that comparing "similarities" is not the same as contrasting does not negate the fact that the words "comparing" and "contrasting" are synonymous.

Seeing as you have trouble remembering what you have written, I'll point out it was YOU who wrote Terry was "contrasting" Israel and nazi Germany.

You are just looking more foolish by keeping the argument going.

"Why am I the only one who answers questions here?"

How did I not answer your question? You asked, "Where did you get that from?". I showed you, and then asked you a question. Why is this so confusing?

"That scenario is not being discussed - we are speaking of phone calls and emails being intercepted and listened to/read between Americans."

No, you were. I thought you were talking about the "Patriot Act" and the debate over revising FISA.

Again, you must not remember. Liberals were screaming bloody murder that the Bush administration had no right to eavesdrop on a conversation between a suspected terrorist and an U.S. citizen, when the call originated in a foreign country, without a warrant.

You wrote: "Not analogous - we are speaking of phone calls and emails being intercepted and listened to/read between people not even suspected of any CRIME." (Emphasis mine)

That is why I wrote: "These people are not CRIMINALS."

As for all these Americans who are allegedly being surveilled, eavesdropped on, and their privacy invaded without probable cause or warrants; I have no idea to whom you are referring.

Seems like more of your demagoguery and propaganda. To COMPARE life in this country to living under Stalin is childish and absurd.

ONTIME| 6.19.09 @ 2:40PM

So far this Iran situation has developed into America's B.O the Newly Selected, being the equal of England's Neville Chamberlain......Let us hope I am absolutely wrong but I don't think N. Korea is going to go away.

S.L. Toddard| 6.19.09 @ 2:58PM

“I did answer the question.”
No you did not – it’s a Yes or No question: if you are "comparing" the similarities of two objects, are you "contrasting" the two objects? Answer the question.
“The fact that comparing "similarities" is not the same as contrasting does not negate the fact that the words "comparing" and "contrasting" are synonymous”
They are not always synonymous. Contrasting is always comparing, but comparing is *not* always contrasting, in the same way that all Corvettes are cars, but not all cars are Corvettes - as I have demonstrated. In the sentence in which I used the two words they were clearly *not* synonymous – as the other speaker was *contrasting* Israel and Germany i.e. emphasizing what he believed were differences:
CONTRAST –verb (used with object)
1.to compare *in order to show unlikeness or differences*; note the opposite natures, purposes, etc., of: Contrast the political rights of Romans and Greeks.
–verb (used without object)
2.to *exhibit unlikeness* on comparison with something else; form a contrast.

Does “compare” mean to examine *in order to show unlikeness or differences* or similarities as well?
"Why am I the only one who answers questions here?"
“How did I not answer your question?”
Are you kidding?
*Nick, what do you think of the massive, illegal, KGB-esque domestic surveillance regime that Bush established and Obama continues to support and operate?
*Is this Stalinistic policy - of spying on American citizens without warrants or oversight - okay with you?
*Do you believe the Constitution establishes America as a Soviet-style Surveillance State, whose citizens have no protections against invasions of privacy?
*Where there need be no probable cause or judicial approval before an American Citizen - previously protected by law and longstanding tradition based on what were considered inalienable rights from such invasions - be surveilled, have his phone conversations eavesdropped upon and his correspondences intercepted and read?
“Again, you must not remember. Liberals were screaming bloody murder that the Bush administration had no right to eavesdrop on a conversation between a suspected terrorist and an U.S. citizen, when the call originated in a foreign country, without a warrant.”
Let me restate – I *believe* that when a suspected terrorist call originates *outside* the US, a warrant is not justified. When a call originates inside the US it is. I could be wrong though. What I DO know is that lack of a warrant need never prevent wiretapping under FISA – a suspected terrorist may be wiretapped regardless of when and where the call originates, and a warrant applied for AFTER. The wiretapping in question – which went on for six years and involved Americans on the phone in some capacity – were completely in circumvention of the warrant system entirely – which is to say they were done outside the law.
“No, you were. I thought you were talking about the "Patriot Act" and the debate over revising FISA.”
I was talking about the *circumvention* of FISA – i.e. the breaking of US Law.
“As for all these Americans who are allegedly being surveilled, eavesdropped on, and their privacy invaded without probable cause or warrants; I have no idea to whom you are referring.”
That’s not surprising. I’m speaking of the Bush Administrations illegal, warrant-less wiretapping of American citizens. I’m speaking of American’s domestic emails being collected by the NSA:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/17nsa.html?_r=2
I’m speaking of American journalists, military officers and aid workers having their conversations eavesdropped upon by the NSA:
"These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.
Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism."
She said US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and "collected on" as they called their offices or homes in the United States.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=5987804&page=1
“Seems like more of your demagoguery and propaganda. To COMPARE life in this country to living under Stalin is childish and absurd.”
How would you even know? You are completely unaware of the illegal domestic spying program.

S.L. Toddard| 6.19.09 @ 3:04PM

Sorry, Nick - here it is reformatted for easier reading:

“I did answer the question.”

No you did not – it’s a Yes or No question: if you are "comparing" the similarities of two objects, are you "contrasting" the two objects? Answer the question.

“The fact that comparing "similarities" is not the same as contrasting does not negate the fact that the words "comparing" and "contrasting" are synonymous”

They are not always synonymous. Contrasting is always comparing, but comparing is *not* always contrasting, in the same way that all Corvettes are cars, but not all cars are Corvettes - as I have demonstrated. In the sentence in which I used the two words they were clearly *not* synonymous – as the other speaker was *contrasting* Israel and Germany i.e. emphasizing what he believed were differences:

CONTRAST –verb (used with object)

1.to compare *in order to show unlikeness or differences*; note the opposite natures, purposes, etc., of: Contrast the political rights of Romans and Greeks.
–verb (used without object)
2.to *exhibit unlikeness* on comparison with something else; form a contrast.

Does “compare” mean to examine *in order to show unlikeness or differences* or similarities as well?

“Again, you must not remember. Liberals were screaming bloody murder that the Bush administration had no right to eavesdrop on a conversation between a suspected terrorist and an U.S. citizen, when the call originated in a foreign country, without a warrant.”

Let me restate – I *believe* that when a suspected terrorist call originates *outside* the US, a warrant is not justified. When a call originates inside the US it is. I could be wrong though. What I DO know is that lack of a warrant need never prevent wiretapping under FISA – a suspected terrorist may be wiretapped regardless of when and where the call originates, and a warrant applied for AFTER. The wiretapping in question – which went on for six years and involved Americans on the phone in some capacity – were completely in circumvention of the warrant system entirely – which is to say they were done outside the law.

“No, you were. I thought you were talking about the "Patriot Act" and the debate over revising FISA.”

I was talking about the *circumvention* of FISA – i.e. the breaking of US Law.

“As for all these Americans who are allegedly being surveilled, eavesdropped on, and their privacy invaded without probable cause or warrants; I have no idea to whom you are referring.”

That’s not surprising. I’m speaking of the Bush Administrations illegal, warrant-less wiretapping of American citizens. I’m speaking of American’s domestic emails being collected by the NSA:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/17/us/17nsa.html?_r=2

I’m speaking of American journalists, military officers and aid workers having their conversations eavesdropped upon by the NSA:

"These were just really everyday, average, ordinary Americans who happened to be in the Middle East, in our area of intercept and happened to be making these phone calls on satellite phones," said Adrienne Kinne, a 31-year old US Army Reserves Arab linguist assigned to a special military program at the NSA's Back Hall at Fort Gordon from November 2001 to 2003.
Kinne described the contents of the calls as "personal, private things with Americans who are not in any way, shape or form associated with anything to do with terrorism."
She said US military officers, American journalists and American aid workers were routinely intercepted and "collected on" as they called their offices or homes in the United States.”

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/Story?id=5987804&page=1

“Seems like more of your demagoguery and propaganda. To COMPARE life in this country to living under Stalin is childish and absurd.”

How would you even know? You are completely unaware of the illegal domestic spying program.

S.L. Toddard| 6.19.09 @ 3:12PM

Nick - let me also state that here is what is supposed to happen: when an intelligence agency wants to wiretap a *suspected* terrorist, and that terrorist is American, on American soil, or talking to an American (not sure on the rules vis a vis the origin of the calls) the agency must get a warrant from the FISA court. They do NOT have to wait to begin wiretapping to get a warrant first. They have two weeks or something to file a warrant. Also, "In the period 1979-2006 a total of 22,990 applications for warrants were made to the Court of which 22,985 were approved (sometimes with modifications; or with the splitting up, or combining together, of warrants for legal purposes), and only 5 were definitively rejected", which means that a request to the FISA court is nearly GUARANTEED to be approved. And even these loose, too-permissive laws were broken by the Bush admin.

Nick| 6.19.09 @ 4:08PM

Mr. Toddard,

So, according to you, the thesaurus is wrong when it lists them as synonyms?

I never wrote they are "always" synonymous, by the way. What, are you Greg Brady and need exact words? Your mulishness shows your foolishness. You are wrong, end of story.

I know who Adrienne Kinne is. I saw her on C-SPAN when she first made her uncorroborated charges, with no proof I might add.

She's also the same Adrienne Kinne from Iraq Veterans Against the War. She also praised the International Socialist Organization. She also spoke at an Impeach Bush discussion. She also appeared on communist Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now".

You smear a whole administration based on her?

I know this is getting redundant, but why do you constantly use leftists to make your "conservative" points?

So, I'm still waiting to know who were these Americans who ALLEGEDLY had their privacy rights violated?

p.s. I thought those were rhetorical questions.

Nick| 6.19.09 @ 4:23PM

Mr. Toddard,

I'm not a lawyer, and obviously neither are you.

But I did listen to Victoria Toensing, who has extensive experience with FISA and how it weakened our security. Try reading this article by her, instead of lefty, anti-war hippies:

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007848

Richard Baker| 6.19.09 @ 5:07PM

Stoddard is typical of the liberal who confuses word games with reason. Continuing to harp on using one synonym or another as the theme of his argument shows that he doesn't really have much to say but like a Buddhist chant, he says it over and over, and over.... in a drone. Ever been to a Buddhist temple in Asia? The effect to the external listener is mind-numbing and eventually,
forgettable, unless you are in worship. He must really worship himself.

Nick| 6.19.09 @ 6:19PM

Mr. Baker,

I know I'm wasting my time.

But I disagree with Sun Tsu, when my enemy is committing suicide I like to help.

Tony| 6.19.09 @ 7:00PM

If America did'nt waste so much American taxes funding foreign countries like Israel to commit war crimes in the name of America, the economy may not be in such a mess.

The latest, the Wall Street Bailout, it's time Americans bailed out of America and move their business else where. Where taxes fund education health and the well being of Americans.

And it's Americans elect a real leader who is not operating in the interest of AIPAC and Wall Street, and Israel. If that is what they want let their taxes pay for it.

S.L. Toddard| 6.19.09 @ 10:03PM

"Stoddard is typical of the liberal who confuses word games with reason. Continuing to harp on using one synonym or another as the theme of his argument shows"

It's Nick that won't let that one die, idiot. Believe me, I find the whole business quite tedious.

S.L. Toddard| 6.19.09 @ 10:16PM

"So, according to you, the thesaurus is wrong when it lists them as synonyms?"

GAAAAH!!! NO! They *can* be synonymous but are not *always* (as I demonstrated), and certainly were *not* in the sentence in question!! Are you trying to drive me batty?

"I never wrote they are "always" synonymous, by the way. What, are you Greg Brady and need exact words? Your mulishness shows your foolishness. You are wrong, end of story.

I know who Adrienne Kinne is. I saw her on C-SPAN when she first made her uncorroborated charges, with no proof I might add.

She's also the same Adrienne Kinne from Iraq Veterans Against the War. She also praised the International Socialist Organization. She also spoke at an Impeach Bush discussion. She also appeared on communist Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now".

You smear a whole administration based on her?"

Jesus Nick do you think she's the only one who wrote about the NSA domestic spying scandal? Do you not know that this was a HUGE story and scandal? Actually, maybe you really are unaware. Do you not yet see the flaw in getting most of your information from talk shows? You might as well learn English Literature from Oprah, or psychology from Maury Povich. You need to step aside from your Side for a minute and start looking out for and thinking for yourself. Because neither party in Washington is going to do it for you.

"I know this is getting redundant, but why do you constantly use leftists to make your "conservative" points?"

Asked and answered.

"So, I'm still waiting to know who were these Americans who ALLEGEDLY had their privacy rights violated?"

So am I. But both Bush and Obama refused FOIA requests to make the names known and evoke the "States Secrets" priveledge to protect the lawbreakers (Washington protects its own). So we don't have names, but we know that the numbers are astronomical, and that they are not merely confined to terrorists, or even suspected terrorists, or even people speaking to suspected terrorists.

So what is going on in your head now? Why are you bending over backwards to NOT believe that this happened? No serious persons are denying IT HAPPENED, they are denying - lamely, I might add - that it was necessary, that we should look forward not backward, that instead of "witchhunts" we should focus on the future to make sure it never happens again etc. Do you actually doubt that illegal spying took place? Because if you accept it - and there's no question it did, Nick - then really ask yourself why you are siding with the powerful Washington political class (of BOTH PARTIES) *against* the American people, whose constitutional rights and laws were violated?

S.L. Toddard| 6.19.09 @ 10:35PM

"But I did listen to Victoria Toensing, who has extensive experience with FISA and how it weakened our security. Try reading this article by her, instead of lefty, anti-war hippies"

Hmm. She says "FISA remains ill-equipped to deal with ever-changing terrorist threats". And she says: "It was never envisioned to be a speedy collector of information to prevent an imminent attack on our soil", that FISA was "technologically antediluvian" and that "drafted by legislators who had no concept of how terrorists could communicate in the 21st century or the technology that would be invented to intercept those communications". Do you recognize that it is intentionally dishonest and misleading that she fails to note that FISA was *amended multiple times* since being enacted?. Including *right after 9/11*? BY GEORGE BUSH'S REPUBLICAN CONGRESS AND TO HIS SPECIFICATIONS? In 2001 - after 9/11 - the GOP amended FISA to George Bush's specifications. When *George W Bush* signed it into law - after having it amended, *after 9/11*, president *George W Bush* had THIS to say about the new amended FISA bill:

"The changes, effective today, will help counter a threat like no other our Nation has ever faced. . . .

We're dealing with terrorists who operate by highly sophisticated methods and technologies, some of which were not even available when our existing laws were written. *The bill before me takes account of the new realities and dangers posed by modern terrorists*. It will help law enforcement to identify, to dismantle, to disrupt, and to punish terrorists before they strike. . . .

Surveillance of communications is another essential tool to pursue and stop terrorists. The existing law was written in the era of rotary telephones. *This new law I sign today will allow surveillance of all communications used by terrorists, including e-mails, the Internet, and cell phones*. As of today, we'll be able to better meet the technological challenges posed by this proliferation of communications technology"

The next day, President Bush said:

"The bill I signed yesterday gives intelligence and law enforcement officials additional tools they need to hunt and capture and punish terrorists. Our enemies operate by highly sophisticated methods and technologies, using the latest means of communication and the new weapon of bioterrorism.

When earlier laws were written, some of these methods did not even exist. *The new law recognizes the realities and dangers posed by the modern terrorist*. It will help us to prosecute terrorist organizations -- and also to detect them before they strike. . . .

Surveillance of communications is another essential method of law enforcement. But for a long time, we have been working under laws written in the era of rotary telephones. Under the new law, officials may conduct court-ordered surveillance of all modern forms of communication used by terrorists."

President Bush had it amended to address all of the problems Victoria Toensing cited. Don't you think she had a responsibility to note that, and don't you understand that she didn't because she wasn't interested in truth-telling? Isn't it clear to you that her piece was a defense of the Bush administration and nothing more? She does say something worthwhile though: "the reasons the president might decide to bypass FISA courts are readily understandable..." Nick - this woman you cited, Victoria Toensing, who you trust and listen to, she herself believes President Bush broke the law. It is a FELONY to "bypass FISA courts", i.e. wiretap without FISA court approval:

A person is guilty of an offense if he intentionally—
(1) engages in electronic surveillance under color of law except as authorized by statute;

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/usc_sec_50_00001809----000-.html

There is no gray area there - the statute in question is FISA. Referring to illegal wiretapping as "bypassing FISA courts" is like referring to bank robbery as "bypassing the bank teller".

Richard Baker| 6.20.09 @ 12:47AM

Stoddard:
The incoherency of your messages are the...drone. Nick pays waaay too much attention to you. Auf wiedersehen.

American on Human Rights| 6.20.09 @ 12:20PM

THE UN’S VIEWPOINT:
New UN Report Denounces America's Human Rights Record
by Stephen Lendman
Monday, 15 June 2009

The UN Human Rights Council called America's human rights record "deplorable," and in need of major changes. It deserves credit for revealing what US authorities try hard to suppress and ignore. On May 26, the UN Human Rights Council issued a report titled "Promotion and Protection of All Human Rights, Civil, Political, Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Including the Right to Development - Report of the Special Rapporteur (Philip Alston) on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions."

Alston was damning in his criticism regarding "three areas in which significant improvement is necessary if the US Government is to match its actions to its stated commitment to human rights and the rule of law:"

Its imposition of the death penalty under which innocent people are executed. Alston was shocked about "glaring criminal justice system flaws," citing Texas and Alabama as examples, but many other states are as derelict. He criticized politicized judges and recommended that Congress "should enact legislation permitting federal court habeas review of state and federal death penalty cases on their merits." He condemned the 2006 Military Commissions Act and its provisions that violate international human rights and humanitarian law with regard to due process and fairness.
America needs "greater transparency into law enforcement, military, and intelligence operations that result in unlawful deaths." Domestically, it provides inadequate information about deaths of immigrants and other detainees, but the worst failures are in international military and intelligence operations.
The government fails to "provide greater accountability for potentially unlawful deaths in its international operations." It ignores civilian casualties, both their number and conditions under which they occur, and fails to provide ordinary people, including US citizens, with basic information regarding investigations and prosecutions when laws were violated. It fails to assure safeguards are in place to prevent so-called collateral damage - that is, civilians wrongfully (and at times willfully) targeted and killed.
Overall, "there have been chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practices and conduct that (cause) alleged unlawful killings - including possible war crimes - in the United States' international operations." Effective investigations have been lacking and guilty parties, throughout the chain of command, haven't been punished. Even worse, private contractors and civilian intelligence personnel have been granted "a zone of impunity" because of failures to hold them accountable. Alston recommends a national "commission of inquiry" and a special prosecutor to conduct thorough investigations "independent of the pressure on the political branches of Government."

S.L. Toddard| 6.20.09 @ 2:37PM

Nick?

S.L. Toddard| 6.21.09 @ 12:35PM

Nick?

S.L. Toddard| 6.22.09 @ 9:24PM

Nick?

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