The net that shall enmesh them all
Edited, Written, and Published by Josh Nossiter
Monday, October 29, 2007
Recall that mighty Iran fought an epic war with its mighty neighbor Iraq. After eight years and a million casualties the Iranians achieved a stalemate against the same army we bulldozed into the sands in Iraq War I, then rolled over unopposed in the early days of Iraq War II. As Paul Krugman points out in today’s N.Y. Times, Iran has the GDP of Connecticut and the military budget of Sweden. As a threat to the U.S., it’s about as dangerous as Liechtenstein. Or Iraq.
Which doesn’t stop the chicken hawks at Commentary, in the White House, and throughout the foam-flecked rightist blogosphere from thirsting for Iranian blood. President Bush insists we have to bomb Iran to avert World War III. Podhoretz agrees with him in principle but thinks we’re already fighting World War IV. The ability to count past two is a rarity among neocons.
Their imbecility, and that of their knuckle-dragging, Wall Street Journal editorial page reading, Fox News watching brethren, has already had seriously criminal consequences. Their lunatic counsel is responsible for much more murder and mayhem than Al Qaeda ever managed. So before Bush and his friends do more harm, let’s treat their proposed bombing of Iran like the crime it would be, and analyze it from the point of view of a criminal investigation.
The main question to ask about any crime is cui bono? Were we to bomb Iran today, Fox News would benefit mightily. The knuckle draggers would tune in en masse to hear comforting confirmation of their misinformation, ignorance, and delusions. Military contractors would benefit greatly; spending on Iraq is already approaching a trillion dollars, and a conflict with Iran would generate hundreds of billions of dollars of additional Pentagon orders. The oil companies would hit the jackpot. Already enjoying record high oil prices and corresponding record profits, a war with Iran could triple both. At three hundred dollars a barrel even the greediest oil giant would be thrilled by the effect on the bottom line.
The Iranian government would benefit perhaps most of all. Hated throughout the world except where other crazies rule, a U.S. attack would instantly make martyrs of Ahmadinejad and the mullahs. Their own dissatisfied and restive people would rally behind them. What little opposition exists would be enthusiastically suppressed. Women would have to wear even darker shades of birkas.
Fox News, defense contractors, oil companies, and the Iranian government. Do we really want to throw away more lives and treasure in their service? If the president and his friends are so hell-bent on going to Iran, let’s grant them their wish. But rather than raining bombs on the Iranians, let’s drop Bush, Cheney, Podhoretz and the rest of the neocons on them instead. If we aimed far from population centers, nobody worth caring about would get hurt. And if we gave them all parachutes, nobody would get hurt at all. Because we would give them parachutes. Wouldn’t we?
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A NOTE TO READERS
There was nothing new at The Nossiter Net between March 3rd and April 26th, nearly eight weeks. The reason: tech sabotage. Yahoo Geocities, the host for this site, denied access for the entire period. At one point, they even managed to lose all the files. In many discussions with Yahoo staff, no clear explanation was forthcoming. No one seemed able to fix the problem. Ruling out the possibility of Dubbya’s revenge, I finally wrote to Mr. Terry Semel, Chairman and CEO of Yahoo! Inc and described the ordeal the page had undergone since the beginning of March. A week later, a helpful Yahooo engineer named Jason called. He had my letter before him. Though he couldn’t do the repairs on on the spot, he promised a fix by the next day. That was April 26th, nearly two months after shutting me down in the first place.
The Nossiter Net apologizes, which is more than I can say for Yahoo Geocities.
©Joshua C. Nossiter, 2007
