Crazies With Nukes!
We just have to bomb Iran, possibly with nukes, because its leader is a fundamentalist nutjob who is developing nukes so that he can glassify the Middle East and usher in the Muslim Rapture. Or something.
Basically, the argument goes, the sobering specter of mutually assured destruction (MAD) will not work for a religious nutcase like Ahmadinejad liked it worked on such otherwise rational actors like Stalin and Mao. So we’ll have to pre-empt Iran by nuking them first!
This from the usual sources: Dr. Kraphammer, Mark Steyn, Joe Lieberman Weekly, The Greater Wingnutosphere.
One counter-argument goes along the lines of: Why fight insanity with insanity? Naturally, such objections are answered with the typical sneers:
JONAH GOLDBERG: “The week the deranged president of Iran again calls for the annihilation of Israel and once again denies the Holocaust ever happpened James Carroll draws the only logical conclusion: Bush is a lunatic and this administration is run by ‘deeply frustrated, angry, and psychologically wounded people.'”
Goldberg’s Instayokel-approved retort assumes some sort of non sequitur on the part of the Left. But it’s not an illogical point to protest and fear nukes under the control of any psychotic, religious or otherwise.
Actually it would be a good rule to forbid the possesion of nuclear launch codes to the irrational in general or those who believe they are doing God’s work, specifically. Which, along with Amadinejad, would include, or have included, the following:
“I call it the madman theory, Bob,” Richard Nixon said to Robert Haldeman…
”I want the North Vietnamese to believe,” he went on, ”that I’ve reached the point that I might do anything to stop the war. We’ll just slip the word to them that for God’s sake, you know Nixon is obsessed about communism. We can’t restrain him when he’s angry, and he has his hand on the nuclear button, and Ho Chi Minh himself will be in Paris in two days begging for peace.”
[…]
As if such accidental complications were not unsettling enough, as Sagan and Suir point out, the entire ”madman theory” of coercion was flawed in its essence, depending as it did on twisted logic that assumed an adversary would respond to a calculated show of irrationality with something other than irrationality of its own. Presumably, Nixon wanted a frightened Moscow to convince a frightened Hanoi to change its behavior in Paris as a way of heading off Washington’s insanity. Rational Russians would save the world from crazy Americans. Come again?
If Leonid Brezhnev, that is, behaved as Richard Nixon did in October of 1969, the world would have been plunged into nuclear horror. In the event, the Soviet Union did not respond irrationally to the ploy.
“Everything is falling into place. It can’t be too long now. Ezekiel says that fire and brimstone will be rained upon the enemies of God’s people That must mean that they will be destroyed by nuclear weapons….Ezekiel tells us that Gog, the nation will lead all the other powers out of darkness against Israel, will come out of the north. What other powerful nation is north of Israel? None. But it didn’t seem to make much sense before the Russian revolution, when Russia was a Christian country. Now it does, now that Russia has become communist and atheistic, now that Russia has set itself against God. Now it fits the description perfectly.”
See also here.
And the 43rd President:
“According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: “God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.”
Yes, yes, I know the wingnut counter-arguments: “Why, that’s moral equivalence!” or “Our religious nuts are more equal than theirs!” “Our religious nuts are of the Enlightenment while theirs are of the Dark Ages!” Blah blah blah.
Those who would nuke Ahmedinejad would nuke their ideological mirror-image. They’re all insane, and we’re all fucked. We got lucky in the past thanks in no small part to the rationality of our enemies. Sooner or later our luck will run out; agents of God — be He Yahweh, Allah, or Jebus — are our agents of doom. I say we get in our kicks before the whole shithouse falls in. Who’s up for a national orgy?
P.S. Before the fucking commences, read these two essays by Immanuel Wallerstein.
Didn’t we all do this, four or so times, some centuries back?
Jeebus, Retardo, you really know how to make someone’s morning, don’t you? As someone with two young children, this scenario, this mutually assured incredible fucking insanity, is probably the only thing in the world that really frightens me. Everything other worry I might have about my kids — creepy kidnappers and pedophiliac DHS officials, playing with matches or knives, drowning in a nearby detention basin — pales in comparison.
And I haven’t even had any coffee yet this morning, so this was doubly disturbing.
The War President needs war.
The chickenhawks need boners.
Thanks again, Mr. “Self-fulfilling Prophecy President.”
I get particularly queasy when the rationalisers start invoking the Enlightenment, knowing full well that the destruction of civil liberties and the criminalisation of dissent (among many other outrages, reality tv being one of them) are anything but “englightened.”
I don’t think any of this will change, short of a major crisis. I’m just hoping it comes soon, and will be more in the form of a survivable economic crisis, and not a nuclear holocaust.
Or maybe we’ll find out Bush got blown by an intern?
Our religious nutjobs are no more the heirs of the Englightenment than theirs are. In fact, if you follow closely along with what they’re up to, a definite pattern of hostile engagement with the best ideas of the Enlightenment emerges – the methods used to reject evolution involve rejecting the changes in the scientific method wrought by Francis Bacon, the attempts to insist that “the founding fathers were Christian” denies the very real rebellion of the deistic stance most of the founders took, and so forth.
But I’m surprised to see people hawking the idea that skepticism and a methodolgical engagement with the real world are somehow unique to the melanin-deprived. Seriously – do these people know nothing of Arab history? Middle Eastern history?
Gah – what is wrong with people anymore? Just because one’s opponent makes a twitterpated argument doesn’t mean that it’s now somehow okay for one to respond in kind.
Jillian, this is a perfect argument for you to not leave the country. Anywhere you go, Bush will still blow it up.
We were lucky in the past to have atheistic enemies. Now, just at the time our country is run by religious wackjobs, our chosen enemy is also run by religious wackjobs. We’re well and truly fucked.
Gah – what is wrong with people anymore?
It all comes down to “talking the talk,” (I personally slap anyone who uses that expression in front of me) which is what the intellectual lightweights on the Right engage in all the time. Just use word “Enlightenment” and it makes you sound all smart ‘n stuff and dittoheads are in awe and follow along like lemming.
Yeah, but the question isn’t so much about how I die, it’s about how I live. And whether I live for five more weeks or fifty more years, I’d rather do it on my own terms as much as possible. And alas, that seems to mean running away from the Junior Anti-Sex League and the Uterus Police before they come to my town.
And this is what I will always hate Bush for the most – he unleashed the forces that made this sort of crap possible. There are all sorts of sneaky, clever little safeguards against the tyranny of the majority built into the Constitution, and finally, finally, after two hundred years, they were starting to work the way they were supposed to – they were forcing the government to stay the hell out of our personal lives and let us express honest dissent from the state – and he goes and plays lawyerball with the Constitution in order to circumvent them.
grumble grumble…..whatever. I like poutine, and hockey, and soccer, and I know the difference between a stout and a lager, so I figure I’ll do okay wherever I end up.
“Just use word ‘Enlightenment’ and it makes you sound all smart ‘n stuff and dittoheads are in awe and follow along like lemming.”
Unless, of course, the person using it is a liberal…
Yeah, but the question isn’t so much about how I die, it’s about how I live.
Yeah, it’s funny eh? How many people think dying is the worst thing that can happen to them, personally. Oh..no. It’s surviving that can be the nightmare. If more people understood that, they’d be less hysterical and saner about crises.
We just have to bomb Iran, possibly with nukes, because its leader is a fundamentalist nutjob who is developing nukes so that he can glassify the Middle East and usher in the Muslim Rapture. Or something.
Iran just has to bomb the US, possibly with nukes, because its leader is a fundamentalist nutjob who is developing nukes so that he can glassify the Middle East and usher in the Rapture.
There’s your something.
Does kevin think he has a point at my expense? I can’t tell.
So we have to kill a few million people because they say the Holocaust never happened?
So does Mel Gibson, and the goobers love him.
So we have to kill a few million people because they say the Holocaust never happened?
So does Mel Gibson, and the goobers love him.
Iran just has to bomb the US, possibly with nukes, because its leader is a fundamentalist nutjob who is developing nukes so that he can glassify the Middle East and usher in the Rapture.
I usually break out of this crazy-making, endlessly re-iterative thinking with one magic word…*ahem*…”oil.”
It’s been the reason since forever why the Middle East is the mess it is now.
…*ahem*…”oil.”…It’s been the reason since forever why the Middle East is the mess it is now.
Ah, so that’s why the Romans had it out for Jesus. That “King of the Jews” stuff was just a ruse. They wanted Judea’s oil for Caesar’s 250-horsepower war chariots.
Sorry, I had to.
So we have the Absolutist neocons and the Medieval christian right claiming the backing of the Englightenment in their war against Islam?
Fucking incredible. Fucking morons.
Does anyone else have “Eve of Destruction” stuck in their heads these days?
The eastern world, it is exploding.
Hat tip for the new, updated graphic. Here’s hoping Ripper doesn’t order Wing Attack Plan R.
I could really, really use a stiff rainwater-and-grain-alcohol right around now, though.
Didn’t the Crusades begin because of some Christian nutcases responding to some Muslim nutcases?
Oh, Lord, John, don’t mention the whole Crusades thing. Ix-nay on the Usades-cray.
They’ve already rewritten the history of the Crusades as a “justified defense against expansionist Islamofascism”. I swear they actually argue that the Crusades were a defensive war.
Seeing that was the first time in my life I’ve ever been so angry that I actually jumped up and down and stamped my feet.
Who’s gonna take the Slim Pickens role? Could we choose?
Islamic fundamentalism, presidential millenarianism, a photoshopped Strangelove as Krauthammer, and Immanuel Wallerstein—Retardo, this is a tour de force!
Hmm. Excuse me. I was just looking for Sadly, No. You know–the blog where all the commenters are funny, most of them intentionally? I seem to have stumbled into Sadly, Depressing. Do you know when the funny people will be back? Maybe you could put one of those plastic clocks in your front window–you know, the ones that say Sadly, No will be funny again at: and you set the hands for like, three o’clock. I was gonna try to write something funny here, but now I’m depressed and intimidated, and need a drink with breakfast. Think I’ll just head over to WoC and see if SZ is funny today…
See, mikey, if you’d starting drinking with breakfast back when a bunch of the rest of us did, then this would already be funny to you.
I’m laughing my tuchis off over here.
Mikey – “Sadly” does appear in the title of this blog.
Oh well, I get to leave work in about an hour and a half, and then put a hurting on some beer at the Chophouse followed by tearing it up with some freaks and loud music. Things will seem much better then.
Thank you all for helping me to recognize my fundamental mistakes here.
1.) My failure to begin my alcohol intake much earlier.
2.) My mistaken assumption that the ‘Sadly’ in ‘Sadly, No’ was somehow intended as ironic.
3.) My failure to surround myself with loud music and freaks. Of all my historic errors in judgement, this one is clearaly the worst.
I’m sitting on the deck, writing a voiceover script all alone, and a question does occur to me: How is it even POSSIBLE that they need to run the leafblowers ten hours a day, EVERY Freakin day?
mikey
Shows what you know, Retardo. The new intelligence about Iran is chilling and all but demands hefty doses of ‘shock’ AND ‘awe’!
Just so happens that we have photos of Ahmadinejad meeting with Ernst Blofeld of SMERSH! Details remain sketchy. But sources close to the investigation revealed the meeting occured at a remote cabin in the Swiss Alps, and involved bear-skin rugs and lots of champaign!!!
We also know that Agents of Thrush once attended a birthday party held for the Iranian president’s sixth cousin twice removed!
And the evidence only grows more chilling from there, my friend!!!!
THRUSH!! Fabulous Wayback!
Not to worry, Dawg. I’ve got my two best agents, Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuriakin (Dammit, I never could spell Ilya’s name right!) on the case. Open Channel D!!
alexander waverly
United Network Command for
Law Enforcement
I love it, Mikey. Wondered whether anyone would get the reference. 🙂
I think not even UNCLE can help us now. No, only one choice remains.
Where’s Flint?
I concur with previous commenters- I want teh funny back. Leave the depressing stuff to people with no sense of humor. Bad Retardo- this is why you’ll never eclipse Brad in our hearts!
One Malkin video game today wasn’t enough?
Tough crowd, I swear…
1-malkin video game
2-gary’s comments–LAME
3-Malkin’s gotta pout
4-jeff gannon’s comin’ out
5-the end of the world is nigh
6-annieangel’s getting high
7-gavin fixed the internet
8-jillian would have lost her bet
9-All the TownHalls stink
10-mikey’s off to get a drink
thanks gavin
mikey
Aieeeee! Who’s that scary man on the teevee?
Ezekiel says that fire and brimstone will be rained upon the enemies of God’s people …
Jebus fucking Christsicle, Salvation on a Stick, did Reagan really say that!? And if I think W is madderer than Reagan… Seriously. Someone needs to stop you guys before you kill again.
Ok, I gotta know. I was a catholic until LSD happened, but I never got around to asking the nuns in catachism to tell me. Just what in jeesus creaking wheelbarrow is “Brimstone”? I know what a “brim” is. I know what “stone” is. But what the hell is “Brimstone”? And why do I care if I get some on me? And who is gonna put it on me? It just seems so archaic and unlikely. Kinda like raising the dead, turning water into wine, or making a baby without sex. I need some careful guidance here…
M
That would be the Ye Olde term for “sulfur”, mikey.
Brimstone–feh! If they want hell to seem threatening, they should provide Satan with Rev. Moon’s personal Holy Hankie, ‘cos having that crusty ol’ thing rubbed in your face for all eternity (the Hankie, not the Rev.) would be…
…’scuse me a sec….
[BAAAARRRRRFFF!!1!]
…unpleasant.
Tragically, the Rag of Righteous Crust was not around at the time of the Gospel writers, so that they mighth ave included it in their work (or properly understood any mention of it).
Blast!
I think a serious post is OK every now and again.
Though it jars me a little to get to the end of such thoughtful prose and see it was penned by a guy named ‘Retardo.’ 🙂
The serious and the silly go together.
It’s all well and good to laugh at the Swanks and the Grogans of the world (okay, it’s better than that – it’s priceless moments of hysteria) but remember: they vote.
And their ponytail-league insanity is directly responsible for the college softball level insanity that’s running this country into the ground.
I’m a big believer in laughing in the face of doom and despair (and nuking Iran definitely rises to that level) – mostly because your other option is crying, and that’s just not dignified. But there’s a big difference between laughing at something and not taking something seriously.
The most serious things of all are usually the ones that need the most laughter.