Get Your Glennocidal Tendencies Here!

What?

You aren’t sure? Maybe? C’mon, they’re cheap and everybody who is anybody among wingnuts is getting his own.

So how about it uh — Mr. Derbyshire, is it? Could you speak up?

I only wonder — as of course I would — if Stanley is gloomy enough. There is a nightmare here, lurking just out of sight behind all the thoughts and articles of the gloomy-cons. The nightmare is so appalling to any civilized person I cannot bring myself to mention it. I’ll just call it the g-word. Us or them. Please may it not come to that. I need a cup of coffee.

Sounds like you’re having doubts — or are you? What? Coupons?! You have to be kidding me.

 

Comments: 39

 
 
 

After the coffee he might be able to muster the fortitude required to speak the word aloud.

(Hey Derb? That “us or them”? You just said it. So the hand-wringing is a bit tardy.)

 
 

Listen to him. He’s all about genocide until he realizes it could be HIS head on the block, then he turns all namby-pamby on them. I say we let CJ pull his wingnut card and put him on Lieberman probation until he learns to gas the Moooslims like a good Glennbot.

 
 

I got an even worse scenario for the civilized world.

Iran could nuke Israel on August 22nd

Noted Middle Eastern scholar Bernard Lewis warns that Iran is preparing for an apocalyptic “end of timeâ€? – and that it could come as soon as August 22.

The July 28 edition of NewsMax’s Insider Report pointed to the connection between that date, when Iran leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said his country would respond to Western demands regarding Iran’s nuclear program, and a possible attack on Israel.

Now Lewis, professor emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton, writes about that scenario. He notes in the Wall Street Journal that this year, August 22 corresponds, in the Islamic calendar, to the night when Muhammad flew first to “the farthest mosqueâ€? – usually identified with Jerusalem – and then to heaven and back.

“This might well be deemed an appropriate date for the apocalyptic ending of Israel and if necessary the world,â€? writes Lewis, whose most recent book is “From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting the Middle East.â€?

He also points to an intriguing reason why the Iranians might not fret at all about an Israeli counterstrike – even with nuclear weapons.

What deterred both sides from using nuclear weapons during the Cold War was the concept of MAD, mutual assured destruction. But the “apocalyptic worldviewâ€? of Iran’s current leaders works against that concept, according to Lewis.

Ahmadinejad is a strong believer in the Shiite tradition of a 12th imam, the so-called “hiddenâ€? Imam Mahdi who Allah has miraculously kept alive since his disappearance in 874 A.D.

Shiites believe Imam Mahdi will return at a time of great global chaos – and the Web site Zionist.com states: “Ahmadinejad sees himself as Allah’s instrument to pave the way for Imam Mahdi.â€?

According to Lewis, Ahmadinejad and his followers “clearly believe that this time is now.â€?

He cites the phrase “Allah will know his ownâ€? to explain why Iran might be willing to usher in the apocalypse even if it means the death of many Muslims.

But clearly John Kerry was on the right track when he wanted to give Iran nuclear material.

 
 

Sounds like Kerry was on board your rapture train there.

So what’s your beef?

 
 

He was on a train with Kerry?

 
 

Come now, Derby is just being “serious”. Serious people consider genocide, and then go for coffee.

 
 

Newsmax as your cited source, eh, Gary? Hokay. I just read about this poor woman in Australia who could do nothing but watch as a pack of hungry Dingoes ate her baby. There was also a photo of a space alien. Want me to cite my source?

mikey

 
 

I’m confused.

How is Iran going to destroy the world with nuclear weapons when it does not in fact possess any nuclear weapons.

Is this one of those Neo-con, anti-reality things people are always going on about?

 
 

mikey – Actually, that’s a pretty accurate summary of Lewis’ WSJ editorial, IIRC.

 
 

Here’s a slightly less glowing reading of the Lewis column.

 
 

Did the right wing condemn this yet? Huh? No? Where’s our faithful Patterico when you need him?

Oh, and Gary: Love the projection! The people who want to kick-start the Rapture accusing Iran of doing it instead. So Rovian. But you’re still a bore.

It’s awfully hard for Iran, or anyone else, to attack Israel with nuclear weapons they don’t have. Impossible, perhaps.

And other things are up for argument as well:

…What if the mistakes made in Iraq were not merely tactical missteps but stem from a fundamental misreading of the Arab mindset? What if, in other words, the doyen of Middle Eastern studies got it all wrong?

A growing number of Middle Eastern scholars who in the past have quietly stewed over [Bernard] Lewis’s outsized influence say this is exactly what happened. To them, it is no surprise that Lewis and his acolytes in Washington botched the war on terror. In a new book, provocatively titled The Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization, one of those critics, Columbia scholar Richard Bulliet, argues that Lewis has been getting his “master narrativeâ€? about the Islamic world wrong since his early epiphanic days in Turkey—and he’s still getting it wrong today. …

…There remains a deeper issue: Did Lewis’s misconceptions lead the Bush administration to make a terrible strategic error? Despite the horrors of 9/11, did they transform the bin Laden threat into something grander than it really was? If the “show of strengthâ€? in Iraq was wrong-headed, as the Lewis critics say, then Americans must contemplate the terrible idea that they squandered hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives and limbs on the wrong war. If Bernard Lewis’s view of the Arab problem was in error, then America missed a chance to round up and destroy a threat—al Qaeda—that in reality existed only on the sick margins of the Islamic world.

 
 

Here is a great commentary on Lewis’s “prediction” from the Guardian’s Brian Whitaker. I especially like the Michael Ledeen reference at the end.

 
 

So Gary, let’s assume that you’re right and that Israel is going to get nuked on August 22nd. What do you propose to do about it? Nuke Iran? It’d have to be a country wide strike that would turn it entirely to glass killing millions of people. The fallout of which would poison US troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, to say nothing of the civilians in the region. In the end though, if you wiped an entire country how could you prove to the world that you were absolutely right to do so? The word of the United States isn’t exactly hard currency anymore. And what do you have as justification is something slightly more concrete than numerology with more ifs that you can shake a stick at.

And btw, going “well, deterence won’t work with these guys because they’re actually crazy” is the same argument that almost brought us World War III in ’62 because people like Curtis Lemay didn’t think that the Soviet Union could be trusted (because those commies WERE crazy) if they gained parity (which they did by the end of the sixties) and the world didn’t end, even with the defeat in Vietnam.

 
 

“(Hey Derb? That “us or themâ€?? You just said it. So the hand-wringing is a bit tardy.)”

Heh heh. “‘Tardy”. Yeah, that describes the whole lot of ’em all right.

And obviously, if Israel (or the US) nukes Iran, that will usher in the Rapture and deliver all god’s chilluns to the Right Place. But if Iran drops the bomb first, it’ll be a hummus-flavored rapture, with Mohammed returning to drop us all into a lake of 72 flaming virgins. Or something. Because god can tell what religious symbol you’ve got emblazoned on the airline tag of your suitcase nuke.

That’s the new arms race, Reverend Strangelove! We’ve got a Rapture Gap!

 
 

Oh, Derb will clasp his hands and stare, dewey-eyed, heavenward for a bit, but he’ll eventually buck up. There’s that whole stiff upper lip thing, you know.

When it’s down to the wire (and when isn’t it in the wingnut mind?), he’ll get on board the massacre train.

 
 

Why are you still replying to the GaryBot(tm)?

 
 

Train wreck. Love it.

Who doesn’t?

 
 

But if the government were actually to engage in such behavior, these people would be first to deny it was happening.

 
 

derb’s ancestor’s felt sorry, too, for a while after giving the Indians plague-riddled blankets.

But then they had a fine meal with the produce and game that those same Indians shared with them, and had a hearty laugh over whiskey when the Indians went home.

 
 

Why hasn’t anyone pointed out that Iran using a nuclear weapon wouldn’t, comparitively, be as bad as fuckin’ genocide? I mean, we have to believe this, right? To believe that the U.S. was less evil than Nazi Germany?

 
In Vino Veritas
 

Derbyshire wants genocide just so there’ll be less competition for the pre-pubescent girls he’d really like to get his hands on.

 
Fluffybunnyfeet
 

Oh, I say – pre-pubes. Mmmmmm

 
 

Did you check out the book he is reading? He isn’t up in that “treehouse” sipping coffee or listening to birds. Hope he at least remembered to bring tissues. Or a sock.

 
 

Glennocidal tendencies? Look, all I wanted was a Pepsi, and Glenn wouldn’t give it to me. All I wanted was a Pepsi, just one Pepsi, and he wouldn’t give it to me.
Just a Pepsi.

 
 

Otto Man:

I’m not crazy. You’re the one that’s crazy.

 
 

Otto? Otto PARTS?!?

haw haw haw haw

no, really, driving makes you stupid. That’s why I always take the bus.

LET”S DO SOME CRIMES!!

heh. one of my favorite movies.

 
 

Just more of the fundy/neocon death cult.

These people are twisted.

 
 

Ah, crap. The world is going to end on August 22 and our 20th wedding anniversary is on August 23. So close….

 
 

Oops… tigrismus beat me to the Guardian piece. Doh!

 
 

August 22?! That’s when the new Madden game comes out! My God, it’s all starting to make sense…

 
Tak, the Hideous New Girl
 

The nightmare is so appalling to any civilized person I cannot bring myself to mention it.

Since when is Derb considered a civilized person?

 
Tak, the Hideous New Girl
 

I expect The Derb to show up on a Dateline NBC “To Catch a Predator” show sooner rather than later.

You *know* he has his own MySpace account.

 
 

August 22, 1654 – Jacob Barsimson, the first Jewish Immigrant to America, arrives in New Amstradam

August 22, 1775 – King George III declares the colonies to be in rebellion

August 22, 1864 – 12 nations sign the first Geneva Convention

August 22, 1914 – In Belgium, English and German Troops meet in combat for the first time in WW-1

August 22, 1922 – Michael Collins Assassinated

August 22, 1944 – Last transport of French Jews to concentration camps

August 22, 1969 – Elvis Presley performs live in Las Vegas

August 22, 1973 – Nixon names Kissenger SecState

August 22, 1992 – Lon Horiuchi Kills Vicki Weaver at Ruby Ridge

Yep, sure signs of the coming apocalypse, every damn one of ’em…

mikey

 
 

Sadly, No! needs a countdown to The Rupp-ture. August 22nd baby!

 
 

Doesn’t everyone enjoy a little genocide with their coffee? No calories! And none of the chemical aftertase of artificial sweeteners!

 
 

Man, I asked for that day off, my first vacation day on my new job. Just my freakin’ luck…

I guess I’d better stay indoors that day, just in case all those righteous drivers start getting sucked up to the great Pie in the Sky, and their damned SUVs run amok.

 
 

Sadly, No! needs a countdown to The Rupp-ture. August 22nd baby!

OK, now I’m really starting to worry. Hopefully, Gary will still be able to comment here from heaven.

 
 

jpj said,
“Ah, crap. The world is going to end on August 22 and our 20th wedding anniversary is on August 23. So close….”

jpj,

I’d buy a present anyway. Cause, you know, the Muslim calendar is lunar instead of solar, and if they started the Muslim month one day later than we expected, you’d be in a world of hurt.

And lord knows you don’t want to spend your last night on Earth on the sofa.

 
 

Huuuuge party at my place on the 21st.

That way, I won’t have to clean up.

 
 

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