The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Extreme Irony about extreme Danger
Mark Steyn is second to none in exposing irony and hypocrisy; tonight his targets are the President of Iran and the American and British media (among other). Another delicious helping from Steyn Online:
Suppose a guy yells “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, and the audience hisses back, “Shh! We’re in the middle of a play about how Bush engaged in a massive conspiracy to use a small chimney fire as a pretext for burning down some other theatre three years ago.”
That’s pretty much what happened the other week. The President of Iran announced that Israel “must be wiped off the map” – and the entire capital city of the world’s hyperpower hissed back, “Shh! Patrick Fitzgerald’s about to indict Scooter Libby!”
Insofar as I understand the left’s three-year investment in Joseph C Wilson IV, it’s that the selfless patriot exposed the Bush Administration’s rationale for the war – Saddam’s WMD – as a lie cooked up by a cabal of sinister neocon warmongers (Clinton, Gore, Kerry, etc).
Just for the record, WMD was never my rationale. As I’ve said on many occasions, when it comes to toppling dictators, there’s no such thing as an “illegitimate” rationale. In his obstruction of UN weapons inspectors, Saddam certainly acted as if he had WMD and, in his “trade” missions to Niger (principal exports: uranium, goats, cowpeas and onions), as if he were eager to acquire more. There’s something to be said for taking a chap at his word.
Anyway, we now have a chance to go through the whole rigmarole with another four-letter Middle Eastern Muslim country beginning with the letters “Ira-”. Same great runaround, new closing consonant. President Ahmadinejad made his wiping-off-the-map remarks as part of a speech called “A World Without Zionism”, so it seems unlikely this was one of those subtle nuances lost in translation.
Furthermore, in the final round of last June’s presidential election, both candidates were eager to annihilate the Zionist Entity – Mr Ahmadinejad’s opponent, Hashemi Rafsanjani, having declared that Israel is “the most hideous occurrence in history” which the Muslim world “will vomit out from its midst” with “a single atomic bomb”. So wiping Israel off the map would appear to be one of those rare points of bipartisan consensus, as unexceptional as coming out in favor of motherhood and apple pie.
And indeed President Ahmadinejad, speaking a couple of days later at a “Death to Israel” rally, couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Nor could his rival, Mr Rafsanjani, who pointed out, “Even in Europe, the majority of the population is strongly critical of Israel, but they are afraid to express their views.”
Judging from the BBC’s website, only the first half of that sentence is true. Here’s what the Beeb’s viewers and listeners had to say:
“Is this story true? The current American regime is expert at creating faked excuses for military and political action. The WMD scam in Iraq for example.”
“I’m not sure it’s any worse than what Bush said about Iraq, and at least Ahmedinejad is using only words, not bombs.”
“According to BBC, this type of comment is commonly made by Iranian politicians. If so, we need to understand this in context.”
“Iran’s Prime minister said ‘Israel should be wiped off the map’. How do we know that he wasn’t referring to a peaceful arrangement for Israel to give land back to Palestine rather than a violent threat?”
How indeed? Well, maybe one way to find out is to look at the rest of the speech: “We are in the process of a historical war between the World of Arrogance [the west] and the Islamic world... Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? You had best know that this slogan and this goal is attainable, and surely can be achieved.”
So this isn’t just the usual itsy-bitsy wipe-Israel-off-the-face-of-the-earth boilerplate that Nasser was doing 40 years ago. The Europeans may be indifferent to the incineration of the Zionists but they surely can’t be as relaxed about meeting the same fate themselves.
The President’s chief strategist, Hassan Abbassi, has come up with a war plan based on the premise that “Britain is the mother of all evils” – the evils being America, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, the Gulf states and even Canada, all of whom are the malign progeny of the British Empire.
“We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization,” says Mr Abbassi. “There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them… Once we have defeated the Anglo-Saxons the rest will run for cover.”
Iran isn’t an impoverished joke-state basket-case like Sierra Leone. It’s a major regional power. What should we do? Take them at their word? Or apply the Democrat-media-CIA test and wait till we’ve got absolute definitive 100% proof that they’ve got WMD – the absolute definitive 100% proof being a smoking crater where Tel Aviv used to be, or maybe London. The contrast between the Iranian President’s speeches and the worthless piffle of a Beltway non-scandal is very telling – or would be if the parochial US media had any interest in covering it.
How can even the dreariest press in the English speaking-world maintain their interest in the third year of Joe Wilson’s 15 minutes? What a pitiful spectacle. If they’ve a sense of humor, the Iranians will time the mushroom cloud for the first day of the Bush-Cheney impeachment trial.
Suppose a guy yells “Fire!” in a crowded theatre, and the audience hisses back, “Shh! We’re in the middle of a play about how Bush engaged in a massive conspiracy to use a small chimney fire as a pretext for burning down some other theatre three years ago.”
That’s pretty much what happened the other week. The President of Iran announced that Israel “must be wiped off the map” – and the entire capital city of the world’s hyperpower hissed back, “Shh! Patrick Fitzgerald’s about to indict Scooter Libby!”
Insofar as I understand the left’s three-year investment in Joseph C Wilson IV, it’s that the selfless patriot exposed the Bush Administration’s rationale for the war – Saddam’s WMD – as a lie cooked up by a cabal of sinister neocon warmongers (Clinton, Gore, Kerry, etc).
Just for the record, WMD was never my rationale. As I’ve said on many occasions, when it comes to toppling dictators, there’s no such thing as an “illegitimate” rationale. In his obstruction of UN weapons inspectors, Saddam certainly acted as if he had WMD and, in his “trade” missions to Niger (principal exports: uranium, goats, cowpeas and onions), as if he were eager to acquire more. There’s something to be said for taking a chap at his word.
Anyway, we now have a chance to go through the whole rigmarole with another four-letter Middle Eastern Muslim country beginning with the letters “Ira-”. Same great runaround, new closing consonant. President Ahmadinejad made his wiping-off-the-map remarks as part of a speech called “A World Without Zionism”, so it seems unlikely this was one of those subtle nuances lost in translation.
Furthermore, in the final round of last June’s presidential election, both candidates were eager to annihilate the Zionist Entity – Mr Ahmadinejad’s opponent, Hashemi Rafsanjani, having declared that Israel is “the most hideous occurrence in history” which the Muslim world “will vomit out from its midst” with “a single atomic bomb”. So wiping Israel off the map would appear to be one of those rare points of bipartisan consensus, as unexceptional as coming out in favor of motherhood and apple pie.
And indeed President Ahmadinejad, speaking a couple of days later at a “Death to Israel” rally, couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Nor could his rival, Mr Rafsanjani, who pointed out, “Even in Europe, the majority of the population is strongly critical of Israel, but they are afraid to express their views.”
Judging from the BBC’s website, only the first half of that sentence is true. Here’s what the Beeb’s viewers and listeners had to say:
“Is this story true? The current American regime is expert at creating faked excuses for military and political action. The WMD scam in Iraq for example.”
“I’m not sure it’s any worse than what Bush said about Iraq, and at least Ahmedinejad is using only words, not bombs.”
“According to BBC, this type of comment is commonly made by Iranian politicians. If so, we need to understand this in context.”
“Iran’s Prime minister said ‘Israel should be wiped off the map’. How do we know that he wasn’t referring to a peaceful arrangement for Israel to give land back to Palestine rather than a violent threat?”
How indeed? Well, maybe one way to find out is to look at the rest of the speech: “We are in the process of a historical war between the World of Arrogance [the west] and the Islamic world... Is it possible for us to witness a world without America and Zionism? You had best know that this slogan and this goal is attainable, and surely can be achieved.”
So this isn’t just the usual itsy-bitsy wipe-Israel-off-the-face-of-the-earth boilerplate that Nasser was doing 40 years ago. The Europeans may be indifferent to the incineration of the Zionists but they surely can’t be as relaxed about meeting the same fate themselves.
The President’s chief strategist, Hassan Abbassi, has come up with a war plan based on the premise that “Britain is the mother of all evils” – the evils being America, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, the Gulf states and even Canada, all of whom are the malign progeny of the British Empire.
“We have a strategy drawn up for the destruction of Anglo-Saxon civilization,” says Mr Abbassi. “There are 29 sensitive sites in the U.S. and in the West. We have already spied on these sites and we know how we are going to attack them… Once we have defeated the Anglo-Saxons the rest will run for cover.”
Iran isn’t an impoverished joke-state basket-case like Sierra Leone. It’s a major regional power. What should we do? Take them at their word? Or apply the Democrat-media-CIA test and wait till we’ve got absolute definitive 100% proof that they’ve got WMD – the absolute definitive 100% proof being a smoking crater where Tel Aviv used to be, or maybe London. The contrast between the Iranian President’s speeches and the worthless piffle of a Beltway non-scandal is very telling – or would be if the parochial US media had any interest in covering it.
How can even the dreariest press in the English speaking-world maintain their interest in the third year of Joe Wilson’s 15 minutes? What a pitiful spectacle. If they’ve a sense of humor, the Iranians will time the mushroom cloud for the first day of the Bush-Cheney impeachment trial.
