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| A Survivor of Hiroshima |
Foreign policy is the focus of the last presidential debate prior to election day. No doubt, one of the topics will be Iran's nuclear program.
The Iranian government declares that its nuclear program is for peaceful, energy producing purposes. However, in spite of Tehran's protestations that the goals of its nuclear program is to provide fuel for medical reactors and a non-oil based energy source, the U.S., Europe, and Israel are skeptical and believe that the goal is to create nuclear weapons.
A recent New York Times headline proclaimed that the White House has been in secret negotiations with Iran resulting in an agreement between the U.S. and Iran to engage in one-on-one negotiations over Iran's nuclear program. (NYT, 10/20/12) Before we all get excited that reason has prevailed, both the White House and Tehran are denying that any such agreement has been reached. (The Telegraph-UK, 10/21/12) The White House does assert that it is open to such negotiations.
In the meantime, the Israelis continue to advocate that the U.S. set "clear red lines" on Iran's nuclear program that if crossed would trigger military action by the U.S. against Iran. (NYT, 9/11/12) Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel has publicly criticized what he considers to be President Obama's soft policy towards Iran, and avers that if the U.S. won't draw a line in the sand regarding Iran's nuclear program that the U.S. "...has no 'moral right' to restrain Israel from taking military action of its own." (NYT, 9/11/12)
Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney has made it clear that he feels that the President should stop Iran in its pursuit of nuclear weapons and specifically rejects the notion of using diplomatic channels to address this issue. Already, Republicans are rejecting the notion of any negotiations with Iran, asserting that even if Iran makes an offer to parlay, it is only a ploy to distract from its real goal of making a nuclear bomb. South Carolina's Senator Lindsey Graham (R), a Romney ally, offered his views on Sunday, "The time for talking is over,...we should be demanding transparency and access to the (Iranian) nuclear program." (USA Today, 10/21/12)
What is this red line that we need to draw? No one has made that perfectly clear. The Israeli government has indicated that it wants the U.S, to set a limit on the amount of enriched uranium (essential bomb making material) Iran may stockpile and enforce Iran's adherence to the limit with the threat of military force for a transgression. The Obama administration has rejected placing military action by the U.S. on the table as a possibility. Apparently, Romney doesn't share the President's views, as he has declared Obama to be soft on Iran and lacking in commitment to our ally, Israel.
The one question that I want Mr. Romney to answer tonight is what is his recommended course of action in dealing with Iran's nuclear program. I want specifics. Does he favor the red line spoken of by Netanyahu? If so, what will that line consist of? If elected, is Romney willing to take us into another war? Will he use military action if Iran crosses that red line?
I admit that I don't need an answer; I think Romney has already made it perfectly clear that his image is of America the macho, the world enforcer. I just want to hear him say it and just maybe more of my fellow Americans will hear his words and reject an ideology predicated on the belief that might makes right.
Mitt Romney as commander-in-chief is a very scary proposition. It's like putting a ten-year-old behind the wheel of a race car. There was a folk song popular in the 1960s that had the line: When will we ever learn? It became an anthem for the anti-Vietnam War movement of the 1960s. Unfortunately, we appear to be a nation of slow-learners.
"Mitt Romney as commander-in-chief is a very scary proposition."
ReplyDeleteSo scary that it keeps me up at night - last night included. Of course what Mitt does or what Mitt will do can't, I believe, be accurately determined by what Mitt says which is what his handlers tell him to say, and that's my polite way of calling him a two-bit whore with a dangerous pimp.
I do fear that he would attempt to end the recession by the same means that started the recession and that's with another war that is supposed to magically pay for itself with help from a 5 trillion dollar tax cut. Mitt's arithmetic is as crepuscular and out of focus as everything else about him -- and as phoney as his smile. By now he must know that no matter how wrong any military excursion by the US, it can be used and with sufficient use of the word "freedom" to stifle opposition and solidify support for whatever mendacity he has in mind.
Funny about statistics and Japan in WW II. Everyone knows we used nuclear weapons, but nobody younger than me seems to know that by some estimates as many were killed in Tokyo in a single night with "conventional" fire bombs. We seem not to teach WW II history except as anti-American propaganda and certainly nobody mentions any more the 6 million civilians they killed in atrocious fashion in China and perhaps 10 million all over east asia, or the obscene genocides or the organized rapes of countless women or the hundreds of thousands of live burials and the beheadings of prisoners of war -- or even the mass suicides and suicide bombings by 'innocent' japanese civilians often murdering their own families rather than suffer the humiliation of defeat. Separating the civilian population from the largest crime against humanity in human history is, in my opinion, not historically or morally justified.
But I digress. . . Stopping nuclear proliferation in places like Iran is necessary, but ruling out any method but military confrontation may be emotionally satisfying to our breast-beating Neanderthal population, but dangerous -- perhaps as dangerous as pandering to Israel's right wing bastards and as dangerous as allowing Iran to blackmail the rest of the world.
Yes, Romney scares me even more than Bush did.
Captain,I wasn't around for any part of WWII, but I do know that the bombs weren't the only atrocity of that war. The problem that I have with wars is that they are a series of atrocious acts and all are signs of the levels to which humankind can descend. I pointed out the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki because they were horrific acts. That there were other horrific acts by the Japanese doesn't lessen the horror of those acts. There is no moral high road for any of the players.
ReplyDeleteI also pointed out these acts because it seems ironic that the U.S., the only country to ever use nuclear weapons in an act of war, is now the guardian, the protector, to police the world and ensure that others do not gain access to such destructive power. Do as we say and not as we do. The truth remains that this country used two weapons of mass destruction against people. Just because others have their own shameful acts to bear, in no way lessens our own as a civilized nation.
Is the person who kills one person any less culpable of murder than the one who kills ten?
I don't view it as anti-American propaganda to state what it is true. As for history classes, the textbooks used in American schools give a passing glance to the nuclear weapons dropped on those cities. WWII is presented as being primarily about the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor. Even the Holocaust is given short shrift and presented as incidental to the war in the Pacific. There is no mention of the internment camps for Japanese Americans, no references to the German POWs kept in Georgia and North Carolina who when transported using city buses in my hometown of Wilson NC were allowed to ride in their prison uniforms, with their armed guards at the front of the bus while my father and the other colored folks on the bus took their seats at the back of the bus.
The problem with what is taught in our schools is not that it is anti-American propaganda; it is that we sell a sanitized version of history in which America always wears a white har. Where do you think that fixation on American Exceptionalism comes from? I've read your elegant analyses of the hubris of the American character and I know that you don't need a lecture from me on this country's flaws, but neither do I need a history lesson.
By the way, textbooks are on the path to becoming even less objective as Texas has determined that it wants history textbooks to cast America in a more positive light. As Texas goes, so do the rest of the public schools as the Texas consumption of textbooks dictates content.
I'm only trying to discuss something that I see differently from many people younger than me. Those two weapons of mass destruction are only different from the countless other WMD used by all contestants in that unique war because of the mysterious technology and not because of the number of people killed, which was miniscule in context. Beyond that, your post is spot on in my eyes.
ReplyDeleteRomney either hasn't learned or doesn't care about history. He cares about power. He's a man whose religion teaches that he can work his way up to becoming a God in a world of his own. He can become God if he masters his family, becomes a focus for and dictator of their religious beliefs, wears special underwear and avoids hot drinks. I don't want to be part of his family, thank you.
I'm hoping that Romney is just trying to make Obama seem weak, as per the Republican stereotypes of Democrats, and that he isn't trying to say that negotiations and diplomacy are a sign of weakness because we have a divine mandate to rule the world, just as men have a divine mandate to dominate women and children. I hope it's only that he's being a good whore and doing what his pimp demands because he really, really wants what God wants -- for him to rule America on behalf of a higher power: the Tea Party.
There is no moral high road, or at least hardly ever. It's all a question of terrible and less terrible and the survival of freedom in the world was indeed at stake in the 1940's. The world today would, I am sure, likely be a horror beyond imagining if Truman had made a different decision. After WW II no country could take the risk of nuclear retaliation and so we remain and for the moment, the only ones who ever used nukes. In 1945, the choice was use them or sacrifice a whole generation of American males, Millions of Japanese civilians and lose Japan and the Pacific rim to the Russians.
So are we flagellating ourselves over the Reagan Death squads in Central America? repentant about killing 2 million Vietnamese? Burying our herts at Wounded Knee? Far less of an ambiguous moral situation than Nagasaki, I think. No, we are still raving about being the best and the best there ever was and that scares the living shit out of me, because we aren't. We just have the most weapons. Paranoids with delusions of grandeur scare me. People who act like cornered rats when they aren't in a corner scare me People who rule by scaring people scare me and I think that's what Mitt and his corporate pimps are all about.
And of course when you say WE bombed Japan, you're talking about my Grandfather's and father's generation. I'll be voting for a president very close to my children's generation and against someone who thinks we should be living in a world that ended long long ago. The people who made the decisions are long dead and those who carried them out are 90 years old for the most part. I'm not trying to put Hiroshima in a positive light, I'm only saying that under the circumstances Truman did what he had to do. I prefer to give most of the generals of that generation some benefit of the doubt and not piss on their ashes while enjoying the much better world they gave us.
Sure, historically we have had a sanitized history and we have had since before 1776. Whatever evil we have done we claim to have done in the name of freedom and with a divine mandate. Too many southerners still insist that the North invaded the South to take away their freedom. They're demented liars, but that doesn't mean we non-Republicans always have a perfect perspective.
So again, I hope Romney is being belligerent because he's selling himself to Republicans and not because he personally wants to nuke anyone. I hope. But the Republicans do it so often and so well that I suspect war is really what they want. Good for business, of course.
I wonder why President Obama allowed $hitt Romney get away with fear mongering over Iran’s nuclear program when Israel’s former Mossad chief, Ephraim Halevy, supports the Obama position:
ReplyDeleteIsrael's former Mossad chief urges dialogue with Iran, calls Obama policy 'brave'
Other Israeli political leaders critical of Netanyahu’s hawkishness:
Former Mossad chief - Meir Dagan,
Current head of Mossad - Tamir Pardo,
Israel’s military chief - Benny Gantz
Former prime minister - Ehud Olmert,
Leader of the Kadima party - Tzipi Livni
Internal security chief - Yuval Diskin
Even in Israel, there is no consensus for attacking Iran.
Is there ever consensus in Israel? But yes, there were many times last night when I was putting words in Obama's mouth. I think it was obvious enough though, that Rombozo was waving bogeymen at us again. Every Democrat is routinely accused of being a coward, and appeaser and of "weakening the military"
ReplyDeleteObama did very well, Romney pissed his pants, but all that matters for the "undecideds" was what they heard from Fox after the debate.