Thursday, January 11, 2007
Stupid Admin Tricks
Listening to the follow-up press conference given by Secs. Rice and Gates this morning, my belief that this admin is perhaps the stupidest admin ever has been confirmed.
This particularly bugs me:
Sec. Rice is willing to meet with her Iranian counterpart whenever and wherever he wants provided Iran gives up its enrichment programs (I think she specified "Uranium" -- did she just give Iran an out to make a Plutonium based bomb?). The jokes practically write themselves: "Dr. Rice? This is the Iranian foreign minister. We've given up U235 enrichment. How about we meet, as you say, 'wherever and whenever'? How does 7:00 PM for dinner and a movie sound? We'll go up to my hotel room after?"
Seriously, though -- dontcha all worry that by making such a big deal out of Iran's nuke program (which is, I agree, a big deal), we're kinda missing the trees for the forest, so to speak? According to the admin (and I tend to believe them on this), Iran's helping all manner of terrorists, etc. But because they've threatened to build nukes, all they need to do to be on our good side is to cease and desist with the nuke-building? That's a way to project strength: "we don't like your country, but we're willing to meet with you anywhere and anytime so long as you stop with the nuke-building 'cause we're scared crapless about that". And that's a way to discourage nuke building by other nations: "you wanna get US attention and for us to meet with you no matter what evil things you continue to do, well, building nukes is working for Iran in that regard -- the US has promised to meet with them no matter what so long as they just stop with the nuke building".
Talk about teh stupid.
But the stupidity is not limitted to Sec. Rice. Sec. Gates had some moments as well. For example he contradicted himself (I missed all the questions from the press -- did anybody catch it?): on the one hand he says that military operations will have to be free from political interference. OTOH, they want the Iraqis to have a working government. Wouldn't such a government, if it were in charge of the military in any meaningful way (unless we want Iraq to have a military dictatorship -- in which case, why did we depose Saddam Hussein in the first place?), interfere politically in the military? Oh, I forget, "politics" is a dirty word and the governance of the polis is supposed to have nothing to do with politics? Don't people read the Federalist Papers anymore? Madison (not to mention Abraham "Changing Generals" Lincoln) must be spinning in his grave enough to provide all the energy Iran may wish to get from fission reactors.
Of course, even people on the ground are stupid, so what do you expect from our government. Yesterday, News and Notes had on a soldier who served in Iraq saying that we ought not to withdraw because there are soldiers in Iraq who have to be allowed to do the job they are trained to do. Alrighty then ... Cue whining from the right about how "the liberal media makes sure it only interviews stupid people who adopt right-wing views to make the right wing look bad".
Why do I have the song "Go Ask Alice" stuck in my head?
This particularly bugs me:
Sec. Rice is willing to meet with her Iranian counterpart whenever and wherever he wants provided Iran gives up its enrichment programs (I think she specified "Uranium" -- did she just give Iran an out to make a Plutonium based bomb?). The jokes practically write themselves: "Dr. Rice? This is the Iranian foreign minister. We've given up U235 enrichment. How about we meet, as you say, 'wherever and whenever'? How does 7:00 PM for dinner and a movie sound? We'll go up to my hotel room after?"
Seriously, though -- dontcha all worry that by making such a big deal out of Iran's nuke program (which is, I agree, a big deal), we're kinda missing the trees for the forest, so to speak? According to the admin (and I tend to believe them on this), Iran's helping all manner of terrorists, etc. But because they've threatened to build nukes, all they need to do to be on our good side is to cease and desist with the nuke-building? That's a way to project strength: "we don't like your country, but we're willing to meet with you anywhere and anytime so long as you stop with the nuke-building 'cause we're scared crapless about that". And that's a way to discourage nuke building by other nations: "you wanna get US attention and for us to meet with you no matter what evil things you continue to do, well, building nukes is working for Iran in that regard -- the US has promised to meet with them no matter what so long as they just stop with the nuke building".
Talk about teh stupid.
But the stupidity is not limitted to Sec. Rice. Sec. Gates had some moments as well. For example he contradicted himself (I missed all the questions from the press -- did anybody catch it?): on the one hand he says that military operations will have to be free from political interference. OTOH, they want the Iraqis to have a working government. Wouldn't such a government, if it were in charge of the military in any meaningful way (unless we want Iraq to have a military dictatorship -- in which case, why did we depose Saddam Hussein in the first place?), interfere politically in the military? Oh, I forget, "politics" is a dirty word and the governance of the polis is supposed to have nothing to do with politics? Don't people read the Federalist Papers anymore? Madison (not to mention Abraham "Changing Generals" Lincoln) must be spinning in his grave enough to provide all the energy Iran may wish to get from fission reactors.
Of course, even people on the ground are stupid, so what do you expect from our government. Yesterday, News and Notes had on a soldier who served in Iraq saying that we ought not to withdraw because there are soldiers in Iraq who have to be allowed to do the job they are trained to do. Alrighty then ... Cue whining from the right about how "the liberal media makes sure it only interviews stupid people who adopt right-wing views to make the right wing look bad".
Why do I have the song "Go Ask Alice" stuck in my head?
# posted by alberich @ 9:07 AM 
