[MD] Barbarians & Hippies

[Arlo J. Bensinger]

[Arlo previously]
Why? I thought OUR nuclear weapons served as a deterrent?

[Platt]
Deterrents mean nothing to crazies who want to die.

[Arlo previously]
If not, who exactly are our nuclear weapons deterring?

[Platt]
A first strike by reasonably sane people.

[Arlo]
What "reasonably sane people" would launch a first-strike, nuclear attack
against the US?

[Platt]
Have you been reading or hearing the news lately? Iran has announced a 
policy to destroy Israel and its Western allies. Ever hear of suitcase 
bombs?

[Arlo]
And they are years away from being able to even consider such a thing. Of
course, need I keep reminding the forum that they'd be decades away had it not
been for Nixon and Ford who began the policy of selling/giving nuclear
technology to a brutal dictator, unconcerned with the civil liberty dismantling
he was doing, so that he would favor us with cheap oil. You reap what you sow,
eh?

[Platt]
A colorful scenario, indicating to Iran and other nations that we no 
longer have the will to defend human rights from assaults by 
barbarians.

[Arlo]
"Defending human rights". That's laughable. What the "right" has historically
done is ignore human rights completely when the dictatorial regime means profit
for our country. Its only when that profit wanes that you start trumpeting your
"human rights" concern.

Since you neglected to reply to a post I made on this before, let me restate.

My personal disgust is to be asked to fight when it is clear that we have not
learned on ounce of lesson about our role in this dance. If I thought for one
minute, that we learned something here today, I would fight tooth and nail. But
as it is, with the right-wing so bound up in their ideological righteousness,
fighting today will simply mean we'll always be fighting.

You want to go in and stomp Iran for developing nuclear weapons (supposedly).
Okay, but where is the "Golly gee, Batman, maybe we shouldn't've sold that
dictator all that nuclear technology in the first place." Or, if you want me to
fight to "defend the civil liberties of these nations", then where is your "Gee
whiz, Skippy, maybe giving Saddam all those weapons back when Reagan was
president, so that he could kill Iranians, and completely ignore all his human
rights abuses wasn't such a "moral" thing to do". But I see no evidence that we
learned anything here, other than how to wag our righteous dicks and pretend we
are somehow superior beings. You want me to support the state of Israel, then I
want to see a little, "Gall darn it, Gomer, maybe we really overstepped what we
had to do in setting this thing up, I think maybe I'd be pissed to." 

In other words, I'll give you my active support willingly when there is evidence
that we've learned from our mistakes. Then, you want to topple a dictator, I'll
be right there. You want to keep nuclear weapons out of ANYONE'S hands, I'll be
there. But if you want to fuck over and fuck around indiscriminately, despite
the warnings and the resistence from those who knew better, and then expect ME
to pick up a gun to bail you out, then I say "piss off". Bring on the Holy War.
Let's kill ourselves and get it over with. You want me to get behind this war,
then show me some evidence that you are capable of learning from "how we got
here", otherwise the war is pointless, and will be a repeated tragedy until the
end of days.

And yes, if all efforts at prevention fail, and there will be times when it
does, then I through my full support behind force. But right now I'm just
thinking we deserve what we get. On both sides. For all our short-sighted
arrogant righteousness, as they say, "bring it on". 

Arlo