Category Archives: Iran

Another Brownie Point For Barack

Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Homeland Security, Iran, Neoconservatism, Russia

In “Let’s Fret About Our Own Tyrants,” I awarded Obama his first brownie point for resisting the neoconning of the election upheaval in Iran. He now gets another brownie point for not emulating Bush and his neocon coterie in stepping on the Russian Bear’s claws and placing a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, over in Russia’s back yard.

In the business of fomenting friction, “America’s Russian experts say the move can only contribute to a warmer dialogue between Moscow and Washington, they say no one should expect any reciprocal concessions from the Kremlin on issues of key concern to the US, such as Iran.”

One doesn’t adopt and execute a reasonable foreign policy in order to please; a good strategy is aimed at America’s national interests. The Empire has got to cut back and return to defending the homeland. But while dropping the missile shield may be seen as one tiny step in the right direction, I have no doubt that the administration will “compensate” for this small anti-imperial concession by beefing up other fronts.

To repeat—and all in all—making nice with “Old Europe”—which is how the stupid, reckless Bush administration dismissed Europe (including its correct objection to the Iraqi invasion)—is a good thing. Sure, neoconservative war harpies get hot for over heated rhetoric against any and all. They’ll just have to get their kicks playing video war games. As will they have to get through their thick skulls that this country is no longer a super power.

It’s neither sexy nor smart to smite the world when you’re … broke and bankrupt.

Updated: Clinton To The Rescue In N. Korea (Will He Pack For Iran?)

America, Foreign Policy, Gender, Hillary Clinton, Iran, Journalism, Pop-Culture

Lisa Ling of the National Geographic Channel can usually be found running around the world transmitting the propaganda du jour about “dying,” forests, “melting” icecaps, and “exploited” peoples. For some time, however, this annoying female has been preoccupied getting her sister Laura Ling released, after the woman was caught nosing around in North Korea with another “journalist,” Euna Lee.

How American! You land on foreign soil with a distinctly American approach to everything—you ignore borders, dangers, and differences. You demand in Yankee drawl, “Let’s have a show of hands for American values.” And you proceed to stomp about “exposing” the ills of the world. When some hostile primitives enforce their jurisdiction and show no appreciation for your patronizing good intentions, you cry foul. Oh please!

An extension of this mindset is the habit of stupendously naïve American parents sending their precious progeny, during their most stupid years—the teens—to dangerous spots around the world for a “growth experience.” My comments here.

(The CNN version: “Lee and Ling were arrested while reporting on the border between North Korea and China and sentenced in June to 12 years in prison on charges of entering the country illegally to conduct a smear campaign.”)

I don’t wish these silly girls ill—although Mr. J-Il obviously did—and I’m glad Bill Clinton rode to the rescue. Bill was, in all likelihood, asked to assist by Al Gore, who employs these broads in his California-based Current TV media venture.

Bill ate humble pie for the women, apologized for their idiotic indiscretions, and has brought them back home. One less topic for Larry King to stagger through on his nightly scintillating hour (He’s currently stuck on M. Jackson).

It’s not over for Bill; he had better pack his bags again. This time for Iran. A couple of American hikers wondered into … Iran, after backpacking across … Iraq. You heard right. Their greeno friends stateside say they’re just amaaazing human beings, thirsty to embrace the world. (Here’s a pic of one Californian adult blowing bubbles into the ether; she’s a “teacher-activist-writer from California currently based in the Middle East.” ) Apparently the feeling was not mutual.

Is natural selection at work?

Update (August 6): One ought to separate heartfelt sympathy for these young women from what I have done above: taken a close look at the hubristic arrogance and self-righteousness often undergirding their actions. Every bit of cynical approbation is warranted, that is if you’re not Oprah, and few on this site, thankfully, wish to emulate Oprah’s weak minded, anti-intellectual mushiness. Someone has to say the politically unpalatable: these broads are levitating in la-la land.

And Now For Something Completely Different

Barack Obama, Economy, EU, Healthcare, Iran, Neoconservatism, Politics, Regulation, Russia, Socialism

A girl has to have some fun: In my new WND.COM column, “And Now For Something Completely Different,” I invite you to laugh along about the EO (The European Onion), “A-Jad,” Geithner (the gift that keeps giving), and Obama who “never runs out of things to say, only things worth saying”:

“Although Obama has appointed more czars in six months than Russia’s Romanov Dynasty had occasion to anoint over three centuries, he is still missing a Vegetable Czar. If he acts quickly, Barack might be able to recruit a cheap VC with experience from The European Onion (formerly the EU).

The EO has been regulating fresh produce for quite some time. Duly, the Brussels Sprouts that run the Continent had barred “curly cucumbers, crooked carrots and mottled mushrooms – any odd-looking fruit and vegetables” — from Europe’s markets and supermarkets

But things are about to change. As the BBC News reported in a burst of good cheer, “July 1 marks the return to our shelves of the curved cucumber and the knobbly carrot.” Indeed, Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel has finally disavowed the rules that were introduced to ensure common standards among EU vegetables, “but are regarded by critics as examples of Euro-madness.”

Said the Patron Saint of ‘wonky’ vegetables…”

The complete column is “And Now For Something Completely Different.”

Miss the weekly column on WND.COM? Catch it on Taki’s Magazine every Saturday.

‘Chest-Thumping Interventionists’

Foreign Policy, Iran, Neoconservatism

Alan Bock is scathing about the “heedless and self-important” “Fox-type personalities”; the people who “have spent most of their careers being wrong,” and their pronouncements about Iran.

“It is difficult to exaggerate the perniciousness and childishness of those who, as the Iranian situation unfolds, are practicing what Peggy Noonan in her Wall Street Journal column Friday called ‘Aggressive Political Solipsism at work: Always exploit events to show you love freedom more than the other guy, always make someone else’s delicate drama your excuse for a thumping curtain speech.'” a

…You can find them in full-throated bellowing mode on Fox News, at National Review online, and elsewhere in the various corners of the conservative – and sometimes moderate or liberal – blogosphere.”

I’m glad Peggy, who cheered for Bush’s war, his body parts—and for his every other bombastic utterance—has wizened up.