John Byrne in Raw Story reports "As rhetoric builds, Democrats in Congress lie low on Iran."
Basically, the story is that most Democrat members of Congress are responding to Bush's fear-mongering about Iran as if they never had any prior experience whatsoever with George Bush's modus operandi; Iraq war, whazzat?
Byrne states, "Not even the Democrats’ liberal heavyweight in the House, Nancy Pelosi, has ruled out the possibility of using nuclear weapons, keeping "all options" on the table, an aide said." Jeebers, where the hell has Nancy Pelosi been since 2000? Did she never see Dr. Strangelove, with Slim Pickens riding the bomb to Armageddon? Has she not experienced that nasty slap in the face of truly frightening familiarity?
"National Security" means, in its plainest dictionary sense," the protection of the interests of a country." But the overwhelming abundance of evidence persuasively argues that George Bush has pretty much ALWAYS AND ONLY PUT THE INTERESTS OF THE COUNTRY AT RISK, virtually by everything he has ever done! And not just in the formally recognized areas of national security policy. (Katrina, Social Security privatization, tax policy, budgetary priorities, censorship of government scientists, exposing secret agents, ignoring the 4th Amendment…)
Josh Marshall invited his readers to identify a single policy decision by Bush since he was first elected that hasn't gone horribly wrong. The one thing Bush ever did that was supported by virtually everyone was the military action against the Taliban in Afghanistan - and he royally fucked that up. (Osama who? What's a Tora Bora?)
What does it fucking take to get elected Democrats to recognize that George Bush is a gawd damned megalomaniac who will simply get a whole lotta people needlessly killed with a rather unnecessary nuclear war IF THEY DON"T AFFIRMATIVELY DO SOMETHING TO TRY AND STOP HIM??!! It is George Bush who is THE PRIMARY RISK to our National Security. Not Iraq. Not Iran. Not North Korea. George Bush.
As a man once asked,
"How many times must a man look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?"
Billmon offers his own incisive description.
Please consider supporting our work.
I hope you found this article important. Before you leave, I want to ask you to consider supporting our work with a donation. In These Times needs readers like you to help sustain our mission. We don’t depend on—or want—corporate advertising or deep-pocketed billionaires to fund our journalism. We’re supported by you, the reader, so we can focus on covering the issues that matter most to the progressive movement without fear or compromise.
Our work isn’t hidden behind a paywall because of people like you who support our journalism. We want to keep it that way. If you value the work we do and the movements we cover, please consider donating to In These Times.
