You may only read this site if you've purchased Our Kampf from Amazon or Powell's or me
• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show

"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket

"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming

November 02, 2007

Take Two Massive Bombing Campaigns Of Your Country And Call Me In The Morning

I'd missed this, from a Robert Dreyfuss article last year:

[I]f the United States launches the sort of bombing campaign against Iran that is being considered—involving attacks against not just nuclear research facilities but also airfields, command and control centers, and other intelligence and military targets—to say that the consequences would be unpredictable is an understatement. The administration and many of its supporters are apparently ready to take the gamble that after an armed confrontation with Iran, a moderate, pro-American regime might emerge from the wreckage. Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, is explicit on that score. "I don’t disagree [about] the convulsive effects that a strike would have. I actually think that it would be in the end a healthy thing for Iran internally."

Normally I would now (1) say "Holy mother of god, these people are monsters" and then (2) dig up some quote from Osama bin Laden saying essentially the same thing about America and 9/11. But I just don't have the energy. I invite you to take a shot at it.

BONUS INTERNATIONAL HEALTH CAMPAIGN: Here's Gerecht writing at about same time in 2006—i.e., at the height of Shiite death squad activity, which often involved killing people with electric drills:

Sunni and Kurdish fear of Shiite power...is politically overdue and healthy for all concerned.

Posted at November 2, 2007 12:30 PM | TrackBack
Comments

Ask your doctor if Armageddon is right for you. Side effects include 4 hour erections and death.

BTW, "gerecht" means fair and just in German. No wonder Fox News loves him.

Posted by: Carl at November 2, 2007 01:33 PM

i met that slimy jerkoff Gerecht in 2004. at a peace conference no less. to say that he is a sexist, racist, american exceptionalist is to state the obvious, but he didn't strike me as a murderous one. guess they all do that.

@ carl. i didn't know that. how do they find these gems, i have no clue

Posted by: almostinfamous at November 2, 2007 01:48 PM

But it's true. In his famous study of villages pillaged and plundered by Attila the Hun, Professor Gerechtigkeitsliebhaber and his team from Freiburg Univeritaet (FU) found that, in the end, those villages became healthier communities.
"Violence is still the sire of the world's values," as Attila used to say, shaking with laughter each time.

Posted by: donescobar at November 2, 2007 02:24 PM

“No one wants a revolution or a bombing campaign. They are just asserting their rights,” said famed Iranian dissident and award winning journalist, Akbar Ganji, at a discussion on Iran’s developing democracy movement. . .Concerned about threat of a US aerial strike on Iran, Ganji noted that any attack would “set back Iran by 50 years,” and spur chaos and disintegration. He warned that military action ran counter to the US’s professed support for the Iranian people, “An attack on Iran is not in the interests of the US, if democracy is to be encouraged in Iran.”
http://www.niacouncil.org/index.php?Itemid=2&id=716&option=com_content&task=view

Just as Iran's reactionaries are pining for war, some of Iran's more moderate leaders have written a letter asking the Saudi government to help reduce tensions between the US and Iran. Military confrontation with US forces would silence this camp domestically. In fact, Iran's democratic opposition warns that a US military strike would strengthen the regime hard-liners and weaken their own already limited ability to operate.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0206/p09s01-coop.html

Posted by: Don Bacon at November 2, 2007 02:33 PM

Holy mother of god, these people are monsters.

Also, some Kurdish leaders and Iraqi leaders are asking Iran to talk to Turkey to try to stop a possible invasion/bombing run. Iran has a lot to offer in that regard - they too have Kurdish terrorists going into their country and causing havoc. Those Kurds are financed by the USA.

They are all a bunch of terrorists and monsters.

Posted by: Susan at November 2, 2007 03:48 PM

THE BUSH MIDDLE EAST THUMB DANCE GAME. Take your left thumb and insert it in your mouth. Take your right thumb and insert it up your ass. Rotate every five minutes. After 1/2 an hour turn around twice and guess which thunb you are thinking with.

Posted by: Mike Meyer at November 2, 2007 04:23 PM

Attila was both-- an enlightened barbarian, a religious humorist, a generous and cruel man. But, he was never, ever folksy and he had enormous contempt for any MBA.
Bush, some say, has only one dimension.I say he has none. A hollow man, with a mean streak taking the place of an inner live. It was quite appropriate that Billy Graham "saved" him. Another hollow, humorless, hate-filled bullshitter. Ain't it funny, by now, that America has become a country where the worst rise to the top. Laugh till they come and get you.

Posted by: donescobar at November 2, 2007 07:12 PM
Ain't it funny, by now, that America has become a country where the worst rise to the top.

Not funny at all; quite natural and by plan. While the earnest strive for equality and quiet dignity, others don't, and are rewarded with exceptionalism. Which America was it where the best rose to the top? Anecdotally, the good guys occasionally make it, and the system extols them as examples of potential. Such examples of potential are usually enough to keep the lotto buyers buying.

Laugh till they come and get you.

It's better than crying till they come to get you, isn't it?

Posted by: Ted at November 2, 2007 08:07 PM

I am starting to be convinced that it's basically healthy for the planet if it chooses to get rid of all of us.

Posted by: En Ming Hee at November 3, 2007 05:38 AM

no baseline for planetary health -- the large systems do as the chemical mix allows and the critters make adjustments -- including "croak"

Posted by: hapa at November 3, 2007 09:01 AM

hence it is our choice

Posted by: hapa at November 3, 2007 09:06 AM

Neanderthals--in a spacesuit with a laser. The planet would be better off if WE still lived in caves and our greatest technological acheivement were the flint tipped spear. OUR TOYS have outgrown this planet(although WE have outgrown absolutely nothing). A caveman with a nuclear arsenal and a campfire to cook whatever is left, for supper. THIS IS EXACTLY WHY WE need to invest heavily in our space programs instead of war.

Posted by: Mike Meyer at November 3, 2007 12:17 PM

neanderthals are somebody else. we never lived in caves as far as anybody knows. tents, huts, outside, in the plains. dark naked people, gatherin' and huntin' and singin'. that's us, all the way back. that's our stone age experience. some of us still!

me, now, saying. our toys reflect our basic inability to understand what we can't see. we put a lot of faith in how things appear to work and as we've built over or replaced natural systems, it looks like more and bigger machines are a good fit. doesn't matter how many times you say the planet's on a chemical budget, nobody's very good at budgeting. more than one debt crisis in the world today, eh?

space program: no. nowhere to go. invest heavily in replacing the dirty with the clean. that's all we have.

Posted by: hapa at November 3, 2007 12:49 PM

it's like, "you're part of a chemical process. a cycle of material transformation. you're a walking salt marsh — mostly water, a little mineral goo. you can't just walk away no matter how you think the rules work. you need the flow. if it were easy to make higher life without a planet-sized ecological system and massively favorable temperature and atmospheric conditions, life would be everywhere."

Posted by: hapa at November 3, 2007 04:10 PM
The Gobi Desert is about a thousand times as hospitable as Mars and five hundred times cheaper and easier to reach.

Ha! Respectfully, again, I disagree. If they set up camp in the Gobi with Pauly Shore and BioDome, the jealous "others" will raid them and take their women.

Much less risk of that on Mars due to sparse numbers and expanse and because if they don't bring it, it won't be there -- no chance of someone finding nukes, tanks, road-warrior dune buggies (although I strongly suspect that at least one if not all would smuggle personal nukes, just to get the leg up; opportunity is made).

On Mars, the rich are free to own continents, start kingdoms and create royal bloodlines. Generally try that libertarian experiment that they're pining for.

Who'd want to stay on this concrete strip mall hell, if you could start all over -- this time with wikipedia though?

Posted by: Ted at November 3, 2007 04:29 PM

ah, ah. you pre-empted my idea about genetically engineering dragons to protect the undersea castles. those nukes are a problem.

you know i think i might support this. as the building contractors, we'd get all the money -- the redistribution would be truly awesome. even if they did all the work with robots, someone would have to build the robots.

the only remaining problem is how much the weather would change before project completion. it's already tough to find a good launch window.…

Posted by: hapa at November 3, 2007 04:56 PM

Technology IS NOT going away. Industrialization WILL NOT leave. (Not as long as YOU turn on that lightbulb or computer, as long as YOU drive to work or anywhere or ride the bus) EXPANSIONISM needs a place to go and this old world is getting full. Only way out is UP.

Posted by: Mike Meyer at November 3, 2007 07:14 PM

tut tut, you have to read the links that are assigned you, and understand them

closing the loops means the only way out is is around in circles

Posted by: hapa at November 3, 2007 07:58 PM