From the Emails 062609,
Hey folks,
I can not wait until the Big Sunday Edition of the OPNTalk Blog. I already have idea's forming on what we will talk about. It has indeed been a busy week. Lots of topics. One of them is to revisit the EPA control over Tobacco and the exception of Menthol. As of 10 pm last night, comments are still coming in about that. So, since this seems to be something you all want to continue to talk about, we will revisit it on Sunday.
But today is Friday. Happy Friday to you. It's time to go to the Emails. This one sent in by BG. It's by a TRUE Journalist and a person in the Mass Media that actually GETS it. It's by Wesley Pruden, and was posted in the Washington Times. LINK : Washington Times - Stopping the bomb what counts By Wesley Pruden Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Raw numbers don't mean very much in the Middle East, where running into the streets to demonstrate, usually but not always against the Great Satan, is the national sport. It's more fun than evening prayers at the mosque.
What is impressive is the simple fact of the outpouring of popular sentiment in Tehran. Lifting even a finger to mock the indifference and arrogance of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Impertinence Be Upon Him), or even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Palaver Be Upon Him), is asking for a hard thump on the head, or worse. Usually much worse.
So only a churl would rain on the parade of the brave and the bold, but a realist can see the limits of the romantic view of what's going on inside Iran. The most important of the losing candidates, Mir Hossein Mousavi, was no doubt cheated of many votes - maybe enough to have been cheated out of the presidency. But as sad as that is, the greater danger for America and the West is that the boiling rage in the streets will divert attention from what's most crucial, most urgent and most important. Stopping the Iranian bomb, not correcting theft of an election, is what counts most.
Indulging the romantic view of the rage diverts attention from Iran's nuclear scientists, who continue to build centrifuges and enrich uranium on the way to developing a bomb, by most estimates a year away. This seems finally to have occurred to Barack Obama, who imagines that his golden tongue is more than a match for anything the radical Muslims can build to throw at America and the West.
Mr. Obama first talked of the outpouring of Iranian grief and wrath as if the demonstrations were merely the work of an overly zealous community organizer. Vice President Joe Biden, always eager to share his manifold speculations and apprehensions, conceded "doubts" about the "official" results, but said the Obama administration just "wasn't prepared to say" whether the election was free and fair. By the time Mr. Obama got home from a round of golf later that day, his admiration for "robust debate" had faded to "troubled." But he could muster only an implied apology for President Eisenhower's meddling in Iran more than a half-century earlier. Nobody does apologies better than the One.
Perhaps the crowds merely got a little more worked up than they should have by the "robust debate." Mr. Obama had sometimes seen that happen in Chicago, where he, too, was a community organizer. But then he realized that not only had his flippant dismissal of the demonstrations angered nearly everybody at home, but he was missing an opportunity to help himself. By keeping the focus on the brutal suppression of the demonstrators, he could put off a little longer dealing with an Iranian bomb.
Jaw-jaw is always preferable to war-war, as Winston Churchill famously said, but it's difficult to imagine how even such a prolific talker as Mr. Obama can talk his way out of the dilemma in the Middle East. He probably can't get tougher sanctions from the freeloaders at the U.N., for whatever good that might do. The Russians and the Chinese are ready to protect Mr. Ahmadinejad's interests there. He doesn't want to praise democracy too much, lest it sound like a call for regime change. That would vindicate George W. Bush.
The rage in Tehran's streets suggests that time may be running out for a brutal regime, but that same clock is ticking for Barack Obama and what to do about the Iranian bomb. A reprise of the Cairo speech won't work; the Muslims are masters of endless, empty rhetoric themselves, and know how to figure the discount on words. The consequences of taking out the Iranian nuclear works, or enabling Israel to do it for him, would be awful, exceeded only by the consequences of allowing the mullahs in Tehran to get their bomb. Then everybody in Arabia would want one. The Saudis would buy one from Pakistan; certain intelligence sources say a deal is already in the works to deliver it once an Iranian bomb is in place. If the Shi'ites have a bomb, it's only logical, as logic is measured in that miserable corner of the world, for the Sunnis to get one. Every thuggish eighth-century theocracy must be fully armed.
The implications are frightening and easily measured, even by a timid White House. Mutually assured destruction kept the Cold War confrontation between Washington and Moscow in check, with one or two close calls, because both East and West had something to lose. The prospect of Sunnis and Shi'ites shooting it out with nuclear weapons, with nothing to lose but each other, is not a happy one. Dealing with it will require something with more firepower than a teleprompter.
• Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.
THANK YOU MR.PRUDEN. Then again, this is the same guy that was talking about Journalism today when he said this.
"We've developed a distinctly holier-than-thou tone in our voices, painting the very people we're trying to persuade to read our newspapers as irredeemable racists, depicting our businessmen as crooks, our religious heritage as bigotry, and the culture of the democratic west as evil."
That was back in 2001. It has never been truer than today. I wonder what he thinks of ABC completely selling out to Obama and Crew. I wonder what he thinks of the NYT.
Anyway, he is right on target here about Iran. Thank you BG for sending it in. See you all Sunday. Have a GREAT Weekend.
Peter
Note: "From The Emails" is a weekly segment in the Friday edition of the OPNtalk Blog. If you care to send in News Articles, Comments, Stories, or anything else you may wish to share, please feel free to send it to opntalk@aim.com As always, you never know what you are going to see here.
Hey folks,
I can not wait until the Big Sunday Edition of the OPNTalk Blog. I already have idea's forming on what we will talk about. It has indeed been a busy week. Lots of topics. One of them is to revisit the EPA control over Tobacco and the exception of Menthol. As of 10 pm last night, comments are still coming in about that. So, since this seems to be something you all want to continue to talk about, we will revisit it on Sunday.But today is Friday. Happy Friday to you. It's time to go to the Emails. This one sent in by BG. It's by a TRUE Journalist and a person in the Mass Media that actually GETS it. It's by Wesley Pruden, and was posted in the Washington Times. LINK : Washington Times - Stopping the bomb what counts By Wesley Pruden Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Raw numbers don't mean very much in the Middle East, where running into the streets to demonstrate, usually but not always against the Great Satan, is the national sport. It's more fun than evening prayers at the mosque.What is impressive is the simple fact of the outpouring of popular sentiment in Tehran. Lifting even a finger to mock the indifference and arrogance of the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (Impertinence Be Upon Him), or even President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (Palaver Be Upon Him), is asking for a hard thump on the head, or worse. Usually much worse.
So only a churl would rain on the parade of the brave and the bold, but a realist can see the limits of the romantic view of what's going on inside Iran. The most important of the losing candidates, Mir Hossein Mousavi, was no doubt cheated of many votes - maybe enough to have been cheated out of the presidency. But as sad as that is, the greater danger for America and the West is that the boiling rage in the streets will divert attention from what's most crucial, most urgent and most important. Stopping the Iranian bomb, not correcting theft of an election, is what counts most.
Indulging the romantic view of the rage diverts attention from Iran's nuclear scientists, who continue to build centrifuges and enrich uranium on the way to developing a bomb, by most estimates a year away. This seems finally to have occurred to Barack Obama, who imagines that his golden tongue is more than a match for anything the radical Muslims can build to throw at America and the West.
Mr. Obama first talked of the outpouring of Iranian grief and wrath as if the demonstrations were merely the work of an overly zealous community organizer. Vice President Joe Biden, always eager to share his manifold speculations and apprehensions, conceded "doubts" about the "official" results, but said the Obama administration just "wasn't prepared to say" whether the election was free and fair. By the time Mr. Obama got home from a round of golf later that day, his admiration for "robust debate" had faded to "troubled." But he could muster only an implied apology for President Eisenhower's meddling in Iran more than a half-century earlier. Nobody does apologies better than the One.
Perhaps the crowds merely got a little more worked up than they should have by the "robust debate." Mr. Obama had sometimes seen that happen in Chicago, where he, too, was a community organizer. But then he realized that not only had his flippant dismissal of the demonstrations angered nearly everybody at home, but he was missing an opportunity to help himself. By keeping the focus on the brutal suppression of the demonstrators, he could put off a little longer dealing with an Iranian bomb.
Jaw-jaw is always preferable to war-war, as Winston Churchill famously said, but it's difficult to imagine how even such a prolific talker as Mr. Obama can talk his way out of the dilemma in the Middle East. He probably can't get tougher sanctions from the freeloaders at the U.N., for whatever good that might do. The Russians and the Chinese are ready to protect Mr. Ahmadinejad's interests there. He doesn't want to praise democracy too much, lest it sound like a call for regime change. That would vindicate George W. Bush.
The rage in Tehran's streets suggests that time may be running out for a brutal regime, but that same clock is ticking for Barack Obama and what to do about the Iranian bomb. A reprise of the Cairo speech won't work; the Muslims are masters of endless, empty rhetoric themselves, and know how to figure the discount on words. The consequences of taking out the Iranian nuclear works, or enabling Israel to do it for him, would be awful, exceeded only by the consequences of allowing the mullahs in Tehran to get their bomb. Then everybody in Arabia would want one. The Saudis would buy one from Pakistan; certain intelligence sources say a deal is already in the works to deliver it once an Iranian bomb is in place. If the Shi'ites have a bomb, it's only logical, as logic is measured in that miserable corner of the world, for the Sunnis to get one. Every thuggish eighth-century theocracy must be fully armed.
The implications are frightening and easily measured, even by a timid White House. Mutually assured destruction kept the Cold War confrontation between Washington and Moscow in check, with one or two close calls, because both East and West had something to lose. The prospect of Sunnis and Shi'ites shooting it out with nuclear weapons, with nothing to lose but each other, is not a happy one. Dealing with it will require something with more firepower than a teleprompter.
• Wesley Pruden is editor emeritus of The Washington Times.
THANK YOU MR.PRUDEN. Then again, this is the same guy that was talking about Journalism today when he said this.
"We've developed a distinctly holier-than-thou tone in our voices, painting the very people we're trying to persuade to read our newspapers as irredeemable racists, depicting our businessmen as crooks, our religious heritage as bigotry, and the culture of the democratic west as evil."
That was back in 2001. It has never been truer than today. I wonder what he thinks of ABC completely selling out to Obama and Crew. I wonder what he thinks of the NYT.
Anyway, he is right on target here about Iran. Thank you BG for sending it in. See you all Sunday. Have a GREAT Weekend.
Peter
Note: "From The Emails" is a weekly segment in the Friday edition of the OPNtalk Blog. If you care to send in News Articles, Comments, Stories, or anything else you may wish to share, please feel free to send it to opntalk@aim.com As always, you never know what you are going to see here.
No comments:
Post a Comment