So sick Ahmadinejad,Chavez & Bush Admin. sounding like Pro Wresters

[zonkers]

taunting each other, with all these threats and inflamatory statements. Someone must be statesman-like and take the high road. Maybe it can happen with the next administration. No good comes f rom all this bluster back and forth. It only creates paranoia which ultimately lines the pockets of defense contractors.

[NYCGirl]

1. Let's sic Jesse Ventura on 'em —

(actually, most pro wrestlers are better actors than that sorry bunch)

[Mz Pip]

2. Steel cage death match

Such is world politics at its finest.

Honestly, they all act like 12 year old boys trying to see you can piss the farthest.

Mz Pip
:dem:

[NNN0LHI]

3. I think you may be confused

Iran or Venezuela haven't invaded and occupied any other countries in my lifetime.

The USA on the other hand has done so on many occasions.

Don

[PATRICK]

4. The real speeches

by the Iranians are being parsed and fed by themselves on their own English version websites to rub in the face of America, BUT the fuller versions and versions presented to other nations are more rational, just and value oriented arguments. Sometimes very different, putting in words the Americans would edit out anyway.

WE are being isolated and that is how Iran see this stage of the struggle. Bush only really cares about our own internal perception and would do this anyway. So Iran is using the verbal news war to their advantage accepting our blindness and in fact challenging it, even helping it, abandoning it. Our reactions thus to the rest of the world seem more nuts than ever. I don't think it bears at all on Bush's decisions and it seems to have little effect on Bush's popular decline, but it still puts verve into our idiotic war drums.

[xchrom]

5. oh yeah -- chavez -- like we din't try to overthrow his government.

pleeeez -- get real:crazy:

[Peace Patriot]

6. Chavez?

The Bush junta has been trying to topple this democratically elected president for four years now--first by supporting a violent military coup (which failed, when tens of thousands of Venezuelans filled the streets to stop it), by a crippling oil professionals' strike (instigated by U.S. oil giants and Venezuela's tiny rich oil elite), then by using OUR TAXPAYER DOLLARS to fund Chavez's opposition, in violation of Venezuelan law, in a failed Recall election (which Chavez won handily, in the most heavily monitored election in history), and more recently with assassination threats uttered by White House favorite Pat Robertson, and formation of an NSA "death squad" unit specifically to destroy Venezuela's democracy.

Chavez has a right AND A DUTY to criticize the Bush junta, and to keep their unlawful behavior--their mass murder of tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis, their violations of international laws, their torture, and their evil designs upon Iran's oil--front and center.

As for Ahmadinejad, he is speaking for a people whose democracy WE and Israel destroyed in 1954. We toppled their democratic government and installed the horrible Shah of Iran, who inflicted 25 years of torture and oppression on the Iranian people. WE drove the Iranians--who are the most potentially progressive people among Israel's neighbors--into the arms of the mullahs! Now they hate us, and are afraid. Wages of our own sins. The answer is to apologize to them. Not to Ahmadinejad--who appears to be just a powermonger, although he is speaking to both Iranian pride and UNDERSTANDABLE fear. But apologize to the Iranian people themselves. They need to be REASSURED. They need to have their safety guaranteed. And I fault the UN very much in this respect. Is the UN guaranteeing the safety and self-determination of the Iranian people--as it pressures them on nukes? Who will guarantee it? Only nukes can do so, at this point. That is why they support their country's pursuit of them. Who can stop the Bush junta, and its Democratic Party colluders, and its rightwing counterpart in Israel? They are DETERMINED to invade and dominate Iran--and to make just as much a mess of it as they have of Iraq--NO MATTER WHAT IRAN does. Iran has done nothing to deserve invasion except that it sits on one of the last oil reserves, and has an UNDERSTANDABLE fear, distrust and hatred of us and of Israel.

So what is a demagogue like Ahmadinejad, and the other Iranian mullahs to do? They know what's going down. They've read the "Project for a New American Century"--even if most Americans have never even heard of it. They have been driven into a corner. They have no choice but to defend Iran and their own power, in the only way possible: nukes. Their powermongering COINCIDES with Iranians' fears. Ahmadinejad and Co. have at least that excuse--which is the same excuse Israel has (fear). The Bush junta has NO EXCUSE for its saber-rattling. No excuse for its designs upon Iranian oil. No excuse for its presence in the Middle East AT ALL. And if they WEREN'T there, the situation wouldn't be a tinderbox, threatening all life on earth. (One limited nuclear exchange--and the planet's atmosphere is gone! Read Carl Sagan's "The Cold and the Dark.")

You may despise Ahmadinejad & Co.--and have no love for the rule of mullahs--but try to understand WHY they are saying what they are saying, and doing what they are doing. Look at the big picture. We have two countries, Iran and Israel, with a history of injuries and fear between them--and the Bush Junta stoking up ALL FEARS for PROFIT. Who is truly at fault here? Israel, in its fearful, blustering rhetoric about destroying Hezbollah? Iran, in its fearful, blustering rhetoric about destroying Israel? Or the Bush Junta, which should be acting as a diplomatic go-between and peacemaker, to calm things down, and is doing the OPPOSITE?

In the "Project for a New American Century," the Bush oilmongers preach ABANDONING the U.S. peacemaker role, and seizing all Mideast oil fields. That's what they are doing. I see no way out for Iran, except fighting back. I think Chavez is correct to SIDE WITH fellow OPEC member, Iran--to try to prevent a Bush Oil Cartel destruction of this country and seizure of its oil. It's nothing against Israel (on Chavez's part), except in so far as Israel's rightwing leadership has allied itself with the Bushites, who ALSO want to destroy Chavez, and stop Chavez's progressive government and its sharing of oil profits with the poor, and its rightful taxation of the oil corporations. Chavez is acting in the best interests of his own country. Ahmadinejad & Co. THINK they are acting in the best interests of theirs (although I disagree with them, as to nukes--nukes don't make ANYONE "safe"--international order is what makes people safe.)

[NNN0LHI]

7. I wish I could K&R your post n/t

[MADem]

8. That would be a swell construct for TV FUNHOUSE n/t

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

9. I Agree. All 3 Need To Get A Grip And Grow Up.

You are right in that the rhetoric is completely unproductive and serves no other purpose than to give each other jabs and be spiteful. But this is no playground spite here, it is war on a massive scale that can be a product of the taunts.

I have no respect for two of the three and just the slightest whiff of respect for Chavez, though I'm about to throw that away as well if he keeps courting psychopaths.

[Peace Patriot]

11. Courting psychopaths? And just what do you consider Bush, Cheney

and Rumsfeld and their NeoCon cabal? Sane men? Risking all life on earth for profit?

Israel is the one who is courting psychopaths. And it will be to Israel's peril, I believe. This den of thieves will abandon Israel in a cold minute, if they see profit in it. Israel is in an extremely vulnerable position, having the universally despised and treacherous Bush Junta as its only friend in the world. And the more despised the Bush Junta becomes here at home (60% to 70% already), the more Israel is threatened by loss of the long-standing support of the American people.

Ahmadinejad's position (on nukes) is at least as reasonable as Israel's, given the US/Israel's horrid history of interference in Iran. And how about praising HIM (Ahmadinejad) for courting a duly elected president in a democratic country? Can Israel say the same?

Look, I WANT Israel to survive this. I think Israel has a huge cultural--and also political, economic and religious/philosophical--contribution to make to the Middle East. I think we have an important reckoning to do with these three major religions--Christianity, Judaism and Islam--born in the Middle East, and apparently leading us to destruction of all life on earth (I think because of all this Father God worship--the ultimate Unitary Executive!). And there are enough free thinkers in Judaism to begin grappling with this subject, and to inspire others to do so. I also think that Israel's devotion to democracy is, or could be, a big contribution (--if they can just get the fascist, vampire fangs of the Bush Cartel out of their necks!).

I just don't think that the Bush Cartel has ANY regard for cultural and historical values AT ALL. They don't care about people, even our own. They certainly don't care about Israel's people--except in so far as they can use their fear for profit. And their track record for creating chaos and suffering, in the pursuit of more money and more power, clearly establishes their brutality, their callousness and their utter lack of loyalty to anything and anyone. They are fomenting a war that the U.S. cannot afford, and that Israel cannot win. There is no way that the US/Israel can "occupy" all Mideast oil fields. There will be hell to pay for the attempt to do so. And Israel could EASILY go down, be destroyed, be extinguished in that conflagration (not to mention what might happen to the rest of us).

I DON'T WANT that to happen. And I think that people who "support Israel"--for instance, in the recent bombing of Beirut, which to my mind was OBVIOUSLY Plan B of the Bushite/NeoCon PNAC agenda (if the American people won't buy into it--84% (!) opposed to any U.S. participation in a widened Mideast war--get Israel to widen it)--are NOT thinking with a great deal of wisdom, nor of Israel's best interests. What WOULD BE in Israel's best interests--and, by extension, in the best interests of the PEOPLES of the Middle East?

Let's have some creative thinking--and some big picture thinking--instead of this FEAR that I see instantly grip the minds of some of Israel's supporters, which sanctifies Israel and demonizes its neighbors, and anathematizes any criticism of Israel, and calls its neighbors--who are suffering understandable fear and insecurity--psychopaths.

[OPERATIONMINDCRIME]

12. And Just What Do You Consider Hitler?

Who really cares. It's unrelated. I just simply hate black and white type return statements.

Sorry, but the leaders he is courting are fucking psychopaths. Feeling that way doesn't implicate in any way, shape or form that shrub and cheney aren't psychopaths. They're the cream of the psychopathic crop. But I'm so fed up with insinuations that people give to others that because they feel one way about one thing that they must feel the opposite about something unrelated. It's just really a weak way to offer counterpoint.

I think they are all fucking psychopaths, shrub and cheney leading the pack. But shrub and cheney being psychopaths in no way undermines the ability for the others mentioned to be considered psychopaths as well.

[geek tragedy]

10. Vince McMahon for UN Secretary General? eom