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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGlenn Greenwald: The growing Iranian military behemoth
The growing Iranian military behemoth
By Glenn Greenwald
February 4, 2012
The tranquility of my Saturday morning was disrupted and thats putting it mildly when I read on Glenn Reynolds popular right-wing Instapundit blog that we can learn important Lessons About Iran From Hitler. To know that we have yet another New Hitler in our midst is alarming indeed. Reynolds link takes one to an even more jarring warning about the Persian menace, by David Goldman, that extensively compares the fallen Nazi leader to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and argues that because both figures are maniacal monsters presiding over a dying nation, only a full-scale military attack can stop them. However much it costs in Iranian blood and well-being, its still worth it, Goldman casually decrees.
Sociopathic calls for aggressive attacks on other nations and cheap invocations of Hitler are not worth commenting on: neocons churn those out reflexively. But what is worth noting is the event Goldman is flagging as proof of Irans aggressive intentions: Iran is planning to double its defense budget even though its currency is collapsing, he warns. A doubling of its defense budget! Who among us can remain calm in the face of such naked militarism?
And then theres the fact that the U.S. basically has Iran completely encircled, as demonstrated by this graph from Juan Coles blog, showing U.S. military bases near Iran:
As Cole put it: Each star is a US base. But just to be clear, Iran is the one that is threatening us. Indeed: imagine if the blue in that map were the U.S. (rather than Iran), and the large red areas were Mexico and Canada (rather than Irans neighbors), and the stars represented Iranian military bases. Then further imagine that Iranian political leaders and media figures routinely told their population that it was the U.S. that was an aggressive, threatening power that had to be stopped: the mocking condemnations of that level of propaganda would be endless. Yet American political officials and commentators feel free to insist, with a straight face, that Iran is an aggressor nation posing a serious threat to the U.S.: such a serious threat, in fact, that war may be necessary to stop it. And there is, tragically, little doubt that if there is an attack on Iran by Israel with direct U.S. involvement or, more likely, U.S. support and approval there will be little opposition in either American political party, and even less challenge to the ludicrous claims about the Grave Iranian Threat that will be invoked to justify it.
Read the full article at:
http://www.salon.com/2012/02/04/the_growing_iranian_military_behemoth/singleton/
madrchsod
(58,162 posts)if the us was smart they would get the hell out of the cesspool and back the winner. with syria blowing up all bets are off on who the winners and the losers will be.
away it looks like the china thing is really on the front burner. the us navy thought the chinese were 20 yrs away from leadership and fire control technology but the chinese must have pushed up the timetable on the us navy. did you know we have rail guns in the works to take out chinese boats and harbors.
we will keep our boats in the straits to protect the boats full of iranian natural gas and oil to south east asia and china. and of course to protect the saudi`s from those nasty shiites.
provis99
(13,062 posts)rumor has it, he said some things about Obama that were nasty, and some things about Ron Paul that weren't.
tularetom
(23,664 posts)Yet we don't seem to care that Pakistan, which is a lot more unstable, already has them.
quinnox
(20,600 posts)starting to get to me. Now, instead of looking under the bed every night only for terrorists, I'm also checking for those evil doer Iranians too. And then I move on to make sure the closets are clear and no one is hiding in there after that.
Better Believe It
(18,630 posts)Israel will clearly be the gateway to a land invasion of Europe!
The evildoers are on the march.
msongs
(67,199 posts)truth2power
(8,219 posts)the greatest perpetrator of state terrorism on the planet..
That would be the US.
Libya gave up whatever nuclear weapon they had and the 1st chance the US had to take him out, they did just that and Gaddafi ended up dead with a stick up his ass. If the Iranian president knows whats good for him, he better hurry up the program or start tightening up his butt hole.