Reading a bizarre editorial from Garry Kasparov in WSJ, and then seeing someone posting it here, was nothing short of amusing.  He is not an American, and I assume a Russian.  Russia is quite cozy with Iran. Why this fellow suddenly somehow portrays himself as if he is a “patriotic” American, is a dead give away!

He refers to terrorists, as those who “intentionally” kill innocent civilians.  Well, “intentionally” is only a “legal” term, and many within our own country, are not united in its definition.  Against such a backdrop, and events of today … well, let’s not just go there …

The gist of  his article is basically let’s bomb Iran into pieces, because Iran is an enemy of the U.S. and Israel.   Where and how a chess player becomes master of global strategic thinking, remains an enigma.  But, as any good chess player,he has an agenda, an objective.  The problem with this person, is his agenda is not in the best interest of the United States, nor Israel [I will explain that later, not today].  You can read the following Op-Ed in New York Times, and see the correct way of approaching this problem:

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/19/opinion/19KRIS.html?th   [since you need to login, I have copied the article here]

The war in Iraq cost us directly, about $300B so far. The war with Iran, will cost us about $1 Trillion, with no guarantees of getting anywhere.  For those of you who don’t have a feel for numbers, our annual budget is about $2.4 Trillion.  Now, if all of those who want us to attack Iran, go for their checkbooks, then it is a different story!

I will revisit the rest of the story later.  

==

OP-ED COLUMNIST
Nuts With Nukes
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Published: May 19, 2004

There is one force that could rescue Iran's hard-line ayatollahs from the dustbin of history: us.
For all its denials, Iran seems to be pushing for nuclear warheads and for missiles to carry them. It could make its first weapon in two years, and it could eventually produce enough enriched uranium at Natanz for 25 weapons a year.
Iran's leaders have regularly gotten away with murder. They apparently helped bomb U.S. marines in Lebanon in 1983, a Jewish center in Argentina in 1994 and U.S. military barracks in Saudi Arabia in 1996. So it's easy to understand why President Bush declared recently that it's "intolerable" for Iran to be on the road toward nuclear weapons, adding, "Otherwise they will be dealt with, starting through the United Nations."
To Mr. Bush, not unreasonably, Iran conjures up a frightening combination: nuts with nukes. The push for a tougher approach toward Iran isn't partisan, and a President Kerry might also pursue a more confrontational, albeit more multilateral, approach to Iran.
But that would be a mistake.
First, it won't work. If we haul Iran before the Security Council, it will restart its programs (it has suspended at least some) and kick out inspectors. Iran will respond to more pressure not by dropping its nuclear program, but by accelerating it.
Second, we'll create a nationalistic backlash in Iran that will keep hard-liners in power indefinitely. Our sanctions and isolation have kept dinosaurs in power in Cuba, North Korea and Burma, and my fear is that we'll do the same in Iran.
What I fear is this: Over the next year or two, the West will press Iran harder, Iran will halt its nuclear cooperation and evict inspectors, Israel will bomb a couple of Iran's nuclear sites (a possibility widely discussed in security circles, although it would slow Iran's nuclear progress without ending it), and Iran's ayatollahs will benefit from a nationalistic surge to stay in power and rule more rabidly than ever.
"We love America," a businessman named Mansour Jahanbakhsa told me in a typical comment during my visit this month to Iran, but he added that Iran should develop nuclear weapons. "Iranians would become angry at meddling by America," he said, and his demeanor changed. "We are an old country with an ancient civilization, and we are proud of it. How come Israel can have them and we can't? It makes me angry."
A young woman, Maryan Nazeri, complained about the regime but said she would support it in a confrontation over nuclear weapons. "We're going to have them," she said. "Maybe we do already. It's our right. We're Iranians, so what do you expect? Just as you want America to be strong, we want Iran to be strong."
Then Massoud Taheri scolded: "Your president calling us a rogue nation and disrespecting our 5,000 years of civilization is offensive. How many years of civilization do you have?"
Our goal should be regime change in Tehran. But if Mr. Bush (or Mr. Kerry) pushes Tehran too hard over nukes, we'll fail to get rid of either the nuclear program or this regime.
The only alternative is engagement — the precise opposite of the sanctions and isolation that have been U.S. policy under both Presidents Clinton and Bush. Sanctions are even less effective against Iran than against, say, North Korea, because Iran oozes petroleum and is independently wealthy. Isolation by the U.S. has accomplished even less in Iran than it has in Cuba.
So we should vigorously pursue a "grand bargain" in which, among other elements, Iran maintains its freeze on uranium enrichment and we establish diplomatic relations and encourage business investment, tourism and education exchanges.
"What would destroy the conservatives [in Iran] would be a money flood" of American investment, says Hooshang Amirahmadi, the president of the American Iranian Council. "In just a few years, the conservatives would be finished."
The bottom line is that we could soon have a pro-American Islamic democracy as a beacon for hope in the Middle East — in Tehran, not Baghdad. The risk is that we'll blow it.
*
Iran is a dazzling smorgasbord, from its "Death to America" murals to its winding bazaars. You can join me on a multimedia tour of Iran here.

Kasparov mentions Iran twice in the article:

1. "We have seen 25 years of anti-Western propaganda and hatred emanating from Iran"
2. "Iran continues to pursue a nuclear arsenal"

Claiming that "the gist of his article is basically let’s bomb Iran into pieces, because Iran is an enemy of the U.S. and Israel." based on two sentences is quite a stretch.

The Mullah's of Iran will probably fall under the weight of their own oppression and outside pressure. There's no need to "bomb them into pieces". Just provide support to the steadily growing reform movement.

Also, do you seriously contend that terrorist do not intentionally kill innocent civilians? Now that's amusing.

RLTW

Son, read the way I referred to the term "intention", and also read Mr. Kasparov's article one more time ... it is all there.

Sounds like a pathetic attempt at moral equivalence to me, Dad.
Nothing short of amusing.

RLTW

After following your suggestion, I went back to a previous post in which you made reference to a Business Week interview with Al Gore. Your post contained the following gem of a statement:

”If Gore were President, 9/11 would NOT have happened.  Clinton inspired hope and demonstrated progress.”

Forgive my simplistic reasoning, but are you asserting that if Al Gore had become President , Al-queda, who had openly declared war on the U.S. and successfully carried out attacks against U.S. interests throughout Clinton’s term, would have immediately halted an operation that had been planned for several years? Would they have stopped the previously planned attack, that occurred just eight months after EvilBush(tm) took office, because of the reverence and high esteem they had for Al Gore? Or is the reason more nuanced, say for example because Algore was “in casual dress, and full beard”.

Now I understand how you arrived at the enlightened conclusion that Mr. Kasparov has a super-secret agenda to persuade simple-minded buffoons to “bomb Iran to pieces”.

RLTW


-- Modified on 5/20/2004 1:30:00 PM

Of course 9/11 would still have happened.  But the response where Americans went nuts and promptly tossed away ALL the moral and political capital they made from it would not have occurred.

I feel like the Raider coach Callaghan

We (America) have got to be the stupidest team in the world, in term of foreign policy and relations.

Remember the open Secret.  Not a time to take our army and trash it on a lark!  The prisoner scandal is a symptom, not a disease- an army misused and used up to no effect gets sloppy and loses focus.

This present part of the war should be being handled by Nato and UN member armies, long in infantry, short on technology, and lots of them.  They would engender less distrust and do a better job.  Cost a lot less too.

Bush and his cabal are numbskulls however you slice it and personally responsible for our demise if the Chinese choose to make moves right now.

Gore, if you recall, is guilty of thinking about things and might have steered a course where we got rid of real threats and avoided false ones.  And we'd still have an army.

Political Capital is as useless as tits on a bull when you can't spend it for support from the likes of Chirac!  Nothing was going to get him aboard when he was stuffing his pockets with illegal oil from Iraq!

All of the major players in Europe were on the take from Saddam, including that black leprechaun, Kofi Annan!

If Bush doesn't take the war to them, and they attack American Soil again, you lefties would be blowing that out of your pie holes.

Just have a modicum of honesty, say you hate Bush, it wouldn't matter what the fuck he did or does, you just hate him!  

Now I'm off to see that latin lady!

I have no doubt that George Dumbya Bush was a perfectly affable guy with whom one could down a few (or many) brewskis and then go for a Sunday drive with.   But that is certainly no basis upon which to put him in charge of our Nation.   And, the majority of VOTERS in this country realized this.  Unfortunately, a broken system, manipulated by a state government run by his family in Florida, was able to subvert the will of the majority of voters, and we're stuck with him until next year.

But there is no doubt that he has destroyed our economy for at least the next decade, gotten nearly 800 of our finest and bravest troops killed so far on a fools errand, and destroyed our prestige around the world.  If that record is not worthy of disgust, I don't know what is.

Since Democrats seem to think that black people and old Jews are too dumb to operate a punch ballot its a fucking wonder that they still "seem" to support the party that thinks so lowly of their intellect.

"no doubt that he has destroyed our economy"?  The economy is doing quite well, maybe you haven't noticed and just like the angst that liberals whined about with Reagan, it will continue to improve, unless that is we make the huge mistake of electing "Never met a tax I didn't fall in love with" Hanoi John.

Our "prestige around the world"?  Obviously you have been staying quite close to home Sully.  Those countries that don't like us, maybe liked Clinton, by they didn't like America or Americans.  Not that their illegal dealings with Saddam had anything to do with their lack of support.  Fuck those few who haven't supported us, the majority do and did!

Soon it will be 3 years since 9/11 and NOBODY on our soil has been slaughtered (which is what Islmo-Fascists do).  That 750 of our best have paid the supreme sacrifice for our safety is disheartening.  What is even more depressing is that so many on the left don't think it was worth a damn!

What drives you on the left to madness is that Bush has the integrity to make hard decisions, is steadfast in doing what is best for this Country, and will risk his very Presidency over it.  Of course that kind of determination is absent from leaders in the Democratic party and has been since Truman died,  the possible exception is determination in throwing  mud and 'dissing' our Country and its elected leadership!

The Iraq war is a disaster - costing us $150 going on $220 BILLION dollars, nearly 800 brave troops' lives, and all of the moral high ground in our international dealings for decades to come.  And we've created a big new training ground and recruitment message for Al Qaida, to replace that which they USED to have in Afghanistan.  For what purpose?  To impose democracy on a populace that doesn't want it, and is not ready to act on it?  Or was it to find one dud 15 year-old sarin shell?

In terms of Economic Policy, Foreign Policy, and security policy, Bush is an unmitigated disaster.  The ONLY people who have done well under Bush are Osama Bin Laden and his campaign of Terror, and Halliburton and the rest of Bush's energy industry cronies.


-- Modified on 5/21/2004 6:55:13 PM