Who Are The Good Guys Again?

Pakistan's Musharraf Declares Emergency

Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency on Saturday, ahead of a crucial Supreme Court ruling on his future as president, thrusting the country deeper into political turmoil as it struggles with spreading Islamic militancy.

Seven Supreme Court judges immediately rejected the emergency, which suspended the current constitution. The government blocked transmissions of private news channels in several cities and telephone services in the capital, Islamabad, were cut.

"The chief of army staff has proclaimed a state of emergency and issued a provisional constitutional order," a newscaster on state Pakistan TV said, adding that Musharraf would address the nation later Saturday.

Remember, folks - this raving dictator is an ally of the U.S. The other raving madman - the democratically-elected President of a country which used to receive U.S. aid between the 1950s and the late 70s - is a threat to world sovereignty.

Got it? Because it's important you remember that the U.S. is a defender of freedom, at all times and in all places. It's not like the U.S. picks its allies as a matter of geopolitical convenience. Oh, no. The U.S. sides with Pakistan and threatens Iran as a matter of principle.

The Moron Conspiracy

We've never been able to buy into the notion that there's a Grand Shadowy Conspiracy of people in charge - that a secret council of Halliburton, Joe Lieberman and the New York Times meet once a week to determine how best to ruin the cause of liberty. Rather, the problem is this: there's no incentive in the power structure for any one agent to act in the cause of liberty, and plenty of incentive not to.

Keep this in mind when reading Iranian President Mohammed Ahmadinejad's remarks at Columbia this past weekend:

Smiling and occasionally laughing as he explained Iran's culture and outlook on the world, Ahmadinejad drew the biggest jeers from students for stating that his country has no homosexuals.

"In Iran we don't have this phenomenon, I don't know who you told this," he exclaimed, while also insisting that Iran was a "victim" of terrorism and not an instigator.

Ahmadinejad, who has called for the destruction of Israel and downplayed the Holocaust, said he was open to meeting survivors of the devastating Nazi pogrom against the Jews.

"But let us remember then where did the Holocaust happen to begin with? It happened in Europe. And given that, why is it that the Palestinian people should be displaced?" he said earlier via satellite to Washington's National Press Club.

[...]

Asked about Iraq, Ahmadinejad again denied Iran was providing advanced weapons to Shiite extremists to use against US troops.

"We think, in fact, the (US) military should seek an answer to its defeat in Iraq elsewhere," he said, insisting Tehran wanted a stable Iraq on its border.

President Ahmadinejad claims that Iran doesn't have any homosexuals (wishful thinking on his part, perhaps); that he doesn't deny the Holocaust but he wants Europe to pay the price for its politics; and that he wants a stable Iraq.

Given all this, can't you imagine an alternate universe in which Iran was seen as an ally by America's most vocal conservatives - the Malkins and the Coulters and the Kaplans and the Ledeens? They want the same things we want! They come from the same Judaic tradition! They're the "good" kind of Muslim, just like the Sunni Shia well, whichever kind the Taliban were when they were helping the U.S. defeat Communism, but not the kind that the Taliban are now.

Why is Iran the next target of the U.S. instead of the next friend in the region? The same reason Pakistan is an ally instead of an enemy: pure coincidence. This is not an ideological battle, no matter what the conservatives tell you. It is the falling out of decades of oil wars, religious extremism and U.S. intervention. Conservatives want war with Iran not because of any deep convictions on their part but because no one's told them different.

Surprise! It's An Empire!

The House passed a resolution last week condeming Iran's (fictitious) attempts to create nuclear weapons. Two Representatives voted against it: Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul.

Arthur Silber takes the opportunity to remind us that the U.S. is, in fact, an Empire:

And that, as they say, is the ball game. In this manner, the Democratic House concedes, sanctifies, and gives its nearly unanimous support to the major propaganda point of the Bush-Cheney-Israel drive to war with Iran.

Thank God the Democrats took back Congress. That's all I can say. Otherwise, who knows what might have happened! Why, we might be on our way to a nuclear world war!

[...]

Kucinich does make one serious mistake in his comments, when he says, "The United States House may unwittingly be setting the stage for a war with Iran." C'mon, Dennis. The United States has a long history of aggressive war -- the Spanish-American War and the Philippines occupation, Vietnam, numerous covert operations all over the world (including endless such operations in the Middle East ever since World War II), the Clinton interventions of the 1990s -- on top of which, every leading national politician, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, agitates endlessly for confrontation with Iran. There is nothing remotely "unwitting" about any of this. Endless wars and unceasing slaughter didn't just "happen" while we were minding our business elsewhere. We believe we are entitled to world hegemony. It is our destiny to rule the world. We will have our way. "Unwitting"? Please.

[...]

Of course, if the Democrats actually disagreed, there are a number of actions they could take. But they do not disagree, so they won't take those actions. In the same way, there are a number of actions leading liberal and progressive bloggers could take in an effort to get Democrats to at least try to prevent Armageddon. But they have done next to nothing, other than endlessly blather about how awful it would all be (with nary a mention of the invaluable aid to the Bush-Cheney-Israel war program now provided by the Democrats themselves), and there is no indication they ever will. So I say again that, if the worst should happen, I don't want to hear a single goddamned word from any of these people.

In case anyone ever asks you why you don't vote Democrat if you hate Bush so much, link 'em here and tell 'em why.

Looks Like Them Duke Boys Are Up To Their Old Tricks Again

Our man Ioz has been fighting the thankless fight, trumpeting for months now that the Democrats are not America's anti-war party. The actions of Democratic leadership before the Iraq civil war, during the Iraq civil war and now, in the failing days of the Iraq civil war, indicate nothing but a conflicted desire to distance themselves from the war's executors while embracing Middle Eastern war further.

How can we say this? Because the Democrats want to go to war with Iran:

Iran's intransigence demands a firm response from the international community, not just the United States. Make no mistake: keeping the lid on nuclear proliferation, stopping terrorist attacks on U.N. member states, responding to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's apocalyptic threats to destroy Israel -- these are matters of collective security.

What nuclear proliferation? What terrorist attacks? And what plausible apocalyptic threats?

[We'd like] effective diplomacy backed by the credible threat of force, which the United States must supply as a substitute for what will otherwise be a perpetually on-the-brink-of-war conflict between Israel and Iran, alongside the possibility of growing rivalry between Tehran and Sunni Arab states.

The "credible threat of force" is the growing carrier group stationed in the Persian Gulf. The "effective diplomacy" is ... um ... well, what do you say to a regional power that's trying to meddle in the affairs of the same state that you're trying to meddle in?

America comes off looking like the podunk sheriff in this one, sweat glistening through his stubbled chin as he bellies up to your car window. If you jaunt through town with too big of a gun or too fast of a car, he'll do his best to rein you in patronizingly. "Whoa there, son - shootin' the bad'uns is our job. You just go home and lay that silly little head down." But if you keep giving him lip, he'll draw down on you and ask questions later. I swear, judge, I thought that wallet was a gun. I thought that water-filtration plant was a heavy-water uranium reactor. Me and my deputies and my posse and a few of my drinking buddies and the SWAT team just opened fire to defend ourselves in the line of duty.