The Iraq War is over. Now the Obama Administration is sabre-rattling with Iran.
Hours After the End of the Iraq War
Ted Rall
Ted Rall is a syndicated political cartoonist for Andrews McMeel Syndication and WhoWhatWhy.org and Counterpoint. He is a contributor to Centerclip and co-host of "The Final Countdown" talk show on Radio Sputnik. He is a graphic novelist and author of many books of art and prose, and an occasional war correspondent. He is, recently, the author of the graphic novel "2024: Revisited."
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Gosh Ted, I would hope that we don’t get into another war. lt amazes me – the ability of the American People to absorb so many lies over the years and outright current lies. It is simply amazing. Maybe this is how Germany got into exterminating people? It is simply amazing. How can we be so easily sidetracked? Why don’t we know where are food comes from, and who controls our energy resources? Do you really care if gay couples can get married while you blast peope into red chunks?
I may be preaching to the choir here, but i think enough is enough.
I just logged into Google news to hear about another “salmonella outbreak”, and the thousands of tons ot greens and whatever that will have to be recalled. Are you people nuts? Are you crazy? Did you know that the United States used to have some of the most healthful foods and products? The last 30 or so years have seen the complete irradication of independent farming and food products! Stop putting up with this shit! It is plenty crazy when food from Taco bell is more safe than the food in the local store because the Taco Bell crap is artificial. It is plenty crazy when artificial bleached protein is safer than the “thousand cow source” you find at your local grocery store.
Okay, Ted….
I see a fire on the top floor of the building across the street.
Significance?
🙂
A Jordanian friend says he is certain Obama will attack Iran before Easter, but he won’t tell me what his sources for this are.
Obama, like every president since, is desperate to avoid being Cartered. Unlike Carter, who had the embassy staff captured and had no good responses available, Obama has the luxury of being able to move at times and places of his convenience, including being able to prepare the spin well in advance of actual execution.
So the question is, ‘Does Obama see any re-election advantage in an attack on Iran, and what date has he calculated as the best time for such an attack?’
….but Ted, this would NOT be a war of choice….it would be a war of necessity. The Iranians have persistently not done exactly what we have told them to do! Besides, did you see what they did to the Greeks in 300?? Half of them aren’t even human. I also do not believe that Iran has a McDonalds, with the exception of Serbia, we do not bomb countries that have a McDonalds! Since Iran does NOT have a McDonalds, I think the necessity of bombing and invading Iran becomes clear.
Lastly, I object to your pinko-commie-liberal usage of the word ‘against,’ as if we have a choice. Look, it’s the same as when the LA Times reported it as the “War On Iraq”….that suggested we waged war on Iraq, when in fact what really happened was we sent in a humanitarian mission to help the Iraqis, and then a war started. After all, we are a free people and thus can freely go wherever we want…carrying our guns. If people start shooting at us because of that, well naturally we should defend ourselves.
Also, we need to merge our two fronts on the war on terror…Iran is in the middle, splitting our left (Iraq) and right (Afghanistan) flanks….the center cannot hold!!!!
rikster. Food is utilitarian to Americans, we don’t have a relationship with our food the way other people in the world do…where our food comes from and what’s in it is about as relevant to us as where our gasoline comes from and what’s in it. Most of what Americans eat shouldn’t even be classified as food (according to Michael Pollan…and I agree with him fully on this).
It’s like making owning guns a crime, if you make it illegal to own guns, only criminals will have them. Our food is dead…we killed it…it’s dead. We put it in body bags (packaging) and put it in the morgue (the refrigerator)…thus, anything ALIVE about our food is something that will kill us.
See the logical analogy there? Clearly this means we need to bomb France because those bastards don’t pasteurize their cheese!!!!!
On Jimmy Carter.
I always came away from Carter’s presidency with a feeling of a fundamentally decent person being screwed by a system he couldn’t comprehend fully because it was so wicked. The hostages were kept right up until 20 minutes after Reagan’s swearing in. The deal was, almost certainly, worked out by GHW Bush, head of the CIA, to make sure Carter would forever be the guy who couldn’t rescue 52 Americans. What’s almost always forgotten is that ALL the hostages came out alive, mainly because Carter used diplomatic pressure and went through half a dozen different channels to make sure the kidnappers understood that as long as no one died, the situation could be resolved, but that if a single American died, the whole idea of any negotiation would end.
Compare this “failure” on Carter’s part with pretty much every clusterfuck that has followed. Iraq’s almost certainly going to be a civil war in six months. Afghanistan’s a disaster. Invade Iran? I said a few posts back that that would probably be the macro-level event for open revolt in this country.
Carter got the short end of the stick. He got stuck with high gas prices because of the Mideast situation. Even though most of our gas wasn’t coming out of the Middle East at the time. It was the oil companies fixing the prices. They never paid a dime for it, but I think they were found guilty of it.
2012’s shaping up to be a hell of a year. I figure the excuse that will be used is that Iran invaded Iraq, which is why Iraq collapsed — yeah, that’s it, Iran made it collapse, it woulda been fine otherwise — and which is why we have to invade Iran.
Canada’s sounding better ever week.
Can we just go ahead and give him the Nobel War Prize?
Don’t worry, peeps, aint gonna happen. We are going to do what we should have continued to do with Iraq, sanction Iran into the stone ages. Did you know that Iran has more than 60 million people? Iraq has about 22 million. How do you occupy a country with 60 million people? Nope, sanction them to death and hope they have a Persian spring, whatever those things are. Anybody think we are gonna do anything more than that, barring them attacking Iraq, I’m taking bets.
I agree Ross – The American people are not going to get behind any more “wars” in the near future. And yes, we can, if we want to, do more for less by our sanctions. Still, why don’t we spend these billions on helping our own people first? Why are we so constantly sidetracked into other areas? Why do we keep yakking about carter and other old presidents? Are we nuts? We could have simply given every American thousands of dollars with what we have spent on the last few wars and bailing out the banks and others. Our presidents don’t run the country. The money and special interests do. The giant corporations and industries “run” our country. The elections are just something else to keep us constantly sidetracked. We no longer have a democracy, because we don’t understand what is going on. Obama or the next guy can’t give us universal healthcare, or really help the underlying cause for unemployment. They are just faces to keep you busy and sidetracked from the real issues. The real movers and shakers are not Mitt, Raygun, Gingrich or Obama. The real movers and shakers don’t run for office – they don’t have to!
Yes – SomeGuy , that is hilarious – We can give him a “Nobel” War Prize – He can put it next to his “Noble” Peace Prize. At some point, maybe far into the future, some people might realize that this “President” shit is what it is, shit. My sister has done more to affect this country than Obama. Obama can’t really do much. He’s just the president. A single part of a dysfunctional fake government. The Federal Reserve System and the market movers can do much more. The Insurance companies and other industries can do much, much more than the president. Why do you think I can get a toothe filled here in Lithuania for $40 while you spend $400 in the USA? And yea, I do have healthcare for less than a person may spend on keeping ther pool’s pH good every month. Do you want to be a loser? Or do you choose to be?
As much as some people might like to see a war with Iran, there are a few minor obstacles (China and Russia) that will inhibit such an act. The same is true with sanctions; China needs oil, Iran has oil, so any pain from sanctions will (as usual) fall on the general populace of Iran (who will be told to blame the US).
If the shadow government truly loses it and sends in troops, then expect Iraq to suddenly align with China, while resistance forces get plenty of foreign arms, and the Chinese do what they can to place sanctions on the U.S.
I am entirely resigned to at least a cold conflict with Iran, if not a hot war. Apparently these guys came away from reading the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire with the idea that it was Pax Romana that was the problem.
I disagree with one point, rikster. Americans won’t get behind any wars with Obama as President. They will ALWAYS support a Republican who wants a war, because the baby boom generation has been systematically trained to support the right wing war machine. And they still control this country, with the assistance of a military industrial complex and a 24 hour media machine whose only interest is getting ratings…no matter how many brown people have to die for that to occur.
@ alex
lol @ Canada sounding better
I’m a Canadian and we’re busy adopting every policy that failed in the US — we’re building prisons and glorifying military and defunding health care, etc. And we have the fine honor of being the first country to pull out of Kyoto while calling tar sands “ethical oil”. Yeah, come on over!
Contractors, advisers.. same thing, Still have troops there we just call them corporations.
I say – Ignore it or turn them into green glass. We need a world where we work together to make things better, including food (Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives, or other shows). My vote is to simply nuke all these assholes. Turn their homelamds into glass and move on. As you might see, my attitude is not too friendly. If I have to be friendly, then I would say to ignore them, and spend all the money on our own people or economies first. Yeah – but if not, then simply blast them into aritfacts, glass, or whatever. I know my attitude is not kind, but why let them make problems for us or continue to a make a suffering ammongst themselves? Huh?
What could go wrong ?…
Henri