Posted on 04/07/2006 6:21:01 AM PDT by Tolik
Let me know if you want in or out.
Links: FR Index of his articles: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=victordavishanson
His website: http://victorhanson.com/ NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp
Where the Islamic world is concerned, that scary 10% of my brain is already in full control. I say glass 'em.
V.D. Hanson's last minute, eloquent plea for Iranian sanity -- in another universe it might have an effect.
Great article, but I disagree with the conclusion. I would say: please, Mr. Ahmadinejad, heat up the rhetoric fast and talk your way into a sky full of very angry and righteous jets.
Bump.
We got lots more, just like this one.
Are you sure you want to go down this road?
Please add me to the VDH ping list!
I do so love that paragraph about the 90/10 ratio. Beware the wrath of a patient man (and a patient country as well).
Great article. Thanks for posting it.
There is an old saying in Islamic circles. When a Muslim you don't really care directly about is in need, you are forbidden to refuse to help him, so you tell him "that he can drink from the sea..."
This will be the attitude of 99.9% of the Muslim world if Ahmadinejad and his government disappear in a whiff of smoke. They'll bellow. They'll riot. But ultimately, it will not be their problem.
Thanks for the full text.
Why not a sky full of angry & righteous MUSHROM
Sort of like Tet in 1968?
"We" (I wasn't there) had the defender's advantage ... and after we figued out what was what, we annihilated the Viet Cong.
Huge victory, right?
Not according to Walter Cronkite ...
That's what I call a "measured response".....
We should provide the Iranians with documentary footage of (1) Dresden before and after the Allies destroyed it, (2) the Hiroshima bomb explosion, with before and after pictures, and (3)the Nagasaki explosion, with before and after pictures.
We should convey to them that we are perfectly capable, in our own atavistic way, of evaluating the goodness of Iranians in the very same way Genera. Phillip Sheridan evaluated the goodness of Indians, e.g. The only good Iranians I ever saw were dead.
If that doesn't sober them up, and it likely won't, then Cry Havoc! and let slip the dogs of war!
In the words of the Mask, "SMOKIN"!!!
My money is on the idiot in Tehran doing just that. "Go ahead punk, make my day."
I'll bet that we're going to strike Iran, and hard. Why? First, the Iranian leadership, like the Germans twice and the Japanese once, have utterly failed to understand us. Generally, the US is an amiable country. We haven't been particularly bellicose toward others in an offensive way since about 1898 (too bad for the Spanish), so we appear soft. Also, as the Japanese reminded us after the end of WW2, we're prone to bouts of near suicidal pacifism on occasion (then it was the re-authorization of the draft in 1940 by only 1 vote). So, we appear weak and unwilling to fight - the key word there being "appear."
Second, there's steel underneath all that weak-looking flab on the surface. This is, after all, the same country that within living memory mobilized over 40% of its GNP for a war against 2 modern and powerful empires, and which had armed forces amounting to nearly 10% of its population. That's when we felt threatened - and that's what Iran is doing now.
If Iran keeps it up, then they'll get to see what we're like when we're pissed off. I would, however, like to offer Iran some advice: ask some old Germans and Japanese what its like to eff with the US of A.
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