Monday, January 15, 2007
bombs & bombast
At Vietnam era anti-war marches & rallies one had the choice of demonstrating for peace or congregating with the people chanting "Ho Ho Ho Chi Minh, Viet Cong are gonna win!" I didn't like the latter. It went without saying that Ho's side would win when we exited Vietnam. They were winning anyway just by not losing, & we weren't going to defeat them. I wanted the killing to stop.
Over the past few days, in the comment sections of some blogs, I hear echoes of that "Ho Ho" chant in apologists for the Chavez / Ahmadinejad alliance. The coming together of those two demogogues is nothing more than a demonstration of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," for they have little in common except their oil reserves, their hatred of the United States, & their inability to govern competently. Ahmadinejad is an urban conservative - we have them here, too - elected with the support of Iran's middle class with a mandate to clean up corruption & improve the economy. He's hasn't made much headway on either task, & suffered for it in Iran's most recent local elections. But his failures aren't his fault. It's those damned Americans, & those Zionists, & those Americans. He's the Iranian version of George W. Bush, another mental weenie using a world stage pulpit to preach a vile mix of theocracy & nationalism, trying to distract his nation with bombs & bombast. Except the Bush family consults with Wahabi mullahs, while Ahmadinejad takes his cues from the radical Shi'ites who will be running Iraq whether we approve or not. & Bush got our soldiers are trapped between these two fundamentalist visions of Islam.
Over the past few days, in the comment sections of some blogs, I hear echoes of that "Ho Ho" chant in apologists for the Chavez / Ahmadinejad alliance. The coming together of those two demogogues is nothing more than a demonstration of "The enemy of my enemy is my friend," for they have little in common except their oil reserves, their hatred of the United States, & their inability to govern competently. Ahmadinejad is an urban conservative - we have them here, too - elected with the support of Iran's middle class with a mandate to clean up corruption & improve the economy. He's hasn't made much headway on either task, & suffered for it in Iran's most recent local elections. But his failures aren't his fault. It's those damned Americans, & those Zionists, & those Americans. He's the Iranian version of George W. Bush, another mental weenie using a world stage pulpit to preach a vile mix of theocracy & nationalism, trying to distract his nation with bombs & bombast. Except the Bush family consults with Wahabi mullahs, while Ahmadinejad takes his cues from the radical Shi'ites who will be running Iraq whether we approve or not. & Bush got our soldiers are trapped between these two fundamentalist visions of Islam.
