Every day is “Hit a Jew Day” somewhere

Posted on 10/24/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Charming. Middle school children, enchanted by things like “High Five Day,” made up their own little twist, and spent a day last week hitting Jews.

At least four students from a suburban St. Louis middle school face punishment for allegedly hitting Jewish classmates during what they called “Hit a Jew Day.”

The incident happened last week at Parkway West Middle School in Chesterfield.

District officials said Thursday they believe that fewer than 10 children of the district’s 35 Jewish students were struck.

District spokesman Paul Tandy said that in most cases, the students were hit on the back of their shoulders but one student was slapped in the face.

It began with an unofficial “Spirit Week” among sixth-graders that started harmlessly enough with a “Hug a Friend Day.” Then there was “High Five Day.”

Soon, though, the days moved from friendly to silly. Next there was “Hit a Tall Person Day” and, finally, “Hit a Jew Day.”

A quick check of the demographics of this school district reveals a district that is 90% white, and with 70% of the households making more than $50,000 per year.

It goes without saying that this story will not become nationwide news. Because it wasn’t “Hit a Muslim Day” or “Hit a Black Day.”

The principal is handling this extremely well, not that you’d know it from the AP article. Here’s the St. Louis paper’s report.

After school Monday, Lelonek heard from the mother of one of the school’s roughly 35 Jewish students.

Lelonek called an all-sixth-grade assembly first thing Tuesday morning. She said she asked the students if they had heard of each designated “day.” Nearly all raised their hands. Then she asked, “What’s tomorrow going to be? ‘Hit A Principal Day?'”

“You could have heard a pin drop,” she said. “One started saying, ‘Oh, no, Ms. Lelonek.'”

“I said, ‘Don’t say a word.'”

Lelonek said discipline will range from parent conferences to suspensions.

She said the sixth-graders will be studying the Holocaust later this year. “It’s going to be a little more meaningful this year than it’s ever been before,” she said.

Good for her. Because someone needs to teach those children.

Posted in Anti-Semitism | Tagged | 4 Comments

First blood

Posted on 10/24/2008 by Soccerdad

Former National Security adviser, Robert MacFarlane wrote about the attack on the Marine barracks in Beirut and its aftermath. Apparently, the United States had a response planned against Hezbollah targets in the Bekaa Valley, but it was aborted.

Cabinet officers often disagree, and rigorous debate and refinement often lead to better policy. What is intolerable, however, is irresolution. In this case the president allowed the refusal by his secretary of defense to carry out a direct order to go by without comment — an event which could have seemed to Mr. Weinberger only a vindication of his judgment. Faced with the persistent refusal of his secretary of defense to countenance a more active role for the marines, the president withdrew them, sending the terrorists a powerful signal of paralysis within our government and missing an early opportunity to counter the Islamist terrorist threat in its infancy.

It’s a pretty strong indictment of Caspar Weinberger and implicitly of President Reagan.

The Donovan lists the 241 servicemen who were killed. Two years ago Ocean Guy related a more personal recollection of the attack.

If the United Stataes had struck, would it have forestalled the growth of radical Islam in the past quarter century?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Lebanon, Terrorism | Tagged | 5 Comments

Oil be seeing you at $2 a gallon?

Posted on 10/24/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Gas is $2.15 at the local Costco and Sam’s Club in Richmond, and OPEC is meeting to try to stop oil from falling any further.

Crude oil rose for a second day on speculation OPEC will agree to cut output to stem a more than 50 percent in drop in prices from July’s record.

Venezuela and Iran are among members to have called for a reduction at today’s meeting in Vienna. OPEC President Chakib Khelil said there is a consensus to trim supplies without agreement on the size. Oil is poised to drop for a fourth week, the longest losing streak since January last year.

“There are a lot of people who don’t want to be in a short position ahead of OPEC’s announcement,” said Toby Hassall, an analyst with Commodity Warrants Australia Ltd. in Sydney. “OPEC will probably go with a strategy of cutting now and then wait for more evidence of the demand situation and then cut output again before the end of the year.”

Yeah, but rising from $66 to $68/bbl is my kind of rise. Plus, there’s the potential for some serious falling-outs among, um, frenemies.

Crude prices dipped yesterday after Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi declined to express his support for a possible cut, on his arrival in Vienna. Saudi Arabia and Iran are the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries’ two biggest producers.

“Who said anything about a cut?” al-Naimi said when asked whether he supports the possibility of the group agreeing to reduce output. “Prices will be determined by the market.”

It is to be hoped. Because when I read facts like these, I smile, smile, smile.

Saudi Arabia needs oil prices of less than $30 a barrel to balance its government budget, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. estimates. The United Arab Emirates requires $40 a barrel and Qatar $55.

Iran, with double the population of Saudi Arabia, has a breakeven point of about $100 a barrel, according to Edward Morse, managing director and chief economist at Louis Capital Markets LP in New York. In Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez’s government is spending oil revenue on social programs, the figure is about $120, he said.

Even if the price goes back up to $70-80/bbl, Iran is screwed—and we still get relief at the pump.

I wish the OPEC ministers the very worst of luck. Particularly the Iranians. It couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of oil ticks.

Update: OPEC is cutting production by 1.5 million bbl. The market reacted by dropping the price of crude oil to $62.96 at 8 a.m.

The must-read quote of the day:

OPEC President and Algerian Oil Minister Chakib Khelil said at a news conference that the cut will be “100 percent effective” in stabilizing prices.

Pardon my schadenfreude. Oh, no, don’t. These are the scumbags who have financed the murderers of Jews and Americans for decades, and who take our money and turn it into dictatorship and despotism. I hope oil collapses to $30 a barrel. We’ll still be working on alternative fuels. They won’t be working on alternative products for their economies.

Posted in Miscellaneous | 5 Comments

I am never cleaning my house again

Posted on 10/23/2008 by Meryl Yourish

I am sitting here working while a team of four women clean my home for me. And they’re doing a better job than I would do, too.

Oh, I straightened up and got things out of their way and made the place presentable—but they’re the ones doing the vacuuming and floor-washing and cleaning of windows.

They even cleaned my antique Chinese six-panel wooden screen, which stopped my heart when I saw that the window-washer had sprayed cleaning fluids on it. It seems to have taken no damage, and I will inform them that they must dust it only in the future.

Other than that, except for two missing cats (presumed cowering under something), this is great.

This is the same company I used to clean my old apartment. They were done in an hour. It would have taken me most of the day. And I got my security deposit back. Totally paid for the cleaning crew to come in and save me the effort.

They did the toilets. They did the windows. They even got the cobweb in the corner of the great room that’s, like, twenty-five feet high and impossible to reach without a really, really long extension. They had one. The cobweb is gone.

Nope. I’m never cleaning my house again.

Posted in Life | 4 Comments

Ship of fools going back to Gaza

Posted on 10/23/2008 by Meryl Yourish

The Free Gaza morons, not having had their fill of being stuck in Gaza (cf: Lauren Booth, and try hard not to laugh when you think of her being turned back at every Gaza border crossing, shrieking, “But I’m Lauren Booth! Tony Blair’s sister-in-law! TONY BLAIR!”), are going to try again. And this time, they’re trying to prevent the utter disinterest that followed their arrival when they didn’t show up with tons of food and goods, like the Palestinians expected. (Must have thought the boat was like a smuggling tunnel.)

International protesters say they are making a repeat voyage to Gaza to bring aid to Palestinians in defiance of Israel’s blockade.

Free Gaza organizer Greta Berlin said 29 protesters will sail from Cyprus on October 28 for the estimated 24-hour trip to the Strip.

Berlin said Wednesday the group has converted a fishing boat to safely ferry the protesters and a symbolic shipment of medical aid to Gaza.

Got that? “Symbolic.” Just in case you didn’t get it, the AP said it twice. They don’t want to raise any hopes.

Berlin said the protestors would be sailing in a fishing boat equipped with a “symbolic package” containing medical equipment and other aid for Palestinians living under siege, similarly to the previous voyages.

Symbolic. The whole trip is symbolic, you see. Fighting against the evil Israelis, and the siege that is destroying Gaza. Why, they’re starving, in the midst of shopping in their well-stocked stores, smuggling tons of goods, including cattle, through the tunnels from Egypt, and living just fine and dandy without any help from Israel. Oh. Wait. Except for the electricity they get from Israel, the fuel they get from Israel, the food they get from Israel, and the other goods they get from Israel.

Yeah, go protest that siege. But don’t protest, like, the fact that Hamas fired all the doctors who went on strike last month, and the teachers before that, and anyone who goes against the Hamas playbook. No. Protest Israel. We’ll leave the “why” to your imagination.

Oh, no we won’t. It’s the Jew factor. I don’t recall seeing any of these ships travel to North Korea in the bad old days when Koreans were eating grass to survive. There are no ships to Darfur. Only the Palestinians, it seems, are worthy of the attention of these fools.

Posted in Gaza, Israeli Double Standard Time | 6 Comments

The Pravda media

Posted on 10/23/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Hot on the heels of Soccer Dad’s post on the media’s anti-John McCain bias I found this little gem. Congress is about to hold hearings on the financial crisis. They want a scapegoat. They will not, of course, hold a mirror up to themselves declaring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to be sound, even though they’re on video declaring it. They’re going to blame—well, guess.

Democrats see the prime culprits as greedy Wall Street executives and lax government regulations under a Republican administration, a view that the administration and Republicans in Congress dispute strongly.

Once praised as the “maestro” of the U.S. financial system during the 1990s economic boom, Greenspan, who was succeeded in 2006 by Ben Bernanke, was likely to find himself defending actions he took that are being blamed for contributing to the current crisis.

Critics charge that he left interest rates too low in the early part of this decade, spurring an unsustainable housing boom, while also refusing to exercise the Fed’s powers to impose greater regulations on the issuance of new types of mortgages, including subprime loans. It was the collapse of these mortgages and rising defaults a year ago that triggered the current crisis.

Greenspan, true to his Republican free-market principles, successfully opposed attempts to impose tighter controls on complex financial contracts known as derivatives, which are largely unregulated and which some see as a contributing factor in the current problems.

Wow. Just—wow. Could the media be any more obvious as the Democratic Party’s water carriers?

(Note regarding the title of this post: Pravda was the official mouthpiece of the Communist Party under the Soviet Union.)

Posted in Media Bias | Tagged | 6 Comments

Ya think?

Posted on 10/23/2008 by Soccerdad

Ad Week recently had a featured article on one of the most successful advertising campaigns in history.

But coverage of McCain has been heavily unfavorable—and has become more so over time. In the six weeks following the conventions through the final debate, unfavorable stories about McCain outweighed favorable ones by a factor of more than three to one—the most unfavorable of all four candidates—according to the study by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism.

For Obama during this period, just over a third of the stories were clearly positive in tone (36%), while a similar number (35%) were neutral or mixed. A smaller number (29%) were negative.

For McCain, by comparison, nearly six in ten of the stories studied were decidedly negative in nature (57%), while fewer than two in ten (14%) were positive.

Whoops, that wasn’t Ad Week, it was the Pew Center for Excellence in Journalism. (How you have the words “excellence” and “journalism” in the same title is beyond me.)

That’s a newsflash for you, the media is biased.

LGF:

It’s just something that sort of happens, I guess, and the media reports on it like they report everything else, without any sense of responsibility or embarrassment. Then they go right back to writing hit pieces.

(via memeorandum)

Given that the newspapers surveyed will undoubtedly all endorse (or have already endorsed) Sen. Obama, this is is one more piece of evidence that the “wall” between the editorial and reporting staffs of newspapers is largely a myth. The reporters look for the stories that will support the editorial position of the paper.

While there’s no doubt that the markets hurt Sen. McCain, is there anything in Sen. Obama’s performance to show that he could handle the meltdown other than his legendary unflappability?

So it comes down to PR that comes not from the campaigns, but from the supposedly neutral arbiters of our society.

Wow, so the media did a study and showed that it’s biased during the time that Sen. McCain slid in the polls. Who would have thought?

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

Posted in Media Bias, Politics | Tagged | Comments Off on Ya think?

Palestinian terrorist attack in Jerusalem, again

Posted on 10/23/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Another Palestinian murdered another Jew in the City of David.

A young Arab man murdered a civilian and injured a police officer in Jerusalem’s Gilo neighborhood on Thursday morning.

The 60-year-old citizen was critically injured and evacuated to the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in the capital, where he died of his wounds. The police officer, 32, sustained light to moderate wounds and was evacuated to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.

The terrorist sustained moderate to serious wounds in his stomach after being shot by the injured policeman. He was also taken to the Hadassah Ein Kerem Hospital.

Should have killed him. He’ll be released in an upcoming prisoner exchange some day. Just watch.

The AP spin:

Police: Palestinian man fatally stabs Israeli
A Palestinian assailant fatally stabbed an 86-year-old man and wounded a police officer in an east Jerusalem neighborhood on Thursday, authorities said, in what they called a “terror incident.”

Yes, it’s “what they called” a terror incident. Because it’s not like this is terrorism:

Police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said the attack erupted when a pair of police officers on patrol stopped to question the man during a patrol in the Jewish neighborhood of Gilo.

The man pulled out a knife and stabbed one of the officers, who managed to shoot the assailant, Rosenfeld said.

Rosenfeld said the wounded attacker then grabbed a passer-by and stabbed him before being overpowered.

I’m astonished that the AP named the Israeli spokesman. Normally they just use the words “Israel said,” as if the state were some walking, talking creature. But of course, you can’t have an AP article without the standard pro-Palestinian bias:

Gilo is among a group of Jewish neighborhoods established in east Jerusalem after Israel captured the area in the 1967 Middle East War. The Palestinians claim east Jerusalem as the capital of a future independent state.

I repeat: City of David.

Posted in AP Media Bias, Israel, Terrorism | Tagged , | 3 Comments

A note to would-be comment spammers from spamblogs

Posted on 10/23/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Yes, you people are getting more and more clever. Yes, I’ve almost fallen for your crap more than once.

And yet, you have not gotten anywhere by spamming my comments with links to your blog surrounding your insipid comment that sounds almost real enough to be from a person, not from a bottom-feeder.

Take a hike. We don’t approve your kind around here.

And we’re not nearly as stupid as you seem to think we are.

Posted in Bloggers, Evil Meryl | 1 Comment

Is this the end of little OPEC?

Posted on 10/22/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Looks like the global recession, falling oil prices, and the world’s lack of funds to pay oil extortion money may contribute to the end of the world’s worst cartel. And here’s why:

Saudi Arabia needs oil prices of less than $30 a barrel to balance its government budget, according to Merrill Lynch & Co. estimates. The United Arab Emirates requires $40 a barrel and Qatar $55.

Iran, with double the population of Saudi Arabia, has a breakeven point of about $100 a barrel, according to Edward Morse, managing director and chief economist at Louis Capital Markets LP in New York. In Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez’s government is spending oil revenue on social programs, the figure is about $120, he said.

Oil options trading shows the probability that crude will fall below $50 a barrel by June has more than doubled in 10 days, Deutsche Bank AG said in an Oct. 17 report. There is a 9 percent likelihood that June 2009 crude oil contracts will expire below $50, up from 4 percent, Deutsche said.

There is squabbling among the sheiks, and this can only be good news for the world’s working stiffs. And then there were these grand old times:

Eleven years ago, OPEC members bickered about output quotas as oil slid 28 percent in 10 months amid the onset of the Asian financial crisis. At a meeting in Jakarta in November 1997, they raised quotas, ignoring the turmoil that slowed Asian economies and cut oil demand. Prices fell another 44 percent by December 1998 to below $11 a barrel.

Time to get us to alternative fuels.

For those people out there insisting that cheap gas will get Americans back to their gas-guzzling ways: No, it won’t. I was gassing up on Sunday and chatting with the gentleman in the SUV next to me about the low gas prices. “It won’t last,” he said. That’s the attitude that most people have. We’re happy for the relief, but know we have to change our driving habits. The elites don’t understand that Americans aren’t as stupid as they think.

In the meantime, enjoy the falling gas prices. It’s down to $2.25 in Richmond, and still falling.

Posted in Miscellaneous, World | 1 Comment

Memories of German Jews

Posted on 10/22/2008 by Meryl Yourish

An Israeli reporter has found a cache of artifacts looted from Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues from the Krystallnacht pogrom.

An Israeli investigative reporter has discovered a large amount of personal and ceremonial artifacts which were looted from Jews during Kristallnacht in 1938.

The items have recently been unearthed by Yaron Svoray at a waste site the size of four soccer fields in Brandenburg, located north of Berlin.

Kristallnacht, also known as the “Night of Broken Glass” or the “Crystal Night pogroms,” saw the destruction of more than 200 synagogues and the ransacking of tens of thousands of Jewish businesses and homes. During the Nazi pogrom 92 Jews were murdered and 25,000–30,000 were arrested and deported to concentration camps.

The waste site is located in close proximity to the former home of Hermann Goering, who commanded the German air force (Luftwaffe) during World War II.

The Germans are proving that they haven’t exactly remembered the right lessons from that night.

The search for additional artifacts at the site is ongoing under the constant watch of bodyguards, this after Svoray complained of threats made on his life.

And the investigation had to be kept under wraps—because the market for Nazi memorabilia is extremely profitable.

Svoray refrained from making his findings public for fear that the site would attract people looking to get their hands on Nazi treasures.

“There are no real treasures here, but there is still a danger that the site will turn into a circus of auctions organized by skinheads,” he said, “the site is drawing more and more interest; people are starting to dig.”

Even better, Germans are going to erect a museum near the spot. For Herman Goerring, the manufacturer of one of the Nazis that spread “The Big Lie,” which not only helped murder Jews back in the 30s and 40s, but which was co-opted by the Arabs and Muslims and is used today (cf: Mohammed al-Dura, Jews trying to destroy al-Aqsa, etc.).

The journalist also reported of a plan to erect a hunting museum in Goerring’s honor at the site. He said that so far his repeated efforts to scuttle the plan have failed.

It’s good to know that Germans have their priorities straight. Robbing Jewish artifacts and destroying them in search of Nazi memorabilia? No problem. Erecting a museum to one of the architects of the Final Solution? Absolutely. Helping Jews recover their heritage? Piss off.

Posted in Anti-Semitism | 5 Comments

Another kassam rocket breaks the broken “truce”

Posted on 10/22/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Yet another kassam rocket fired into Israel from Gaza. Yet another yawn from, well, everyone.

A Kassam rocket was launched into Israel from the Gaza Strip Tuesday evening.

The rocket fell in an open area north of the Strip. There were no casualties and no damage.

Following the attack, Defense Minister Ehud Barak instructed security forces to keep the crossings with the Gaza Strip closed on Wednesday, as has been routinely done in the past.

Let’s see how (or even if) the wire services spin this.

Posted in Israel | Comments Off on Another kassam rocket breaks the broken “truce”

That mythical “moderate” Islam

Posted on 10/21/2008 by Meryl Yourish

Jordan is one of the most moderate Islamic nations, we keep hearing. It’s an example of what most Muslim nations should aspire to become, or something. Ignore the honor killings, the fact that Jordan refuses to change the penalties for such killings to more than a slap on the wrist, and, well, the fact that honor killings keep seeming to happen. Jordan is moderate. Just ask anyone.

And now, they’ve arrested a poet on the charge of—wait for it—“insulting Islam.”

Jordanian police arrested a local writer Tuesday for incorporating verses of the Quran, the Muslim holy book, into his love poetry, a judicial official said.

The poet, Islam Samhan, published his collection of poems, “Grace like a Shadow,” without the approval of the Jordanian government, and authorities say it insults the holy book, the official said.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Samhan was charged with harming the Islamic faith and violating the press and publication law for combining the sacred words of the Quran with sexual themes.

If convicted, the poet could face up to three years in jail.

Jordanian law bans the publication of any books or articles that could be seen as harmful to Islam and its Prophet Muhammad.

Yep. Moderate. Why, they’re practically on the American level of freedom of religion and speech. In Bizarro World, anyway.

Posted in Israel | 3 Comments

Iranians break up fowl spy ring

Posted on 10/21/2008 by Meryl Yourish

The Iranians have captured members of a spy ring that can go anywhere, and see anything, from the air: Pigeons.

Iranian media reported on Monday that security forces had seized two ‘spy pigeons’ near the uranium enrichment facility in Natanz and a second location.

According to the report, One of the pigeons was caught near a rose water production plant in the city of Kashan in Isfahan province, the report cited an unnamed informed source as saying, adding that metal rings and invisible strings were attached to the bird.

“Early this month, a black pigeon was caught bearing a blue-coated metal ring, with invisible strings,” the source was quoted as saying.

Iranian sources said that “it is entirely possible that pigeons were used to spy on the nuclear facility in Natanz.” The birds were been handed over to defense officials, their fate is unknown.

I suspect they were turned over to a group of Iranian cats for interrogation and imprisonment.

It’s not the first time the Iranians broke up a ring of animal spies.

But this is not the first time the Islamic Republic has accused members of the animal kingdom of collaborating with its enemies. Last year the country’s media reported that 14 squirrels were arrested for espionage. “The squirrels were equipped with the spy gear of foreign agencies, and were stopped before they could act, thanks to the alertness of our intelligence services,” the IRNA news agency wrote.

Iranian police commander Esmaeil Ahmadi-Moqadam confirmed the report at the time.

And they wonder why there aren’t more Iranian Nobel prize winners. Hm. Let’s think of a reason why they may be so backwards.

Lest you think that this is too ridiculous to be true, let me give you one of the latest stories from IRNA:

Iran on Tuesday said the British Broadcasting Corporation has recently ignored international laws and has established suspicious relations with several dissidents.

The deputy culture and Islamic guidance minister, in a statement, said, according to received reports, the BBC Persian language network has been trying to absorb dissidents and those with anti-intelligence records.

Batshit crazy. The Iranians are effing batshit crazy. And these are the people that are trying to get the bomb. Wonderful.

Posted in Iran, Juvenile Scorn | Tagged | 3 Comments

Inviting a crisis

Posted on 10/20/2008 by Soccerdad

Michael Kinsley said that a gaffe is when a politician speaks the truth. If that’s so, I suppose Sen. Biden’s recent statement about there being an international crisis withing six months of Sen. Obama’s election as president would qualify as one.

“Mark my words,” the Democratic vice presidential nominee warned at the second of his two Seattle fundraisers Sunday. “It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy. The world is looking. We’re about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here if you don’t remember anything else I said. Watch, we’re gonna have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

“I can give you at least four or five scenarios from where it might originate,” Biden said to Emerald City supporters, mentioning the Middle East and Russia as possibilities. “And he’s gonna need help. And the kind of help he’s gonna need is, he’s gonna need you – not financially to help him – we’re gonna need you to use your influence, your influence within the community, to stand with him. Because it’s not gonna be apparent initially, it’s not gonna be apparent that we’re right.”

(h/t LGF)

Of course, Biden has to show that this will be because some countries will want to test the new president’s mettle. He doesn’t suggest that the Sen. Obama’s may invite this crisis.

However, Elder of Ziyon recently observed that Iran welcomed Sen. Obama’s initiative to talk with them with no preconditions, if only he would apologize to Iran and come begging.

The frontrunner for President of the United States looks as if he is begging to negotiate with Iran, and Iran appears to be considering granting that wish if only the lowly US works a little harder at its begging.

As Barry Rubin shows, though, Sen Obama’s statement (and the belief so prevalent in the media and in “sophisticated” foreign policy circles) that reaching out to Iran can only bring good, is not just naive, it is historically ignorant.

“I have been involved in the search for the elusive Iranian moderate for 30 years.” Then Gates revealed what was actually said at Brzezinski’s meeting, in which he participated, summarizing Brzezinski’s position as follows:

“We will accept your revolution….We will recognize your government. We will sell you all the weapons that we had contracted to sell the Shah….We can work together in the future.”

The Iranians demanded the United States turn over to them the fugitive Shah, who they would have executed. Brzezinski refused. Three days later Iran seized the embassy and forever changed the Middle East. The road thus paved led to the Iran-Iraq and Iraq-Kuwait wars, the power of Hamas and Hizballah, September 11, 2001, and a great deal more. Many thousands would die due to American timidity and Iranian aggressiveness.

Had the United States been a mean bully in its treatment of the new Islamist Iran? The On the contrary, Washington did everything possible to negotiate, conciliate, and build confidence. We’ll do almost anything you want, Carter and Brzezinski offered, just be our friend. Far from being appeased Iran demanded such a total humiliation–turning over the fatally ill, deposed Shah for execution–even that administration couldn’t accept it.

Biden’s statement is a refreshing reminder of the dangers that await the United States should his ticket win the election. Biden, though, probably didn’t think he was admitting as much.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

Posted in Iran | Tagged | 3 Comments