Althouse: "To be Jewish in this world is to always be concerned. When enemies make threats, take them seriously."

March 3, 2015

"To be Jewish in this world is to always be concerned. When enemies make threats, take them seriously."

"When evil begins its work, don’t give it another chance."

223 comments:

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Dr Weevil said...: J. Farmer, like the stupid weasel he is, insists that he "knew the person [I was] referring to, and the year it happened". That is, he assumed that I was misled by a single mistranslation of a single statement by a single Iranian leader, which was false. That speech may have brought the whole question to public notice, but (a) the Iranians were in fact proven to have said, in their own English-language signs (!), that "Israel should be wiped out of the face of the world" (WP), so the mistranslation excuse fails, and (b) there were other statements than just the one in which they made such threats, including the ones YH just quoted. As I wrote, this was fully discussed, and J. Farmer's position refuted, years ago. I (and YH) shouldn't have to do his homework for him.

I suspect he'll wait a couple of months, and make us prove it all over again, like the common little troll he is.; 3/3/15, 6:20 PM
jr565 said...: if Iran wants to suggest that its not getting nukes for belligerent purposes, why not offer up definitive proof that it has ceased to fund Hezbollah, Hamas or any other militant organization waging war against Israel.
Because if it's presumed they are saying they want to wipe Israel off the face of the map, and there is a question as to their interpretation, how they conduct their affairs says a lot about the interpretation.; 3/3/15, 6:21 PM
jr565 said...: J Farmer wrote:
No, they have not. Rafsanjani was talking about the balance of power effects that would result from a Muslim nation possessing nuclear weapons vis-a-vis the Israelis.

Balance of power? WHen has Israel, which supposedly has nukes, threatened to wipe Iran off the face of the earth with nukes?; 3/3/15, 6:23 PM
buwaya said...: "WHen has Israel, which supposedly has nukes, threatened to wipe Iran off the face of the earth with nukes?"

The purely ideological nature of this Iran matter is apparent when looked at from the point of view of objective interests. Israel is no threat to Iran or the Iranian people, it makes no demand on Iran, holds no Iranian territory, will make no Iranian richer or more powerful by ceasing to exist. This hate (on the part of the Iranian regime) is as pristine in its disinterest as anything ever seen in international relations.; 3/3/15, 6:33 PM
Dr Weevil said...: For anyone too lazy to follow the link in the WP story I linked, this PDF is the best evidence that J. Farmer is ignorant as well as arrogant.

Of course, we already knew that. Who could possibly write about the entire leadership of a medium-sized country over the last 36 years that a particular threat "has not been said"? Only someone who could pretend to have read everything everyone in that leadership had said in any format over the last 36 years. In other words, a liar or a fool.; 3/3/15, 6:34 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Dr Weevil:

I am arrogant, ignorant, a stupid weasel, a troll. I'm really wilting in the face of your crushing wit. In fact, it is probably a complete waste of your time to engage with me over and over again.

Since you seem to make a habit of serially missing the point, let me reiterate what I have said for the umpteenth time. A comment directed at me claimed that the "leadership of the Iranian regime has repeatedly stated in public that they will nuke Israel the first chance they get."

That statement was false. Nothing in anything you have linked to supports the notion that the "Iranian regime has repeatedly stated in public that they will nuke Israel the first chance they get." I have also conceded several times that Iran threatens Israel.

And I have also said that I don't care that Iran threatens Israel. That it is up to Israel to deal with. I am not willing to sacrifice American lives to protect Israel, and I would not expect Israelis to sacrifice their lives to protect us.

This is not rocket science, and my position is very clear and simple. I am a non-interventionist with a very high threshold for when I believe that America should deploy military force. I don't care about Israel or the Israelis anymore than I care about any group of people who are threatened by aggression. But I don't believe it is the job of Americans to throw themselves in front of that bullet.; 3/3/15, 6:53 PM
Dr Weevil said...: Fine, J. Farmer: I'll rephrase what I said to meet your high but intensely petty standards. The Iranian leadership have not precisely "stated" in so many words that they intend to nuke Israel the first chance they get. However, they have made it quite clear by the words they have said, and by their actions, that that is what they intend to do if and when they get nukes.

By calling Israel "The Little Satan" and the U.S. "The Great Satan", they also make it quite clear that they will nuke the U.S., too, if they can, and getting nukes is the main problem there, since the U.S. border is quite porous. I notice you couldn't be bothered to reply when I made that argument before.

We will not be safe here if they have nukes there, and we will be considerably less safe if one of our strongest and closest allies is destroyed first. Not to mention deeply humiliated and demoralized (those of us with human hearts, at least) if we stand by and let premeditated genocide occur when we could have stopped it.

Finally, you can hardly complain about being called "arrogant, ignorant, a stupid weasel, a troll" when your very first comment on this post accused others of 'licking backsides'. You started the vicious language and dishonest argumentation, not I.; 3/3/15, 7:05 PM
jr565 said...: J Farmer wrote:
his is not rocket science, and my position is very clear and simple. I am a non-interventionist with a very high threshold for when I believe that America should deploy military force. I don't care about Israel or the Israelis anymore than I care about any group of people who are threatened by aggression. But I don't believe it is the job of Americans to throw themselves in front of that bullet.

NOn interventionism, like pacifism, only works when the whole world is also non interventionist. But when we have the UN, open borders, easy transportation, and then have countries like Russia, meddling in the ME, and Iran meddling with Israel, that non interventionism is bullcrap.; 3/3/15, 7:06 PM
buwaya said...: " But I don't believe it is the job of Americans to throw themselves in front of that bullet."

This is an old, old problem. The US provides a public good, consisting of various services that promote general world stability and peace. The US benefits from this, but so do all others. This comes at a cost, money, risk and lives.

It is a hard thing that such sacrifices are towards such a general and diffuse a cause. But it is truly needed. The US cannot avoid intervening, judiciously, granted, where required, because the consequential chains are indirect and often not immediately apparent.

Unfortunately for the US there is no-one else in a position to "throw themselves in front of that bullet". If no-one does then the bullet will strike. Other people are then likely to shoot. The next bullet or the ones after that will be headed in this direction.; 3/3/15, 7:07 PM
YoungHegelian said...: @Farmer,

I am a non-interventionist with a very high threshold for when I believe that America should deploy military force

Oh, really? Why, then, drag the rest of us through the proof-tests of Iran's belligerent intentions, if no matter how belligerent they are, your non-interventionism makes it of no concern to us? You're either lying to us and/or yourself, or this has been one large exercise in bad faith on your part.

We have here given you a discussion that a nuclear Iran would not only threaten Israel, but involve the Gulf states in a nuclear arms race, thus threatening much of the world's oil supply, and the potential to flood Europe with refugees.

You have flatly stated that you don't feel our NATO and East Asian defense treaties to be binding.

You're basically a "fortress America" isolationist, and you would have saved everyone a lot of trouble if you had been honest enough to just say so. There's no point in continuing, since there is no shared common point to begin a discussion (especially in blog comments) between someone who thinks that America's interests end at its shores & someone who doesn't.; 3/3/15, 7:09 PM
jr565 said...: The problem for J Farmer is that Obama got involved in trying to hold Iran to account for its nukes at all. It should have just let them build them unimpeded.

The problem for us is that Obama said he would contain Iran, and we believe Iran should be contained. But Obama is bending over backwards to not actually contain Iran.
If he's going to do such a piss ass job, then simply don't do it. Let Israel deal with Iran militarily.
But if you're going to say you are going to contain Iran, then honor the red lines you put down.; 3/3/15, 7:38 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Dr Weevil:

"Fine, J. Farmer: I'll rephrase what I said to meet your high but intensely petty standards."

The statement I was talking about did not come from you; it came from the commenter YoungHegelian. And you're right, when somebody makes a claim, I like for that claim to be true. Sorry for demanding such a high, petty standard.

"We will not be safe here if they have nukes there, and we will be considerably less safe if one of our strongest and closest allies is destroyed first."

Israel is neither one of our strongest nor closest allies.

@jr565:

"NOn interventionism, like pacifism, only works when the whole world is also non interventionist."

Uh, no. If American security or American lives are under attack or under imminent threat, it would be perfectly within our right to use military force to repel that attack. That's not pacifism. I do not believe, however, as you seem to, that it is the job of the US military to be international social workers.

@buwaya:

"The US cannot avoid intervening, judiciously, granted, where required, because the consequential chains are indirect and often not immediately apparent. "

Three countries have been the primary recipients of US military intervention in the last decade and a half. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. All three have not only been strategic failures, they have been unmitigated disasters that have contributed to the region being less stable and more dangerous. I would expect this would give a rational person pause before running off and cheerleading the next military intervention.

@YoungHegelian:

"Why, then, drag the rest of us through the proof-tests of Iran's belligerent intentions, if no matter how belligerent they are, your non-interventionism makes it of no concern to us?"

You made a claim about what the Iranian leadership supposedly says repeatedly, and I asked you to support that claim, which you basically ran away from.

"You have flatly stated that you don't feel our NATO and East Asian defense treaties to be binding."

I did not say that. I specifically pointed to the fact that we are treaty-bound to come to the defense of Estonia as an example of why NATO has become such a ridiculous institution. And yes, I am for getting out of NATO. I do not feel the same way about our treaty obligations towards Japan or South Korea for a variety of reasons.

"You're basically a "fortress America" isolationist, and you would have saved everyone a lot of trouble if you had been honest enough to just say so. "

"Isolationist" is always the boring label people throw you at when you don't support their maximalist hardline stance. I am all for trade and engagement. But I am not for sending young men and women into countries, wrecking those countries, taking out their leadership, getting lots of people killed, and then trying to stitch those countries back together again. Now if you want to call that isolationism, then sign me up.; 3/3/15, 7:42 PM
J. Farmer said...: @jr565:

"Let Israel deal with Iran militarily."

Fine with me. I don't care what they do. I just want them off the US welfare dole.; 3/3/15, 7:45 PM
ken in tx said...: Today, I had a conversation with a Jew--a family member. She would probably consider herself a liberal democrat. She said, "The Iranians say they only want nuclear power for peaceful purposes." I asked, "Do you believe them?" She said "I don't know." I said, "If you believe that, then you should also believe them when they say are going to wipe Israel off the map." She didn't say anything else after that.; 3/3/15, 8:52 PM
Dr Weevil said...: So J. Farmer is fine with genocide as long as it saves him a few tax dollars, and even if it encourages the victors to attack the Great Satan after they take care of the Little Satan: noted with contempt.; 3/3/15, 9:01 PM
buwaya said...: Libya and Syria were very poorly done, Libya being the worst example of poor judgment. The bad guy had already kowtowed and made peace. Not honoring that is a very poor example.
Syria was not all bad in conception but very badly executed. The US did not do the heavy lifting in diplomacy, as the Bushes would have done, to get the Saudis Turks and the rest on the same program, to overtly support an ex-military puppet government and fund it. This fecklessness led to a case of too many cooks.
Iraq was in the end a success, except politically, when the victory was thrown away for US domestic reasons.
Afghanistan is a mire for everyone involved, even the Pakistanis seem to have finally repented of their foolishness (it was a proxy war vs Pakistan). In that sense it seems to have worked, the last thing the Pakis want now is go to war anywhere. The original Bush strategy was to invest little in it and so he did, and cow the Pakis, and so he did.; 3/3/15, 9:30 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Dr Weevil:

"So J. Farmer is fine with genocide as long as it saves him a few tax dollars, and even if it encourages the victors to attack the Great Satan after they take care of the Little Satan: noted with contempt."

Oh please. Do you believe the US should intervene militarily in the Congo to stop that conflict? Intervene in Nigeria to stop Boko Haram? Intervene in the Yemeni civil war? South Sudan? If not, is it reasonable to assume you are "fine" with the millions of people or so who have died in these places since the late 1990s?; 3/3/15, 9:44 PM
Michael K said...: "I am arrogant, ignorant, a stupid weasel, a troll. I'm really wilting in the face of your crushing wit. In fact, it is probably a complete waste of your time to engage with me over and over again. "

Nice of you to admit it.; 3/3/15, 10:21 PM
Michael K said...: "If American security or American lives are under attack or under imminent threat, it would be perfectly within our right to use military force to repel that attack. That's not pacifism."

So, it was a mistake to declare war on Hitler ? He didn't attack us.

You ignore the need for a benign hegemony to keep trade and commerce flowing. Britain did that for 200 years but was exhausted by two 20th century wars.

We then took up the burden. There was no war with the USSR and the peaceful world continued until now.

You claim we should not have intervened in Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya.

Afghanistan was the source of the attack on 9/11. The Taliban could have expelled al Qeada at our request and there would have been no invasion. They defied us. We went in and defeated them in a small special forces war where the Afghan opposition did most of the fighting.

Iraq invaded Kuwait at a time when the whole world's oil supply was at stake. Now, no thanks to Obama, we are nearing independence. Europe and China are still very dependent.

I agree both occupations, of Iraq and Afghanistan, were botched. Lots of reasons for that.

Libya was an Obama war against a guy who had given up his active nuclear program when we invaded Iraq. That was a real benefit of that campaign. There was no reason to attack Libya and it made things much worse there.

Obama and Biden were actually bragging about Iraq until they cut and ran, which led to the ISIS situation. They are going to do the same with Afghanistan although I think we should have left AF a special forces war as it was until Obama.; 3/3/15, 10:36 PM
J. Farmer said...: @Michael K:

"So, it was a mistake to declare war on Hitler ? He didn't attack us."

It should be telling to all the warmongers here that you all have to constantly go back over 70 years ago to pick a war that you think somehow justifies your modern cheerleading for getting more people killed. But then again, your all just pounding away at keyboards, so what do you have to lose. Somebody else will do the killing for you, and somebody else will do the dying. We did not declare war on Germany until AFTER they declared war on us, due mostly to our cooperation with the UK and our declaring war on Japan, who was in an alliance with Hitler at the time. Our entry into the European theatre probably helped spare UK more destruction, but in all likelihood Germany would have been defeated nonetheless by the Soviets.

"You ignore the need for a benign hegemony to keep trade and commerce flowing. Britain did that for 200 years but was exhausted by two 20th century wars."

Britain in the 19th century was not a benign hegemony keeping trade and commerce flowing. They were building a global empire and colonizing foreign lands. That what may be described as global public goods was a side effect of this pursuit does not mean it was the reason Britain was doing it. The imperial ambitions of the European great powers is what primarily caused those two catastrophic wars in the 20th century. Even if you are correct the global trade and commerce "required" such a hegemony, which I don't believe it does, how does trying to nation build failed states have anything to do with that?

"There was no war with the USSR and the peaceful world continued until now."

Intercontinental ballistic missiles had something to do with that. And the fact that the Soviets were practicing a dreadful, inefficient, centralized command-and-control economy that collapsed under its own weight.

"Afghanistan was the source of the attack on 9/11. The Taliban could have expelled al Qeada at our request and there would have been no invasion. They defied us. We went in and defeated them in a small special forces war where the Afghan opposition did most of the fighting."

First, Afghanistan was not the "source" of the 9/11 attack. It was where Osama bin Laden happened to be living at the time. The 9/11 attack did not require training camps or a "base of operations." It was planned and prepared for primarily in the US It will come as news to the Taliban that they have been defeated. They're stronger in Helmand province than they were pre-9/11, and the Afghan government that thousands of Americans died in order to prop up is in the process of negotiating with the Taliban.

"Obama and Biden were actually bragging about Iraq until they cut and ran, which led to the ISIS situation."

The Bush administration could not get a SOFA for extended troop presence from the Iraqi government. ISIS has been able to thrive primarily due to the Syrian Civil War, the fecklessness of the US-trained Iraqi military, and the extremely sectarian way the Shia-majority government has managed things in Baghdad. ISIS is a problem for Iraq and Syria and its neighbors to contend with. It is absurd in an extreme way to believe this group poses any significant risk to us or that we should make it our mission to "destroy ISIS."; 3/4/15, 6:09 AM
Rusty said...: J. Farmer said...
@jr565:

"Let Israel deal with Iran militarily."

Fine with me. I don't care what they do. I just want them off the US welfare dole.

You really don't.
The "welfare" to Israel consists mainly of military equipment and expertise. We also pay them for their excellent R&D.

I once asked Bob Cooke this question.
How big of a navy do we really need?; 3/4/15, 7:03 AM
J. Farmer said...: @Rusty:

"You really don't."

Yes, I really do. Three billion dollars a year to a country with a GDP of over $300 billion. The majority of that is used to purchase US military hardware, so it's a roundabout way of handing out subsidies to defense contractors. I don't support corporate welfare. Probably something like 20-30% of it, though, never comes back to the US.; 3/4/15, 8:01 AM
Anonymous said...: buwaya puti: The alternative to the Pax Americana is the restoration of the "great powers", and most likely a series of wars among now-developed, highly dangerous countries right where they can interrupt the global economy and start another cycle of wars. Modern wars among developed countries are likely to be deadly beyond all previous experience.

The price of isolationist fantasies is likely to be extremely high.

All dominant powers eventually suffer from overreach. All complex political/economic systems fragment and transform (best case) or collapse into war (worst case). The idea that a declining power like the U.S. can perpetually "keep a lid on" the strains in the fracturing system that is the current global economy, or is capable of maintaining the current neoliberal world order if it only chooses to do so, is also a dangerous fantasy.

A U.S. that was led by prudent people with some sense of humility would still be capable of pursuing the better option above, and perhaps preventing (or delaying) things like "[a] nuclear arms race among second-tier countries like Iran, Saudi, Turkey, etc." by non-military means.

Unfortunately one is not sanguine, as our policy-making apparatus is apparently infested by incompetent (if highly enthusiastic and self-confident) ideologues heedlessly pushing invasions, "springs" and "color revolutions", etc., etc., etc. (that never turn out as promised but oh well next time it'll surely work out), and oh yeah, important stuff like gay marriage in Ukraine, which is of course our business and of vital national interest.

The US cannot avoid intervening, judiciously, granted, where required, because the consequential chains are indirect and often not immediately apparent.

You appear to be claiming here that the "consequential chains" are not immediately apparent to say, the likes of J. Farmer, but are to you (and other cognoscenti pushing interventionist policies and labeling all opposed as "isolationists".) But they're not. As recent events attest.; 3/4/15, 8:51 AM