The Bush Administration Insults Your Intelligence: Part 2,221

Well, here we are again. My how time flies. It seems like only yesterday that the Bush Administration was insulting our intelligence for the very first time. What a fun, sexy time that was for all of us. Anyway, it seems that yet another Islamic country in the Middle East is making trouble, but there are no plans to invade them. Whew! My mind is at ease now. Except that... huh? Sometimes I think that all statements from this White House are fed through some kind of reverse-decoder before they actually go public with them. Because they always read like something not even a half-wit pre-schooler would fall for.

So, Iran is distributing weapons to the Shi'ite insurgents huh? Or the Shi'ite anti-government forces, or whatever you want to call them. First of all let me say this: Duh. I've been assuming the Iranians would support the Iraqi Shi'ite Resistance from Day 1. If our government was not, and is just now finding out about this, then I would like to know why. However, it appears that, despite this, we are not planning to invade Iran. Okay, does this make sense to anyone? Well, why the hell not? Or let's put it another way: If you're not planning to invade, then why even bring this up? They're not going to stop doing it just because you tell on them to the White House Press Corps.

Anybody that thinks about it for 10 whole seconds knows that Iran is supporting the Iraqi Shi'ites. So, what? The other Arab countries are, no doubt, supporting the Iraqi Sunnis. And last time I checked the Iraqi Sunnis were the ones doing the most damage to our troops over there. Who really thinks that the Shi'ites are going to use any weapons they get from Iran on us? If we're on anyone's side in this emerging Iraqi Civil War it is, apparently, the Shi'ites side. For some reason. When and if we finally pick a side anyway. The Sunnis don't have a problem figuring this out, why would the Shi'ites? Why would we?

So, you're George Bush. Your advisors have just decided to trust you with the incredibly amazing knowledge that Iran is supplying Iraqi insurgents with explosives. What do you do? Well apparently, you hold a press conference to announce that A) Iran is supplying insurgents with weapons to kill our troops with, but B) You are not going to do anything about it. Remind me why people thought George Bush was going to keep us safe?

Even understanding that we probably are going to invade Iran, I STILL don't understand why they would handle it this way. Everyone is still pissed-off about the last country he said we weren't going to invade even though they were trying to kill us. If you're planning on invading yet another country, it seems like now would be the time to try full disclosure. You've tried everything else. And if you're NOT planning an invasion, why bother to bring up a complete non-issue that everyone should already know about? I mean, Iran doesn't like us, who is this news to? If you're not planning to invade bringing it up at all is a weak play, because there's nothing else you can do about it.

You can't cut off diplomatic ties because we don't have any. Ditto for economic relations. It is technically illegal for any U.S. company to do business with Iran. If you could stop them from inside Iraq you would already be doing it, you wouldn't be calling the tv station to call no fair sending the Shi'ites weapons on Iran's government.

Does it make any sense that they might be doing this to distract people from what's going on in Iraq? Or to try and blame Iran somehow? Do they think they'll be able to say "yeah it sucks, but it's Iran's fault not ours" and then just shrug their shoulders? Are they just grasping at straws here? Probably, but that doesn't mean they won't invade Iran.

Most likely this is all just the exact same shuck and jive routine we saw before Iraq. The only difference is that possibly the plan isn't to invade Iran, but just to bomb the hell out of it. That actually makes slightly more sense. That's actually probably what they're going to do. Bitch and moan about Iran sending dangerous weapons to Iraq for a few months and then start bombing their nuclear facilities. Of course then Iran would probably invade Iraq. Fun!

In other Bush Administration insulting our intelligence news is their brand new deal with North Korea. Which is suspiciously like Clinton's old deal with North Korea, except not as good. Instead of sending them fuel oil while we pretend to help build them a civilian nuclear power plant, we're going to send them fuel oil while they pretend to shut down their military nuclear power plant. We could have gotten a better deal then this 4 years ago. In fact we HAD a better deal then this 4 years ago. Well, coming up on 5 years ago now, but the point remains. If were going to say "uncle" all along, couldn't we have done it before they started testing nukes? I guess I should be happy that they're finally doing something about this, and I guess I would be if it wasn't so shitty and half-assed.

Jesus, you have to fucking get to work on this, gang. As long as he doesn't run COMPLETELY out of food, time is actually on Kim Jong-Il's side. The longer we wait to pay him off, the farther along he'll be and the more we'll have to pay if we want him to stop. And the way we've done this deal, "We'll send you 50,000 barrels if you shut off your reactor, but that's it, and we'll talk about everything else later" is really stupid. We've just turned that reactor into an ATM card. Whenever he needs something he can just turn it back on. Plus, we're giving him what he wants first, then he'll shut off the reactor. Oh really? Nice.

How long did that negotiation take, 5 minutes? Was Kim Jong-Il holding our negotiator's head over the toilet at the time? Do these guys just not understand anything? What you have to do is reach a comprehensive deal, make him shut off the reactor, turn over his nuclear material, destroy whatever weapons he has, and make him do it FIRST. Agree to whatever he wants, but he has to live up to his end before we do anything. Agree to ship him the moon in chocolate covered bite-sized pieces if you want, but as long as he's already shut down his reactor and dismantled his nuclear weapons program you can take as long as you want to deliver and all he can do about it is whine and threaten to start everything back up again. At which point you can throw him a little extra wonder bread if you want. My point is that this doesn't have to be so hard. He's a super-villain who cares if you lie to him? Tell him he can meet Donald Duck in person, whatever it takes. If it never happens, who's going to feel sorry for him? Pol Pot? Fuck Pol Pot.

Anyway, in other news a bunch of snow and ice fell from the sky and it sucked. I had to actually scrape it off my car before I could drive to work! Don't whine to me about Darfur, I've got problems too.


And I'm Out

Captain Pol Pot