Saddam’s Smoking Gun

 
Well, this is a surprise.

According to CNN,

Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein told his Cabinet in the mid-1990s that the U.S. would fall victim to terrorists possessing weapons of mass destruction but that Iraq would not be involved, tapes released Saturday at an intelligence summit reveal.

Hussein also can be heard speaking with high-ranking Iraqi officials about deceiving United Nations inspectors looking into Iraq’s weapons program, which his son-in-law, Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel, oversaw.

The tapes, which U.S. officials have confirmed are authentic, are part of a much larger cache of information on the nation’s weapons programs. Six translators listened to the recordings for CNN.

I don’t mean that the information itself is a surprise — every Iraq news junkie knew about the Salman Pak training camp, the suitcases of money going to terrorist groups all over the world, and the Iraqi connection with Ramzi Yousef and Project Bojinka and the first World Trade Center attack.

It’s the fact that it can be found through a headline on CNN’s website. Are they going to bury it after Sunday morning, so that very few people see it? Or have they changed their ways?

Watch and see if it shows up on the major networks or CNN in prime time newscasts. Keep an eye on the New York Times for any sign of it.

My guess it will be buried and consigned to the blogosphere, like all the others.

Welcome Cato the Elder

 
Longtime Gates of Vienna commenter Cato the Elder now has his own blog. Cato Sr. is not to be confused with just plain “Cato”, who also comments here frequently (rumor has it that the latter is the illegitimate fruit of the former’s misspent youth).

From the Elder’s first post I obtained something useful. The warning label at right is unfortunately going to be very necessary in the coming months.

So drop over to Cato the Elder’s place. Make sure you take note of the URL when you get there…

Yoicks! I Wish I Could Read Dutch!

 
The winners of the Infidel Bloggers Alliance Mohammed Cartoon Contest are in. Who do you think that fellow on the right might be? Hmm…

I wonder if his camel was named “Curly”.

There were so many excellent entries that it was very difficult for Dymphna and me to pick our favorites. Thanks to everybody who contributed.

The Right to Give Offense

 
Or “Offence”, for our readers in Britain and the Dominions
 

Everybody who reads blogs has heard about the Great Mohammed Cartoon Caper. So I’m not giving any links in this post. You can find information on it anywhere; there are plenty of posts right here on the topic. Or you can close your eyes and click anywhere in our blogroll; you’ll probably find a post about it there.

This is just a rant. Saturday is Ranting Day at Gates of Vienna, and today is no exception.

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I’m an American. That means I have a Constitutional right to offend you.

You’re ugly and your mother dresses you funny. It looks like someone set your face on fire and put it out with an ice pick. There’s no father’s name on your birth certificate, just a list of suspects.

Etc., etc.

But CNN won’t show you the Mohammed cartoons because they don’t want to offend Muslims. OK, that’s their privilege. We all know they’re hypocrites, but it’s a free country and they have a right to hypocrisy.

But not offending people now has the sanction of law in certain circumstances. Try telling a dirty joke at work when the wrong ladies are listening in, and learn about the laws against sexual harassment. Try using certain slang words to describe Moravians or Tahitians, and you’ll get mandatory diversity training.

New rights have been discovered in the last few decades. The Right Not to Feel Excluded, or the Right Not to be in a Hostile Environment, for example. I must have an abridged copy of the Constitution in my pocket, because I can’t find them in it.

And when did our government get charged with the responsibility to prevent me from hiring whomever I please?

Suppose I run a business, and I hate Czechs. Why should I have to hire a bohunk, then? All those talented and well-educated Czechs are going to be hired by someone else, who will then compete successfully against me and force me into Chapter 11. That’s my own fault, right? But I should be free to act on my own stupid prejudices, if that’s what I want to do.

Now, going down to Little Bohemia in the middle of the night and torching Czech groceries: that’s another matter. But that’s already covered by the laws against arson and destruction of property. Slitting the throat of my neighbor from Prague is already a capital offense here in Virginia; there’s no need to find out if I’m motivated by racial hatred.

Hate crimes! People are entitled to hate whomever they wish; it’s their actions which are legal or illegal.

By custom and precedent, the law recognizes two exceptions to the right of free speech: (1) Shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater, and (2) using “fighting words.”

There are some people who see the Mohammed cartoons as falling under one or the other of these categories. Defaming the Prophet certainly has the effect of compelling the Muslim World to jam the exits so they can start torching cars and burning buildings out in the street. And it’s clear that many of them consider the phrase “screw Mohammed” to be fighting words.

But consider this: If I say, “Sandy Koufax was a lousy pitcher,” and you’re a passionate fan of Sandy Koufax, are those fighting words?

A judge and jury would examine the evidence, evaluate it according to the standards of a reasonable man, and conclude that you deserve jail time and have to pay my hospital bills.

The key words there are “reasonable man”. The law requires us to use common sense.

And the reasonable man, applying common sense, says there’s nothing wrong with displaying images of Mohammed in a newspaper, no matter how insulting they are.

It’s time for those who are offended by such things to get over it. And those who can’t, who react violently, should be dealt with severely. Case closed.

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And then there are the legions of people who mock Christ, the “artists” who cover Him with excrement, who juxtapose Him with Nazis, who ascribe homosexuality or bestiality or necrophilia to Him: I don’t have any problem with them. Bring ’em on.

Jesus can take mockery and insults. He can handle ridicule and bad taste. He can endure the taunts of Wiccans and atheists.

He’s seen a lot worse.

“Those Sensitive Muslims,” Say the Dutch

 
Last Friday, at the conclusion of a debate on Dutch television about the Muhammad cartoons, an animated cartoon was shown. It was made by Joep Bertrams, who won an award last year for being the best Dutch political cartoonist of 2005. See it here.

Go to site linked above, and then press the button that reads “Opnieuw afspelen.”

The title “Gevoelig” means “Sensitive.”


Hat tip: Brussels Journal.

March for Free Expression

 
In a post on Monday I helped publicize a grass-roots British project to counter the growing movement to suppress free speech in order to appease Muslims.

The efforts of all the people involved have borne fruit; we received an email this morning announcing that March for Free Expression has booked Trafalgar Square for Saturday 25th March.

They also sent us the following:

Statement of Principle

The strength and survival of free society and the advance of human knowledge depend on the free exchange of ideas. All ideas give offense to someone, and some of the most powerful ideas in human history, such as those of Galileo and Darwin, have given profound religious offense in their time.

The free exchange of ideas depends on freedom of expression and this includes the right to criticize and mock.

We assert and uphold the right of freedom of expression and call on our elected representatives to do the same.

We abhor the fact that people throughout the world live under mortal threat simply for expressing ideas and we call on our elected representatives to protect them from attack and not to give comfort to the forces of intolerance that besiege them.

The group’s email address is marchforfreespeech@googlemail.com, and the blog is marchforfreeexpression.blogspot.com.

So readers in the UK — and those planning a visit — will want to make a note of the date, March 25th, and the venue, Trafalgar Square. That’s in London: just hang a left at the White Cliffs of Dover and go about 60 miles — you can’t miss it.

Eurabia Buries Her History and Traditions

 
There may be no worse affliction for a culture than its flaccid deflation in the face of bullies. When nothing is worth dying for, then life has no joy either. When the goal is to avoid getting killed, joy dies.

Celebrations in America are often based on old traditions, imported from Europe. Louisiana has Mardi Gras, and throughout the rest of the country Christian churches which follow the liturgical calendar closely also have a much quieter festival in the form of Shrove Tuesday, with pancake suppers and celebrations to mark the final day of the seasons of Christmas and Epiphany. At midnight, Ash Wednesday begins the penitential season that will lead to Easter.

Europe threw out the meaning behind the celebrations, but hey, that’s no reason to throw out the party, right? Especially the festivals which allow cultural transgressions with a certain impunity for making fun of important figures. For millennia, these carnivals have served as a vent for mayhem, making the rest of the year, with its daily, dull routines, more endurable.

At Brussels Journal there are two essays on the death and the dearth of Festival in Eurabia. In the first, “Dispatch from the Eurabian Front: The End of Carnival,” Belien describes the sad fear that infects the prospects of future festivals. Last year, after the carnival, those who are most compelled to obliterate joy — the “frothing fundos” as eteraz calls them — complained that the festival had made fun of Muslims:

After last year’s parade the organizers received a protest letter from the Arab League, stating that the event had been “insulting and offensive to Muslims and their culture.”

Well, yes. That was the point. They also make fun of the Pope and the King and any group deemed worthy of having a little air taken out of its tires.

Have you noticed that a “clash of cultures” really translates into a “rash of Muslims”? Europeans gather in crowds to celebrate; Muslims gather in crowds to complain, bully, or burn things down. I guess it comes down to this: whether your culture is rooted in Eros or Thanatos. You may guess which side is which here.

The real issue is freedom to celebrate who you are and what your history has been. It is a freedom that is disappearing in Eurabia, because above all, Islam obliterates other cultures’ histories:

…the most famous carnival celebration in Belgium is the one of the Flemish town of Aalst, 35 kms to the west of Brussels. Several groups parade through town in a pageant with floats, bands, and jesters, making fun of recent national and international events. The tradition goes back centuries, to mediaeval times. With carnival [mardi gras, as they say in Louisiana] approaching (28 February), the authorities are afraid that some groups might use the Danish cartoon crisis to dress up – God, or rather Allah, forbid – as the prophet Muhammad.

The carnival in Aalst is known for its disrespect of just about anything. This has never caused trouble in the past, though Aalst’s most popular group is a raucous, vulgar bunch of men dressed up as women, and calling themselves the “voil jeanetten” (“dirty faggots”). Mind you, the bawdiness and vulgarity is restricted to carnival, and these people are respectable, civilized, straight citizens throughout the rest of the year. Everyone, the participants and the public, know that the indecent and disrespectful behaviour is all in jest and until now nobody has ever taken offense.

Until now. Until the Muslims came and pooped on the party. The thin-skinned, the arrogant, the spoilers. Sometimes you wonder: does this inability to laugh at oneself go all the way back to Mohammed’s characterological deficits? Surely he was not known for his ability to jest about himself.

The parade and festival organizers haven’t given up hope yet. They’re meeting with town officials, trying to figure out how to have their ancient festivities without getting killed by The Grim Ones.

“Prohibit[ing] certain things might have the opposite effect,” Nicole Ringoir, the president of the organizing committee, told a Flemish newspaper. “Perhaps we should trust that the carnival revellers know how far they can go.” In other words: count on the fact that even dirty faggots fear for their lives.

That’s true. A bomb or two ought to settle things down.

Meanwhile, officials are caught between a rock and a hard place:

“We cannot censor the parade. During carnival the inhabitants of Aalst mock everything and everyone, including the Pope and the King,” Anny De Maght, the mayor of Aalst says. “I trust that our groups will know what limits to respect.”

As Mr. Belien sadly notes:

One thing is certain: in the coming age of Eurabia the mediaeval tradition of carnival will be abolished. I guess that is the price Europe will have to pay for “progress.”

Well, it is the price to be paid for dhimmitude. But maybe that’s how Eurabia will have to define “progress” from now on. The light of joy will get dimmer and dimmer until it finally flickers out.

As it is flickering now, even in Spain:

In 711 Muslim armies crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. They took Spain by force and remained there until they were thrown out during the reconquista in 1492. Every year, in a tradition that goes back to the 16th century, Spanish villages still celebrate the liberation from the Moors —emphasis added — (as the Muslims were locally called) during “Moros y Cristianos” festivals in which effigies of the prophet Muhammad – the so-called “la Mahoma” – are mocked, thrown out of windows, and burned.

Now the Spanish, having witnessed what happened to the Vikings recently, are wondering whether they can still continue their tradition of “offending Muslims.” The village of Bocairent near Valencia decided this year to discontinue the century old tradition of mocking and burning effigies of Muhammad. Bocairent does not want to risk becoming the target of suicide bombers.

Eurabia: death by a thousand cuts.

It is enough to make you weep, watching the light in the eyes of Europe dhimmi down and weasel out. It is a dark time in a darkling continent.

So This Means God Is On Our Side, Right?

Well, that's one way to decide on this piece of art. Of course, Barcepundit is less sanguine about it; he knows what the artist is up to when he displays this at a fair in Madrid:

As I've said many times before, I'm not a believer, but I know when I see a religious offence and more than that, I know when I see a double standard by people who say that we should respect artistic freedom when one religion is mocked and also say that the Mohammed cartoons are an intolerable offence to people's religious beliefs.

Unlike Barcepundit, I am a believer. And I agree with him that the point of this piece of "art" is to offend, to be edgily avant-garde.

But it fails on both levels:

mockery of Christian icons has long since jumped the shark. It is sooo 1980 you want to pat the "artist" on the head and wish him better luck next time.

It also fails to offend me. In fact, I wouldn't mind owning a copy. I wouldn't actually pay money for it, but I wouldn't mind having it. I could put it in the tulip bed, under the mimosa and next to the cow skull which has mums growing out of the eye holes -- my memento mori. The Jesus-with-Phoenix missile statue would make a nice counterpoint.

One of Barcepundit's readers emailed him:

"Just saw your story with the picture of Jesus holding a Phoenix missile. I was commissioned into the U.S. Navy through Aviation Officers Candidate School at Naval Air Station Pensacola, Pensacola, Florida (remember the movie "An Officer and a Gentleman"). I remember that the chapel on the Naval Air Station had a statue of the Virgin Mary in it holding an F-4 Phantom in her hands (Our Lady of Loretto is the patron saint of aviators). Context and perspective make all the difference."

That's the point, isn't it? Context and perspective actually provide the meaning of any event, and it is the participant's provision of meaning that matters. I was in that chapel many times as a child and I'm sure I saw the statue holding a jet. It wouldn't have made a particular impression: a Catholic school education includes lessons on the concept of the just war.

In a naval chapel, such an icon would make sense: anyone who knows enough jet pilots for any length of time knows jet pilots' widows. My cousin was one at the ripe old age of twenty three.

Wish I did remember seeing that statue.

And Now For A Little Good News from Iraq

 
Want some good news for a change? Tired of “frothing fundos” as eteraz calls them? Sick of listening to Beltway chatter?

Well, here’s a little gem from the comment section in Iraq The Model’s post, The UIA Faces the Threat of Being Outnumbered. The post itself is informative — it sounds busy, contentious and hopeful:

It looks like the real negotiations between the political powers have just begun with great pressures on the politicians to contain their differences and start building the state especially with escalating public contempt about the delay in forming the government.

There's also pressure from the international community in this regard; today the security council urged the Iraqi politicians to form the government as soon as possible and to make it a government that represents the entire Iraq spectrum.

Then, way down in the responses, you find this information from a commenter, Maurice. Unfortunately, his comment is without email or homepage, but I’m willing to believe him when he says he did the research:

LIFE IN IRAQ:

During the past few weeks, I have done some careful research into what is happening in Iraq.

I have discovered that 47 countries have re-established their embassies there. The current Iraq government employs 1.2 million Iraqis. More than 3,100 schools have been renovated and 364 are being rehabilitated, with 263 under construction. Twenty universities and 46 institutes are operating. Some 4.3 million Iraqi children were enrolled in primary schools by the end of 2005.

The Iraqi police force has more than 55,000 fully trained and equipped officers and there are five police academies producing 3,500 new officers every eight weeks.

There are at least 1,190,000 mobile-phone subscribers. There is a fully independent media network of 75 radio stations, 180 newspapers and 10 television stations.

Much normal life is going on, although we rarely hear about it.

Maurice is right, we don’t hear about it. Why do you suppose that is?

What’s your favorite statistic? I like the almost-two million cell phone users. In my own life, I loathe the darn things, but to think of a country like Iraq being able to communicate so openly... yeah, the MSM naysayers will remind you that some are being used to set off explosives and for other nefarious, murderous projects. But the overwhelming and vast majority of calls are from or to Ali Whomever, talking to his wife, finding out what he’s supposed to pick up on the way home. Iraqis are enjoying the fundamental pleasures of routine lives. To quote the song from the Wallflowers:

You'd have a wonderful day
If you could see how lucky you are...

One thing Maurice didn’t mention was the incredible rate of building, refurbishing and rehabbing medical facilities across the country. There are more than three hundred in the last two years…

Someone start humming “Movin’ On Up.”

Gratias Plena, Iris

 
Oh, every once in awhile, when you’re just going along thinking of nothing in particular, out of the blue — a gift. A real gift for no reason at all. Just like that, poof! Here you are!

So it was recently. A reader, obviously noting the drool marks on my post about Scandinavian goodies, took pity on me and sent —oh, so graciously sent — a gift certificate to buy some Danish goodies at Amazon.

And guess what they had: pâté ! Made in Denmark, no less.

In generations gone by, my paternal ancestors owned Donnelly’s in Ireland. I’m told it was famous for its ham and sausages and pork goods. Members of the family went to Denmark to learn how to make it correctly. As a result they prospered.

And now I have my very own Danish pâté, to share or not…as luck would have it, my doctor wants me to eat lots of protein and suggested canned meat and fish.

Iris must have been listening, because up popped that blue Amazon gift card on my screen. As one of my favorite theologians is fond of saying, “isn’t God wonderful?” (to which, when I had said it once too often, the Baron’s Boy replied, “sometimes He is, sometimes He isn’t).

Thank you, Iris. And my doctor thanks you. And the Baron thinks you're cool.

They're Moving To Shut You Up

 
Brian C. Anderson, author of South Park Conservatives, has an essay in this quarter’s City Journal. If his premises are correct, it is chilling to consider the conclusions.

In The Plot to Shush Rush and O’ Reilly , Mr. Anderson makes the claim that if the Left has its way, conservative radio and other media — including blogs — will either be severely regulated or banished from the public forum.

The rise of alternative media—political talk radio in the eighties, cable news in the nineties, and the blogosphere in the new millennium—has broken the liberal monopoly over news and opinion outlets. The Left understands acutely the implications of this revolution, blaming much of the Democratic Party’s current electoral trouble on the influence of the new media’s vigorous conservative voices. Instead of fighting back with ideas, however, today’s liberals quietly, relentlessly, and illiberally are working to smother this flourishing universe of political discourse under a tangle of campaign-finance and media regulations. Their campaign represents the most sustained attack on free political speech in the United States since the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts. (emphasis added)

Mr. Anderson places the blame directly on the McCain-Feingold monstrosity that is continuing to spawn its ill-conceived and illegitimate grotesqueries whose sole raison d'être is to stifle the free expression of ideas. As we continue down the slippery slope to enforced silence we ought at least to look behind to see the forces determined to shove us there.

They include the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Ford Foundation, and, George – of course – Soros’ Open Society Institute. If Soros has his way, the open society will go the way of the dodo bird.

And here’s a bit of research you probably didn’t know:

Campaign-finance reform has a squeaky-clean image, but the dirty truth is that this speech-throttling legislation is partly the result of a hoax perpetrated by a handful of liberal foundations, led by the venerable Pew Charitable Trusts. New York Post reporter Ryan Sager exposed the scam when he got hold of a 2004 videotape of former Pew official Sean Treglia telling a roomful of journalists and professors how Pew and other foundations spent years bankrolling various experts, ostensibly independent nonprofits (including the Center for Public Integrity and Democracy 21), and media outlets (NPR got $1.2 million for “news coverage of financial influence in political decision-making”)—all aimed at fooling Washington into thinking that Americans were clamoring for reform, when in truth there was little public pressure to “clean up the system.” “The target group for all this activity was 535 people in Washington,” said Treglia matter-of-factly, referring to Congress. “The idea was to create an impression that a mass movement was afoot—that everywhere they looked, in academic institutions, in the business community, in religious groups, in ethnic groups, everywhere, people were talking about reform.”

In other words, we’ve been had.

Want to know what is in the works for blogs? According to Mr. Anderson’s scenario, it’s ugly:

Campaign-finance reform now has the blogosphere in its crosshairs. When the Federal Election Commission wrote specific rules in 2002 to implement McCain-Feingold, it voted 4 to 2 to exempt the Web. After all, observed the majority of three Republicans and one Democrat (the agency divides its seats evenly between the two parties), Congress didn’t list the Internet among the “public communications”—everything from television to roadside billboards—that the FEC should regulate.

Further, “the Internet is virtually a limitless resource, where the speech of one person does not interfere with the speech of anyone else,” reasoned Republican commissioner Michael Toner.

“Not so fast,” say these “reformers”:

...when the chief House architects of campaign-finance reform, joined by McCain and Feingold, sued—claiming that the Internet was one big “loophole” that allowed big money to keep on corrupting—a federal judge agreed, ordering the FEC to clamp down on Web politics. Then-commissioner Bradley Smith and the two other Republicans on the FEC couldn’t persuade their Democratic colleagues to vote to appeal.

The FEC thus has plunged into what Smith calls a “bizarre” rule-making process that could shackle the political blogosphere. This would be a particular disaster for the Right, which has maintained its early advantage over the Left in the blogosphere, despite the emergence of big liberal sites like Daily Kos. Some 157 of the top 250 political blogs express right-leaning views, a recent liberal survey found. Reaching a growing and influential audience—hundreds of thousands of readers weekly (including most journalists) for the top conservative sites—the blogosphere has enabled the Right to counter the biases of the liberal media mainstream. Without the blogosphere, Howell Raines would still be the New York Times’s editor, Dan Rather would only now be retiring, garlanded with praise—and John Kerry might be president of the U.S., assuming that CBS News had gotten away with its last-minute falsehood about President Bush’s military service that the diligent bloggers at PowerLine, LittleGreenFootballs, and other sites swiftly debunked.

Yes, that is what happened and that’s what the Democrats want to smother, as quickly and as quietly as possible.

If the Baron is correct, then entities like Pajamas Media will protect lone bloggers from the worst of the extremes of this execrable legalistic strong-arm thuggishness. Further, if he’s correct, then let a thousand Pajamas Media enterprises bloom. We will need them all to protect ourselves.

Go read the rest. See how they plan to cage O’Reilly and Limbaugh. It’s not pretty, but at least you’re prepared. If the media since 9/11 have done nothing else, they have taught us to see that they are not prepared to act in America’s interest unless it co-incides with its own prejudices. Have you noticed how seldom our interests and theirs happen to intersect?

Lovers of liberty should expose calls to restore the Fairness Doctrine for the fraudulent power-grab that they plainly are. And the Right, in particular, needs to understand how much it has benefited from a deregulated media universe. It should be confident that it has the right ideas, and that when it gets the chance to present them directly to the American people—as the new media have allowed it to do—it will win the debate. [emphasis added]

City Journal , Winter 2006

Build Submission With Lego!

This is hilarious. I have no idea where it originated, but I got it at The Lone Voice.

Do you suppose the Lego people have a sense of humor?


Update: Reader DC writes from the Netherlands to say that the Mohammed/Lego image was originally posted on a Dutch blog called Retecool.

WARNING to readers who are easily offended, or have weak stomachs, or are averse to grotesque images, or are from The Common Room: you may not want to click this link to Retecool.

However, I found many highly amusing Mohammed cartoons there. The sight gags were clear, but the jokes in Dutch were hard to make out.

First and Final Thoughts on This Matter

point cursor on picture

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Drooling Fool

 
There has to be some limit to the idiocy of diplo-double speak. Whatever that limit is, Kofi passed it so long ago you can't even look back and see it anymore.

Today, he lectured President Bush after a private meeting and in front of reporters --

...not to "escalate" tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions because the world wants to "find a way out of this crisis."

"We need to be able to resolve it, and I hope there will be no steps taken to escalate this approach," Mr. Annan told the president at the end of a meeting in the Oval Office.

It is not reorted whether Bush bitch-slapped him before or after Annan the Ass made this crapulous statement to waiting reporters. However, Scott McClellan got in his licks:

White House press secretary Scott McClellan later railed against Iran without escalating the administration's rhetoric.

"Iran has shown that they can't be trusted with nuclear technology because they have hidden their activities for some two decades," he said. "They failed to comply with their international obligations."

The meeting came as Iran announced that it was postponing a planned resumption of negotiations with Russia and also would restart its uranium enrichment.

The Moscow talks, which had been designed to assuage world concerns about the Islamic republic's intentions by having Russia enrich uranium for Tehran, had been scheduled to resume Thursday.

"We support the proposal that was offered by Russia," Mr. McClellan said. "But what you see coming from the regime is continued defiance of the world, a continued disregard for their international obligations and a continued thumbing of their nose to what the world has demanded."

Or, as Goesh said so well in a recent comment:

For sure the world we know will be forever altered once Iran is armed with nukes. They have immense energy contracts with China. Once China has its 3 Gorge dam completed, it will have 9 times the electrical output of Hoover dam. It will go mostly to industrial development. Relatively decent products made with very cheap labor and no peripheral overhead costs like social security and workmans comp and unemployment, no OSHA, no EPA, no Human Rights and Cultural Diversity watch-dogs that a society must pay for. The 3 Gorge dam will enable China to project naval force via carriers. They will resist, possibly even with the threat of force, anything that threatens their access to Iran's energy reserves. they fear a major disruption if force is used and Iran knows this and will exploit it. China holds billions of US dollars as well. The US reached its apex and 9/11 was the start of our decline. Iran with nukes only hastens the decline. Once armed and the cash flowing in, they can export terrorism and disruption like we can't imagine. Hell, they can set up large training camps right on their borders and there ain't a damn thing can be done about it. It's like the thug that shows up for a street fight with a sawed-off shotgun and everyone else has brass knuckles, pretending to be tough. But be of good cheer - you can still have it your way at McDondalds. Ain't it grand being free?

I think instead of McDonald's it will be more like the Dali Lama's hotdog: "make me one with everything."

If only someone had the wisdom to tape Annan's mouth shut permanently.