It takes a long time to turn around a battleship. But lo and behold, it appears as if elements in the traditional media are finally coming around to what we have known for a long time: the Bush-Cheney administration is psychotic.
Forget impeachment. Liberals, put it behind you. George W. Bush and Dick Cheney shouldn't be treated like criminals who deserve punishment. They should be treated like psychotics who need treatment.
I may disagree with Rosa Brooks' prescription, but her diagnosis is spot-fucking-on.
Brooks continues:
they've clearly gone mad. Exhibit A: We're in the middle of a disastrous war in Iraq, the military and political situation in Afghanistan is steadily worsening, and the administration's interrogation and detention tactics have inflamed anti-Americanism and fueled extremist movements around the globe. Sane people, confronting such a situation, do their best to tamp down tensions, rebuild shattered alliances, find common ground with hostile parties and give our military a little breathing space. But crazy people? They look around and decide it's a great time to start another war.
That would be with Iran, and you'd have to be deaf not to hear the war drums. Last week, Bush remarked that "if you're interested in avoiding World War III . . . you ought to be interested in preventing [Iran] from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon." On Sunday, Cheney warned of "the Iranian regime's efforts to destabilize the Middle East and to gain hegemonic power . . . [we] cannot stand by as a terror-supporting state fulfills its most aggressive ambitions." On Tuesday, Bush insisted on the need "to defend Europe against the emerging Iranian threat."
Huh? Iran is now a major threat to Europe? The Iranians are going to launch a nuclear missile (that they don't yet possess) against Europe (for reasons unknown because, as far as we know, they're not mad at anyone in Europe)? This is lunacy in action.
It is high time the media started recognizing this as something other than empty saber rattling. Saber rattling is designed to intimidate an enemy or potential enemy, and to cow them into standing down. What this administration is doing is plain and simple baiting and provocation. And they have made the State Department complicit.
A final excerpt:
Writing in Newsweek on Oct. 20, Fareed Zakaria, a solid centrist and former editor of Foreign Affairs, put it best. Citing Bush's invocation of "the specter of World War III if Iran gained even the knowledge needed to make a nuclear weapon," Zakaria concluded that "the American discussion about Iran has lost all connection to reality. . . . Iran has an economy the size of Finland's. . . . It has not invaded a country since the late 18th century. The United States has a GDP that is 68 times larger and defense expenditures that are 110 times greater. Israel and every Arab country (except Syria and Iraq) are . . . allied against Iran. And yet we are to believe that Tehran is about to overturn the international system and replace it with an Islamo-fascist order? What planet are we on?"
Olbermann and Dana Milbank said it best last night: to make radical sweeping changes toward tyranny, this administration has no choice but to create villains bigger and more cartoonish than they are, and to stir up fear with frenetic desperation. Their only hope is that people do not pause to use their brains before going jelly-kneed, signing away their civil liberties for the false promise of "safety," and rushing out to Home Depot for duct tape.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you don't think Bush and Cheney are busy architecting a plan to start a war with Iran, you're either ignorant or hopelessly in denial.
Will it happen tomorrow? Probably not. Can it be stopped? I have no idea.