The Viet Nam question thingy, I guess that would be a NO, I guess.

I think what Chomsky said about the party line is what is the most frustrating aspect of the madness. Somewhere the debate is delineated by the powers that be and all the discussion is limited to those parameters. The assumption that Iran possessing nuclear arms is the end of the world is clearly a false premise. Our invasion of Iraq has clearly frightened Iran to the point where having nuclear weapons is desirable for them yet even so that desire is likely predicated on the idea that it would deal them stronger cards from a diplomatic perspective. The only problem with that is that our government is not at all interested in diplomacy when it comes to Iran. It is only interested in bombing Iran into submission.

Here is a perfect example of the parameters in this form email I received from Dianne Feinstein.

“I understand your concerns about this issue. I believe that the
United States should resolve its differences with Iran diplomatically,
through direct negotiations and dialogue with Iranian officials. We must
also work closely with our friends and allies in the international
community to pressure Iran to abandon its efforts to attain nuclear
weapons, cease its active support for terrorist groups, and become a
positive force for change in the Middle East.

The United States, together with its European allies, has
presented Iran with a package of incentives to halt its enrichment
program. Unfortunately, Iran did not respond positively to this offer and,..”

Feinstein makes the proper noises about diplomacy but reveals the limits of the debate when she says “Unfortunately, Iran did not respond postivively…” as well as her assumption that we must deter Iran from attaining nuclear weapons. These are all assumptions that are part of the party line where the entire discussion is based on a lie. This is making me crazy.

they learned from the past, they learned you need bigger, badder bogeymen, and false flag attacks on the home soil, something along the lines of a new Pearl Harbor.

They learned that when you are losing a guerrilla war, it’s easier to blame the neighboring countries for the guerrillas than to acknowledge that the locals hate you.

The problem of course, is that bombing North Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos didn’t prevent America from being defeated in South Vietnam. Bombing Iran, Syria, and Lebanon won’t prevent defeat in Iraq (or Afghanistan) either.

As long as we keep PAYING for it, we'll keep seeing it.

regarding Americans learning from the past: I would very much like to think that there is nothing immutable in American culture that prevents us from doing so, just our immutably horrible major news media. (That's one of the reasons that, after I first heard about IWT News here at ATR nearly 2 years ago, I decided I needed to try to encurage other bloggers to promote them. So far, unfortunately, I've been mostly unsuccessful in this regard. But IWT News is still a viable idea, and may yet succeed.)

regarding Iranian nukes: doesn't US behavior actually ENCOURAGE their development? North Korea actually has nuclear warheads now, and as a consequence, Junior is never heard to utter so much as a peep by way of threatening them, and the US has recently said that we'd negotiate with them.

So isn't the lesson, if you're a member of the "axis of evil", get some nukes or the US will invade you?

proliferation doesn't seem to be as closely related to actual threat as i used to think it was. maybe it is. but it might be more a "pay attention to us" thing, than a security thing. we haven't actually invaded or bombed anybody lately who could fight back in the short term or who had, like, friends. if our disobedient employees do the iran thing, it'll be the first time in half a century we went to war with a country capable of fighting back in the short term (as opposed to attrition).

For sixty years or more we openly threatened the Russians but never did anything to them... Yes, nuclear weapons are your best bet if you want self- determination in the world. But the legitimate intellectual community has been saying that for decades, so let's look at this with some real perspective... The imperialist impetus in our power spheres both of the Left and Right has, through many other past failures at imperialism, become weak. Weak even to the point of ineffectiveness and yes eventually irrelavence. Hence they have portrayed such instances as: Iraq, Iran, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Viet Nam and Chile as a "debacles" or "mistakes" to conceal their shattered egoes. In reality, they are plain as day defeats of their hegemonic course. They have lost and will continue to do so. Black and White, Up and Down, no "Bones" about it. Thus, the majority of the American public have seen these Post-WWII failures and have wisely made the decision to slowly-but-surely abandon Imperium. This however, might not stick. If we as a people(who have long made erroneous pretentions of honor)had any sense, we would push for the life-long and unconditional imprisomment of everyone who has any legitimate investment or involvement with this imperial monster, liberal or conservative, democrat or republican... When it comes to the US Imperium, there is truly no diffenece and we all know it.