Ho ho ho, peace on earth,and all that. It's Christmas Eve, and to celebrate the paciferous Yuletide, the New York Times publishes an Op-Ed by the grinning snaggletoothed academic hyena shown above, one Alan J. Kuperman, who is -- surprise! -- advocating immediate preemptive war on Iran.
I guess it's a little like the Times' version of last year's nicely-timed Gaza invasion. Fortunately the Times doesn't have any actual bombers or tanks at its disposal -- just a bottomless fund of vicious bloodthirsty bluster and armchair strategizing, the overstated tough talk of the white-collar classes.
It's always kinda fun to pull on the odd strand of that tangled yarn-ball known as the Israel Lobby. Kuperman is a former aide to Senator "Up" Chuck Schumer, and has a staff position on something called the "Nuclear Control Institute" (NCI), apparently a kind of shell organization with a mail drop and a Web site devoted to beating the war-drums against Iran. The characteristically coarse illustration below comes from the Web site:
Letting a genie out of a bottle -- get it?
Pulling a bit more at the yarn reveals that NCI was founded by Paul Leventhal, whose obit in the Washpost tells us inter alia that
He spent 10 years as an investigative and political reporter at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the New York Post and Newsday, until deciding that he wanted to "get inside of government and try to make it work."In 1969, he came to Washington as a press secretary to Sen. Jacob K. Javits.... From 1979 to 1981, he was staff director of the Senate Nuclear Regulation Subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.).
This rattle of the Times' inky sabre follows upon last week's comically lopsided vote by the hope-n-change team in the House -- 412-12 -- to impose more sanctions on Iran. Note that this vote was not a response to anything, though the Iranians themselves had a response or two. It was, of course, a provocation.
Remember back in the run-up to the Iraq war, when the joke going the rounds was that everybody wants to go to Baghdad, but real men want to go to Tehran? Apparently the real men still do.
Comments (4)
All Europe contributed to the making of Kurtz; and by and by I learned that, most appropriately, the International Society for the Suppression of Savage Customs had intrusted him with the making of a report, for its future guidance...it was a beautiful piece of writing. The opening paragraph, however, in the light of later information, strikes me now as ominous. He began with the argument that we whites, from the point of development we had arrived at, `must necessarily appear to them [savages] in the nature of supernatural beings--we approach them with the might of a deity,' and so on, and so on. `By the simple exercise of our will we can exert a power for good practically unbounded,' etc., etc. From that point he soared and took me with him. The peroration was magnificent, though difficult to remember, you know. It gave me the notion of an exotic Immensity ruled by an august Benevolence. It made me tingle with enthusiasm. This was the unbounded power of eloquence--of words--of burning noble words. There were no practical hints to interrupt the magic current of phrases, unless a kind of note at the foot of the last page, scrawled evidently much later, in an unsteady hand, may be regarded as the exposition of a method. It was very simple, and at the end of that moving appeal to every altruistic sentiment it blazed at you, luminous and terrifying, like a flash of lightning in a serene sky: `Exterminate all the brutes!'
Posted by sl65 | December 24, 2009 9:53 PM
Posted on December 24, 2009 21:53
Perfect.
Posted by MJS | December 25, 2009 1:52 AM
Posted on December 25, 2009 01:52
Here is an Israeli Mr. Kurtz--another product of 'all Europe'--who used to be an indefatigable peace camper committed to dialog with the natives, but nowadays "paints apocalyptic visions with a smile on his lips". Needless to say his recommendation for Iran, aired by the ever obliging New York Times, is nuclear weapons.
Posted by sl65 | December 25, 2009 4:32 AM
Posted on December 25, 2009 04:32
that old pole
from his pretentious
and ultimately non historic nation
might well fear
sivilized souls
with visions of
exterminating brutes
but we are the greatest settler state the earth has ever known
we make history as if we were plowing
the plains
uncle clears savage people like underbrush
and to each type there is a reservation
where a purgative progress awaits them
Posted by op | December 25, 2009 7:10 AM
Posted on December 25, 2009 07:10