Iran and Who's Crying Wolf?

In the 2/24/07 online edition of the Herald Sun:

"Cheney hints at Iran strike"
By Greg Sheridan
February 24, 2007 01:20am
Article from: The Australian

[excerpts, with a few comments by me in bold brackets]

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has raised the possibility of military action to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

He has endorsed Republican senator John McCain's proposition that the only thing worse than a military confrontation with Iran would be a nuclear-armed Iran. [The only thing worse than a nuclear armed Iran would be a superpower up to its eyeballs in WMD; a superpower that has actually demonstrated its willingness to use nuclear weapons on mass civilian populations and its willingness to carry out mass murder (see Hiroshima and Nagasaki); a rogue state that doesn't recognize international law, that has committed the ultimate war crime of invading a country that posed no threat to it, that is threatening as we speak to do it again, and that has legalized and daily practices torture].

In an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr. Cheney said: "I would guess that John McCain and I are pretty close to agreement." [Huh. Imagine that? The Vice said something true! Quick, write that down before it self-destructs.]

The visiting Vice-President said that he had no doubt Iran was striving to enrich uranium to the point where they could make nuclear weapons.

He accused Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of espousing an "apocalyptic philosophy" and making "threatening noises about Israel and the US and others." [There's a big difference between their apocalypse and ours. We are on a mission from a Christian god and Smirk talks directly to a Christian god. When we make threatening noises about Iran or Syria or whoever, this is because they deserve it and we're only doing it for the interests of all of humanity. So, repeat after me: "rapture doesn't equal apocalypse."]

He also said Iran was a sponsor of terrorism, especially through Hezbollah. However, the US did not believe Iran possessed any nuclear weapons as yet. [As Borat said to the American rodeo audience: "We support your war OF terror!"]

"You get various estimates of where the point of no return is," Mr. Cheney said, identifying nuclear terrorism as the greatest threat to the world. [Not the "US and of A." Not global warming. Not avian flu. Now let me be clear here so everyone understands this difference. When I speak of nuclear terrorism, I don't mean nuclear terrorism when it's committed by a superpower such as the US. It's only nuclear terrorism when it's a country that doesn't even have a nuke yet. Because, you see, when non-superpowers have nukes this is bad. When superpowers have nukes, this is good because they can use their nukes to prevent non-nuclear nations from developing nukes. Exceptions: when it involves certain Asian nations with "North" in front of their names and "Korea" as their last names, these rules don't apply since they already have nukes that they could use against the US if the US attacks them. Big superpowers only use their force in situations where the material advantages are all on our side.]

Earlier, in an address in Sydney to the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue, Mr Cheney had emphasised the importance of the challenge of defeating Islamist terror, underlining the long-term nature of the struggle for the US and its allies.

"We have never had a fight like this, and it's not a fight we can win using the strategies from other wars," he said. [Strategies like the too "quaint" rules of the Geneva Conventions or protecting "civil" liberties and personal "privacy"].

Mr. Cheney, who is regarded as the most hardline member of the Bush administration, was unrepentant about the Iraq operation.

"The world's better off now that (Saddam Hussein) is dead and there's a democratically elected Government in his place in Baghdad," he said.

"The Iraqi people are well on the road to establishing a viable democracy." [See how we've transformed that nasty place where Saddham Hussein used to torture and kill his political opponents at Abu Ghraib? Why, now the guards conducting the torture speak ENGLISH! And when they blare loud music to keep the prisoners from sleeping at all the songs are in ENGLISH! See how stable this viable democracy is and how people love the US and the current Iraqi administration? See how co-operative everyone is and how well basic services such as water and electricity and the educational system operate?]

"In the long term when we look back on this period of time that will be a remarkable achievement. We're not there yet. We've still got a lot to do." [Yep. And so do we.]