tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post4458386223248220501..comments2024-01-11T07:40:01.736-05:00Comments on The Stopped Clock: Fear Of Paper TigersAaronhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-68639705174976129212008-05-23T11:08:00.000-04:002008-05-23T11:08:00.000-04:00A point of clarification on the USSR as "dangerous...A point of clarification on the USSR as "dangerously apocalyptic". The argument has been made that the U.S. exaggerated the threat of the USSR during the cold war, for any number of reasons, and that its leaders were far less apocalyptic than the government and mainstream media suggested. If Krauthammer is advancing his argument on the basis of that revised history, simply put, he's engaged in the same type of hyping of an enemy that he pretends did not occur in relation to the USSR - only on an exponentially greater scale.Aaronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5973827.post-53675373215608073562008-05-23T10:25:00.000-04:002008-05-23T10:25:00.000-04:00If you are in doubt that the "it's like Kennedy an...If you are in doubt that the "it's like Kennedy and Kruschev" argument is a right-wing talking point, <A HREF="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/22/AR2008052203016.html" REL="nofollow">Charles Krauthammer is doing his best to erase those doubts</A>. It's quite the "Chicken Little" act.<BR/><BR/><EM>Having lashed himself to the ridiculous, unprecedented promise of unconditional presidential negotiations -- and then having compounded the problem by elevating it to a principle -- Obama keeps trying to explain. On Sunday, he declared in Pendleton, Ore., that by Soviet standards Iran and others "don't pose a serious threat to us." (On the contrary. Islamic Iran is dangerously apocalyptic. Soviet Russia was not.) The next day in Billings, Mont.: "I've made it clear for years that the threat from Iran is grave."</EM><BR/><BR/>For those who grew up in the cold war, remembering everything from "duck and cover" to "the Evil Empire", with the constantly hyped fear of nuclear annihilation by the USSR, it may seem glib and dishonest for Krauthammer to suggest that the former USSR was not "dangerously apocalyptic". But it's Krauthammer, so that's par for the course.<BR/><BR/>And that's before we address the fact that even if we assume Iran is more "dangerously apocalyptic" than was the USSR, as I previously noted Iran is a country that can be quickly and decisively crushed under the heel of the U.S. military. It poses no significant military threat to the United States or any U.S. allies, let alone an existential threat. You want to hype Iran as more dangerous than the USSR at the height of the cold war? Then you're either incredibly stupid, or don't mind anybody with a whit of intelligence immediately recognizing you as a lying buffoon.Aaronhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16523334580402022332noreply@blogger.com