Year 2, Day 251 (Fire The D.J.'s And You Stop The Spin)

Pretty recently, a man whom I know through social media (though we haven't yet met in real life) and I engaged in a pretty good conversation, which actually sparked this post. I won't reveal his real name, so let's call him "Mike" (that's seems a common enough name). Mike and I were discussing what's going on in the Middle East, more specifically between Israel and Iran. He views Israel's Prime Minister Netenyahu as being "war hungry" toward Iran. I feel differently. Here's a few differences between the two: PM Netenyahu has never called for the destruction of Iran, Ahmedinijad has called for Israel's destruction... on many occasions... in many different forums (to include the U.N. General Assembly, right in NYC); Netenyahu was never involved in taking American hostages, Ahmedinijad has (remember 1978-79?); Israel has nuclear weapons, Iran wants nuclear weapons (they key difference here is Israel has them for possible use in a defensive measure, whereas Iran has already made it known they want nuclear weapons to destroy Israel. But you know it wouldn't stop there, Iran would further use the weapons against other "infidel" nations... which definitely would mean the U.S.

Mike and I agree that we need to pull our troops out of the Middle East. I also think that our Government needs to stop meddling in the affairs of the Middle East especially since NOBODY in Washington has any clue about the culture NOR the mindset... and I will stress - they have NO CLUE!

During our diatribe, Mike had mentioned Bush never finding the WMD's. Let's look back in history briefly. First, then-President G.W. Bush, in the days & weeks following 9/11, was responding to the intelligence reports he was given by then-Director George Tenet. Tenet had been appointed the deputy DCI (Director of Central Intelligence) in 1996. At the end of 1997, the then-DCI, John Deutch abruptly resigned, making Tenet the acting DCI. Shortly after that, he was unanimously appointed, after then-National Security Advisor to Clinton, Anthony Lake, was blocked for confirmation, then withdrew his nomination for the position.

As you can see, there were a lot leech-lines to this cesspool known as "politics". Much like there were leech-lines with the WMD debacle. When Bush went to the U.N. to get the green light to send troops (which I don't think he should have asked the U.N., but rather told them what we were going to do... we were attacked!) into Iraq, there had already been dirty money being made due to the "Oil For Food" scandal. It's possible that some of that dirty money made its way into the pockets of certain U.N. Diplomats. It had already been discovered that Germany and France had business dealings with Iraq, under Hussein (another point of irony: it was also Germany and France who's opposing vote blocked the U.S. from sending troops weeks earlier). I'll put it this way: U.N. "sources" (probably directly tied to Germany and France) get in touch with Iraqi officials with the message (to put in non-Diplomat terms), "Something's getting ready to go down and we're are trying to hold off the dogs... whatever you have - make it disappear!" It sounds kooky, but when you consider that, on multiple occasions, when U.N. Inspectors were searching facilities in Iraq (stemming from the post-Desert Storm U.N. resolution treaty/agreement), it was almost laughable that they were denied access and run off by either Iraqi troops, government officials, or both.

Getting back to Israel... to put it in a nutshell: if our Government can't even protect our own people, then have no right to tell Israel not to defend theirs. Ahmedinijad is not only a danger to Israel, he is a danger to the world. Remember, we didn't realize how dangerous Adolf Hitler was until the world found out he had murdered millions before anything was done.

By the way, thanks you, "Mike" for the discussion. Did I miss anything?