George McGovern spouts idiocy in
George McGovern spouts idiocy in The Nation. Here are some questions he asks:
Would we be better off opening up diplomatic, trade and travel relations with rogue countries, including a well-staffed embassy in each?
Of course! Setting up fully staffed embassies in Iran, Iraq and North Korea would allow those hostile to American interests to vent their frustrations by blowing them up, thus preventing future acts of terrorism. Similarly, we could send over groups of American tourists that could then be kidnapped and beheaded, with videotapes of each murder circulated among the disaffected, thus satisfying their blood-lust in the most economical manner possible in terms of lives lost. Brilliant! And let's not forget: if the governments of said countries still hate us, we can open up full trade relations with them so that they can finally get the cash flows they need to finish their nuclear ICBM programs. That will make them feel safe and secure, which is all that Sadaam Hussein, Kim Jong Il, and the Mullahs of Iran really want.
Isn't a rogue nation simply one we have chosen to boycott because it doesn't always behave the way we think it should?
Absolutely! After all, it's really not a big deal that Hussein experiments on his minority populations with chemical weapons, or that Jong Il is starving his population, or that Iran is providing high-grade explosives to Palestinian suicide bombers to increase their effectiveness. We should let those leaders know that we really do understand where they're coming from, and that it's perfectly alright with us if they want to kill, maim, and starve their citizens.
Is not the best way to diminish some of the international trouble spots, which might embroil our young men and women, by reducing the festering poverty, misery and hopelessness of a suffering world?
Yes! If we just provide Hussein and Jong Il with all the food their countries' populations need, I'm sure that they'll make certain that every citizen gets it before it rots on the docks. It is obvious that all of the world's problems can be solved if we just funnel more American tax revenues to other countries so that they can spend the money with the wisdom and responsibility that they have so clearly demonstrated in the past.
Is it possible that our well-intentioned President and his Vice President have gone off the track of common sense in their seeming obsession with terrorism?
Definitely possible! I mean, why be obsessed about three thousand American dead in our greatest city and our nation's capital? That's nothing to get upset about, after all…it's just mass murder. It's not like they're going to do it again, or anything. I'm sure that they've gotten it out of their systems, and feel no need to acquire nuclear or biological weapons so that they can kill tens of thousands of us. Bush and Cheney might in fact be downright loopy!
McGovern's absolute disconnection with the reality of the events of September 11 and the world we live in is beyond belief. It is, in a word, appalling. His glossing over of the complexity of the threats we face in order to service his simplistic, “all you need is love and foreign aid” pseudo-philosophy is an offense to our American dead.
This is a man who thinks that a stateless terrorist with a nuclear weapon is just like the Soviet Union with a field of missile silos. This is a man who has reduced the powdered ashes of the 2,077 still-missing bodies at the World Trade Center to the mischief of a ‘hobgoblin.'
This is a man who wanted to be President of these United States.
