[ExI] "Atlas Shrugged" film review

[Kelly Anderson]

On Sat, Apr 23, 2011 at 8:39 AM, spike <spike66 at att.net> wrote:
> Missiles?  We knew they didn't have missiles.

Certainly not long range missiles, but there were the scuds, capable
of reaching Israel, though without much accuracy. Whether they still
had capacity to construct scuds at the time... who knows. I still
wonder if some stuff (intellectual property, at least) wasn't smuggled
out to Syria. I mean they had a year's warning, why wouldn't they? Who
knows.

> ... the
> Middle Eastern way.  It's a dangerous neighborhood.

Indeed. And who is the biggest military bully in the neighborhood?
Clearly now it is Iran. Pull out a map, and you'll notice that Iran is
now nicely book-ended by Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Is it
possible that Iraq was invaded in hopes of isolating and weakening
Iran? I am not saying that it has worked out that way, yet, but that
could have been the hope. It may still be the hope. The Iranian people
are reportedly very fond of the west. Why they don't rise up is
anyone's guess. Especially now that other countries are erupting.

One weakness of the Bush administration seems to have been an
overabundance of optimism. Overthrow Saddam, and Iraq automatically
becomes our ally? Weaken Iran and the populace will overthrow the
ayatollahs? We only need a small armed force to hold Iraq? The middle
east will automatically evolve to western style democracies with
freedoms like the Bill of Rights? Really? They REALLY believed that
stuff? Hard to swallow that degree of optimism.

Of course, the same might be said of the current invasion of Libya.
Despite McCain's assurances (Really, he was the BEST the Republicans
could come up with, Really?) I really wonder if the Libyan insurgents
are immune from current or future infiltration by Muslim radicals.
Power vacuums suck up terrorists, haven't we learned that yet?

Ultimately, I think a lot of the reason we went to Iraq was the
attempted assassination of George Bush Sr. by Saddam. I don't know why
people don't make a bigger deal out of that. If you knew there was a
guy who was interested in a) killing your father and b) killing
someone with your unique job, it would seem like self defense to do
something about him, regardless of the excuse fed to the public.

This isn't the first war where the reason we got in was misinterpreted
to the American public. The Spanish American war and the Vietnam war
come to mind. I'm sure there were more. Why would we think the
government has changed it's approach to PR/propaganda?

It is all solved by my plan to pay for all oil related wars at the gas pump. :-)

-Kelly