Nuking Iran?

Today’s Youtube obsession brings you a clip from Bill Maher, all about “science”.

One thing that Youtube doesn’t have (yet) is a version of a weirdly exciting video by Les Rhythmes Digitales (aka Stuart Price) called, “Hey You.” When I first saw it, I was confused by the modern sound combined with the retro 80s look. My poor monkey brain couldn’t decide if this was intentional kitch, if it was a genuine attempt to be cool, or if it was just French. Luckily for you, this site has the video in several sizes of stream.

Apropos of nothing, I always find it strangely exciting when something I do on a whim ends up becoming part of a serious scholarly work. It’s happened a number of times over the years. Yes, my droogies, Deonandan.com has been cited in someone’s thesis.

Today’s serious topic is a small news bit: Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay has refused a passport to Abdurahman Khadr for reasons of “national security”. Khadr, you may recall, was held by the Americans in Guantanamo Bay, then released without being charged. His family has oft expressed its support for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. A federal judge has already ruled that the government cannot deny him a passport, but the wording of the judgment might be weasely enough that MacKay can get away with these shenanigans.

Here’s the thing: if Khadr has violated a law, then arrest him. If he has not, then stop treating him like a criminal. He has not been arrested, nor has he been convicted of a crime –and you know that the feds have investigated him up the wazoo– so a civil society must conclude that he is not a criminal. Other countries are free to deny him an entry visa if they do not wish to grant him entry, so MacKay’s argument that he is protecting other countries is hogwash.

You know that MacKay is on unstable ground when Canada’s uberhawks are against him. Even Peter Worthington is arguing for Khadr to be given a travel document, though his argument differs from mine considerably.

Speaking of uberhawks, dig this statement from Michael Coren: “We have to drop a nuclear bomb on Iran.”

Yes, you read that right. We are now at a point in history where a nationally syndicated mainstream writer can advocate for the nuking of a foreign country that has issued us no threats and that has historically not issued us any threats. When and how did it become acceptable to bandy about talk of nuking this or that country? How did we get here? Are we so far, now, from casually introducing battlefield nukes for any given skirmish? The scene is being set for a dazzling misuse of nuclear weaponry, likely in the Middle East, probably in my lifetime, and very likely perpetrated by the so-called “good guys”.

A pertinent comment on DailyKos.com:

“When the Toronto Sun published a lunatics column by that title [‘We Should Nuke Iran’] the other day, the right-wing corporate media stepped into a hideous new ground, perhaps testing the waters, tilting our collective experience of reality towards that most inconceivable insanity.”

And a pithy comment from YBBS.com:

“The whole point of not wanting someone like Iran or North Korea getting the bomb, is they ‘might’ use it against someone or give it to terrorists who ‘might’ use it against someone. So, isn’t it funny that the only country threatening to use their nukes is us, the good old USA.”

(And yes, I’m aware that the offending writer and the paper are both Canadian, not American. I wonder if Michael Coren and the Sun also realize that?)