Via “Matt Yglesias”:http://www.matthewyglesias.com/archives/2007/02/assassination_vacation/, a vintage “bit of Glenn Reynolds”:http://instapundit.com/archives2/2007/02/post_2501.php.
bq. I don’t understand why the Bush Administration has been so slow to respond. Nor do I think that high-profile diplomacy, or an invasion, is an appropriate response. We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and iranian atomic scientists, supporting the simmering insurgencies within Iran, putting the mullahs’ expat business interests out of business, etc.
The whole “24 outlook on life”:https://crookedtimber.org/2007/02/10/takin-care-of-business/ is really catching on. As I’ve been “saying”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/2005/12/19/spying-at-home/ for “years”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/2004/12/03/freedom-on-the-march/, secret state-sponsored assassination and torture programs are why I am a libertarian. Plus all the cool military hardware, obviously. Those guys had flat panel screens before anyone. And those little communicator watches, too. I bet they have iPhones already. _Exploding_ iPhones. On to Tehran!
{ 21 comments }
P O'Neill 02.14.07 at 1:20 am
Give Insta some credit – he seems to have moved on from his earlier theory that the lack of any overt action by the US against Iran was evidence that Iran was using secret nuclear blackmail against the US.
norbizness 02.14.07 at 1:35 am
“Perhaps a plucky, moderate Iranian law professor who cuts his hair with a Flow-bee can become an unwilling hero… IN A WORLD HE NEVER MADE!”
Bill Gardner 02.14.07 at 1:38 am
Sewiously.
Seth Finkelstein 02.14.07 at 1:40 am
He left out the part about torturing terrorists for ticking time-bombs.
Joel Turnipseed 02.14.07 at 1:57 am
Meantime, in the “calmer heads” department:
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-US-Iraq.html
I especially love the way the reporter – and Pace, seemingly – insinuate that all the Iran-supply talk is coming in from over the heads of the military.
Also: the gay ninja sub-thread on Yglesias is priceless.
What’s especially stupid about the 24 – themed musings about Iran is that Iran probably isn’t providing much support – at least any meaningful support: if Iran wanted to supply the insurgents with bad-assed weapons, they’d do it with more than sniper rifles and explosives. Like, maybe with these: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9M133_Kornet
If the Iraqi insurgents started taking out US tanks with the ease and frequency that Hezbollah did Israeli tanks in Lebanon, then I’d become afraid, really, really afraid.
Joel Turnipseed 02.14.07 at 1:58 am
hmm… guess I shouldn’t use double-dashes next time.
Kieran Healy 02.14.07 at 2:07 am
(fixed)
Hasan Jafri 02.14.07 at 2:25 am
LOL…A plucky, moderate Iranian law professor with a slight accent won’t pass muster. If we want popular support we should send Iran a sumptuous, resilient, well-perfumed Persian nightclub diva who has been whiling away her time in Paris hotel rooms. Or a singing femme-bot, if noone’s available. Or — my fave — a mechanical bull that rocks and talks and recites passages from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty at same time.
Get creative, pahleeez.
david still 02.14.07 at 2:27 am
More nonsense from tenured “libertarians”–ie.,conservatives who live in a world of trash tv and assujme it to be reality, as though the CIA et al are not doin g some of the stuff that thsese would-bne cowboys woul;d likle to see Others Do For Them–why is it that these gun slingers are alway sasking others to do that which they will not themselves offer to do?
eweininger 02.14.07 at 2:59 am
putting the mullahs’ expat business interests out of business….
What, exactly, is this bit supposed to refer to?
Hasan Jafri 02.14.07 at 3:48 am
“The mullahs’ expat business interests.” Would that be the old Russian stroganoff retsurant in downtown Tehran?
dsquared 02.14.07 at 6:16 am
It was in the paper yesterday that the CIA had finally lost patience and put in a complaint to the producers of “24” asking them to stop portraying US intelligence as a bunch of torture-happy loose cannons.
eugene 02.14.07 at 6:46 am
Norbizniz wins teh thread!
Glorious Godfrey 02.14.07 at 10:31 am
Norbizniz wins teh thread!
Indeed. Any reference to Howard the Duck turns you automatically into one of teh hermetic Archons of teh Universe.
nick s 02.14.07 at 2:32 pm
I believe it was actually the Dean of West Point who wanted ’24’ to include scenarios in which torture doesn’t work, because he was sick of new students coming in to ethics classes and saying ‘b-but what about “24”?’
Joel Surnow missed the meeting because he was talking to the head of Fox News.
bubba 02.14.07 at 2:52 pm
Dr. Helen needs to get her husband under control.
Sounds like a job for Mission Impossible. Is Tom Cruise busy? Yup, being Second Jesus is taking up all his itme.
OK then. How about Ahnold? Any chance he’ll take a break from being Governator and take are of this piece of international assassination? No?
Last chance. Rambo, you busy? ‘Cause the Partridge Family just won’t do this time.
chris y 02.14.07 at 6:35 pm
We should be responding quietly, killing radical mullahs and iranian atomic scientists
There’s word for this – it’ll come to me in a moment – begins with a “T”, I think…
rea 02.15.07 at 1:44 am
“There’s word for this – it’ll come to me in a moment – begins with a “Tâ€, I think…”
“Evil,” “criminal” and “stupid” come to mind, but none of those begin with a “T”.
frankis 02.15.07 at 3:58 am
“Murder” is an underworked word these days, imho.
abb1 02.15.07 at 10:53 am
Oh, c’mon now, killing mullahs and atomic scientists is not murder. It’s a legitimate act of self-defense. If carried out by a liberal democracy anyway.
Berkeley Student` 02.17.07 at 12:51 am
Is this for real? Are my politics that radical?
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