"Tiny Countries" - Grave But Not Serious Threat

Karl at Team Protein strains to penetrate the Obamafuscation on whether or not Iran is a serious, or grave, threat.

And one senses skepticism of Obama's latest pronouncement even at the Times Caucus blog, which is so unkind as to quote Obama extensively.

Comments

[RichatUF]

I'm glad some are trying to make sense of what BHO has been saying because I've read it a few times and I'm speechless.

[Neo]

Of course, Reagan’s idea of diplomacy with Iran involved a Bible and a cake.
I wonder if Obama also wants to bring back the idea of “arms for hostages” and that whole Iran-Contra thing ? Ollie North might have to give up his day job at FoxNews to fill the opening but it would look bi-partisan.

[Buford Gooch]

Well, making sense of senseless remarks is difficult work. "Tiny" counties are no threat. Think Japan, circa December 6th, 1941.

[MikeS]

Obama is attempting to bamboozle or hoodwink people into believing his reckless and radically liberal foreign policy approach is the right way to go.

His argument is based on the demonstrably false premise that each day, that the President of the United States doesn't meet with the leaders of certain rogue countries, those countries grow stronger.

[LindaK]

Speechless? His foreign "policy" pronouncements make me swoon and faint. @#$%^&*()P#$%^&*( Oops. Head hit keyboard in a faint.

More seriously, I believe that McCain has taken his measure of Senator Obamacon and concluded that BO is an untrustworthy, devisious no go show boat. Surely, if one of BO's central principles is talking to the opposition and reaching agreement, he would have been involved in at least one bipartisan effort in the Senate.

[Daddy]

How come when Bush clearly say's threats from small country aren't "Imminent", all his opponents and the media attack him "for saying such threats are imminent"? And if he'd said threats from such small countries were imminent, he'd have been attacked for saying they weren't imminent. Must be more of that honest Press discussion from yesterday.
I also seem to recall that Peter Seller's did a comedy on this some 40 years back; The Mouse That Roared, about a teeny tiny country that built a bomb big enough to blow up the planet in order to be taken seriously. Medium funny. I believe it had the obligatory blonde Scandanavian bombshell in it, but not Elke or Ursulla Undress etc.

[Sara]

Breaking: Ted Kennedy diagnosed with malignant brain tumor in the left parietal lobe.

[narciso]

Neo, that operation came about because our European allies were flouting Operation Staunch; details in Timmerman's Fanning the Flames. The wizkids in the analytical section, Graham Fuller,came up with an estimate rationalizing this approach; because then as now, Khomeini wasconsidered a transient figure. Rafsanjani, the
'Pistachio prince', was the leading
'moderate' at the time; much like the role he has now. That of course, hasn't stopped
him from threatening Israel with nuclear annihilation. The irony, is that the likes of you, (Neo, Semantic, Parse, et al)is that you are endorsing these same policies
which featured the likes of Feridoun Nezhi Nejad; future planner of the Buenos Aires
outrage; having learned nothing from history.

[Neo]

BOSTON - A cancerous brain tumor caused the seizure Sen. Edward M. Kennedy suffered over the weekend, doctors said Tuesday in a grim diagnosis for one of American politics' most enduring figures.

Maybe it's a tiny non-threating tumor.

[Jane]

I think it's a big malignant tumor. At least that's what I'm hearing reported. The only question left is whether it is a grade 4.

[Neo]

you are endorsing these same policies

I, in my best politician style, am not endorsing anything, but rather suggest that when you "cherry-pick" the best, there is often a bad side that is conviently disregarded.

[narciso]

Seriously, who do you think are to be the likely negotiators in this endeavor. Probably the likes of General Quassem Suleimaini or the other Iranian 'diplomats'
that were nabbed back in Mosul and Baghdad some years ago. We know in Libya's case, we ended up working with Musa Kusa, a fellow graduate of Michigan State with former CIA
Dep Chief/Near East Ben Bonk; whoauthorized
Pan Am 103, and probably the Berlin disco bombing that provoked the April '86 attack.
We got the Libyans to give up their nuclear
program out of that; but it sticks in my craw; even more than Nixon and China. It seems Gadaffi not really keeping up his end of the bargain; with so many natives of Darnah, making it to Baghdad. And Libya was
in a less advanced technical stage than Iran.

[Sara]

Parietal Lobe Function:

The parietal lobes can be divided into two functional regions. One involves sensation and perception and the other is concerned with integrating sensory input, primarily with the visual system. The first function integrates sensory information to form a single perception (cognition). The second function constructs a spatial coordinate system to represent the world around us. Individuals with damage to the parietal lobes often show striking deficits, such as abnormalities in body image and spatial relations (Kandel, Schwartz & Jessel, 1991).

Damage to the left parietal lobe can result in what is called “Gerstmann’s Syndrome.” It includes right-left confusion, difficulty with writing (agraphia) and difficulty with mathematics (acalculia). It can also produce disorders of language (aphasia) and the inability to perceive objects normally (agnosia).

...

Special deficits (primarily to memory and personality) can occur if there is damage to the area between the parietal and temporal lobes.

Left parietal-temporal lesions can effect verbal memory and the ability to recall strings of digits (Warrington & Weiskrantz, 1977). The right parietal-temporal lobe is concerned with non-verbal memory.

[Jane]

Don't worry, Deval Patrick will appoint a worthy replacement - perhaps himself.

[Thomas Jackson]

Snobama apparently forgot that 9-11 was planned and carred out from Afghanistan, clearly a major power.

We shouldn't worry about Columbia or Mexico either, just ignore what they export to the USA because it doesn't impact on us. Really?

[JM Hanes]

"And one senses skepticism of Obama's latest pronouncement even at the Times Caucus blog, which is so unkind as to quote Obama extensively."

They still managed to give suspiciously short shrift to McCain's response however, although "voice stern and dripping with contempt" was a nice touch.