Left I on the News

On a rare Sunday morning when I was sitting around watching TV, I was reminded why I try to avoid it. First up was California's liberal Senator, Barbara Boxer. Asked by Wolf Blitzer her opinion of the Israeli bombing of Syria, she responded by saying she hadn't been briefed yet, but she could still talk about international law. As Franklin Pangborn used to say (or was it Jack Benny?), "Go onnnnnn..." How does international law come into play in this situation according to Boxer?

"International law says every country has the right to defend itself."

It took me a millisecond to realize that that "every country" didn't refer to Syria, but to Israel, who was "defending itself" by bombing an alleged Syrian nuclear reactor. And she certainly wasn't referring to Iran's right to build nuclear weapons to defend itself against Israeli nukes, or North Korea's right to build nuclear weapons to defend itself from the United States!

A few minutes later, it was on to Iran. Is Iran embarked on a program to build a nuclear weapon, asked Blitzer? "I think Iran would love [emphasis hers] to have a nuclear weapon." Don't you just love the way American politicians are able to put themselves into the minds of others, be it Iran or al Qaeda, and know exactly what they are thinking or "wishing for"? No, Barbara, just because the United States is in love with nuclear weapons, and has used them and continues to threaten to use them (as Mike Huckabee did later in the same program), doesn't mean everyone else is. It's called "projection," Barbara.

As bad as the Democrats are, at least they don't make themselves ludicrous. Here was Huckabee, asked by Blitzer if he had any second thoughts about the invasion of Iraq since WMD were never found:

"Just because we haven't found them, doesn't mean they didn't exist. Remember, we haven't found Jimmy Hoffa either."

Yes, Mike, the entire alleged Iraqi WMD stocks and "programs" were dumped into the Euphrates with concrete shoes just like Jimmy Hoffa.

To get serious on that point, I refer readers to one of the very first posts on this blog from 2003. WMD programs and WMD production and stockpiling don't just involve things that can be destroyed or hidden. They involve people - lots of them.

Whether weapons (or weapons programs) existed, or were hidden, or were destroyed, or (in this case) whether orders were received to use them, there were people involved - lots of people. And not just the "key scientists" and generals, but ordinary soldiers, technicians, truck drivers, etc. -- people who would have received the orders to deploy chemical weapons, been guarding the warehouse where they were stored, driven trucks out to the desert to hide or destroy them, received training in how to use them, etc. Now, given the financial (and asylum) incentives being offered for actual evidence of any of this, it is at all plausible that not a single person would have come forward with this evidence?

Wouldn't expect Mike Huckabee (or Wolf Blitzer) to actually think about these things, though. It might cause their heads to explode.