Dungman

When I was still an undergrad at CSUF I had to go to one of those
Honors’ assemblies where we were filled with liberal bilge. We saw
Bowling for Columbine and another guy tried to explain how there was no
“Coalition” going into Iraq. One of these indoctrination sessions was
headlined by a guy who wrote a book we all had read about fear called The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things (you click and buy I get $$$). I have to admit that most of it was fair in my younger mind but one thing stuck with me.

During his talk he decided to make it known that the one thing
everyone should be afraid of was guns. His reasoning for this was that
when he read some medical journals there was a lot of talk about kids
getting gun wounds. After he was done I asked him about this pointing
out that maybe the reason why there is an increase is because there has
been such an increase in the population and that if you controlled for
population increases the number of deaths due to gunshot wounds would
actually have gone down. He shot me down saying that I should look up
the FBI statistics and if I found something contrary to what he found I
should email him.

Well I did just that and, surprise!, the actual number of shooting
deaths for children had been going down even though the number of guns
had gone up. I emailed this news to my teacher asking her if she knew
his email address, she didn’t, and I left it at. I figured that if this
guy couldn’t even look at the sources he told me to look at then what
was the point in pointing out one of his mistakes. Well, no more!

Another crusader against irrational fear is Paul Krugman, supposed economist and NY Times columnist. The irrational fear he is crusading against is the neocon’s fear of “Islamofascism.” To Mr. Krugman there is no reason to fear this threat because:

For one thing, there isn’t actually any such thing as
Islamofascism — it’s not an ideology; it’s a figment of the neocon
imagination. The term came into vogue only because it was a way for
Iraq hawks to gloss over the awkward transition from pursuing Osama bin
Laden, who attacked America, to Saddam Hussein, who didn’t. And Iran
had nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11 — in fact, the Iranian regime
was quite helpful to the United States when it went after Al Qaeda and
its Taliban allies in Afghanistan.

Beyond that, the claim that Iran is on the path to global domination
is beyond ludicrous. Yes, the Iranian regime is a nasty piece of work
in many ways, and it would be a bad thing if that regime acquired
nuclear weapons. But let’s have some perspective, please: we’re talking
about a country with roughly the G.D.P. of Connecticut, and a
government whose military budget is roughly the same as Sweden’s.

Meanwhile, the idea that bombing will bring the Iranian regime to
its knees — and bombing is the only option, since we’ve run out of
troops — is pure wishful thinking. Last year Israel tried to cripple
Hezbollah with an air campaign, and ended up strengthening it instead.
There’s every reason to believe that an attack on Iran would produce
the same result, with the added effects of endangering U.S. forces in
Iraq and driving oil prices well into triple digits.

First, I think the term Islamofascism came about not as an impetus
for war but as a way to delineate peaceful Muslims from bellicose ones
so as not to ruffle anyone’s feathers. And the idea that there is no
one who can be legitimately called an Islamofascist is ludicrous. Isn’t
Osama an Islamofascist? What about the thousands of others whose aims
it is to take over every country in the world so they can implement
Islamofascist governments like the Taliban’s? Denying the very essence
of this problem shows that Mr. Krugman has so divorced himself from
reality that he can no longer even remotely be taken seriously.

Second, Iran does want to take over the world and a lot less amazing
things have happened in the past. Let’s take the path to Western
dominance as an example. I don’t think anyone would have picked Europe
as the next center of power 1,000 years ago. It was a backwater to the
more advanced civilizations that made up the Middle East and Asia. But
the facts are the facts and Europe, plus its scions in the New World,
represent the most powerful nations in the world. Just because Iran may
not be a juggernaut today doesn’t mean that with a couple of lucky
breaks going their way they might be a major power in a couple of
generations.

Third, the Islamofascists in general may not have money but they
have something more important. They have a widely dispersed possible
workforce that has members in every country on the planet. Islamic
terrorists have proven they can take everyday, normal items, like box
cutters, and kill thousands. It doesn’t take much money to convert a
van into a massive bomb nor does it take much more then a bus pass to
blow up a couple double deckers in England. This is truly the most
devastating power that the Islamofascists have in their arsenal; they
potentially have tens of thousands who are willing to die for their
cause and that is enough to kill millions.

Lastly, bombing won’t work? What about Israel’s bombing of Syria?
And does he really think that oil isn’t headed to $100+ even if we
don’t bomb Iran? The reason why the price of oil is going through the
roof because Iran and other countries like it are threatening actions
that could seriously disrupt the flow of oil. As long as these regimes
are around the price of oil is going to continue to rise with or
without a bombing of Iran.

Later on in his moronic opinion piece Krugman pins neocon’s fear on
the fact that our adversary just happens to have dark skin. Yup, that’s
it, we want to kill every Muslim. That’s why we hated us some Soviets
during the Cold War. Plus we’re the ones with a KKK leader in the
senate (wait, that’s KKK Byrd). We are the ones who seceded from the
Union so we could still have them slaves (wait, that was the democrats
as well). It’s just an easy way for a moron to end a ridiculous piece.
Call your opponent a racist and you’re golden with the great intellects
that devour his species of drivel.

Before I say something I’m going to regret I’ll let the good folks at Real Clear Politics take care of this loony:

Apparently, being in favor of a strong response to
terrorism now means you’re a bigot as well. It’s a ridiculous, ad
hominem attack, and one that perhaps obscures the larger importance of
the rest of the column.

Krugman is in many ways a weather vane of liberal opinion, though he
doesn’t so much generate new ideas as regurgitate and amplify what he
sees and hears among his clique in the liberal intelligentsia and the
progressive blogosphere. And this column offers a couple of excellent
clues about how the left would like to frame this election, which
basically is as follows: Republicans, in general, have vastly overhyped
the threat of Islamic terrorism (in part because they’re bigots), and
Rudy Giuliani, in particular, is a dangerous man with an even more
dangerous set of neo-con advisors who will take America to war with
Iran.

Krugman’s column is a road map to the Democrats’ general election
strategy against the guy most pundits agree is the Republicans’ best
bet to hold on to the White House - if he can win the nomination. It’ll
be a replay of the ‘64 campaign against Goldwater, complete with tens
of millions of dollars spent on modern day versions of “Daisy.”

Of course, sixteen years later the Democrats tried the same thing
against Reagan and failed miserably. But that was after four years of
Jimmy Carter. After eight years of George W. Bush, a war weary public
might well buy into Krugman’s line of attack on Rudy.

It’s pretty ironic, however, that Krugman slams the GOP for
overhyping threats and using fear as a political tool, because that’s
exactly what he’s doing in this column. So much so, in fact, it seems
Krugman believes that President Giuliani would be more of a threat to
the country than Islamic terrorists or a nuclear armed Iran.

Ditto. BigT