Listen to Newt Gingrich speaking yesterday in Cleveland:
“You think about an Iranian nuclear weapon. You think about the dangers, to Cleveland, or to Columbus, or to Cincinnati, or to New York,” Mr. Gingrich said. “Remember what it felt like on 9/11 when 3,100 Americans were killed. Now imagine an attack where you add two zeros. And it’s 300,000 dead. Maybe a half-million wounded. This is a real danger. This is not science fiction. That’s why I think it’s very important that we have the strongest possible national security.”
He’s right when he says that this is not science fiction. No self-respecting science fiction writer would write such nonsense.
It is easy to dismiss this as yet another one of Gingrich’s hyperbolic excesses, except that such statements fit seamlessly into the narrative created by the Bush/Cheney administration, the Obama administration, and successive Israeli governments, all of whom have been incessantly beating the drums of war against Iran by absurdly exaggerating the threat posed by it.
Below is a map from Juan Cole’s blog where each star represents a US military base. The map may not be quite accurate in that some of the bases may no longer be in operation but the main point that Cole makes holds: “But just to be clear, Iran is the one that is threatening us.”
I find it incredible that the climate of insanity created by the same lies that propelled the US into war with Iraq is now being so blatantly and shamelessly recreated against Iran.
To be fair the map should also feature a representation of Iranian bases and those of their allies. If the Iranians, and Hezbolla and Hammas, would be so kind as to identify their training sites, arms stores, supply depots I’m sure the map would be considerably more populated … and the map less impressive as a tool to make your point.
It also has to be pointed out that some of those bases, in addition to those closed recently, are not along the lines of what people generally think of as bases like Bagram. Bases can be quite small. Some little more than an airfield and a couple of small buildings. Some are clearly much more extensive in construction and manning.
While the right-wing is clearly wanting a fight, or at least a talking point to beat the ‘surrender monkey hippies’ with, the Iranians are not shy about issuing threats and beating those war drums. The Iranians have their own rhetorical excesses and narrative. Neither side seems reluctant to resort to hyperbolic threats and an array of dirty tricks that inflicting casualties.
No, a ‘fair and balanced’ approach would have to show a map with the Iranian bases in Canada and Mexico.
Don’t forget Cuba…
Art:
By my count, there were 42 bases in that image. Even if half of those were no longer in operation, that would still leave 21 bases extremely close to Iran. Somehow, I think the bases still in operation are keeping tabs on Iran. No, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible for Iran to attack the United States, but the degree of warmongering going on by certain political persons is far too extreme.
I’m going to nitpick here and argue that saying science fiction writer’s would not write about such a scenario
http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/nuclear/h.htm
An excellent example is Robert heinlein’s story “On the Slopes of Vesuvius”. A physicist tells a bartender that in the atomic age a nation could arrange to devastate an important city by sending a bomb in a merchant ship and causing hundreds of thousands of casualties and billions of dollars in damage.
He wrote this in 1947, two years after the bomb was invented.
Dirty bomb terrorism is a threat to everyone in the world. People who believe that this world is not important, just a test before the next life in Paradise may well be willing to unleash Hell on Earth because they truly do not think it matters.
When the USSR fell I remember the debates about who controlled the nukes, would any get sold or stolen during the disruption.