The talking heads on Forbes on Fox want "military intervention" and air strikes against Iran, but don't dare call it starting a war. During a discussion this Saturday on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech before Congress, host David Asman about this new poll out saying that 65 percent of Americans support the United States taking military action to prevent Iran from attaining a nuclear weapon, and par for the course, the war mongering started immediately with some of the regulars on there.
ASMAN: By the way, before we entirely, you don't want to rule out anything Mike Ozanian. One thing the American people don't rule out, 65 percent of them don't rule out military actions. 65 percent according to a new poll say they favor taking some kind of military action. It might not be boots on the ground we're talking about, but whether it's Israel, or air strikes or whatever.
OZANIAN: Well, what's going on here is Netanyahu is saying, look, I want America to have my back because it's too late for sanctions David. That time has passed. Israel's going to take out Iran's nuclear capabilities and they want to make sure we have their back. That's what this is about. So what we have to do now is focus on building up our military.
ASMAN: Alright, well Rich, Bibi Netanyahu, when he spoke before Congress and by the way, we haven't heard a speech like that, or response from Congress to a foreigner speaking in front of Congress since Winston Churchill in 1952 who told us about the Iron Curtain, ah, that was an extraordinary speech and I think even though there were some protests from the left wing of the Democratic party, most members of Congress agreed with him, right?
KARLGAARD: Yeah they did and staunch Democratic supporters of Israel like Robert Menendez or Chuck Schumer, they're being put in a pickle right now. Look, you know, Bibi Netanyahu pointed out something really useful that is lost in all this discussion about ISIS and that is that Iran is the major exporter of terror in the world and they're about to acquire nuclear weaponry and this has got to be stopped. And I would like to be optimistic, but I'm kind of agreeing with Oz here that it may be too late for sanctions, because Bibi was saying, we're going to take care of this problem whether you have our back or not.
ASMAN: Well but Steve, there are ways to go after evil empires without going to war. The way Ronald Reagan for example supported, he had sanctions, but he also supported all of the freedom lovin' people that were against the Soviet Union. He supported Solidarity in Poland, Václav Havel in Czechoslovakia, the Contras in Nicaragua. When in 2009 by the way, there was a protest by the Iranian people against the government after an election and that stood in sharp contrast, we did practically nothing to help those folks.
FORBES: That's right. The president betrayed that Green Revolution and in terms of sanctions, if you make them tough enough, the do bite. In the case of North Korea we removed effective sanctions in 2008 and going after banks that the country was using to finance its activities and that's why appeasement failed again. We took the bad sanctions off. Put the tough sanctions on and if they don't work within a few months, then we're going to have to look at other courses of action.
Iran cannot get the bomb, period.
Unsurprisingly, we didn't hear any of them volunteering themselves, their children and their grand children to be the first to sign up and head on over there. Former Obama economic adviser Austan Goolsbee was asked for his thoughts and actually injected a bit of sanity into the conversation.
When he pointed out that most Americans do not want a repeat of the debacles we've seen in Iraq and Afghanistan, Asman started spinning so fast I'm surprised he didn't fly out of his chair.
ASMAN: Austan, I know you weren't working for the State Department back then, but in 2009, we did have a great opportunity to support the freedom lovin' people in Iran and we didn't do enough, did we? And shouldn't we do more of that?
GOOLSBEE: Look, when Netanyahu came before the second Iraq war and said that the Middle East would be a far better place if we would simply start a war and take Saddam Hussein out. I think there wasn't enough attention paid to what are the consequences of military actions or extreme actions.
When you come to 2009 and the reason that nobody wants to get into an aggressive posture toward Iran is we're coming out of two virtually endless wars that cost us trillions of dollars. (crosstalk) Contemplating doing that again is crazy.
ASMAN: But Austan, we just showed that poll. 65 percent of Americans think some kind of military action against Iran would be worth it.
GOOLSBEE: You put words in their mouth. They are not... go ask the question...
ASMAN: That was the question.
GOOLSBEE: ...do you think we should have another war like the Iraq war (crosstalk) it would be rough to get two percent support.
ASMAN: No, no, no, no. We're not talking about that. EMac, we are not talking about another war. We're talking about ramping up sanctions. We're talking about supporting in a very strong way the people that are against this new evil empire.
Sorry David, but that's exactly what your guests were doing. That and lots and lots of revisionist history on St. Ronnie RayGun. Someone please explain to me how dropping bombs on another country does not constitute and act of war? Once again it's upside down land over on Faux "news."
And I've got some additional questions for the people who answered yes to this poll. Do you support a military draft with no deferments? Do you support a war tax? Are you personally willing to volunteer for military service? Did you support the invasion of Iraq? What's your age?
Anyone want to guess what their other answers might be?
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