Katrina vanden Heuvel: Giuliani's Foreign Policy Adviser Sounds Like a Madman

[marmar]

from The Nation:



GIULIANI'S FOREIGN POLICY ADVISER SOUNDS LIKE A MADMAN...In an interview in Saturday's Daily Telegraph, one of Rudy Giuliani's leading foreign policy advisers-- Norman Podhoretz --prattles on about we must bomb Iran. Talking about military strikes, including cruise missiles and "bunker busters", this neoncon man sounds delusional: "It would take five minutes. You'd wake up one morning and the strikes would have been ordered and carried out during the night. All the president has to say is go."

Putting aside the immorality and illegality of this death wish, military action would be irrational for both sides. The US military is already stretched to the breaking point. We'd witness unprecedented pandemonium in oil markets. Our troops in Iraq would be endangered.

What about the fact that six weeks of bombing in the Gulf War in 1991 didn't take out the Iraqi Scud missiles? Nor did the Israeli bombing of Iraq's Osirak reactor have any impact on curbing regional proliferation. What about Podhoretz's professed concern for democracy in the region, especially for Iran's dissidents?

Listen to Akbar Ganji, an Iranian journalist and dissident, who sat in Evin Prison from 2000 to 2006. In an op-ed for the Washington Post last week, he wrote: "The Iranian people, myself included, need freedom, democracy and peace--not war conditions and constant worries about a potential barrage of US missiles."

Podhoretz and his insanity will embolden Iranian hardliners, plunge the region into even greater and darker instability and undermine our security. If one needed any more reasons why Rudy Giuliani should be fully, completely, unequivocally disqualified from being President and Commander-in-Chief, listen to Podhoretz's insanity.


Posted by Katrina vanden Heuvel at 10/28/2007 @ 2:27pm

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/campaignmatters?bid=45&pid=246661

[Richard Steele]

1. K&R

[acmavm]

2. Well, Rudy's batshit crazy. Why would anyone associated with

him not be the same? He's trying to pull what doomed McCain. War, terra, war, terra, war, war, war, bomb, kill.

[roguevalley]

9. the idea of looking at Guiliani's crazy face for four years makes me ill

what a piece of work is (this) man ...

[spanone]

3. giuliani is an extremely dangerous individual

[Poiuyt]

6. But according to Chris Matthews, America wants a fascist

On the February 7 edition of MSNBC's Imus in the Morning, MSNBC Hardball host Chris Matthews heaped praise on GOP presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, calling the former New York mayor "the kind of gutsy, street-corner politician we all grew up with" who "stood on the corner during the fire and told us what was going on." Matthews said that he would like " guy who wasn't on the ranch during Katrina -- who was out on the street corner answering questions," adding: "I'm so sick of southern guys with ranches running this country. I want a guy to run for president who doesn't have a fucking -- I'm sorry -- a ranch. Wouldn't that be good?"

Matthews again touted the progress Giuliani made in improving olfactory conditions in New York City, asserting that "subways didn't smell like pee anymore" and that "ven the phone booths in New York have always smelled like pee." Matthews made similar claims on the February 5 editions of MSNBC Live and Hardball, both noted by Media Matters for America. Matthews also claimed that Giuliani "made you feel like you had a right to walk the street safely" and added, "I think the country wants a boss like that, you know? A little bit of fascism there. Just a little bit. Just a pinch of it."

http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/february2007/090207Matthews.htm

[immoderate]

10. Matthews makes fascism sound so romantic...

NOT!

--IMM

[opihimoimoi]

4. These guys just don't learn...do they??? What is it?? Termites in the Brain??

[Swede]

5. Invading Iran would be madness.

Madmen do these kind of things.

[Kurovski]

7. K&R. (nt)

[TahitiNut]

8. Well, that's because Norman Podhoretz IS a "madman" ... a sociopath, imho.

:shrug: Simple enough. PNAC nationalist, "might makes right" militarist, and corporate colonialist.