Bomb Hillary

Last October, at the memorable News Xchange event in Berlin, the British broadcaster Jon Snow argued that "one of the greatest responsibilities to humanity" is for us, as news media, to report Iran accurately. He was right then and he's even more correct now.

So where is the news media (Krugman?) in response to Hillary Clinton's remarks this week about obliterating Iran? Who is methodically thinking about the consequences of these words:

"I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran... We would be able to totally obliterate them"?

Iran is a republic slightly larger than Alaska (1,648 million sq km) with a population of 66 million. Over 7 million Iranians are under 14. The average age of Iranians is 26.4 years-old. 51% of the people of Iran are of Persian ethnicity, the other major ethnic groups include Azeris (24%), Gilaki and Mazandarani (8%),  Kurds (7%) and Arabs (3%). 98% of Iranians are Moslem (Shia 89%, Sunni 9%), the rest are Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian and Baha'i. 58% of Iranians speak Persian, the majority of the rest speak Turkic (26%), Kurdish (7%) and Arabic (3%). That's a lot of people, languages, religions and cultures.

Is this what Hillary wants to obliterate?

I used to support her, but this is a sentence too far for me.  She is transforming herself into Hirohito's Japan in the late summer of 1945. Maybe we need to incinerate her before she obliterates all of us.

 

Comments

[Peter Cooper]

The mass media have reported those words. Unfortunately, the problem is that many outlets ONLY reported those words, which means they were taken out of context.

I'm an Obama fan all the way and think Clinton's nuts for saying this, but she didn't say "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran" with no context. It was in response to a question about what she would do if Iran nuked Israel.

Think about if you asked the average parent what they'd do if, say, "Mr X" molested their child. They might say something like "I'd want to kill him." You can't then take that quote out of context, without the question, and proclaim that some parent said they "want to kill" Mr X. Many outlets have done that with this quote though.

Of course, whether the US should nuke Iran if Iran were to nuke Israel is another point entirely (and one I'd strongly disagree with) but standards need to be raised by outlets that quote without context.

[andrew]

yeah, Peter, you are right of course. But it was still grossly inappropriate. She knows how the media twists things -- and my guess is the words were meant to be twisted

[Peter L. Winkler]

Hilary Clinton's bellicose rhetoric about Iran is not exceptional. Unfortunately, it is in line with her vote giving Bush the green light to attack Iraq.

It is also, sadly, perfectly consistent with US militaristic foreign policy going back for decades or more.

[andrew]

no excuse though. Obama is much more measured. Playing the Iran card is unnecessary and distasteful. One has to draw the line somewhere with her...

[Mike Whatley]

A militaristic solution is inevitable. One hopes that it is sooner rather than later.

The issue is not the geography/demographics of the Iranian nation. It is of course the Iranian leadership and their religious guides. (Oh Christopher Hitchens where art thou?)

Just a guess here, but I'll bet neither Andrew or the two Peters (Cooper or Winkler) have ever served this nation in uniform. (That they have never been in combat is self evident.) And yes it does matter.

mew

[Michael Dziura]

Have any of you actually read or seen this interview? Mr. Keen, you are taking this sound bite completely out of context, and pulling at it like Silly Putty in order to do. . .what exactly? Prove that a blog is no place to talk about news? Prove that you are not an expert on Hillary Clinton? Of course, the wording she used was aggressive and perhaps too strong, given the climate between the U.S. and Iran, but she was answering a question. The question was concerned with how she would react if Iran attacked Israel with nuclear weapons. In order to confirm to the American public that she has the strength to deal with tough situations, she gave a tough answer. Period.

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[Michael Dziura]

My comment yesterday in regard to this post was a little quickly written, and lacked some of the punch and depth that I intended for it to have. I am therefore adding this comment in the hope that I can clear up a few things.

First, my main objection to your post is neither that you distorted Hillary's comment (which you did), nor that you did so with malicious intent (I firmly believe that you feel as though you were pointing out the dangers of making blanket statements about the populace of any country, particularly when that populace is held in the grip of some tough and unyielding leaders). My objection stems primarily from the fact that you, in publishing this post at all, have gone against nearly everything that you tell us you hold dear. Take a look at the following statements you made in "The Cult of the Amateur":

On bloggers (and statements on citizen journalists made by Arianna Huffington):

"The problem is, these voices often distort the news, turning the music into noise." (53)

On YouTube and the 2008 campaign:

"There are, no doubt, all sorts of wannabe Arrowhead77s out there, camcorders at the ready, preparing to big-game hunt Hillary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential campaign.

"This is the future of politics in a Web 2.0 world. The supposed democratization medium of user-generated content is creating a tabloid-style gotcha culture—where one thoughtless remark overshadows an entire platform, and lifelong political careers are destroyed by an off-the-cuff joke at the end of a long campaign day.

"And when information on politics and policy is so easily skewed or distorted, it's us, the electorate, who lose. When we, the citizens, don't know whom to believe or whom to trust, we may end up making the wrong decisions, or worse yet, just switch off—from the candidates, from politics, from voting at all." (68)

You attack everyone that uses blogging as an amateur platform for reporting and political discussion, yet this is exactly what you are doing with this post.

You omit pertinent information from Hillary's comment, thus distorting its meaning, and making it difficult for us to trust your veracity. If you distort the statements of a presidential candidate, and in turn cause us to doubt your veracity on this topic, why should we not doubt it on others? Are your statements on Lawrence Lessig true? Are your statements on the "Liquid Library" true? Could we not also assume that you have "Skewed or distorted" other facts in order to further your personal agenda?

All I am asking of you (all anyone could ask, really) is that you either practice what you preach, or stop preaching it. Hypocrisy gives off a rank odor. Outright lying corrodes the soul.

[Peter L. Winkler]

Dear Mr. Whatley:

Since I was disabled by becoming afflicted with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at the age of eight, I never had the option of serving in the military even if I desired to.

Interestingly, the leaders of the curren administration, who are the most bellicose militarists in this nation's history, with the exception of President Bush, have not served in the military. Ditto for the neocons like William Kristol and the AM radio blowhards like Limbaugh.

They are sunshine patriots.

Iran, like Iraq before them, is not threatening neighboring countries and is not a threat to the US, with our thousands of nuclear warheads. Thanks to our annual multi-billion dollar grant to Israel, they are the one superpower in the middle east, with nuclear weapons. Let them defend themselves if attacked.

[Mike Whatley]

Relax Michael. Zoom out. Go for the 5 mile high view.

Andrew's terse riposte( just as your own retort) lacked "punch and depth". So what? We live in a blurred world where fully aired out discourse is hard to pull off. I don't think participating in these almost random thought exchanges means that Andrew succumbs to that which he criticized in "Cult". Nor is this an example of what Susan Jacoby calls, “a new species of semiconscious anti-rationalism, feeding on and fed by an ignorant popular culture of video images and unremitting noise that leaves no room for contemplation or logic." Andrew’s Blog (like so many) is populated by fast moving opinions of very busy people.

[Michael Dziura]

Mike,

Thanks for the reply. My concern is not with the ways in which discourse is affected by our soundbite culture and "unremitting noise," but rather with the fact that Mr. Keen, when one holds his extended rant ("Cult") up next to this post, seems to hold the rest of us to a higher standard than the one to which he holds himself. One cannot claim that discourse and culture are disintegrating as a result of internet 2.0, and subsequently add to the disintegration. By participating in "almost random thought exchanges" on his blog, he is acting in a hypocritical manner and adding to the noise.

[Mick]

"... the rest are Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian and Baha'i."

Iran is no saint. The above are the presecuted religions of Iran. They recently passed a law that condemns to death anyone who changes their religion from Islam to anything else, and condemns to death the descendants of anyone who changed their religion from Islam to anything else.

Welcome to the real Iran. If you had a cancer in your body would you concede to have it cut out, to remove it? It's nice to think that all nations are created equal, but a nation that wants to "drink your blood", kill all Jews, and teaches the holocaust never happened needs no quarter.

Hitler did not need defenders. He was wrong. He wanted it all his way, and his way was to consume the nations around him. Iran is like Hitler. Ask any Sunni and he will tell you that Iran corrupted Islam to create it own religion, and now it wants to shove its brand of Islam down the thoarts of anyone who cares to appease it.

Wake up. It's not about Hillary or Obama. It's what the world will do to confront a nation of nice people whose clergy is hungry to dominate the world and bring it into submission to Islam. Don't believe that? Instead of jumping on Hillary, read what the Iranian President says in his rants. And if you don't know which side to take after that, buy your wife, mom, and sisters burquas. They're going to need them. Also, the Koran allows slavery, and modern day Islam supports it, so prepare to be enslaved. It's for a good cause.

[JJ Commoner]

Iran is a republic slightly larger than Alaska (1,648 million sq km) with a population of 66 million. Over 7 million Iranians are under 14. The average age of Iranians is 26.4 years-old. 51% of the people ... 58% of Iranians speak Persian, the majority of the rest speak Turkic (26%), Kurdish (7%) and Arabic (3%). That's a lot of people, languages, religions and cultures.

I'd give anything .. no. wait, I'd buy someone a beer ... to find out for sure if you used Wikipedia to quickly gather the facts you present above regarding iran.

Let me guess .. you went to your copy of Encyclopedia Brittanica, held it open on your lap, and typed all that information into your blog post.