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Remember High Noon?

That old western about a marshal, personally compelled to face a deadly enemy, finds that his own town refuses to help him. It’s a good movie, a true classic. Will Kane (Gary Cooper), the marshal of Hadleyville, has just married pacifist Quaker Amy (Grace Kelly) and plans to resign from his post at the end of the day. Then the whole town hears that Frank Miller (Ian MacDonald), a man he had arrested and sent to the gallows, has been pardoned. Miller is due to arrive on the noon train and his gang is waiting for him at the station. When he arrives, he and his gang intend to exact revenge.

Everybody wants Kane to leave immediately, to avoid trouble. His wife threatens to leave on the noon train without him if he stays, but he refuses to give in. He spends most of the day trying to get the townspeople to back him up, to no avail. Even his deputy, Harvey Pell (Lloyd Bridges), refuses to help. Only his former mistress, Helen Ramírez (Katy Jurado), supports him, but there is little she can do to help.

In the end, Kane faces the four gunmen by himself. He shoots down two of Miller’s men. Amy chooses her husband’s life over her religious beliefs and kills the third by shooting him in the back while he reloads his gun in an alley next to Kane’s office, in which she has taken refuge. Miller then takes her hostage. Miller then offers to trade her for Kane. Kane agrees, coming out into the open. Amy, however, struggles with Miller, clawing his face as the two men shoot. Kane’s shot kills Miller. He then contemptuously throws his marshal’s star in the dirt and leaves town with his wife.

This is George W. Bush in a nutshell.

He is doing what he thinks is right, what he knows is right, and everybody wants him to leave town, to avoid trouble. You can say what you want about George W. Bush, but he is a man of his convictions, a man who is willing to do what he knows must be done – even in the extreme face of adversity.

But the deck was stacked against him from the start. The 2000 election was a controversial victory, one which is still argued over even until today. The Democrats, the poor sore losers that they are, can not and will not let go his marginal victory over Al Gore. And then, to add insult to injury, Bush beats Kerry in 2004. Oh, the Democrats were, and still are, pissed off. The Red States, the Blue States, the cultural divide, the on going War in Iraq, the looming shadow of terrorism, Stem Cell research, an over zealous liberal media,….

Poor Old George W. Bush picked one hell of a time to be President of the United States.

And with the 2008 elections on the horizon, a democrat controlled Congress and Senate, and a war that has torn the country to shreds – George Bush has taken so many right hooks to the face that he just might be begging for a left jab to the jaw just to change the pace. But he’s still standing – like a dazed Rocky Balboa, he keeps standing there, trading punches, doing what he thinks is right for the country. It’s coming up on the twelfth round for George…

I have to say that I kind of admire the man.

That’s right, I said it. Those eleven words would never, ever be uttered anywhere else but here. Even the Fox News Network would be hard pressed to show a little admiration for a man who is generally maligned by the media and the public at large. Admiration for a man who is the quintessential underdog, the guy everybody expects to lose, whose character is slandered, criticized, and smeared not just in our own country, but almost every where else in the world. A man blamed for every goddamned thing that has come down the pike – even for things he had no control over and had nothing to do with. And he keeps standing, he keeps fighting, he keeps doing what he thinks and knows to be right.

I cannot help but hope that when this is all over with, when historians look back and cast their attentions on poor old George W. Bush, that they’ll see that he was right, that he did know what he was doing, and that he did do the right thing. And the world was a better place because of it. Then maybe George will see a little vindication.

I’m an underdog supporter – I root for the guy who everyone expects and wants to lose – the football team that no one can believe is in the playoffs, the old over weight boxer trying for a twilight year’s comeback, a man who leaves his family in a snow storm trying to seek help. These are my heroes, men who look courageously into the face of adversity, shrug off their personal discomfort, and march on.

Only time will tell.

George W. Bush marches on. Poor Dumb Bastard.

This is a horror story – I rank it right up there with anything Stephen King or Dean Koontz imagine – a terrible, frightening little story that might keep you up at night.

First, as with all stories, we need a setting. This story is based in the Middle East, more specifically, a horrible place called Iran. We have no idea how far along the Iranian nuclear program is. We’ve been told that it will be at least ten years before Iran goes nuclear. Our intelligence people admit that they lack invaluable human intelligence (HUMINT) from inside Iran which is essential for an accurate assessment – so how can they make such a confident estimate? Despite our intelligence professionals trying to their damnedest to determine Iran’s nuclear capability – we have had intelligence failures before: We didn’t know how close the former Soviet Union was to economic collapse before they imploded; we were surprised to learn that Saddam Hussein was within a year of the atom bomb after the first Gulf War in 1991; our intelligence failed again before 9/11; and, as those of a liberal mind like to point out – we have yet to find WMD in Iraq despite being in country for years.

But how long does it take to make a nuclear bomb? The Iranians began seeking the bomb way back in 1980. It is now some 27 years later and we are told they may need yet another 5-10 years. All of the other nuclear powers took far less time. The United States, Russia, China, England, France, Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea, all produced their bomb in far less than 27 years. We have college students here in the U.S. who can build one in much less time with plans off the internet. Pakistan and North Korea are not high tech societies, yet they have developed the bomb. Iraq’s Osirak reactor was destroyed in 1981 by Israel and yet ten years later Saddam Hussein was within a year of his first bomb. After the war U.S. intelligence was surprised to discover just how close Saddam was.

One might argue that Iran in 1980 was very backward in the technology needed to produce the bomb. But there are also other important factors that work in Iran’s favor. Iran has ample oil revenues to fund nuclear research and development. Iran could draw on the expertise of A.Q. Kahn the Pakistani nuclear scientist who was involved in proliferating nuclear expertise among other Muslim regimes. Iran is receiving nuclear expertise from Russia and now from North Korea. Iran has been able to buy commercial technology from European countries that, while ostensibly non-sensitive, can still be used to build important parts of the nuclear infrastructure. America built its first nuclear bomb in less than 5 years using 1940’s technology. Today Iran can employ technology that is far more advanced.

So why is it taking them so long? There are several ‘good’ answers to this question, I suppose, but I submit to you the following: Iran has already produced their first bomb(s) and has acquired nuclear weapons from rogue elements inside the former Soviet Union.

If that is true it would also make sense for Iran to keep this secret – a secret program which is hidden inside Iran and perhaps also in other Muslim countries such as Syria and Sudan. It would make sense for Iran to keep their early progress secret lest it trigger a powerful international response before they are ready. After all, look what we did to Saddam Hussein. At the very least they would have to face severe draconian sanctions instead of the limited ones now in force. It could also trigger a military response from America and or Israel which would then destroy Iran’s nuclear program before it became fully developed. While the world is focused on halting the program we know about, we may be totally blind to the one we don’t know about. History shows that nations can sometimes succeed in implementing great deceptions against their adversaries.

So that is our setting – A nuclear powerful Iran. Now let’s use our imaginations a little and take this one step further (yeah, this is the scary part):

In the near future, the spring of 2009, President Hillary Clinton is forced to deal with Iran. Her administration feels it is too dangerous to wait any longer before confronting Iran. She, backed by a Democrat controlled congress, and supported by the United Nations, issues an ultimatum to Iran. She demands that they open up all of their nuclear facilities and allow the dismantling of anything related to a weapons program or face military attack on those facilities. With two U.S. carrier task forces plus NATO contingents nearby, Iran knows this is no bluff.

In response Iran issues their own ultimatum to America and Europe. It might read as follows:

“The Islamic Republic of Iran has long prepared for the time when America, the Great Satan, would dare to issue such an arrogant ‘ultimatum’. You should know better than to threaten us. We have told you repeatedly that our determination is unshakable and not subject to bribes nor threats of any kind. Our faith in Allah is total. We are strong and willing to die for our cause. We know that your society is weak and cannot endure pain. Even if you destroy Iran there are nearly 1.5 billion Muslims in the world who will become even more enraged against you and even more determined to wage jihad until the final victory of Islam over the Crusaders.

“Over the years we have installed many sleeper cells in both America and in western Europe. Your open borders made it easy to place our agents. They are equipped with chemical, biological and nuclear devices. They remain invisible to you because they are easily hidden inside the Muslim communities and with ample funds from us they need not seek work or other forms of public exposure. There has been no attack inside America since 9/11 because we chose to wait and not because your security is so good. Striking sooner would have been premature before we were fully prepared.

“Your modern infrastructure makes your society highly vulnerable to attack from within. We have studied all of your weak points and are capable of wreaking havoc on any scale, and sustained over any time period that we choose. We can attack your electric grid, your gas pipe lines, your communications, your food supply, your financial networks, and much more. We can cause panic and terror that will greatly compound the physical damage. It would not be just one blow at one spot but many blows, in many places, over weeks and even months. We built a navy that can attack oil tankers on the international sea lanes and well as oil facilities in the Middle East. We can collapse the economies of the West which depend so much on oil. We will demolish your infrastructure. We will demolish your national self-confidence. You will live in chaos and in permanent fear of us.

“You are in no position to issue an ultimatum to us. We Muslims can hurt you far more than you can hurt us. We do not fear Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD), quite to the contrary, we embrace it. It is we who now issue our ultimatum to you. You will promptly begin the total withdrawal of all U.S. and European forces from all Middle East countries. Europe and America will cease all trade and all aid to the Zionist entity that occupies the holy land of Palestine. Europe and America will facilitate the resettlement of all Jews from occupied Palestine. If you like Jews so much then you can move them to your countries. You must warn the Zionist entity that they must totally disarm their military including their nuclear weapons. Their disarming and their resettlement elsewhere is their only chance to survive. If Iran is attacked by the Zionists then Iran will attack Jews globally and also attack with full force inside America. You will have to choose how many American cities, and how many American lives, you are willing to lose to defend your Zionist friends. We strongly suspect that your answer will be “none” “.

The above ‘ultimatum’ from Iran may strike some people as fantasy and nonsense. It is easy to dismiss, to ignore and to be in denial. Perhaps such a threat is unlikely but we have already been told that Iran is preparing the capability for a nuclear Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) attack where a single nuclear bomb, launched from a ‘civilian’ ship off shore and detonated 200 miles above the U.S., could burn out our delicate electronic circuits and paralyze the nation. If any part of the preceding scenario is possible shouldn’t we be giving this our full attention?

Now, if that is not a scary story – then I don’t know what is.

(Pulled from an article written by Rachel Neuwirth with some minor changes by me.)