The News of the Day is Very Fey
FEY
Etymology:
Similar to Old English fah, meaning ‘hostile’, and Old High German feigi, meaning ‘doomed’.
Okay, I think I can run with that. The news of the day is certainly hostile, and maybe has elements of the other one, too.
I would like start with what Senator Obama’s running mate, Senator Joe Biden, said at a fund raiser in Seattle on Sunday:
“Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy…. Watch. We’re going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis to test the mettle of this guy…. As a student of history and having served with seven presidents, I guarantee you it will happen.”
I wonder what sort of crisis he is talking about? It’s interesting that he invokes the name of President John Kennedy. Could it have anything to do with a certain article in DebkaFile, possibly the internet’s last primary source of information about the Middle East? The article is headlined: US intelligence: Iran will be able to build first nuclear bomb by February 2009.
Perhaps it does. Senator McCain said a day later that, “America does not need a president that needs to be tested. I’ve been tested. I was aboard the Enterprise off the coast of Cuba. I’ve been there.”
I think McCain takes the ‘wonder’ out of the question. Both candidates are talking war. Big war.
The nuclear carrier USS Enterprise was off the coast of Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962. That was when we came within a hair’s breadth of nuclear conflict with Russia. We had determined that Russia was installing nuclear missiles just 90 miles off the coast of Florida, and was about to make them operational. President John Kennedy was being pushed very hard by General Curtis LeMay, who had firebombed 50 Japanese cities during World War II, to send in an air strike to destroy the missile sites. Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, helped to persuade his brother not to send in the bombers. The final decision was to blockade Cuba instead.
International law says a blockade is not an act of war. But if a blockade ship stops another ship, then it is an act of war. Sort of splitting hairs, to my way of thinking, but I’m not a lawyer. Anyway, behind the scenes, President Kennedy and Premier Kruschev of Russia made a deal, bringing the crisis to an end. We found out later that the Russian missiles were already operational. If a ship had been boarded, or if we had sent in an air strike, we would have had World War III, and you would not be reading this.
There has long been speculation that there will be a preemptive strike by either the United States or Israel against Iran’s nuclear capabilities. Some military strategists believe that to make Iran incapable of producing a nuclear bomb, we would have to essentially decimate their entire economy.
One school of thought is that there is a window between our November 4 elections and the January 20 swearing in of our new President that would take politics out of the military option.
The other expects the strike to happen shortly after the inauguration.
I wonder which it will be?
Maybe it depends on who wins the election. Maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it won’t even happen. Politicians, as opposed to statesmen, like to bluster. But there is altogether too much talk of war for my liking.
I think I’ll go check the expiration dates on our emergency food.
