From Gallup:
More Americans consider Iran the United States’ greatest enemy today than any other country, according to Gallup’s annual World Affairs survey. Iraq, North Korea, and China are also mentioned frequently by Americans as the United States’ greatest enemy. This poll marks the first time that Iran has topped the list as the United States’ greatest enemy; in previous years, Iraq or North Korea ranked first. Republicans are more likely than Democrats, and men are more likely than women, to say Iran is the country’s greatest enemy.
The poll, conducted Feb. 6-9, 2006, asked Americans, without prompting, to name “one country anywhere in the world” that they “consider to be America’s greatest enemy today.” Thirty-one percent say Iran is the greatest enemy, while 22% say Iraq, 15% say North Korea, and 10% say China.
Astounding how a little bit of bluster about preemptively nuking other countries—when announced publicly and proudly—can pierce that media filter to the tune of 31%, eh?
Imagine if Ahmadinejad actually does manage to fire off a shot that vaporizes the majority of Israel. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised to see that 31% figure hit upwards of 50-52%—taking into account that, for many American, we are still our own worst enemy, regardless of what some stupid “mushroom cloud” has to say on the matter…
(h/t Allah)
Where is James Bond when we really need him?
They didn’t ask me! I always list Luxembourg, Togo, and Latvia as the “axis of evil”. That’s just in case someone makes me Secretary of Defense. Those three aren’t near as tough as many others to “get under control”.
Somebody needs to compile a list of all the endangered species in Israel. Maybe that would swing the Green Peace/PETA demographic. Though it may only work after an attack, sadly.
I visited Luxemburg a few years ago. It was very lovely, sipping a local ale in the city plaza while listening to a youth orchestra. And the women…I wasn’t aware that it had become a festering hellhole.
I am morbidly curious to know what the reaction of the Kos readership would be, were said cloud to appear.
Well, I’d have to nquibble about the “greatest enemy” tag. Militarily they’re a joke. A bad joke.
Maybe “likeliest target for a serious ass-whuppin’in the near future.”
See also: “cruisin’ for a bruisin’”
SB: square
quadrilateral, dude.
And people say that democracies are a bulwark against war. Can’t wait till democracy spreads throughout the middle east. If you think people voting themselves a raise—by voting for government services—wait till people can vote themselves a pair of brass balls.
If you think people voting themselves a raiseâ€â€by voting for government services—is bad wait till people can vote themselves a pair of brass balls.
I am morbidly curious to know what the reaction of the Kos readership would be, were said cloud to appear.
No odds yet, but I reckon along the lines of:
“Blame Bush for doing it!” will go off equally with “Blame Bush for not stopping it!”
Some will cry “No, Blame Cheney!” followed by followed by “Blame Rove and/or Halliburton, too, for good measure.”
Everpresent will be “We urge Israel to show restraint”.
Would the koskids not applaud? Perhaps I’m being a tad harse.
”If you want to shrink something, you must first allow it to expand. If you want to eliminate something, you must first allow it to flourish.” Lao-tzu
Evil is terrifyingly repulsive and as it becomes stronger that hideousness grows ever more obvious to those who are Good. So the eruption of open, epic struggle is preceded by a tension between exactly how attending Good is to the increasingly salient features of a specific Evil.
Luckily for Evil, Good is handicapped by its own comforting beauty. Luckily for Good, Evil is handicapped by its own gruesome insatiability.
Each can overwhelm the other at times. I wonder which will dominate now?
63% of Democrats listed Texas as the greatest threat to America…
That pesky old “axis of evil” thing just won’t go away, will it.
Damn.
We’ll just have to work harder. Could somebody give us a list of endangered species to exterminate? We need to get that number up over 75%.
Regards,
Ric
Like Ric, I want us to get that number up.
You’ve made a brave start on mortuary-ownin’ lawyers…
actus!
Democracies being a bulwark against war doesn’t mean that they never go to war. It’s the fact that they almost never go to war against each other that makes them so.
I mean, the only instance of democracy vs. democracy that I can think of is the US and the British in the War of 1812. Can you think of any more? Please post them if you can.
yours/
peter.
TW: hope. Fuckin’ ay.
We don’t have that many democracies. so we can’t really say that they don’t war each other as much as the rest. Democracies have fallen. Thats a kind of war on themselves.
actus – we don’t have many democracies? Huh?
60% of the countries in the world are democracies.
As far as democracies falling – very few have to date.
“Thats a kind of war on themselves” What in the hell are you talking about?
You’re right, actus. Those Ay-rabs are better off with strong-men shoveling them into graves.
He’s not. He’s posing. The left’s staked a position that democracy isn’t for Ay-rabs, and he’s going through the contortions that position requires.
acassa, nobody here has any fucking idea what that idiot is talking about. He/it/she/them spews incoherent vomit on every post.
Of course there are no democracies: Body thetans came from Zuna or wherever and vacuumed them all into the next dimension. And Hugo Chavez threw the switch.
Some of us think “actus” is the incomlpete beta of a program Jeff developed in one of those bwaaahahaha! moments just to incite normal humans to react. I’ve gone so far as to postulate that actus is not only a program, but a masochistic one, just asking to be slapped by he/it/she’s superiors, of which everybody alive is one.
Choose one, they all fit…
Incidentally, accasa, if actus IS Jeff’s little scrap of code, it’s damn brilliant.
You’ve already seen the characteristic blundering incoherence. But what’s so true to leftist form are the subtleties: The stunning lack of all humor and irony and the attempts to overcompensate with those awkward little verbal missteps, the alluding to being a cubicle slave from DC, the overtones of androgeny or possible reactionary lesbianism, the mom’s-basement emotional backdrop; Jeff really nailed that entire urban misfit routine.
Presumably self-teaching, once the “actus” program acquires just the slightest bit of historical context and reasonable sentence structure, it’s polar opposite can be then easily inverted and copied, making it doubtful that Jeff will ever have to write another post. The self-writing left-bashing blog will be reality and it’ll be a small step to taking over the world. It’ll be up to you and I, acassa, to keep up the battle while Jeff/Rove starts new autonomous blogs like we change our socks. Some say Rush is himself retired in Barbados while another of Jeff’s earlier bots dials in every day at nine.
Today, AM radio and Pajamas Media. Tommorrow, the globe.
And we don’t have many transborder wars either.
Oh no. They’re much better of being democratically run. But lets not kid ourselves into thinking that means peace.
Democracy’s for everybody. But its no panacea in preventing war. It was possible to whip us into war—you know, people against it are traitors and all—and the same will be true in the middle east.
Its just that I don’t see democracies as having institutions that prevent war.
Actus-
Explain how it is easier to whip up a populace with a free media and accountable politicians than with a state controlled media and leaders that are accountable to no one.
Also its interesting that you say that the middle east would be much better off with democracy, but you also said sarcastically that you “Can’t wait” for this to happen. Maybe you should explain what you really want for the Middle East, since what you admit would be in the Middle East’s best interest clearly isn’t it.
I don’t know if its easier. I think its possible. Jeff said that support for a strike on Iran would climb to majority leves after an Iranian strike. It would take an unaccountable leader to keep the peace in that situation. Its not a simple dichotomy that leaders always want war and populations always want peace.
Its also not that hard to get a free media and an accountable politicians into a war fever. Look at how easy its been to get everyone upset about the UAE ports thingo.
Because I want to disabuse people of the panacea of democracy. Democracies take effort to make work. They open up new problems. This isn’t a reason to not have them, but it is a reason for the triumphalists who see it as a panacea to quit it.
Read: “I want to disabuse people of the panacea of freedom and prosperity. Freedom and prosperity take effort. Freedom and prosperity create new problems. This isn’t a reason to be willfully enslaved and unprosperous, but it is a reason for the triumphalists who see freedom and prosperity as free and prosperous to quit it.”
Ah. And do you always debate yourself actus-program?
tw: Talk about your rhetorical questions…
Oh no. Keep your eye on the ball as far as free and prosperous goes. But don’t imagine that democracy solves all sorts problems. One example of what I’m talking about is what just happened in the last few posts: “democracy” became “prosperity.” You just right now imagined that democracy solved the problem of prosperity.
That’s not quite obvious. Very democratic societies can vote themselves some very bad economic policies. It takes work to make prosperity, democratic or not.
God, but you are obtuse. Do you need to be hit with a truck before you understand anything, actus?
The point (he said, wearily) is that you would stroke yourself all day long if allowed, making the most idiotic self-references to the most inane ankle-biting the world has ever known.
You’re arguing with the baseboards, atus. Now go shut up someplace. This crowd usually has something important to say and you keep showing up spewing absolutely nothing and pretending folks are listening. You’re less than punctuation around here.
Sorry to be so direct but I’m only trying to improve the signal to noise ratio.
I’m not the one responding to the bot.