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by Doctor Science

'Cause we love peace and motherhood.

As you may recall, in early August The Atlantic published an article by Jeffrey Goldberg about how Israel and Iran are getting "to the point of no return" because of Iran's nuclear program. The article got a lot of online and other media attention, so much that The Atlantic put together an online debate that ran August 16-25.

I made an effort to be one of the people reading and commenting on the debate there. You can read my daily extracts here:

• Days 1-2: who's driving this bus, Israel or the US?.
  
  
• Day 3: would a strike work? realism at the White House?.
• Day 4: the Long Game and containment.
  
  
• Day 5: how threatening is the threat?.
• Days 6-7 (or so): If force is the answer, what is the question?.
  
  
• Day 8: Should we give peace a chance?.

Those links doubtless qualify as "tl;dr" for non-masochists. The highlights of the discussion, for me:

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by guest blogger Gary Farber.

In an economic depression, it's especially important to invest wisely.  That's why wise American business leaders believe a dollar spent buying John Boehner is a dollar well spent. 

Remember, if you want to fight against the interests of common people, you want to Buy Boehner.

[…] He maintains especially tight ties with a circle of lobbyists and former
aides representing some of the nation’s biggest businesses, including
Goldman Sachs, Google, Citigroup, R. J. Reynolds, MillerCoors and UPS.

A helpful graphic of some of Minority Leader Boehner's best pals.

[…] Michael Steel, a spokesman for Mr. Boehner, said the industry ties only
help make Mr. Boehner a better Republican leader. “Like the American
people, Boehner — a former small-business man — is most concerned right
now about the issue of jobs,” he said. “So he often speaks with
employers, rather than, for example, labor unions or environmentalists
who support job-killing policies.”

Remember, if you kill a job, you have to eat it.

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by guest blogger Gary Farber.

On October 29th, 2004, Osama bin Laden released a video addressing the American people, and the world, as part of his series of fatwas and statements.

Among the things he said (italics for emphasis are mine):

[…]  All that we have to do is to send two Mujahedin to the farthest point
East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda in order to
make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human economic
and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note
other than some benefits for their private companies.

This is in
addition to our having experience in using guerrilla warfare and the war
of attrition to fight tyrannical superpowers as we alongside the
Mujahedin bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced
to withdraw in defeat. All Praise is due to Allah.

So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of
bankruptcy.

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