ARE WE THERE YET?

ARE WE THERE YET?

Say something that criticizes the government and the people in power, and you can go to jail. No, it's not the United States, at least not yet (though I wouldn't plan on creating one of those video games where you shoot up the White House and everyone in it). No, it's Iran (registration required for story), where blogging is something that will not only get the blogger arrested, but apparently even the guys who work at the ISP.

Of course, stories like this will make it easier for the Bush Administration to invade Iran (see my reference to Seymour Hersh's article in New Yorker). But, just as we need to remember that not all Americans are bad, it's just the current Administration, we need also to remember that not all Iranians are bad, just the current Administration. And probably even the next one or two.

Let me describe something to you. Picture a country with a history of great accomplishments in science and which, through war and diplomacy, grew to influence much, if not all, of the world. Picture, then, a movement by religious men who seek to impose their extreme views on the population in general, and then to take their own limited viewpoint and impose it on the rest of the world. How sad, you say, that the country formerly known as Persia should fall into such a disreputable present.

Unfortunately, I'm describing the United States of America, a country where a bare majority of the citizenry has given nuclear (sorry, nucular) power to a man who wants to relive the Crusades and crush the Infidels in their own lands. Bush is not merely about protecting the United States; Bush is all about protecting his view of God and projecting it, at missile-point, to the rest of the world.

Um... is Osama still in Afghanistan?