It sucks to be a radical Iranian mullah....

As described by Frank Martin in the comments at Vodkapundit (http://www.vodkapundit.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=6485):

You wake up in Tehran, 300 miles to your east is a border with an American occupied country. 125 miles to the north, an American occupied country, to your west, another American occupied country.

Your waterways and shorelines are full of big gray ships, any one of which has more firepower than you're entire navy and coastal patrol. Every day 4 times a day, untouchable satellites in space fly over and map every single thing in your country, every bit of electromagetic spectra that can be gathered, is, and its poured over by faceless people in langley virginia, whos full time job it is to determine what those tracks in the farmers field lead to, secret lab? or missle silo?. And you know you cant do a thing about it.

These people, the Americans, have the largest population of Persians anywhere in the world outside of Iran. These people, The Americans, have destroyed your Sunni enemies whom you fought a war for 10 years that ended with the death of millions on both sides, The Americans have beaten that enemy to an utter and complete collapse on two separate occasions, but the last one was so fast, that it now holds the worlds records for "speed of rout".

Iranian mullahs wake up every morning and right after before prayers ask themselves:

If they can do that to the Iraqis, and the Afghanis, what will they do to us?

They ask this while little white airplanes with long white wings fly silently over their capital unmolested, while American F-14A's which were sold to Shah sit on the ramp, missing spare parts or pilots qualified to fly them. F-14As in the US being long retired as museum pieces.

The mullahs wonder if Iran will ever be able to produce an aircraft of the same quality. Iranian kids wonder if they will ever be able to produce pencils of such quality that Iranians will at least be able to draw pictures of great aircraft.

They wonder how many spies and provacateures are coming into Iran via tha Haj to Mecca and the occupied city of Najaf.

They wonder if the North Koreans will sell them out.

They wonder if Pakistan will sell them out.

They wonder if their kids will turn out in great numbers and kill them all.

They wonder - if today will be the day they find out.

Heh.

Attack of the Kerry-bot

So I'm walking past the library downtown on my way to the parking garage after work today. There's a girl in her twenties with an armful of pamphlets. As I approach she asks me, "Are you voting for Kerry?"

"No," I say.

"Are you registered to vote?"

"Yes."

"You're not voting for Bush?" She sounds incredulous, like she can't believe her ears.

"Yes I am."

"But he's a Nazi," she said (I kid you not). I've been having this same "conversation" for months now, mostly online. I had no interest in explaining my reasons to her (even assuming she was open-minded enough to listen to them), so I kept walking. She fell in beside me, trying to engage me in a debate, asking why I'd support Bush. Brushing off my statement that I wasn't interested in talking about with an announcement that this was a big deal, an important election.

She asked me again if I was really voting for Bush. I said that I was, and why not? "Because he's a Nazi," she repeated. No evidence, no argument; just the flat assertion, as if it were self-evident. And then, as if the implications weren't clear enough for me, she added, "unless you...agree with the Nazis."

I thought, Does this line of argument work for you often, honey?. "That presupposes that I agree that Bush is a Nazi," I said. "I don't."

She made an effort again to draw me out, but I ignored her and went on my way. Sorry, honey, but you're no more likely to change my mind than I am to convince you to support Bush. So what's the point?

It was rather amusing, really. She was so sincere, so convinced that if only I'd let her explain it to me, I'd see the light. Either I was ignorant of the truth, or I was a Nazi sympathizer. The idea that I could look at the same events and draw a different conclusion was clearly not part of her worldview.

That pretty much was my every experience arguing politics with the anti-Bush crowd for the last four years in one two-minute encounter.