NYC Letter: Today's Big Stupid -- Ted Turner

Day 1,197 of CHOPE

The left has lots and lots of ideas (and this and this and this) for saving the world. Just don't ask them to explain how any of them actually work. Things will just work out because of their immense faith in, ah-um, their ideas.

Ted Turner has an idea for saving the world. But when he attempts to explain how its benefits will materialize, the rainbows evaporate and the unicorns prance away leaving Mr. Turner stumbling from one non sequitur to the next.

TED TURNER: U.S. AND ISRAEL SHOULD DISARM
TO PREVENT NUCLEAR IRAN

May 4, 2012 (NewsBusters) - Appearing as a guest on Thursday's Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN, the news network's founder, Ted Turner, complained that a double standard exists between the U.S. and Israel being allowed to possess nuclear weapons while Iran is expected to be nuclear-free, as he suggested that all countries dispose of their nuclear arsenals to persuade Iran not to build such weapons. ... Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Thursday, May 3, Piers Morgan Tonight on CNN:

PIERS MORGAN: What would you do about Iran if you were the American President?

TED TURNER: Well, first of all, I believe in total nuclear disarmament. That's the only way we're ever going to get there. We all got to play by the same set of rules. We have 2,000 or several thousand nuclear weapons. Iran has none at the current time. It's okay for Israel to have 100, but it's not okay for Iran to have two. That's, that's, you're not treating everybody equally.

You have no strong position except force. Only by force can it be done. I think we've already voted at the U.N. and the Security Council to get rid of nuclear weapons. Let's get rid of them. Let's get rid of ours, and then Iran will stop, I believe, and everybody else will because if everybody doesn't have them, then we're safe - at least safe from a nuclear attack.

I mean, if we have full-scale nuclear exchange, it's going to destroy life on Earth, all life. Maybe there will be a few cockroaches left, but that's all, and I find that crazy. This is such a nice world, and most of the people are really nice here.

But, you know, and if you treat people with dignity, respect, and friendliness like I did with the Russians and the Soviets before them with the Goodwill Games, if you try and make friends, you can make friends and you can do that even with former enemies. Japan bombed us at Pearl Harbor, and now we're good friends with the japanese. We fought China in the Cold War, but now we're good friends with the Chinese, most of us are.

Where to begin? Is it worth the effort to parse something so astonishingly stupid?

Let's begin with the "rules". Iran is a non-nuclear-weapon state signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Israel is not a signatory. Iran has chosen to bind itself to a treaty making it "not okay for Iran to have two [nuclear weapons]" (Article II). Those are the rules to which Iran has freely acquiesced. The same treaty recognizes the United States as one of five nuclear weapon states, an existing condition, the legitimacy of which Iran, again, as an NPT signatory, acknowledges. The international pressure on Iran to end its nuclear weapons program is not an unequal application of the rules -- but the rules established by treaty -- signed and ratified by Iran -- to which signatories are obliged to conform.

Mr. Turner abruptly turns from "treating everybody equally" to introduce this propsoition: "You have no strong position except force. Only by force can it be done." This upturns the feeble NPT rules already in place for a strong arm approach. This approach is best illustrated in Thucydides' Melian Dialogue wherein the strong have their way with the weak. A complete contradiction right after Mr. Turner's plea for equal treatment.

As for the vote "at the U.N. and the Security Council to get rid of nuclear weapons", that is a complete fabrication by Mr. Turner.

Mr. Turner ends supremely confident in his breezy "play nice and make friends" admonition. All that is required is that Israel and America, neither of whose nuclear arsenals are in violation of international law, unilaterally disarm and Iran will end its unlawful nuclear weapons program. And, of course, as goes Iran, so go Russia and China and North Korea and Pakistan and India. And in the rush of disarmament, terrorists will be quick to jump aboard, forswearing the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons, confining themselves to tedious one-head-at-a-time terrorist beheadings. Easy. Peezy. [Pause.] Mr. Turner seems to think Iran only wants nuclear weapons to keep even with Israel (and this). [An iterative pause for patience.] Iran wants nuclear weapons to better advance its declared intention to wipe Israel "off the map".

Mr. Turner rose to prominence as a shrewd businessman. Yet here he is shilling a business proposition so flimsy, so badly conceived, that, as a businessman, he would never buy. He would never consider. He would never touch.

The kindest thing that can be said of Mr. Turner is he has no idea what he is talking about. A fairer assessment is that he is dope who, at his beck, can appear on national television and deleteriously misinform the public. The truth is Mr. Turner is a pernicious stooge. A big stupid for the bad guys.

CHOPE.

Kumbaya liberalism.