This came up in the previous thread, and in fact comes up all the time with my winger correspondents, who seem to think that Israel, at some point, became the 51st state.

Israel is not the United States.

Israel is absolutely an ally, a crucial ally. And you may believe we owe some sort of moral fealty to Israel - for religious purposes, or because of what happened to the Jews during the Holocaust. Fine.

But Israel is not the United States.

I’m not sure why this is so difficult for right-wingers to understand. As noted yesterday, in the discussion of Israel’s nukes, Israeli state secrets are not American state secrets; and Israel is quite capable of defending itself.

But as part of their war-mongering ways, right-wingers demand that the United States, in fact, wage pre-emptive war on behalf of Israel; one of the rationales for taking a swing at Iran is that Iran may, one day, take a swing at Israel.

But Israel is not the United States. And again, as previously noted, Iran does not yet have a single bomb. And though Ahmadinejad - whom, the wingers always purposely fail to note, has no actual authority - might indeed want to wipe Israel from the face of the map, a single Iranian bomb aimed at Israel invites the full force of Israeli retaliation, invites the utter obliteration of Iran.

But it is crucial to the right-wing deception that Israel be portrayed as far weaker than it actually is. We aren’t to speak of Israel’s arsenal, we are to feign ignorance, because to acknowledge the truth would give away the game - that Israel is not so weak, not so desperately in need of the United States to come riding in on the white stallion and save them, save all that is good and true and pure.

Israel, with 150 nukes, can deter any attack from any regional competitor. That is a fact. Right-wingers would obscure that fact; they would do the exact same thing they now accuse the Iranians themselves of doing, lying about nuclear capabilities.

But see, it’s moral when we do this.

What a load of krep.