Just for a laugh, I thought I'd give the Green Party a visit and see what's making news for them.

Green Parties of Canada and United States warn of disastrous consequences of an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities

Canadian and U.S. Green Parties are jointly calling for a comprehensive and open dialogue to stop the escalation of tension in the Persian Gulf OTTAWA – At the initiative of the Leader of the Green Party of Canada, Elizabeth May, the Canadian and U.S. Green Parties are jointly calling for a comprehensive and open dialogue to stop the escalation of tension in the Persian Gulf. The escalating tension, combined with suggestions the U.S. may have a war plan that includes targeting Iran's nuclear facilities, led the Green Parties of the U.S. and Canada to state today that nuclear facilities should never be targeted for deliberate attack.

Does the Conservative Party issue joint press releases with the Republicans? The Liberals with the Democrats? Yet Canadian Green Party leader, the American Elizabeth May, somehow thinks us colonials need a little transnational help from our betters, south of the border.

“There can be no justification for attacking nuclear facilities," said Janina Komaroff, Green Party of Canada critic for International Cooperation. “The consequences of such an attack would be disastrous.”

Nuclear facilities? It's not like Iran has plants up and running. And the consequences for Iran's nuclear program would certainly be disastrous, but I doubt it be much worse than any other "normal" attack. And it certainly sorted out Iraq's program, all those years ago without "disastrous" "consequences".

Citing the potentially catastrophic environmental and health consequences of such attacks, the Greens jointly called upon all parties in the current stand off to refrain from war and to enter into meaningful negotiations. The Canadian and U.S. Green Parties are collaborating with Green Parties in Europe on this issue.

OK, our final offer: you can kill half the Joos in a rain of fire, enslave one-quarter and deport the rest to Germany.

“Western governments know the dangers of attacks on nuclear facilities. The vulnerability of their own nuclear facilities to terrorist attacks has been an ongoing concern since 9/11,” said Julia Willebrand, Co-Chair of the International Committee of the Green Party of the U.S. “The idea that any western country would engage in or support such attacks on the facilities of another nation should be unthinkable.”

We, the sane, don't really see the symmetry between a terrorist attack designed to kill Canadian and American civilians and a military attack design to stop a dictatorship from killing civilians and threatening neighboring nations. Sorry, we didn't go to cuckoo school let you folks.

Global double standards are the crux of the current crisis over Iran's uranium reprocessing. While the nuclear weapons states have failed to live up to their commitment made under the Non-Proliferation Treaty of 1970 to dismantle their own nuclear weapons, they have selectively allowed some states like Israel, India and Pakistan to develop nuclear weapons, while threatening and/or bombing countries like Iraq and Iran. Clearly, as this crisis demonstrates, the status quo is not working and is not providing security and stability in the Middle East or the world.

This paragraph is so bizarre, it's hard to know where to start. We didn't "allow" Israel, India and Pakistan to do anything; they just went and did it. How can any sane person -- yes, I know -- talk about nuclear proliferation in the 21st century and not work in a mention of North Korea? That doesn't really fit into the negotiations, not bombs paradigm, does it? Iraq hasn't managed to attack any of its neighbors in the last 16 years, so that's a plus. Beyond that, it's hard to see what this has to do with peace and security in the rest of the Middle East.

While the situation in the Middle East is complex and involves many issues beyond the current nuclear crisis, a de-escalation of the current nuclear crisis is essential to addressing these complex problems. It is time to end the threats and the war games and to enter into a meaningful dialogue that addresses the issues and concerns of all parties involved.

e.g. see our final offer re: the Joos above.