The Voice of Treason

Condi Rice is under the microscope as Secretary of State, and now the scrutiny intensifies as people look at her as a possible presidential candidate for 2008. I have to wonder what’s going on in her head. If the presidency is a job she doesn’t want, fine. But if it is…she’s expected to solve to world’s problems, be held up as an example for both women and African-Americans, say the right thing at all times, be soft and be firm, have great hair, stay slim, always look crisp, and do this all in three-inch heels.

If I do anything in three-inch heels I look like a flamingo.

As for Condi, she looks fine and she’s starting out well by planning a trip to the Middle East and not caving as the number of dead civilians increases - and by making it clear that the U.S. is not calling for a cease-fire. So far so good. But all that can change in a heartbeat. Or if her hair isn’t quite right. Or if she packed the wrong accessories.

I pity the woman who becomes the next leader of the free world.

So says this “personal development” website I stumbled upon. It also offers the definition of “responsibility” by Ambrose Bierce:

RESPONSIBILITY, n. A detachable burden easily shifted to the shoulders of God, Fate, Fortune, Luck or one’s neighbor. In the days of astrology it was customary to unload it upon a star.

The site points out that “personal responsibility is nothing other than the freedom to create our own lives,” and warns against using “burdens as excuses” and living in a negative state of mind. Instead, look for what is good, learn to appreciate it, and “take responsibility by making the most of what you have.”

Someone should point this out to the whiners who are currently being escorted - at taxpayers’ expense - out of Lebanon. In other words, stop your bitchin’ before the rest of us lose all sympathy and send you a bill.

And may I suggest that Dick Gregory take the same advice? Dick’s off his meds again, accusing white racists of manufacturing malt liquor with high levels of manganese - an element that makes black folks want to (and this is a quote from Mr. Gregory) “kill their mamas.”

Dick. I used to swill cheap malt liquor in the previous century and I never killed nobody’s mama. Never even crossed my mind. How do you explain that one? Only black folks have an adverse reaction to manganese? Uh, may I suggest they avoid it?

The personal development site states:

“Happiness is a choice, just like misery is; we all have the responsibility to make the right choices. We owe it to ourselves to do so.”

Malt liquor is also a choice. White people aren’t foisting it upon poor blacks. Black people actually have to go down to the local Stop ‘n’ Rob and buy 40 ounce bottles of the crap. Yet there are people - black people - who won’t drink the stuff. I know this because they haven’t killed their mamas. They haven’t killed anybody.

Maybe it’s a manganese deficiency. Or maybe it’s personal responsibility. I don’t know what it is, but the end result is this: we have people who are grateful that they’ve been brought out of Lebanon and there are people who are complaining about the accommodations; and there are people of all colors who drink malt liquor and people of all colors who kill their mothers as well as people who do neither.

All this kvetching and all I can think of is Woody Allen.

“There’s an old joke. Uh, two elderly women are at a Catskills mountain resort, and one of ‘em says, ‘Boy, the food at this place is really terrible.’ The other one says, ‘Yeah, I know, and such small portions.’ Well, that’s essentially how I feel about life. Full of loneliness and misery and suffering and unhappiness, and it’s all over much too quickly.”

Life’s portions come in all sizes and some are better than others. When you’re a guest here and you’re served something you don’t like, you have two choices. I find that I’ve been taking many of life’s portions with a grain of salt. It seems to make the least palatable bearable.

The rest of the 2002 article by Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp, and Jeane Kirkpatrick:

THE STATE OF ISRAEL

In sum, a fair and balanced portrayal of the Middle East will reveal that one nation stands far above the others in its commitment to human rights and democracy as well as in its commitment to peace and mutual security. That nation is Israel.

Finally. Someone mentioned what’s happening in the Middle East. Specifically between Israel and Hezbollah and Hamas. I listened and I heard concern. Then worry. Then confusion. One person said that she still doesn’t fully understand all the issues there. Normally, I’d jump on the usual “Israel-is-our-friend-so-we-must-support-them” bandwagon and rattle off facts, historical tidbits, and examples of how the Israelis bend over backwards to create peace in the desert, then get kicked in the teeth time and time again.

But instead I was quiet. There is so much information available today and the “fair and balanced” concept that presents two sides seems only to confuse people. When they report and we decide, some of us are running into some trouble. There are those who have taken sides and are committed to them. I’m one of those people. But I listen to the arguments and I can begin to understand why some people are hesitant to take a position.

But I stand by mine because most of the time I hear the other side the argument starts strong, then turns blatantly anti-Semitic. And it just reinforces my belief that Israel is on the right side of the issue.

I have an article that I often go back and review, and I think I’ll just post it here. Keep in mind that it was written several years ago by Bill Bennett, Jack Kemp, and Jeane Kirkpatrick and could use an update. A hell of a lot has happened since May, 2002. (If anyone is aware of an updated article, please alert me.)

It’s a long one, so I’ll just post part of it today to be continued tomorrow.

TWENTY FACTS ABOUT ISRAEL AND THE MIDDLE EAST

The world’s attention has been focused on the Middle East. We are confronted daily with scenes of carnage and destruction. Can we understand such violence? Yes, but only if we come to the situation with a solid grounding in the facts of the matter—facts that too often are forgotten, if ever they were learned. Below are twenty facts that we think are useful in understanding the current situation, how we arrived here, and how we might eventually arrive at a solution.

ROOTS OF THE CONFLICT

· When the United Nations proposed the establishment of two states in the region—one Jewish, one Arab—the Jews accepted the proposal and declared their independence in 1948. The Jewish state constituted only 1/6 of one percent of what was known as “the Arab world.” The Arab states, however, rejected the UN plan and since then have waged war against Israel repeatedly, both all-out wars and wars of terrorism and attrition. In 1948, five Arab armies invaded Israel in an effort to eradicate it. Jamal Husseini of the Arab Higher Committee spoke for many in vowing to soak “the soil of our beloved country with the last drop of our blood.”

· The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was founded in 1964—three years before Israel controlled the West Bank and Gaza. The PLO’s declared purpose was to eliminate the State of Israel by means of armed struggle. To this day, the Web site of Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority (PA) claims that the entirety of Israel is “occupied” territory.* It is impossible to square this with the PLO and PA assertions to Western audiences that the root of the conflict is Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

· The West Bank and Gaza (controlled by Jordan and Egypt from 1948 to 1967) came under Israeli control during the Six Day War of 1967 that started when Egypt closed the Straits of Tiran and Arab armies amassed on Israel’s borders to invade and liquidate the state. It is important to note that during their 19-year rule, neither Jordan nor Egypt had made any effort to establish a Palestinian state on those lands. Just before the Arab nations launched their war of aggression against the State of Israel in 1967, Syrian Defense Minister (later President) Hafez Assad stated, “Our forces are now entirely ready . . . to initiate the act of liberation itself, and to explode the Zionist presence in the Arab homeland . . . the time has come to enter into a battle of annihilation.” On the brink of the 1967 war, Egyptian President Gamal Nassar declared, “Our basic objective will be the destruction of Israel.”

· Over three-quarters of Palestinians approve of suicide bombings—an appalling statistic but, in light of the above facts, an unsurprising one.

To be continued…

When I was little, I was a quiet kid. Sometimes I’m still accused of being quiet. It’s just that I like to listen to conversations. Growing up in a family full of secrets, if I wanted to find out anything I had to clam up and listen to what was going on around me. Call it eavesdropping, but it was useful. To this day I listen to conversations - in grocery stores, on elevators, anywhere.

People are talking, but they’re not saying much. We tend to talk about food quite a bit. People will mention new purchases (”Oh, did I tell you? We bought a new fill-in-the-blank!”) and there’s discussion of pets, kids, the weather, and vacation plans. Are we so burdened by life’s daily doings that we’re just focusing on what’s happening in our own little worlds?

No one seems to be discussing current events, but I did get close to a conversation recently. I was in an office and there was a TV tuned into CNN. The coverage was on the anniversary of the London bombings, and an elegant older gentlemen spoke to me.

“My wife and I were in London within a month of all this. We were just so struck by the memorials everywhere. The flowers…the letters. So many things from so many places. I remember a flag and a letter…flowers, too…from Iraq. A memorial set up there, from the people of Iraq. It was a letter - we read it - a letter that expressed so much…so much sorrow. They were just so sorry…”

I started to respond and I couldn’t. I nodded, I mumbled something, and I nodded.

My classmate is from India and I expected to talk to him about the bombings there, but it didn’t come up. Like Zarqawi’s demise, it didn’t come up. No one is initiating conversation. Not even me. And that’s unusual.

Are we hesitant to talk about these issues? Or are some of us completely unaware or disinterested? I often hear people say that certain events don’t affect them. Really? How is that? Trust me. Wildfires in California will affect you. The conflict between Israel and Lebanon will affect you. The G8 summit and whatever conversation Bush has with Putin or Merkel or Blair over dinner will affect you. What happens in Japan, North Korea, China, and India will affect you.

We’re global, it seems, when we’re talking about global warming. But there are bigger threats than melting icecaps and hurricanes right now and we all seem so oblivious. Degrees of separation. We accept that there are only so many degrees of separation between this thing and Kevin Bacon, but some of us aren’t as quick to see the connections that really do affect our lives.

When California and Arizona are burning, we who are here breathe the smoke. And there are fires starting all over the world. Breathe deep the gathering gloom.

I’d mentioned here before how our Republican congresswoman has been distancing herself from the President and several of the administration’s policies. I believe I said that she was backing away from Bush as if he were a bloated, stinking corpse. He was here for an appearance and she wasn’t able to rearrange her schedule in order to have dinner with him. However, he returned to the state recently to campaign on her behalf. She’s in trouble and he’s just lending a helping hand. If he’s in trouble, it’s not her problem.

The reason I’m bringing this up again is that I caught her new TV ad the other day and had this nagging feeling that something was missing. “Maybe I blinked,” I told myself. “Lemme watch for it again before I jump to any conclusions.”

So I watched for the ad again, saw it, and got the same weird feeling that something was missing. I watched for it again. And again. And again. To be fair, it takes a second or two to register, so if this information appears at the very beginning of the ad, I apologize for missing it. I suspect, however, that it’s not there. Because if it is, it’s at the beginning precisely so it will be missed. If it’s there or if it’s not - I keep missing it and I’m actively looking for it.

A word appears on the screen and the candidate says it. The narrator of the ad says it. It’s the one word that sticks in your mind once the ad is over. The candidate is interviewed in the ad and explains that she works with people who are in her party and who are not in her party. But she never quite gets around to naming either party. The only word she uses to describe herself is INDEPENDENT.

Interesting, because I know for a fact that when I go into the booth to vote for her there will not be a big “I” after her name. No, there will be a big “R” and she’s trying to pretend that the letter is not really there. Not only is she backing away from George W. Bush as if he were a bloated, stinking corpse, she’s backing away from the entire Republican Party.

Uh, who is she trying to fool? Her Democratic rival certainly isn’t going to back away from her political affiliation. Democratic ads in this state usually feature the word Democrat so prominently that sometimes you don’t even catch the candidate’s name, but you know for damned sure which party he/she’s representing. And that’s what’s important in this state. Just look for the “D” and press the button. Here’s your five dollars - have a nice day.

To be fair, the Republican candidate deserves to win because she is the better choice. Even Democrats admit their candidate is incompetent. But they’ll vote for her anyway, knowing that she’s an idiot. I’ve heard from the other side that the Republican has done a great job in certain areas that they hold dear. Women from both parties admit that she works hard on behalf of women. The elderly admit that she has worked hard on behalf of the aged. Veterans on both sides have approved of her work.

So I can’t criticize her for making that a part of her ad. She works for everyone in the state, she says. That may be true. But it’s odd to run a political ad and purposely fail to identify your party. She is not running as an Independent. She is a Republican.

She should at least have the balls to admit it.

“Hezbollah terrorists, operating with impunity in southern Lebanon, unleashed a sudden and unprovoked attack into Israeli territory. Scores of Katyusha rockets rained down on Israeli towns and villages, causing many civilian casualties. In the midst of this horrific assault, Hezbollah terrorists infiltrated Israel, killing a number of soldiers and kidnapping two more, who were taken deep into the terrorist stronghold of Lebanon.

– Dan Gillerman, Israel’s U.N. ambassador, at the U.N. Security Council emergency meeting on the Israel-Lebanon crisis

This is no time for nuance or pussyfootin’ around. It’s precisely why it’s good to have John Bolton representing us at the United Nations. Mr. Bolton is no mealy-mouthed diplomat and he won’t muzzle himself or tread lightly. This is no time to tread lightly. This is big stick time.

Happily, there are people out there who are good at wielding big sticks. Benjamin Netanyahu comes to mind. When Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke and fell into a coma, most of us figured things were going to go south pretty quickly. And here we are now in Deep South. Israel’s surrounded by enemies and needs someone who won’t stand for muzzling. I did enjoy hearing Dan Gillerman tell his Lebanese counterpart:

“Deep inside your heart you know that if you could, you would be sitting here next me…You know we are doing the right thing, and if we succeed, Lebanon will be the beneficiary.”

I also appreciated that he said he agreed with the critics who felt that Israel’s response was disproportionate, pointing out that if any of these other countries had been similarly attacked, their reaction would have been much greater. That being the case, said Gillerman, Israel’s restrained response was, indeed, disproportionate.

And then there’s George Bush responding to a question about Middle East violence.

Q: The violence in the Middle East is escalating despite calls for restraint. What can you, President Bush and President Putin, do to stop the violence, stop the fighting, given that there is divisions among allies here about whether Israel is using excessive force?

…HEZBOLLAH has made decisions to stop the advance of a two-state solution. The solution, short-term solution is for HEZBOLLAH to stop the attacks.

In a world of nuance and reading between the lines, George W. Bush has unabashedly pulled out the Big Chief Pad and Big Purple Crayon to spell out clearly that HEZBOLLAH is the problem here. HEZBOLLAH is a group of terrorists and HEZBOLLAH is lobbing Russian, Iranian, and Chinese-North Korean missiles at Israel. Israel didn’t start this crap - HEZBOLLAH started the crap.

It isn’t subtle, but the Big Purple Crayon is imperative right now. I hope the President remembers to place it securely in his luggage before he leaves St. Petersburg.

“This lawsuit concerns the intentional and malicious exposure by senior officials of the federal government of one such human source at the CIA, Valerie Plame Wilson, whose job it was to gather intelligence to make the nation safer and who risked her life for her country.”

I generally do not relish sinking to this level, but I just can’t help myself. The overpaid and overperoxided Valerie Plame and her husband, the pretentious fop Joseph Wilson, have announced their intention to sue Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, and Lewis Libby.

We’ve moved from Bennifer to Brangelina to…what now? Joserie? Plilson? While little old ladies all over America are calling talk radio hosts to ask if this is Armageddon, the Wilsons are pouting over their wine and cheese, consulting lawyers and publishers, and going to great lengths to keep the media spotlight on them.

Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Lewis Libby ruined Valerie Plame’s career? Really? Looks to me as if more damage has been done to Lewis Libby’s career. Can’t the Wilsons call it even-steven and go back to being obscure government workers?

I’d appreciate it if they would allow the Vice President to concentrate on more pressing issues of the day. Joe! Val! Be the patriots you claim to be and put your petty differences aside for the good of the world. Mr. Cheney has a more important war to attend to.

The usual suspects have spoken. First, Russia condemns Israel. Then France condemns Israel. And here’s the other usual suspect, issuing a statement.

Alaeddin Boroujerdi, head of the external relations committee of the Iranian parliament, has sent a love note to Zinedine Zidane, praising him for his complete lack of self-control. The infamous headbutt is a “logical” reaction and a “timely” defense against insult to his “humane and Islamic” identity.

Kayhan, the radical hardline newspaper (and stalwart supporter of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) ran on its front page two photos of the headbutt and a headline that read: “Zidane’s proud farewell - The best player of the World Cup defended his Islamic identity.”

Uh, someone better recheck Zidane’s Muslim credentials. I don’t think he’s claimed to even be a practicing Muslim and it sounds like the Italian player wasn’t saying anything derogatory about Zidane or Islam. Chances are he said something about Zidane’s sister…or his mother. Oh, come on! With Italians, that’s no slur - that’s just dinner conversation.

“Pass the polenta, your sister’s a whore.”

“You want more sauce with that? Your mother’s a whore.”

“I’ll pass on the sauce. Your mother’s sister’s a whore.”

“No sauce? Fine. Your sister’s mother’s a whore.”

“But some cheese would be good. Where’s the parmesan, whore?”

But it makes sense in a strange way. Zidane is being praised for an act of aggression that resulted in the opposite of a victory. His team lost the World Cup because he did something that could have been prevented. People blow themselves up and they’re heroes. It’s considered a victory. Losing a game is…victory. Losing your life…victory.

I’m going back to my original theory about Old Yeller. They’re all just nuts.

I’m listening to the reports in the MSM about Israel’s response to recent aggression. I’m trying to hold my bias in check here, but I have to say that these reports have been decidedly one sided. Israel is being painted (again) as the bad guy in this continuing saga.

Fine. People have made up their minds on this one and they’re not going to change. Was anyone else watching when Israel, once again bending over backwards to make peaceful overtures, pulled its own people forcefully out of Gaza? It was gut-wrenching stuff, I tell you. And do they get any credit for this? Do they get any sort of break from hostility and violence?

There is no difference. There will never be any difference. It doesn’t matter what Israel does, because nothing is ever going to change. So Israelis have no choice. They must do whatever it is they must do to defend themselves.

But listen to what’s being said out there: “The USSR and US pointed nukes at each other and everyone played nice; why can’t Israelis and Palestinians do the same?” I keep hearing this and I find it interesting that so many people have sort of missed the point. Again it goes back to the whole muzzling thing that I’ve talked about. We just can’t seem to come out with the unvarnished truth, so we have to say things like:

“This is a war that’s not like any other. We’re fighting an enemy that’s not like other enemies we have fought. What this is…is…well…it’s unlike the other thing that we’d like to liken it to…but can’t because it’s just not like that.”

Remember that kid who thought Old Yeller would know him and he wouldn’t act any different? But what the kid didn’t know was that it wasn’t Old Yeller anymore. Everyone thinks we’re dealing with Old Yeller. The USSR was more like Old Yeller but, like the experts keep saying, this is a different case. This isn’t Old Yeller. We knew Old Yeller. Old Yeller was predictable. Old Yeller had common sense. But something happened to Old Yeller. This is no Old Yeller.

We’re not dealing with the US and USSR, and we’re not dealing with the old Old Yeller. The thing that’s different, but isn’t what’s being said, is that Old Yeller - after the rabies incident - was nuts. Totally nuts and he couldn’t be trusted. He wasn’t Old Yeller; instead he was a deranged, hydrophobic, drooling, snarling, crazed, saliva drenched, fevered maniac. Just pure nuts.

And we’re dealing with nuts. Aim a million nukes at ‘em and they don’t care. Why? Cuz they’re nuts. Say it to yourself a few times. They’re nuts. They are just nuts. Total nuts. And that’ll answer your question. Doesn’t matter if we point weapons at one another. Cuz…go ahead and say it…no, louder…that’s it…THEY’RE NUTS.

So can we finally put that argument to rest now?