Just everybody shut up for a bit
I’m reading Robert Novak’s column in the Washington Post this morning which is just so much hand-wringing over a missed opportunity for peace in Israel.
The aphorism (originated by Israeli statesman Abba Eban) that Arabs “never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity” now can be applied to Israel. Last week’s Riyadh declaration indicated the willingness of the Arab world to consider a peaceful solution. Now, belief here among peace-seekers is that nothing will happen until a new president enters the Oval Office in 2009.
Gee, I wonder why that is? Maybe it’s because the US isn’t perceived as a reliable broker any longer – not because of President Bush and his cabinet, but because, apparently we have 300 million Secretaries of State these days. Everyone with pocket change to buy a ticket flies off to the Middle East, presents themselves as negotiators, swap recipes and tramples innocent bystanders getting to the microphones to trumpet their accomplishments.
With this president, it began with Congressman McDermott way back in October 2002 when McDermott announced that Saddam Hussein was more trustworthy than President Bush. I’ll use Larry Elder’s recount of the event;
Standing in Iraq, McDermott incredibly insisted that Americans “have to take the Iraqis on their face value.” ABC’s George Stephanopoulos asked McDermott, “Before you left for Baghdad, you said the president of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war. Do you really believe that?” Following a rambling reply, McDermott finally said, “I think the president would mislead the American people.”
How can the world have trust in our word with crackpots like that getting face time? Then you’ve got Hillary Clinton telling the New York Post that the President knew about 9-11 attacks before hand and Cynthia McKinney calling for investigations of the Bush Administration before the dust had settled in New York City on that day?
We left the South Vietnamese to be slaughtered, imprisoned, and floating around the South China Sea, the Cambodians to the whims of a blood-thirsty tyrant. We left the Shi’ites hanging in 1991 while Hussein murdered them in droves, we left the Somalis in a lurch in 1993, we left the Haitians in as bad or worse condition than they were when Jimmy Carter went there to negotiate (not to mention we scooped up every Haitian we found floating in the Caribbean and stuck them in a Guantanamo tent city for indeterminate amount of time) and now Congress is doing it’s level best to broadcast to world that we’re about to abandon the Iraqis. Why won’t Pakistan do more to stop al Qaida operations in their country? Because they’re sure we’ll pull out before the job is done.
Who could trust us? We don’t speak with one voice – we speak with millions of voices. Spiro Agnew called them the “nattering nabobs of negativity” and, boy, he nailed it. Free speech doesn’t extend to flocks of hypocrits negotiating our surrender.
And a note to Blinky, Queen of Botox, Jimmy Carter’s endorsement of your “mission” to Syria in no way reflects favorably. Although Hezbollah may name a rocket after you.
Category: Foreign Policy, Historical, Jimmy Carter, Politics
