Our Buddy, Israel

Generally alliances have something to do with emotional connection but are primarily driven by shared national interests. Maybe somebody would like to point out what those shared interests are in regard to our client Israel over the last 20 years? There's no point in jabbering at me about emotional attachments especially since I see not a single "white horse" in the region and crap about theist democracies ain't gonna fly with me - see Hamas.

Israeli Stupidity And Over-reaction

You could take the Israeli publication Haaretz at its word regarding Israel and the humanitarian flotilla or you could decide anything Israel does is just fine. I am of the opinion that rank stupidity and over-reaction is the best description of Israel's handling of this matter.

The idea that the government of Turkey would be a part of arms smuggling for terrorists is ludicrous. It also isn't realistic to think Turkey had control of every aspect up until now. The fact that Israel found it necessary to kill 10 or more people to board essentially unarmed ships doesn't speak well to their planning or their mind sets. Over the past couple years what has become rather obvious is that to the Israeli government's mind there are no human beings in Gaza, only terrorists and sub-humans.

There certainly is the matter of Israeli and Egyptian offers to land the cargoes and forward them to Gaza. That would begin to make this a matter of political statement by running a naval blockade. It isn't in any responsible party's interest to have missiles and other nasties landing in Gaza, but it also isn't in such a party's interest to have Gaza strangled. There's the difficulty, talking about any responsible parties. Oh I just bet Hamas would turn away missile shipments and that Israel will let Gaza be anything other than a hell hole as long as Hamas holds sway. Certainly no non-AIPAC would call the US a responsible party.

There actually are people in this country that would establish a theocracy here, despite the evidence from the Middle East.

Our Pals?

You can make of this exactly as you please:

"In the night between Thursday and Friday, when the secretary of state wanted to lead the vote on a ceasefire at the Security Council, we did not want her to vote in favour," Olmert said.

"I said 'get me President Bush on the phone'. They said he was in the middle of giving a speech in Philadelphia. I said I didn't care. 'I need to talk to him now'. He got off the podium and spoke to me.

"I told him the United States could not vote in favour. It cannot vote in favour of such a resolution. He immediately called the secretary of state and told her not to vote in favour."

Guess what Mr Olmert? You suck eggs that can't be quantified. If that statement was made to get you gain in Israel you just screwed up big time here. If you think you and your pip squeak dependency are that big a deal that you run US policy you could be in for a serious surprise. I would personally bitch slap you for it. You cock strut around under the shield of the most powerful nation on earth and pretend to set US foreign policy? How many times is it that you think you can shit in our nest before the US public gets over whatever friend idea it is they have about you? Who the fuck do you think you are?

There is such a thing as alliance between nations, it involves a congruence of interests. There is no such thing as national friendships and asswipe Olmert just demonstrated it. Maybe you don't get it. Maybe you have some idea that friends spy on each other, Ask the folks in prison for spying for Israel if they feel like pals. If you want to have a personalized emotional attachment to another nation - help yourself - but to propose that such a thing exists at governmental level is stupidity and begs for this kind of crap.

I don't give a good goddam if it is the last week of the most incompetent pair of assholes in a long long time, this is the United States of America not some damn Jewish subsidiary. I don't hold you, Olmert, against the Israelis, but you just made the best possible argument for not being entangled with you beyond alliance I can think of. No goddam ally would make such a statement, not ever. You've had your ass spoiled and it is time you were spanked.

Except...this country is full of people that think there is such a thing as our friend Israel. (or any other nation)

Bush, Knesset, Ignorance, Stupidity

LA radio host Rick James gets taken down for stupid ignorance by Chris Matthews much to John Cole's amusement over at Balloon Juice and his many Commenters. I engaged in the same amusement as James wailed, "Appeasement!" over and over without knowing what Neville Chamberlain actually did to earn the appellation appeaser. Talking to Hitler wasn't Chamberlain's sin, giving him "Sudetenland" Czechoslovakia isn't quite the same thing as talking. All this amusement was in regard to the televised statements George II made to the Knesset on the 60th anniversery of Ireal's founding.

George once again set up his strawmen,

"Some seem to believe we should negotiate with terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along.
We have heard this foolish delusion before," Bush said in remarks to the
Israeli Knesset. "As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American Senator
declared: 'Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.' We have an obligation to call this what it is the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history."

I don't know who it is that is notable that has proposed negotiating with terrorists, unless maybe he's referring to Jimmy Carter talking to Hammas in the West Bank. Since Carter has no authority beyond his standing as an ex-President that couldn't be called negotiating and Obama has already stated repeatedly that terrorists are excuded.

Now what I found really offensive was George II deciding to use a foreign government as a political sounding board for Presidential campaigning. What I found rather astonishing was the standing ovation given after this piece of garbage was uttered. I would have expected that group of people to have a passing acquaintance with World War II history.

Now America is one of the most conservative of the industrialized democracies and when its conservatives get involved in history, it tends to be for the sake of convenience rather than facts. They continuously get caught out at it and just keep on at it. I don't suppose that anyone would like to argue that Israel is more liberal than the US? Well, the Knesset sure seemed to love this piece of inaccuracy and strawman argument. That sure increases my appreciation of Israel's special standing with the US. It is nice to know that they won't leave us holding the bag as the only people led by ignorance and stupidity.

Does anyone honestly believe that the mess in Israel and Palestine is the entire fault of one side? I have found that killing, terrorism, oppression, and general violence seems to take two to play when it involves nations. I propose that in that part of the world there is plenty of stupidity and intolerance to go around, and here's our President egging it on. Damn, does the idiocy have no end? Where is January 20, 2009 and what's holding it up?

Have A Dog In This Fight ?

If you've been watching any news you know that Hamas and Fata are busily killing each other in Palestine, in the latest a Hamas militia surrounded the house of a Fata commander Col. Muhammad Gharib killing eight. On Wednesday 5 died, on Thursday 60 were wounded including 10 children, they're getting right with the program. Both sides promise more of the same all the while saying their guns should be pointed at the Israelis. Some miles away, in Iraq, Arabs are involved in the same occupation of whacking each other, and the reasons don't seem a lot different.

You'd think the BushCo would be able to see that far away and get some kind of realistic input. The Palestinians actually have a common enemy - Israel - and yet they'd rather shoot each other up. Neither place has any particular experience with participatory democracy and even less with the concept of compromise and the results play themselves out on a daily basis. Their political solutions are at the business end of a bullet, or bomb. In Iraq we've exchanged a bloody minded despot for the tyranny of violence as politics by supposedly represented constituents, Palestine's methodology. I'm sure that tracing the course of frustrated aspirations and the history of violent oppression and resistance makes some of their patterns understandable and throw in their theocratic tendencies to get an outcome that's almost inevitiable. Why it is, then, that the Neocons and BushCo couldn't see today's Iraq barreling down the track?

It is not in the least racist or bigotted to state that the Arab version of Islam is theocratic in nature and by many interpretations, murderous. For the politically correct spinners of religious equality, Spain's Catholic Inquisition was theocracy at its finest, much less deal with the theocratic Crusades or - on and on. George II is a theocrat at heart and cannot see the obvious and inevitable consequences of indulging in it. Theocracy always trumps knowlege and history, it can only thrive on ignorance and superstition. There is no place within history that those qualifiers do not also result in muderous behavior. Be under no illusion that the versions of Islam in operation in the Middle East are somehow more debased than the vile versions of Chritianity practiced by US White Supremacists or some of the "fundamentalist" Christian Right, what they do not have is the power structure to indulge their fantasies.

Squealing, "unfair religious bigotry" at me is stupid, I will state unequivocally that the actual words spoken by these religions founders might actually be the basis for a much improved life. The problem lies with the politicization of their messages, many of the Books of the New Testament are nothing more than political power texts as are many of the passages surrounding the Koran. As these churches achieved political power their essential messages became perverted by the necessities of maintaining and enhancing that political power. There is a reason for a fence between secular and spiritual, that fence protects both but primarily the spiritual. I defy anyone to take the actual quotes of Jesus Christ and use them to back the anger and agenda of the Christian Right.

The deliberate cynical usage of the politics of religiosity by BushCo should have educated them in its propensity for mindless fanaticism, it should only have been a short step to understanding the brutality of its operation as government in the Middle East. The Sauds are family friends of George II, he kisses them and hold hands with them, their experiences with the Wahabbi sect surely are not secrets from him. Suppressed, ignorant, superstitious theocrats are dangerous murderous thugs. Why, exactly, we have a dog in any of these fights is beyond me.

Just For Scale

Israel and Lebanon are pretty far away and pretty foreign, but for an idea of the scale and distances involved, think about this, Harney and Grant County, Oregon at war. Harney is Israel & Grant is Lebanon, square milage is very close. Of course, populations are a bit different with 7,000 in Harney and 6 million in Israel...

Oh well, Grant and Harney are probably just about as foreign as Israel and Lebanon to most, so I suppose the analogy is pointless...

Oh yeah, they're my neighbors, so it means something to me.

Middle East Game Change

I can't take credit for the ideas I'm about to put forward, Thomas Friedman of NY Times gets that, but I'm also not going to quote him since some of my own thinking is involved.

I ask you to bear with me a little while I run some calculations past you to get where I'm going.

Hezbollah set off the conflagration in Lebanon, I don't doubt Israel has been watching for a reason, but Hezbollah did provide it. The question is, who gains? Lebanon certainly does not, neither the government nor the citizens. Hezbollah is now directly engaged with a superior military force and launching around 100 of its rockets daily, rockets that no longer are held as a deterrent to Israel, this is not a win. The press and sympathies of Sunni Arab nations are generally not with Hezbollah. Hezbollah's civilian neighbors certainly may hate Israel more after being shelled and bombed, but they also probably don't appreciate being "shields" for Hezbollah. Israel was out of Lebanon, ever since 2000, now they're back, not a gain for anybody in Lebanon. So, apparently the winner is Iran, since their nuke program and associated stupidities are out of the headlines, news and diplomatic. But how much of a win is it to alarm much of the Arab world? The Sunni nations other than Syria are unhappy and that doesn't portend well for Iran's overtures to be a Middle East power center. There is entirely too much enmity between Persians and Arabs historically for this to work well. Israel is in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario, a powerful well armed Hezbollah on their border is dangerous, going after a guerilla army is dangerous. Public opinion doesn't like civilian casualties, either.

Add to this scenario Hamas' difficulties. Israel had pulled out of Palestinian areas, now tanks rumble through them and a ruined economy is further destroyed. Hamas power figures are getting killed or taken. Palestinians may have been cheered by the tweaking of Israel's nose the kidnapping demonstrated, nothing cheerful about the outcome, however.

Syria is the land route for Hezbollah supplies and a major Hamas supporter. Being a pipeline for Iran's games kept them on the right side of a major military power and foe of their foe (GWB's regime change neo-cons) and as long as Hamas was gaining ground a Sunni Arab PR win. Now it looks a little different, they're looking a lot like the toady of the neighborhood bully to Sunnis and drawing the ire of large chunks of the international community. Bad relations with the US are now seriously bad.

What nation in the entire stew might be the game changer? How about Syria? If the US were to approach Syria with some other Sunni governments and something to offer, a serious offer, might they be approachable? There are some things Syria wants rather badly, the Golan Heights, regime security, and an economy that are probably available for a trade for cutting off Iranian supplies and tossing Hamas. This could put Syria back into the Sunni camp where they naturally belong, cut the chaos in their neighborhood (economic suicide), and ensure some things they'd like to have happen. Not to mention help isolate the Iranian infection. A peace agreement with Israel could have all sorts of salutory effects, for both. The US might look like much less of a threat in Iraq, and in fact be less of a threat to Syria with the terrorist links there broken. It wouldn't be inexpensive for the US and it certainly would mean making nice with a distinctly un-nice dictatorship, but it is also important to remember that it's a tough neighborhood and a bad place to be an altar-boy. It would mean a switch from regime change to behavior change as policy, but we really don't seem to be gaining much from the neo-con regime change game.

I'm certain it would be truly humiliating for the neo-cons to go ask Syria what they want to change the game, the problem is that the game as it's being played is a losing proposition across the board. That humiliation is also the reason it probably won't happen. So we can watch more GWB neo-con disasters unfold.