The Israeli Wall Is Wrong, Hillary

“This [wall] is not against the Palestinian people. This is against terrorists. The Palestinian people have to help prevent terror. They have to change their attitudes about terrorism, starting with the Palestinian Authority and going through Palestinian society.”

- Hillary Clinton

Middle East peace talk reminds me of the free trade talk in US politics, only the Mid-East is much more emotionally charged. (Takes Two Arms And Two Legs To Swim) Israeli-Palestinian peace will take perhaps a half dozen arms and legs moving in concert. What brings me honing in on this topic is if there is a visible fault line between the West and the Global South, this is it.

I remember a news photograph from the early 80s when Rajiv Gandhi was Prime Minister of India. Arafat visited and he got a red carpet treatment like he were a head of state.

The wall in Berlin was wrong, this wall is even more so.

I am principally opposed to violence. My prescription is the progressive way of spreading democracy until the spread is total. But that is down the line. What about now?

Ariel Sharon is no Gandhi. This is a violent man who Bush lovingly refers to as a "bulldog."

Israel claims it is scared the powerless Palestinians might push them into the sea and wipe Israel off the map. But it refuses to see Palestine is not on the map.

When Arafat was the duly elected president of the Palestinians, Sharon refused to do business with him. That is not unlike questioning Martin Luther King's legitimacy to speak on behalf of the black people of America. You despise the people so much, you have to wage a singular attack on its leadership, and that is all you have to do to hurt the self-esteem of that people. That is Sharon's track record.

Israel fights with its army, one of the very best in the world. The Palestinians don't have a state, let alone a standing army, so they fight with sticks and stones. At the extreme end they have suicide bombers. I know this is a hot issue. But it has to be addressed. Violence is the surface of a very real political problem. Violence is the symptom, not the disease. Those like Sharon who refuse to seek a political solution make that violence possible.

Israel can not claim to be a democracy if it can not allow a universal application of the one person, one vote principle to all people living inside of Israel, Jewish and Arab alike. In the US when the blacks were denied voting rights, they called it a civil rights issue. Palestinians are also human, just like the African Americans.

I have personally seen the anti-Catholicism and the anti-semitism in the US South. The Jews in New York City are a voting bloc of sorts like the Hispanics. The Pat Robertsons of the world whose followers are at the forefront of the anti-semitism in the US South suddenly profess to be Israel's best friends on world stage. That is curious, don't you think?

Where does that put the hapless people of the Global South? Are they that much lesser?

Israel is a legitimate state and it will exist into eternity. The Jews have a horrific history as a victimized people. And I am sorry that is the way it has been. Anti-semitism is still alive in the West, although it has subsided much.

But when you look at the plight of the Palestinians, it does not escape me that the psychology of child abuse might be at play. Person A gets abused as a child, and ends up a child abuser. That cycle has to be broken. Palestine has to be liberated.

As I said earlier, Middle East peace will only be achieved when many things go right at once. It is a master challenge of coordination. And I am not about to blame all the ills on any one person, let alone Senator Hillary who was the first person in the Clinton administration to have come out for a Palestinian state, and who I am a huge fan of.

There has to be a major regional drive to spread democracy the progressive way, Palestine has to become a state, Jerusalem has to be shared, and Israel has to feel safe, and Israel has to end up a democracy.

And the wall gets in the way. The wall is Sharon's way of saying he does not intend to do the political work that will bring peace. The wall is wrong. Sharon is a guy who thinks of the Palestinians as lesser people.

The Jews and the Arabs in America will have to take the lead here. When they go on TV, they start bickering, and they justify the violence back there. That is sad. The Jewish voting bloc in America will have to think in terms of a long term peace for Israel, not the short term flexing of political muscle in US politics that they are used to.

Howard Dean Is No Pacifist

Dean was the loudest, and the only anti-war candidate in 2004. The image has stuck and for good reason. But his stand has also been slightly misunderstood.

1. We knew all along it was not Saddam but Osama that was behind 9/11. But a majority of Republicans before the Iraq invasion believed otherwise, because they had bought into the W-Cheney propaganda. In a very recent speech W alluded to the "innocent lives lost on 9/11" when he meant to boost support for the Iraq war effort. That is fundamentally misleading. And he apparently has not changed course.
   
2. Not long after Baghdad was seized, it became obvious there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq that Saddam was supposed to have had. Looks like Saddam was pulling a W also on his neighbors. As in, don't have it, but talk like you do, they will stay away from you.
   
3. W complained on the campaign trail in 2000 about the few cruise missiles that Clinton fired into Iraq after a Saddam plot to assassinate his father while on a visit to Kuwait was found out and foiled. As in, Clinton's response was not enough. Clinton should have done more. The son was angry. Immediately after he got into the White House he made it clear he wanted to do something about Saddam. "He tried to kill my daddy!"
   
4. On W's watch both North Korea and Iran have acquired nuclear weapons, or Iran is very close to it. So maybe he is not awfully concerned about the spread of WMDs. And if he is, he does not have the ability, the skill to do the job.
   
5. Osama is very much alive and very much active. (3 Bomb Blasts Each: London, Delhi, Jordan)
6. Colin Powell's presentation at the UN was cooked. Who cooked it?
   
7. The intelligence the US Congress looked at was tampered with. Who did the tampering?
   
8. Tomland Ridge pulled a security stunt to make sure Kerry did not get a boost after his damn convention in 2004. How irresponsible is that? (Bloomberg: No Mr. Security)
9. George W and Dick Cheney are both roundabout draft dodgers. You have to look at their brave talk in that light.
   
10. The effort in Iraq has cost $200 billion, 2000 American lives, and tens of thousands of Iraqi lives.
    
11. Iraq today exports terrorists to the entire region.
    

War is an option, that is why there is a military. But war always has to be the weapon of the very last resort. The very last resort, the utmost last resort. W's war was waged like a weapon of first resort, it was done in such a hurry. The accusation that there was a deliberate misleading of intelligence is serious.

Not only that, the US went into Iraq without a clear strategy in mind. Some in the W administration talk of perhaps being there for a decade. That sounds like a stay strategy.

Go in in a hurry and stay forever. That is not a smart war strategy.

Troops sent out to war by a country have to be supported. But W is not asking for that. He is asking that his critics be silenced, their patriotism be questioned. Is misleading a country into war patriotic? Is not having a clear exit strategy so as to minimize casualties patriotic? Is the idea of snuffing democratic debate and questioning a legitimate inquiry into the most important act by this president patriotic?

It is important for the country to get to the bottom of this so as to better tackle the challenge that the War On Terror is.

Dean was totally behind the US going into Afghanistan, because that was Osama country, and he was behind 9/11. Iraq became a diversion that let Osama slip into god knows where.

Dean is not saying all wars are wrong, he is saying some wars are necessary. But he is saying a war has to be the weapon of last resort, because through a war you put your troops in harm's way. People are going to die. So you better have a very good reason to get into it in the first place. Once you do send the troops in, support them. And Dean supports the troops in Iraq today. He just does not support W. Big difference. And he is concerned the likes of W and Cheney can be so callous about the countdown to war.

Saddam was a bad guy, but that was not the stated reason for the war.

Democracy is a good thing to spread, but that was not the stated reason for the war.

So what went so wrong? Why was the intelligence presented to the Congress so off the mark? So far there seems not to have been a trace of WMD stuff in Iraq.

More importantly, what is the nature of the War On Terror? Is acting like the Al Qaeda is a standing army the best way to wage this war? Is the Al Qaeda weaker today?