The headlines about Gaza and the US Senate keep recalling the folk wisdom about never getting into pissing contests with skunks, as Hamas and Rod Bagojevich wreak havoc with efforts of those who oppose them to act rationally.
In Gaza, innocent people keep dying at their hands as Israelis solemnly tell us they are only doing what they have to do and, in Washington, American legislators tie themselves into legal knots to keep an implacable crook from naming a new member to their body.
In between are women and children on both sides of the border in the Middle East and Americans who urgently need the president and Congress they have just elected to get moving to save their economy.
Illinois' governor has lobbed Roland Burris at the US Senate with the same intention as Hamas' rockets--to pressure and intimidate their opposition into making concessions--and the responses are, perhaps unavoidably, ugly.
As Barack Obama prepares to move into the White House promising to bring people together in civilized responses to problem-solving, we keep being reminded that the world doesn't usually work that way.
Showing posts with label Hamas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hamas. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Monday, April 21, 2008
Jimmy Carter to the Rescue
As President, he gave new meaning to the word "naïve." Now Jimmy Carter is outdoing himself wandering the Middle East to broker an end to decades of murderous hatred in the region.
Today Carter, an admirable man when he builds houses for the poor and helps refugees around the world, announces he has "no doubt that both the Arab world and the Palestinians, including Hamas, will accept Israel's right to live in peace."
"But," the New York Times reports, "some of Hamas's commitments to Carter, in talks he held with the Islamist group's top leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus, were short on details and remarks by a Gaza-based Hamas official suggested the movement was not abandoning long-held positions."
This is vintage Carter, recalling a White House briefing in 1979 after he had negotiated a treaty to reduce nuclear weapons. As Carter and Leonid Brezhnev, the leader of the Soviet Union, reached agreement, Carter, according to Time Magazine, seemed "to have developed a protectiveness, almost a fondness, for the older man, especially after he saved Brezhnev from falling" and later "held Brezhnev's left hand all the way down the front walk" of the Soviet Embassy.
Carter's kindness was rewarded months later when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, destroying any chances for the treaty's ratification by the Senate.
At the White House briefing, Zbigniew Brzezinski, his national security advisor, was lauding their "calm, consistent, predictable" foreign policy when I asked, "How does this explain the President's embrace of Brezhnev as 'a good friend' and, when the Soviets make a predictably aggressive move, overreacting and scaring our people by reviving registration for the draft?" There was no answer.
During his term in office, Carter was humiliated by American impotence throughout the Iranian hostage crisis and during the Mariel Boat Lift, when the US failed to screen out criminals and the mentally ill Castro sent us among the 125,000 legitimate political refugees.
He ended his term in office puzzled by a "national malaise" and asking Americans "to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel" to combat rising gasoline prices.
Now, as an octogenarian, Jimmy Carter is going to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lots of luck.
Today Carter, an admirable man when he builds houses for the poor and helps refugees around the world, announces he has "no doubt that both the Arab world and the Palestinians, including Hamas, will accept Israel's right to live in peace."
"But," the New York Times reports, "some of Hamas's commitments to Carter, in talks he held with the Islamist group's top leader Khaled Meshaal in Damascus, were short on details and remarks by a Gaza-based Hamas official suggested the movement was not abandoning long-held positions."
This is vintage Carter, recalling a White House briefing in 1979 after he had negotiated a treaty to reduce nuclear weapons. As Carter and Leonid Brezhnev, the leader of the Soviet Union, reached agreement, Carter, according to Time Magazine, seemed "to have developed a protectiveness, almost a fondness, for the older man, especially after he saved Brezhnev from falling" and later "held Brezhnev's left hand all the way down the front walk" of the Soviet Embassy.
Carter's kindness was rewarded months later when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, destroying any chances for the treaty's ratification by the Senate.
At the White House briefing, Zbigniew Brzezinski, his national security advisor, was lauding their "calm, consistent, predictable" foreign policy when I asked, "How does this explain the President's embrace of Brezhnev as 'a good friend' and, when the Soviets make a predictably aggressive move, overreacting and scaring our people by reviving registration for the draft?" There was no answer.
During his term in office, Carter was humiliated by American impotence throughout the Iranian hostage crisis and during the Mariel Boat Lift, when the US failed to screen out criminals and the mentally ill Castro sent us among the 125,000 legitimate political refugees.
He ended his term in office puzzled by a "national malaise" and asking Americans "to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel" to combat rising gasoline prices.
Now, as an octogenarian, Jimmy Carter is going to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Lots of luck.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Mr. President, With All Respect, Shut Up!
In the Oval Office, Jimmy Carter was an embarrassment. After being suckered by Fidel Castro into importing Cuba’s criminals and mentally ill during the Mariel boatlift, Carter ended up doing fireside chats on TV in a cardigan, puzzling over a “national malaise.”
Now he just can’t seem to stop babbling. Last month he managed to overstate George Bush’s awfulness to the point of having to apologize for his “careless” remarks.
Now, when it seems impossible to make matters worse in the Palestinian mess, Carter strikes again by denouncing as “criminal” U.S. failure to work with the criminals in Hamas to help them destroy the more conciliatory Fatah faction.
Our choices in Palestine are terrible, but Carter’s self-righteous, simple-minded bumbling can only complicate them further. Former Presidents, particularly failed ones, are better seen and not heard.
Now he just can’t seem to stop babbling. Last month he managed to overstate George Bush’s awfulness to the point of having to apologize for his “careless” remarks.
Now, when it seems impossible to make matters worse in the Palestinian mess, Carter strikes again by denouncing as “criminal” U.S. failure to work with the criminals in Hamas to help them destroy the more conciliatory Fatah faction.
Our choices in Palestine are terrible, but Carter’s self-righteous, simple-minded bumbling can only complicate them further. Former Presidents, particularly failed ones, are better seen and not heard.
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