Problems in Mid East

Let me offer three observations. First, this is not the fifth day of the war. This is the 58th year of the effort by those who want to destroy Israel. As Ahmadinejad, the head of Iran, says, he wants to defeat the Americans and eliminate Israel from the face of the earth. So we should not see this event in isolation. There is an Iran/Iraq/Syria—I mean, an Iran/Syria—was an Iraq before Saddam was replaced—Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas alliance trying to destroy Israel.

Second, the Israelis withdrew from Gaza to create the circumstance of peace. The Israelis withdrew from south Lebanon to create the circumstance of peace. They now have a thousand missiles fired from Gaza, they’ve had hundreds of missiles fired from south Lebanon. You clearly have Iranian involvement, there are at least 400 Iranian guards in south Lebanon. Apparently it was an Iranian missile fired by Iranians which hit an Israeli warship yesterday. The United States should be saying to Syria and Iran, “South Lebanon is going to be cleared out. We are for Israel and the Lebanese government breaking the back of Hezbollah, getting rid of all 10,000 to 13,000 missiles, and we will decisively stop any effort by Syria and Iran to intervene.”

I mean, this is absolutely a question of the survival of Israel, but it’s also a question of what is really a world war. Look what you’ve been covering: North Korea firing missiles. We say there’ll be consequences, there are none. The North Koreans fire seven missiles on our Fourth of July; bombs going off in Mumbai, India; a war in Afghanistan with sanctuaries in Pakistan. As I said a minute ago, the, the Iran/Syria/Hamas/Hezbollah alliance. A war in Iraq funded largely from Saudi Arabia and supplied largely from Syria and Iran. The British home secretary saying that there are 20 terrorist groups with 1200 terrorists in Britain. Seven people in Miami videotaped pledging allegiance to al-Qaeda, and 18 people in Canada being picked up with twice the explosives that were used in Oklahoma City, with an explicit threat to bomb the Canadian parliament, and saying they’d like to behead the Canadian prime minister. And finally, in New York City, reports that in three different countries people were plotting to destroy the tunnels of New York.

I mean, we, we are in the early stages of what I would describe as the third world war, and frankly, our bureaucracies aren’t responding fast enough, we don’t have the right attitude about this, and this is the 58th year of the war to destroy Israel. And frankly, the Israelis have every right to insist that every single missile leave south Lebanon and that the United States ought to be helping the Lebanese government have the strength to eliminate Hezbollah as a military force, not as a political force in the parliament, but as a military force in south Lebanon.

I believe if you take all the countries I just listed, that you’ve been covering, put them on a map, look at all the different connectivity, you’d have to say to yourself this is, in fact, World War III.

It is explicitly wrong to bring pressure on the victim. I mean, Israel did everything it could to withdraw from south Lebanon, and the result was terrorist missiles. Israel withdrew from Gaza, creating an opportunity for a self-governing Palestinian people to create a place of prosperity, and they’ve created a place of terror. And I think for us to now say—imagine that was Miami. Imagine Miami had missiles being fired at it every day. Remember that when Israel loses eight people because of the difference in population, it’s the equivalent of losing almost 500 Americans. Imagine we woke up this morning and 500 Americans were dead in Miami from missiles fired from Cuba. Do you think any American would say, “Now, we should have proportionate response. We shouldn’t overreact”? No. We would say, “Get rid of the missiles.” And, and John F. Kennedy, a Democrat who understood the importance of power in the world, was prepared to go to nuclear war to stop missiles from being in Cuba.

I don’t think that, that any realistic person who’s being fair about this is going to focus on Israel. That’s why I don’t want people to think of this as a five-day war. As Senator Biden said, there has been a continuing failure of opportunity to strengthen the Lebanese government. There’s been a failure of opportunity to train and, and, and reinforce the Lebanese Army. There’s been a failure to say, “Look, we are ultimately going have to get—we’re going to have to defeat Hezbollah, and if that means in the long run we have to do something about Syria and Iran, then we need to face up to this.”

Let me put this in a larger context. The United States said that there would be terrible consequences for Korea—North Korea if they fired their missiles. They fired their missiles. We then threatened that the Chinese would come visit them. The Chinese went and visited them, nothing happened. We then said we’ll go to the U.N., and on your show last week, we were told there was going to be a Chapter Seven very tough resolution. The Chinese said they’d veto it if it was tough. They passed a weak resolution, and within 45 minutes the North Koreans had repudiated the resolution. So there’s no consequence.
Meanwhile, the Iranians are watching. These two countries are watching. The, the Iranians watched the, the North Koreans basically stand us down. The North Koreans watched the Iranians basically get face-to- face talks. And these two dictatorships are playing us like a ping-pong game.

And I think this is part of why I said, you’ve got to see this as a larger global campaign. You’ve got to understand these dictatorships all talk to each other. There’s, there’s public footage from North Korean television of the Iranians visiting with Kim Jong Il the dictator, and a North Korean missile manufacturing facility. The North—the Iranians have now unveiled a statue of Simon Bolivar in Tehran to prove their solidarity with Venezuela. I mean, these folks think on a global basis.

We need—we need a plan comparable to the scale of the problem. We need to fundamentally reorganize our nonmilitary bureaucracies to be effective. I mean, part of the reason you don’t have an effective Iraqi bureaucracy is the American inability at the State Department, the Agency for International Development, the Treasury Department, the Justice Department to provide any level of systematic competence is, is almost zero.

BaldGOP

Moral Violence

The smartest man alive said it best:

Thank God for moral violence

Let us make war on the phrase "violence doesn't solve anything." It is a lie, and anyone who utters it cannot be taken morally seriously.
Take, for example, the American use of violence against the Taliban. Thanks to it, Afghani women may get an education, attend public events without a male escort and otherwise ascend above their prior status as captive animals.
Thanks to American violence in Afghanistan, Islamic terror has started to decline in prestige among many Muslims who had previously romanticized it. Though many Muslims still glorify Muslims who blow themselves up in order to murder Jews and Americans, the glamour of terror is dwindling. In Pakistan, for example, there are almost no Osama T-shirts on sale, and no more demonstrations on his behalf.
Even more significantly, a handful of Muslims and Arabs are beginning to ask what is wrong in their cultures, rather than continuing to blame America, Christianity and Israel for their lack of human rights, political democracy and economic progress.
Once again, violence properly used has led to major moral gains for humanity.
You have to wonder how anyone can utter, let alone believe, something so demonstrably wrong as "violence doesn't solve anything," or "an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind," or any other pacifist platitudes. These are the moral and intellectual equivalents of "the Earth is flat." In fact, it is easier to show that violence solves many evils than it is to show that the earth is round.
It was violence that destroyed Adolf Hitler and Nazism. Only violence. Not talk. Not negotiations. Not good will.
It is violence used by police that stops violent criminals from murdering or otherwise hurting innocent people. There are many innocent men and women alive today solely because some policeman used violence to save their lives.
It was violence that ended slavery in America. Had violence not been used against the Confederacy, the United States would have been cut in half, and millions of black men and women would have remained slaves.
The list of moral good achieved by violence is endless.
How, then, can anyone possibly say something as demonstrably false as "violence doesn't solve anything"?
The answer is difficult to arrive at. Given how obviously moral much violence has been, one is tempted to respond by asking how people can believe any absurdity -- whether it is that Elvis Presley is still living, or that race determines a person's behavior, or that 72 women in heaven await mass murderers.
Vast numbers of people believe what they want to believe or what they have been brainwashed to believe, not what is true or good. For vast numbers of people, it is simply dogma that all violence is wrong. It is a position arrived at with little thought but with a plethora of naive passion.
It is also often the position of the morally confused. People who believe in moral relativism, who therefore cannot ever determine which side in a conflict is morally right, understandably feel incapable of determining when violence may be moral.
Those who say violence never solves anything have confused themselves in other ways as well. They have elevated peace above goodness. Therefore, in these people's views, it is better for evil to prevail than to use violence to end that evil -- since the very use of violence renders the user of it evil.
For those people whose moral compasses are intact, the issue is as clear as where North and South are. There is immoral violence, and there is moral violence.
That is why it is so morally wrong and so pedagogically foolish to prohibit young boys from watching any violence or from playing violent games like "Cops and Robbers." Just as with sex and ambition and all other instincts, what must be taught about violence is when it is right to use it.
For if we never engage in moral violence, it is as certain as anything in life can be that immoral violence will rule the world.

BaldGOP

Throw Joe Under The Bus

War Not Lieberman's Only Problem at Home
Joe Lieberman may need more than another political party. He may need another state, as well.
The senator has clearly worn out his welcome among many back home in Connecticut -- so much so that businessman Ned Lamont could very well beat him in the state Democratic primary. Lieberman now says that if he loses the Aug. 8 vote, he will run in November as an independent. The received wisdom is that Lieberman would win the general election by picking up Republican and independent voters. They seem to like him more than Democrats do. Everyone is dismissing the Republican candidate, Alan Schlesinger.
The received wisdom is often wrong. Polls showing Lieberman with a commanding lead in the general election were taken at a time when his opponent was called "Ned Lamont who?" The gap continually narrows as voters learn that Lamont is a serious alternative.
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The contest has been framed as a vote on the Bush administration's conduct of the Iraq war, which Lieberman has slavishly defended -- more than some of his Republican colleagues, notably Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel. And while the war is highly unpopular in Connecticut, that's not Lieberman's only rift with his electorate. On social issues, Lieberman plays to a Bible Belt audience, which his voters are not. That would include many of the state's generally moderate Republicans.
For example, the Republican Majority for Choice is an abortion-rights group with a strong presence in Connecticut. Wonder how its members feel about Lieberman's opposition to a law requiring all Connecticut hospitals to provide emergency contraception to rape victims. Lieberman said the women could just drive to another hospital.
Many still fume over Lieberman's performance during the Clinton impeachment. In a speech designed to showcase his moral excellence, Lieberman accused the president of setting a bad example for his 10-year-old daughter. That Lieberman had divorced his first wife and broken up his own family had clearly not taught him humility.
Recall the less self-centered response of the late Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan. The New York Democrat also held Clinton in contempt, but thought that the stability of the presidency was more important than pummeling the guy over a sex scandal. He worked to spare the president's neck for the good of the country.
People in Connecticut were especially unhappy that the frivolous dance around a blue dress had paralyzed the national government. A Connecticut Republican, Rep. Christopher Shays, understood this and opposed removing the president. While Lieberman looked for love from right-wing radio hosts, Shays bravely withstood their abuse.
When Bush and congressional Republicans played to "the base" by interfering in the Terri Schiavo case, Lieberman grabbed the mike to join them. The stance was wildly unpopular all over America, but especially in Connecticut. The state's socially moderate Republicans were as appalled as anyone.
Lieberman insists that if he loses the Democratic primary and runs as an independent, he will really be campaigning as an "independent Democrat." Having it both ways is classic Lieberman. Back at the impeachment, after extending rope to the Clinton lynching party, Lieberman then voted against the charges.
Lamont's business-minded centrism seems a more comfortable fit for Connecticut than Lieberman's cultural-conservative politics. Though often called "antiwar," Lamont actually supported military action in Afghanistan. He disapproves of the Iraq war on the specific grounds that it was done unilaterally and under trumped-up claims.
Likewise, many Connecticut Republicans are old-fashioned internationalists, who fret over America's damaged standing in the world. Lamont fondly talks of the lost world of Sen. Arthur Vandenberg, the Michigan Republican who helped create the United Nations.
No, Lieberman doesn't have a lock on the Republican and independent voters of Connecticut. An election, after all, boils down to making a choice. The more people see that they have a reasonable alternative in Lamont -- that there's someone they can vote for, not just against -- the worse it will be for Lieberman.
fharrop@projo.com

BaldGOP