Holy Help Us. What Else Needs To Happen?
Grab a Starbucks pomegranate Frappacino with whip, sit back in an overstuffed chair and calmly think about where we are now.
Blood-drain in an endless war in Iraq killing about a hundred Iraqis who did nothing to us before we invaded them every day. Over 2,500 of us dead in Iraq. Half a million new refugees from Lebanon that a month ago slept in their own beds, washed their own dishes in their own kitchens, and picked herbs from their own gardens. At least five countries bringing in Naval and other ships to get their nationals out in a panic as missiles fly over their heads.
Two-thousand or so missiles lobbed into Israel killing lots of people full of ball-bearing for maximal destruction, destroying buildings and infastructure and terrorizing an entire country. Israeli retaliatory incursions/invasions and bombing into Southern Lebanon. UN observers killed. Violence rages everywhere in Iraq and a quarter of Beirut is a pile of concrete dust.
And in Rome today? No consensus but don't call it a failure. Condi cannot figure out how to make a Cease-Fire worthwhile still resisting one in spite of universal world opinion arguing that any such cease-fire would just return us to the "status quo ante" or revisit "spasms of violence." "Smasms" are apparently not better than wholescale ongoing slaughter. If she says "Status Quo Ante" or "spasms" again I think I will puke because there is nothing very Status Quo Ante about the state of Crisis we are currently experiencing or that will ever result now and she is Queen Spastic whose policies have fomented this hideous violence.
Are these the "birth pangs" of Condi's delusional baby delivery in some sort of pathetic transference that could keep psychologists busy scratching their heads for years, or just what it looks like: a big fat total mess, just a failed ridiculously conceived Foreign Policy based on deceptions, a pathetic demonstration of short-sighted ineptitude and complete lack of understanding of the underpinnings of World Affairs and the ingredients of Peace. I just take things at face value and call them like I see them. People tried to tell them. They thought they knew better. Clearly, they didn't.
Now they wonder if John Bolton should actually be permanently confirmed by the Senate as our UN Ambassador? Are they kidding?. I trust this guy like I trust Jack the Ripper- and so does the rest of the UN. Colonel Mustard on crack makes Bagdad Bob look like Oprah. Do these people get cable?
First we have an unconditional confirmation that the regime that we forced in to power in Iraq, into which we poured billions, billions of dollars is basically still essentially Arab, anti-Semitic, more anti-semetic, Israel-hating, and not on board with US Foreign Policy objectives at all concerning our friend Israel while it is under relentless assault. Malicki faced a Congressional boycott of his speech by, inter alia, Schumer who would not dignify the speech with his presence. We are not getting any solid open statements from anyone in Iraq to encourage the disarmament of Hezbollah-and that is the No. 1 terrorist organization in the world now with more power than a paramilitary organization because it is a direct hostile State proxy. And that is clearly what we, and the Israelis were looking for -surely some condemnation-from what Bush surely hoped would function more like a puppet proxy for all our billions.
All the years of rhetorical blah blah blah about imposing by force Democracy that will !poof! create friendly countries who want to assist the US in their Foreign Policy objectives because now they are-hallelujiah-FREE!- has proved to be as much bunk as most thinking people knew from the outset. Some people when they are free are freely happy to support freely people lobbing rockets into Israel or to knock off our soldiers. So much for the Bush Doctrine. Malicki condemned narrowly terrorism but defines it as anyone violently against his vision or Iraqi security. He stated that Iraqis are our "Allies on the War on Terror." He didn't condemn Hezbollah. With friends like that, Holy help us.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, appearing in a panel forum on Energy Policy and Security that the Center For American Progress sponsored today answered a blunt question: Should we diplomatically engage the Syrians? Absolutely, she affirmed, and she has. She tried to meet any and everyone who had any influence on a conflict or potential conflict and the Syrians have always had clear influence in the region, then and now. Diplomatically addressing or engaging even hostile entities is a way to "deliver tough messages." It's Diplomacy and Mediation 101 to understand that by meeting with people to deliver tough messages you are not adopting, affirming or condoning their agenda and that all "interests or stakeholders" in any given conflict must be addressed or confronted. We need to get Syria more in the Egyptian friendly corner than aligning themselves totally with Iran. Nothing is served by snubbing them.
When I look at the level of wisdom and competence that Clinton appointed, next to what is steering our rudder today I want to cry- or run for office.
Rice met with the Lebanese, and instead of getting them on board to disarm Hezbollah, she succeeded in apparently causing them to start defending the Southern border by joining Hezbollah against Israel. See, I really think that Ms. Rice, who admits she grew up in the back of a Southern Church in a poverty stricken state, didn't have paper delivery and didn't watch any news or read a newspaper until she went to College. She has absolutely no historic context to anything she steps into. That's what it looks like. Someone ask her how many days the Six Day War took and who won?
Here is what her resume should look like now:
1. Started a Civil War in Iraq, worked for an Administrative team that killed 2,500 Americans and between 50,000-100,000 Iraqis (we don't know for sure how many because we bomb the hospitals who disagree with our modest counts.).
2. Initiated Lebanese to engage Israel again in War aligning them with powerful terrorist group Hezbollah and did nothing productive to stop 2,000 rockets from being launched at Israel while they menacingly threaten more rockets going deeper into Israel.
3. Assisted in the displacement of about a half million people.
4. Refused to talk to people I didn't know how to handle like anyone in Syria.
5. Refused to "shuttle" because couldn't figure out who to talk to and where to go.
And how much did this cost the US?
Congressman Robert Wexler, in speaking to Wolf Blitzer on CNN from Israel, said we need to implement the provisions in the The Syrian Accountability Act that are already available to us. He agrees apparently with Schumer that the head of the Iraqis should not have been ever given the privilege of addressing a joint session of Congress after his comments and lack of support in disarming Hezbollah. You can hardly call yourself an "Ally on the War on Terror" when you take no public position on the group lobbing rockets into Israel as you speak.
The Center for American Progress is a think tank which has on its board what looks like a Shadow Cabinet, Chaired by a unique brilliant renaissance policy man, John Podesta, former Clinton Chief of Staff, who understands like few people do how events are connected and cause and effect in international relations. He is a true humble visionary. The Center for American Progress puts together task forces on substantive issues to craft policies and is composed of former Senators, Congresspeople, and Cabinet officials among other noted experts.
Today Madeleine Albright was joined by Carol Browner, who for 8 years was the head of the EPA under Clinton, Gayle Smith and Podesta, all members of the National Security Task Force on Energy that drafted the policy on "Energy Security In the 21st Century."
You can get a copy online at http://www.americanprogress.org/ It's quite brilliant. Get it.
Also on the Task Force was Tim Wirth, Samuel Berger, Tom Daschle, John Deutch, Congressman Tom Downey. Gayle Smith (who Mediated a Peace Agreement between Eritrea and Somalia during Clinton's Administration and is a noted expert on African security issues) moderated, and numerous other dignitaries and notables were on the task force.
Its deep and detailed and contains practical suggestions for what can be done to make us not dependent on Foreign Oil and develop industries that support technologies for biofuels- imagine it. We are essentially funding both sides of this war with our dependence on Foreign Oil from dangerous places run by people who hate us and our allies. It has to stop. The good news- it really can with the political will and vision of people like Podesta, Albright, Browner and Smith.
Bush announced that we were "Addicted to Oil." You don't say. You heard of the "Amen" corner? He chairs the "DUH" corner here (in Simpsonville it's the "DUOH" corner.) Podesta noted understatedly that Bush must be the last man in America to notice. Bush announcing we are addicted to Oil (while Cheney in his Energy Task Force sells the country and its national security to his oil buddies-do we know yet who was on that task force?) is a bit like making a national State of the Union announcement that "Traffic at Rush Hour on Wisconsin Avenue is Bumper to Bumper."
Podesta thinks that in less than fifty years, by the middle of the Century, 2050, we can be off this dependancy to Foreign Oil completely with developed technologies that would convert biofuels, switchgrass, corn and other organic matter into real fuel. Instead of "High Fructose Corn Syrup" in every soda and drink including things that used to be healthy for you like ice tea, if we could convert corn into fuel, wouldn't that be wonderful? I would rather put it in my car than make it 22 percent of the sugar content of a drink I don't want corn fructose in. (And don't get me started on that and the connection to epidemic juvenile diabetis in this country.)
It would be good for the environment too and assist the Global Warming impending slide to disaster. It would be good for poorer countries who can grow this stuff even in drought climates for possible export. Brazil has apparently converted its sugar cane into fuel and almost its entire national fleet is either hybrid or sugar cane derived fuel powered. Browner noted that we are not going to drill our way out of this mess and merely moving the drilling to off-shore in the US is not any viable solution. The solution is innovation into technologies that convert our home grown energy sources and supplies into biofuels and (organic) cellular ethanols- things that don't require we sell our national soul to people who don't like us and our Allies.
This got me thinking- I was born 46 years ago. I was born the year John F. Kennedy was elected President. Here is what did not exist when I was born: Microwave ovens, cell phones (or any phone that wasn't plugged in the wall with a clunky rotary dial), home videos, CDs, DVDs (or any of their players), personal computers (IBM punchcard computers existed in an entire room--no PCs, no MACs) broadband, internet, personal videocams, cameras or video on or in portable phones, digital cameras, portable printers, personal GPS systems, that thing in the car that tells you where you are going or if you are lost, disposable diapers, and lots of things I have not noticed.
So if we had an Administration that was not just "Unilateral" in its wierd myopia but "Unidimensional" (to quote Podesta) in its obsessive focus on Iraq, which for 300 billion dollars is the worst rip off to bankrupt the country we have ever blindly tolerated, think what we could innovate. Instead, we are ignoring the dramatic effect that converting off Petroleum will have everywhere, including the Middle East, the Persian Gulf, Latin America and elsewhere. Believe.
The unfortunate link and effect between Foreign Energy Interdependence and Foreign Policy is something that has been remarked upon by every President since Nixon and is taught in every responsible graduate school worth its tuition. Yet, Ms. Rice declared her surprise- oh my- that her job would be tainted by this connection.
Do we really have to live through two more years of this nightmare? Our leadership is so obviously incompetent that I think my old pet Labrador Winston would do a better job at keeping international peace. At least he engenders fond feelings.
Solutions?
I am told griping isn't productive. So here are a few ideas that the American public might be a little more impressed by:
1. Dump Bolton- no question. Like today.
2. Get together a BIPARTISAN task force on Peace and Diplomacy and draw on people like Gayle Smith and Albright who know how to run a Foreign Policy or Mediate a dispute without people killing hundreds of each other off and displacing half a million people;
3. As Feinstein suggested, send a high level Emissary to do what Condi, aka "Flat-on-her-Ass" Rice clearly is incapable of doing. Let it be Bush's Dad and Mom. I don't care- anyone he will listen to other than his own stubborn ego.
4. Get a cease-fire. That means on both sides. Can I get a "DUH" from the "DUH" corner?
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