I want to give kudos to Mid-East special envoy (or whatever he is) James Wolfensohn. He has been a voice in the wilderness calling for something to be done about the Palestinian situation, as reported by the Washington Post. Administration officials seem to be immobilized by the election of Hamas and Ariel Sharon's incapacitation. But the Iraq invasion was supposed (in retrospect, after WMD failed to show) to be about bringing peace to the Middle East through the creation of democratic institutions. As Wolfensohn has pointed out, things are in danger of spinning out of control, into chaos if not into greater armed conflict.
I have not been a fan of Wolfensohn. I thought his appointment was bad because he was Jewish and would be too favorable to Israel to do his job. But he has turned out to be a friend of the Palestinians in this crisis, and I congratulate him for it. He probably thinks that ultimately Israel will benefit if a peaceful solution can be found, but that's fine, and I compliment him for that, too.
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Orange Revolution Fading in Ukraine
After the euphoria of the Orange Revolution in Ukraine last year, the country appears on the verge of returning to its old eastward-looking, Russian policies. As the BBC reports, upcoming elections seem likely to return the russophiles to power.
American news networks don't seem interested, and neither does the American government. It doesn't need any more bad news on top of the bad news from Iraq. Condi Rice is supposed to be a Russian specialist; where is she? Meanwhile, the elections in Belarus seem to have maintained in power the party that favors Russia. And, Putin and Hu sign a big energy deal. In the old cold war days, a Russian-Chinese alliance would have worried everybody in the West. Things have changed, but have they changed enough so that we don't have to worry about this? There are rumors that the US is preparing to somehow support Taiwanese claims of independence. What if Russia, with all its old, cold-war nuclear missiles, sides with China in such a dispute?
American news networks don't seem interested, and neither does the American government. It doesn't need any more bad news on top of the bad news from Iraq. Condi Rice is supposed to be a Russian specialist; where is she? Meanwhile, the elections in Belarus seem to have maintained in power the party that favors Russia. And, Putin and Hu sign a big energy deal. In the old cold war days, a Russian-Chinese alliance would have worried everybody in the West. Things have changed, but have they changed enough so that we don't have to worry about this? There are rumors that the US is preparing to somehow support Taiwanese claims of independence. What if Russia, with all its old, cold-war nuclear missiles, sides with China in such a dispute?
Does America Put Israel's Interests Above Its Own?
The Christian Science Monitor and others have called attention to a new study by two professors arguing that due to the influence of the Israeli lobby in the United States, America puts Israel's interests ahead of its own.
This encourages me to think that I'm not paranoid and not anti-Semitic. There really is something to worry about. This comes on the heels of the criminal investigation of spying activities by AIPAC. The AIPAC scandal involves Iran, and it's well known that Israel wants the US to be tough on Iran.
For the record, here is the full text of the article on the Harvard web site.
This encourages me to think that I'm not paranoid and not anti-Semitic. There really is something to worry about. This comes on the heels of the criminal investigation of spying activities by AIPAC. The AIPAC scandal involves Iran, and it's well known that Israel wants the US to be tough on Iran.
For the record, here is the full text of the article on the Harvard web site.
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
What will Sen. Saxby Chambliss Do to Tammy Duckworth?
I have still not recovered from what Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss did to former Democratic Senator Max Cleland. Chambliss called Cleland, a triple amputee Vietnam veteran, soft on defense because he opposed certain portions of the homeland defense bill (which has turned out to be a mess).
Tammy Duckworth, who is running for a House seat as a Democrat in Illinois, is a double amputee, wounded in Iraq, just the sort of person Chambliss hates. I don't know why Georgians would elect a Senator who hates people wounded while fighting for America, but Chambliss fits the bill. I don't know why Republicans would give him, a man who despises military veterans, a position having anything to do with defense, but they made him a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, a sign of why things are going so badly in Iraq.
There is no mention in Chambliss' Senate biography that he ever served in the military, although he was the right age to have been drafted at the peak of the Vietnam war, graduating from college in 1966 and completing law school in 1968. I graduated from college in 1967 and was drafted after my first year of law school (at the University of Georgia) in 1968. How did Chambliss avoid the same fate?
I hope Tammy Duckworth gets elected and one day kicks Chambliss in the rear end with one of her prosthetic feet. She is probably too nice to do that, but Chambliss deserves it for what he did to Cleland.
Tammy Duckworth, who is running for a House seat as a Democrat in Illinois, is a double amputee, wounded in Iraq, just the sort of person Chambliss hates. I don't know why Georgians would elect a Senator who hates people wounded while fighting for America, but Chambliss fits the bill. I don't know why Republicans would give him, a man who despises military veterans, a position having anything to do with defense, but they made him a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, a sign of why things are going so badly in Iraq.
There is no mention in Chambliss' Senate biography that he ever served in the military, although he was the right age to have been drafted at the peak of the Vietnam war, graduating from college in 1966 and completing law school in 1968. I graduated from college in 1967 and was drafted after my first year of law school (at the University of Georgia) in 1968. How did Chambliss avoid the same fate?
I hope Tammy Duckworth gets elected and one day kicks Chambliss in the rear end with one of her prosthetic feet. She is probably too nice to do that, but Chambliss deserves it for what he did to Cleland.
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