Too good to not mention, I'm too tired to handle them separately.
If you are ever morally confused about a major world issue, here is a rule that is almost never violated: Whenever you hear that "world opinion" holds a view, assume it is morally wrong.
And here is a related rule if your religious or national or ethnic group ever suffers horrific persecution: "World opinion" will never do a thing for you. Never.
"World opinion" has little or nothing to say about the world's greatest evils and regularly condemns those who fight evil.
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There was a time when most members of Congress had served in the military, as had many people in the media. Today that is no longer true -- and it shows in many ways.
Ignorance should at least create caution but it seems to do just the opposite. People with little knowledge about the military, and no personal experience, often have the most sweeping and unrealistic expectations, and even demands, to make on people whose lives are at risk in battle.
The military have been criticized for everything from not protecting an Iraqi museum while being shot at to not being as nice to the terrorists imprisoned in Guantanamo as people in safe and comfortable editorial offices would like.
More dangerously, TV reporters broadcasting from where shells are falling blithely say such things as "the shells are landing about five miles north of here."
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Perhaps the best reason to support John Bolton's confirmation as our nation's United Nations ambassador is that his approach to foreign policy is radically different from John Kerry's, as illustrated by their exchange during Bolton's confirmation hearings. It is a shame anyone had to miss this delicious slap-down.
Bolton said that for the United Nations to be effective on Iran, North Korea and Lebanon, the 15 members of the Security Council (and particularly the "PERM 5,") would have to reach policy agreements concerning those countries.
Kerry's reflexive response was: "And isn't it fair to say that we're sort of the odd person out on most of those policies?"
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"At this time of great crisis in the world, we should be looking for nuclear disarmament, nuclear abolition - saving the world, not ramping up for Armageddon by nuclear proliferation." Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio)
"There's always an alien battle cruiser, or a Korlian death ray, or an intergalactic plague that's trying to wipe out life on this miserable little planet." (Tommy Lee Jones in "Men in Black.")
Armageddon is hot again and why not? ...
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Contributed by Bill Faith on August 1, 2006 at 11:21 AM in , , |