| GREG-STRANGE.COM |
"If you haven't found something strange during the
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
day, it hasn't been much of a day." -- John A. Wheeler
PROVIDING SUBSTANTIVE COMMENTARY ON THE
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
PEOPLE, POLITICS, EVENTS AND ABSURDITIES OF
OUR TIME. SERVED UP WITH ACERBIC WIT, YOU
SHOULD FIND IT QUITE SATISFYING.
Pelosi’s Palavering For Peace
Between the do-nothing attitude of the British over the
Iranian kidnapping of its sailors and Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi’s unauthorized trip to the Syrian terror state, the
West didn’t exactly do itself proud the last couple of weeks.
Even as a hostage female British sailor was forced to don a
Muslim head scarf for an Iranian propaganda film, Speaker
Pelosi voluntarily wore one as she toured about the capital city
of one of the Middle East’s most notorious terror-supporting
states.
Just another day for the wishy-washy West whose stomach
for a long drawn-out conflict to defeat terrorism is highly
suspect. If that task ever gets handed over to the peaceniks,
you might as well prepare for jihad to come to a neighborhood
near you.
When I say “peacenik,” I mean someone like Nancy Pelosi,
for instance, who, disdainful of President Bush’s policy of
isolating Syria because of its blatant support of terrorism,
deigned that a new foreign policy was in order, one more
pleasing to the sensibilities of peace-loving and negotiation-
minded Democrats. So she decided that a bit of unauthorized
shuttle diplomacy was just the ticket and took off for the
Middle East.
Working from the hackneyed cliché that you don’t
negotiate peace with your friends but rather with your
adversaries, Pelosi set out on what she thought to be an
“excellent idea” and declared that she was hopeful of
rebuilding lost confidence between Washington and Damascus.
“We have no illusions,” she said, “but we have great hope.”
That‘s peachy, Pelosi. Unfortunately, that statement is
utterly illogical since the only way anyone could have “great
hope” about altering Syria’s terrorist tendencies through talk
would be to have the grandest illusions imaginable. Over
recent decades, talk has been endless and, will wonders never
cease, so has the terror. What possible words of wisdom could
Pelosi convey to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to convince
him that Israel has a right to exist and that there’s no future in
being pals with the terror ayatollahs of Iran?
See, if these Middle Eastern despots were reasonable, peace-
loving guys who yearned for a better life for their subjects, that
region of the world wouldn’t be a strife-ridden mess from one
end to the other. But stark reality never got in the way of a
liberal Democrat’s delusions about palavering over peace.
Pelosi, being from ultra-tolerant and open-minded San
Francisco, sees guys like Assad as potential San Franciscans
themselves who are merely in need of the proper coaxing and
sweet-talking, which she considers herself the best qualified to
deliver, being the first female Speaker of the House.
But with the exception of a handful of unreconstructed
leftists and maybe a few leftovers from the Bay area’s famed
1967 “Summer of Love,” nobody else is buying it. Criticism of
her “Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy” came from all sides,
including the Washington Post, which hasn’t exactly been a
cheerleader for the Bush doctrine. A Post editorial was
peppered with words like “foolish,” “ludicrous” and
“counterproductive.” It also astutely pointed out that “as any
diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms.
Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at
the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off UN charges
that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime
minister Rafiq al-Hariri.”
I love it when the Washington Post talks tough to mushy-
brained liberals like Pelosi! But wait, there‘s more. Just prior
to Pelosi’s Syrian excursion, she visited Israel to see Prime
Minister Olmert. Then, when she got to Syria, she told Assad
that Israel was ready for peace talks. The only problem was
Olmert never said that and, in fact, had just told Pelosi during
her visit that he had the impression that there had been zero
change in Assad’s position regarding a possible peace process
with Israel.
Summing it up, the Post said: “In other words, Ms. Pelosi
not only misrepresented Israel’s position but was virtually
alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad’s words were mere
propaganda.”
Ouch! That’s a rather stinging rebuke from one of the
country’s leading mainstream liberal newspapers. And it got
even worse (or better, depending on your viewpoint) from
another quarter. Robert F. Turner, holder of a doctorate from
the University of Virginia School of Law, said in an op-ed piece
in the Wall St. Journal that Pelosi’s trip to Syria constituted a
violation of the Logan Act, which makes her mission not only
foolish, but also a felony. Here’s an excerpt:
“The Logan Act makes it a felony and provides for a prison
sentence of up to three years for any American, ‘without
authority of the United States,’ to communicate with a foreign
government in an effort to influence that government’s
behavior on any ‘disputes or controversies with the United
States.’”
Three years in the slammer for the nation‘s first lady
Speaker and a noble seeker of peace in the Middle East? Whoa,
let’s not get carried away here. Why, this Robert Turner has to
be a right-wing, warmongering misogynist to even suggest such
a-- Oops. Actually, he was, among other things, the first
President of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an official government
institution dedicated to the cause of international peace.
Anyway, she’ll never be prosecuted, of course. Unless . . .
Well, unless she were to keep right on committing the same
felonious violations of the Logan Act. And lo and behold, it has
already been reported that she and Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif.,
are seriously mulling over the possibility of another diplomatic
sojourn, this time to open a dialogue with Iran.
“I find the president of Iran’s remarks to be so repulsive that
they are outside the circle of civilized human behavior,” the
Speaker said, referring to his questioning of the validity of the
Holocaust and his stated desire to wipe Israel off the map.
“But . . . it’s important to have dialogue.”
Of course! Dialogue, dialogue and more dialogue. But
when one country is the beacon of light, hope and progress for
the world and the other country wants to impose another Dark
Age -- this time Islamic style -- on the world, where does the
“dialogue” begin? After agreeing on the delights of Persian
cuisine, things are likely to get bogged down in a hurry.
Pelosi’s recent trip to the Middle East, besides apparently
having been a felony, was an unmitigated disaster and disgrace
from beginning to end. If she tries to pull the same thing again
with another of America’s implacable enemies, she needs to
have the cuffs slapped on her as soon as “Pelosi One” touches
back down stateside.
Between the do-nothing attitude of the British over the
Iranian kidnapping of its sailors and Speaker of the House
Nancy Pelosi’s unauthorized trip to the Syrian terror state, the
West didn’t exactly do itself proud the last couple of weeks.
Even as a hostage female British sailor was forced to don a
Muslim head scarf for an Iranian propaganda film, Speaker
Pelosi voluntarily wore one as she toured about the capital city
of one of the Middle East’s most notorious terror-supporting
states.
Just another day for the wishy-washy West whose stomach
for a long drawn-out conflict to defeat terrorism is highly
suspect. If that task ever gets handed over to the peaceniks,
you might as well prepare for jihad to come to a neighborhood
near you.
When I say “peacenik,” I mean someone like Nancy Pelosi,
for instance, who, disdainful of President Bush’s policy of
isolating Syria because of its blatant support of terrorism,
deigned that a new foreign policy was in order, one more
pleasing to the sensibilities of peace-loving and negotiation-
minded Democrats. So she decided that a bit of unauthorized
shuttle diplomacy was just the ticket and took off for the
Middle East.
Working from the hackneyed cliché that you don’t
negotiate peace with your friends but rather with your
adversaries, Pelosi set out on what she thought to be an
“excellent idea” and declared that she was hopeful of
rebuilding lost confidence between Washington and Damascus.
“We have no illusions,” she said, “but we have great hope.”
That‘s peachy, Pelosi. Unfortunately, that statement is
utterly illogical since the only way anyone could have “great
hope” about altering Syria’s terrorist tendencies through talk
would be to have the grandest illusions imaginable. Over
recent decades, talk has been endless and, will wonders never
cease, so has the terror. What possible words of wisdom could
Pelosi convey to Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad to convince
him that Israel has a right to exist and that there’s no future in
being pals with the terror ayatollahs of Iran?
See, if these Middle Eastern despots were reasonable, peace-
loving guys who yearned for a better life for their subjects, that
region of the world wouldn’t be a strife-ridden mess from one
end to the other. But stark reality never got in the way of a
liberal Democrat’s delusions about palavering over peace.
Pelosi, being from ultra-tolerant and open-minded San
Francisco, sees guys like Assad as potential San Franciscans
themselves who are merely in need of the proper coaxing and
sweet-talking, which she considers herself the best qualified to
deliver, being the first female Speaker of the House.
But with the exception of a handful of unreconstructed
leftists and maybe a few leftovers from the Bay area’s famed
1967 “Summer of Love,” nobody else is buying it. Criticism of
her “Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy” came from all sides,
including the Washington Post, which hasn’t exactly been a
cheerleader for the Bush doctrine. A Post editorial was
peppered with words like “foolish,” “ludicrous” and
“counterproductive.” It also astutely pointed out that “as any
diplomat with knowledge of the region could have told Ms.
Pelosi, Mr. Assad is a corrupt thug whose overriding priority at
the moment is not peace with Israel but heading off UN charges
that he orchestrated the murder of former Lebanese prime
minister Rafiq al-Hariri.”
I love it when the Washington Post talks tough to mushy-
brained liberals like Pelosi! But wait, there‘s more. Just prior
to Pelosi’s Syrian excursion, she visited Israel to see Prime
Minister Olmert. Then, when she got to Syria, she told Assad
that Israel was ready for peace talks. The only problem was
Olmert never said that and, in fact, had just told Pelosi during
her visit that he had the impression that there had been zero
change in Assad’s position regarding a possible peace process
with Israel.
Summing it up, the Post said: “In other words, Ms. Pelosi
not only misrepresented Israel’s position but was virtually
alone in failing to discern that Mr. Assad’s words were mere
propaganda.”
Ouch! That’s a rather stinging rebuke from one of the
country’s leading mainstream liberal newspapers. And it got
even worse (or better, depending on your viewpoint) from
another quarter. Robert F. Turner, holder of a doctorate from
the University of Virginia School of Law, said in an op-ed piece
in the Wall St. Journal that Pelosi’s trip to Syria constituted a
violation of the Logan Act, which makes her mission not only
foolish, but also a felony. Here’s an excerpt:
“The Logan Act makes it a felony and provides for a prison
sentence of up to three years for any American, ‘without
authority of the United States,’ to communicate with a foreign
government in an effort to influence that government’s
behavior on any ‘disputes or controversies with the United
States.’”
Three years in the slammer for the nation‘s first lady
Speaker and a noble seeker of peace in the Middle East? Whoa,
let’s not get carried away here. Why, this Robert Turner has to
be a right-wing, warmongering misogynist to even suggest such
a-- Oops. Actually, he was, among other things, the first
President of the U.S. Institute of Peace, an official government
institution dedicated to the cause of international peace.
Anyway, she’ll never be prosecuted, of course. Unless . . .
Well, unless she were to keep right on committing the same
felonious violations of the Logan Act. And lo and behold, it has
already been reported that she and Rep. Tom Lantos, D-Calif.,
are seriously mulling over the possibility of another diplomatic
sojourn, this time to open a dialogue with Iran.
“I find the president of Iran’s remarks to be so repulsive that
they are outside the circle of civilized human behavior,” the
Speaker said, referring to his questioning of the validity of the
Holocaust and his stated desire to wipe Israel off the map.
“But . . . it’s important to have dialogue.”
Of course! Dialogue, dialogue and more dialogue. But
when one country is the beacon of light, hope and progress for
the world and the other country wants to impose another Dark
Age -- this time Islamic style -- on the world, where does the
“dialogue” begin? After agreeing on the delights of Persian
cuisine, things are likely to get bogged down in a hurry.
Pelosi’s recent trip to the Middle East, besides apparently
having been a felony, was an unmitigated disaster and disgrace
from beginning to end. If she tries to pull the same thing again
with another of America’s implacable enemies, she needs to
have the cuffs slapped on her as soon as “Pelosi One” touches
back down stateside.