Anxious in Annandale

The only thing I’m sure of this morning is that Congress is composed of idiots and charlatans who can’t be trusted. Last week’s Washington Post Magazine article that asked if the Israeli lobby was too powerful was simply prologue to the dance by members of both parties that no matter what Israel is doing today is fine with them. Were I an Israeli, I’d be damned worried by that vote of confidence. Clearly, both parties are courting American Jewish votes and campaign contributions and not worrying whether that might be good for America, Israel, the war of terror, or anything else.

If you agree with the Israeli response to the Hamas/Hezbollah attacks, killings and kidnappings, there are about a gazillion media articles in favor. If you think Israel has overreacted there are an equal number of pieces supporting this position. I have no idea why – perhaps its one of my Alfred E. Newman “What me worry?” moments – but I think this horrible situation between the Israelis and Hamas and Hezbollah is going to end without turning into WWIII. But there are even columns in major outlets by writers I greatly respect who are fearful that this could be a pivotal moment in world history much like Sarajevo in 1914.

But there is joy in Mudville; the mighty neocons have struck out. Those idealistic movers and shakers who browbeat poor George W. Bush to the point that he lost focus on the war on terror in Afghanistan and decided that delivering democracy to Iraq was more important than applying the coup de grace to the Taliban and the tattered shreds of al Qaeda that were holed up on the border with Pakistan no longer have the President’s ear.

Today’s Post has a front page story on how unhappy the neocons are and how they’re saying George has lost his nerve. Sadly, George has shown them the door several years too late. Because of them we’re almost 3,000 deaths, 20,000 wounded, and committed for up to $2 trillion wasted in a war that never should have been fought in Iraq and which says nothing about the tens of thousands of poor Iraqis dead and wounded that we were attempting to help.

The neocons are trying to turn the tables on the President and blame him because we didn’t send enough troops to do the job in Iraq. But that doesn’t wash and it’s becoming clearer by the day that sending twice as many soldiers and marines would have merely postponed the bloodshed between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq. But read the article and their lamentations for yourselves:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/18/AR2006071801373.html?referrer=emailarticle

Lost in the explosions, real and polemic, is a column by Richard Cohen – I’m sure there are many others of this kind but they’re also buried in the back pages of papers – that attempts to put Israel’s plight in historical perspective. As many of you know, I admire Richard and have extolled his virtues many times in previous postings and this is one of his most thoughtful offerings. But let me digress, in the Post Magazine article on the Israeli lobby that I linked last week, one of the questions raised was whether speaking out constructively against any Israeli policy could result in anything much beyond the questioner’s being labeled anti-Semitic? I don’t really know the answer to that, but I feel confident that only a prominent American Jew like Richard could have written a column such as the one I’m linking and not suffered an immediate attack by the lobby and its supporters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/17/AR2006071701154.html?referrer=emailarticle

There’s not much dispute that the attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah were encouraged and supplied by Iran and Syria. America is in this mess to its eyeballs, and our unwise Iraq War has damaged us and is hurting Israel. The only thing good that I see coming out of it is the loss of prestige by the neocons within the administration and in the public mind. Israel and the U.S. will ultimately get out of these corners but with plenty of wounds to lick. The Post article labels the neocons `conservative,’ but the real conservatives of the Republican Party are finally asserting themselves and there’s hope rising even as the bombs rain down on the innocent everywhere in the Middle East.

Blog on!

Wild Bill