When the LA Times can run the headline
Arab Summit Bogs Down; Palestinians Stage Walkout
with a brief description underneath that states: ‘Arafat isn’t allowed to give speech via satellite, prompting delegation’s exit. Dispute overshadows Saudi leader’s call for peace.’
and then it mentions- and mind you, only then, it mentions: Attack in Israel Kills 19, Hurts 100,
it is a simple sign that we are a nation whose priorities are not clear. Or maybe it is a clear sign that the opinion leaders of our nation are drowning in filthy relativism and moral equivocation, and they no longer understand right from wrong. I do not pretend to be some sort of moral absolutist- I have never agreed with the cultural imperialists within the right wing of the Republican party- libertarian leanings lead me to believe their intervention into my individual liberties in the name of their God are morally and legally improper. I am now a rare breed- I am a Disciple of Christ- the most moderate of Christians, I am a libertarian leaning member of the Republican party in West Virginia, and I am now a strident and outspoken defender of the state of Israel. I was not born that way.
I do not defend Israel because I have a particular affinity for Jews- making blanket positive assertions about Jews is as stupid as making blanket negative assumptions about any race or religion. However, I find that I must defend Israel because despite the attempts of the PLO, the attempts of the anti-Semites in our ranks, and the attempts of Arab nations (Check Little Green Footballs for the range and depth of the filthy lucre of the disgusting house of Saudi) of the middle east to create a fog of war, there is a simple right and wrong, and it should be abundantly clear whose side represents right. We, and by we I mean the United States, sat by and let millions be massacred- were it not for our obligations to the Communist Stalin in promising a second front, who knows how long it would have been before the United States would have entered the European front. There are those who like to wash their hands of the knowledge that the Holocaust was not known by our leaders at an early point in the war, but we know now that our leaders knew, and we know now with absolute clarity what happened in Bergen-Else, in Dachau, and in the myriad of other gas ovens where a vast number of people met a gruesome and untimely death because of their religious beliefs and the inaction of others- chiefly us.
We want to act like a mature state. We shirk criticism from the waning leaders of hegemony past- when France whines, we make jokes about peasant farmers attacking McDonalds. When Germans bitch, we yell out “Marshall Plan.” When the Brits find it necessary to criticize us, we point out that we are the only true allies they have (which is only partially true- Canada, NZ, and Australia have a proud and valiant tradition of always being there when asked to be there). But that is pointless in light of what is currently going on now.
There is a war going on. A war against people whose only sin is to exist- and to exist in the safe haven that WE, as members of the United Nations, created for them, because we were asleep at the switch the first time around.
If a hillbilly from West Virginia can see this, why it is not clear to everyone else is baffling. We have an obligation to Israel and the Israelis. They are a democracy. They are a freedom loving people. They are our allies. They have within their society the seed of everything that is right within our society- the desire to exist peacefully with their neighbors, the notion of self-rule without any of the disgusting traces of theocracy, autocracy, or divine rule, and a sense of human rights. We owe them a debt from the past- a debt that will not be paid in full until the history of man is just that- history. We can not let them down again, and to do so is to abdicate everything that is great about our nation. And I will not let that happen, so help me.
[/End Rant]