Only a fool would step into the crossfire between the warring tribes known as Democrats and Republicans on the two burning issues of the day: Russia’s hacking and the U.N. resolution on Israel.
Well, that’s my cue to enter the crossfire with facts and opinions neither tribe will like.
Let’s begin with Russia’s hacking.
Democrat tribespeople, led by their petulant chieftain Barack Obama and his propaganda ministry of CNN, want to delegitimize Trump with the canard that he would not have been elected if had not been for the hacking of the Democrat National Committee. Republican tribespeople, led by neocon jingoists and their propaganda ministry of talk radio, are spreading the canard that the two-bit nation of Russia is a threat to America.
Both tribes overlook their gross hypocrisy and double standards in their longtime spying, hacking, and otherwise interfering with the domestic politics of other nations. For example, since 1950, both tribes:
- helped to overthrow the Iranian government of Premier Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953 and replaced him with the hated Shah of Iran;
- condoned the assassination of South Vietnam Premier Ngo Dinh Diem in 1963;
- dropped over seven million tons of bombs on North Vietnam and Laos in what was essentially an ideological civil war and certainly not a threat to us;
- took sides in the Russian election that resulted in the drunkard Boris Yeltsin assuming the presidency;
- gave arms to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan to fight the Russians and then later sent American troops to Afghanistan to fight the same jihadists;
- spawned ISIS, seeded the Syrian civil war, and emboldened Iran by overthrowing the Sunni regime in Iraq;
- joined the French in hunting down Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi, thus unleashing sectarian and tribal hatreds and turning Libya into another killing field; and
- eavesdropped on Angela Merkel’s phone calls.
The foregoing is just the tip of a large pile of smelly messes left behind by both tribes.
By the way, the United States has 17 spy agencies and spends an estimated $75 billion on spying. These agencies have facilities throughout the country, which is a surefire way of spreading federal pork and garnering congressional support. For example, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency has had its western headquarters in my boyhood hometown of St. Louis for 70 years. Tourists visiting the Anheuser-Busch brewery near the river just south of downtown don’t know that the agency is nearby and employs over 3,000 snoops and spooks. The agency is building a new $1.7 billion headquarters complex north of downtown near the former site of the infamous Pruitt-Igoe public housing towers, which were torn down decades ago after—surprise, surprise!—they became havens for crime. Many of the residents moved to the nearby suburb of Ferguson, where, as you know, black lives matter.
Anyway, let’s return to the subject of Russia’s hacking and entertain a heretical thought: Russia should be thanked for exposing what goes on behind the curtain of one or both of our political parties—the pretenses, lies, distortions, and illegalities. Shining a light on the creeps, leeches, ticks, and freaks (e.g., Anthony Weiner and his wife Uma) is good for the body politic and should be encouraged, no matter who is shining the light.
Another heretical thought is geopolitical in nature—namely, that it’s in our best interest to cozy up to Russia, whisper sweet nothings in Putin’s ear, and seduce him to be a counterbalance to China, which shares a border with Russia and covets Russia’s natural resources. If the price of this is to let Russia have influence over parts of the world that have historically been in Russia’s orbit, it’s a cheap price. After all, our economic, cultural and military hegemony around the world is large enough without having to worry about tossing a few fragments to the Russian bear.
Now for the subject of Israel, which is another place where only a fool would dare to tread.
It’s difficult to find a subject more distorted with the cherry-picking of history. For example, pro-Israel partisans cherry-pick examples of Palestinian intransigence and terror to make the point that Israel is a besieged victim. They conveniently overlook the history of Israeli intransigence and terror. Pro-Palestinian partisans engage in similar cherry-picking.
Partisanship has become so one-sided in America that the federal government now equates criticism of Israel and Zionism to anti-Semitism. Consequently, if I criticize Zionism, I hate my many Jewish friends. Sorry, friends, but I’m going to criticize Zionism—or more specifically, I’m going to criticize the argument put forth by the likes of John Bolton to justify why a Jewish state was established in Palestine.
The argument is that Palestine is a Jewish homeland because Jews have lived there for millennia.
Using that logic, Christians also are entitled to establish a Christian state in Palestine, because they’ve been there for 2,000 years.
Similarly, using the same logic, Native Americans are entitled to establish states completely independent of the United States in their former homelands of Manhattan, Florida, the Great Plains, and many other parts of the continental United States. This would mean that the Salt River Pima Indians could take my house, because it sits on their former land. Being a swell guy, I would gladly let them have it and wouldn’t resort to violence to stop them.
Of course the preponderance of Zionist immigrants to Israel had emigrated from Russia and Poland, where their forebears had lived for generations. That’s why bagels and lox are not native to Palestine. These Zionists had about as much of a cultural tie to Palestine as this Catholic has to the Vatican.
Which brings me to another argument made by the John Boltons of the world in their support of Israel—namely, that Jews were entitled to their own state in Palestine, because they were victims of pogroms in Russia and Western Europe, due to being religious minorities. Yes, there were certainly victims of pogroms in those parts of the world, but that was not the doing of Palestinians.
Using Bolton’s logic, the United States should support the establishment of scores of religious states throughout the world for religious minorities. For example, an Armenian state should be carved out of Turkey, a Coptic Christian state out of Syria, a Catholic state out of Northern Ireland, a Shiite state out of Saudi Arabia, a Muslim state out of Lebanon, and so on. While we’re at it, we should erase all of the arbitrary boundaries established by the Brits and Frogs after World War One and redraw the boundaries so that all Shiites and Sunnis have their own states. That would mean that we’d have to put Bolton’s principle before access to oil, but, hey, it would be the right thing to do.
Don’t get me wrong: If I were forced to choose between living with Israelis or with Palestinians, I’d choose the former in a nanosecond. It’s a tribal thing. I have more in common with Israelis than with Palestinians. It’s also a matter of which tribe is the winner militarily and economically—that is, which one conquered the other. As has been the case throughout human history, might makes right. That’s why I’m right not to give my house to the Salt River Pima Indians
Instead of making silly arguments, Democrat and Republican tribespeople should just acknowledge the tribal nature of humans and nation states.
