Rudy Giuliani went on TV yesterday and proved what many of us have known for some time. Rudy is seriously ill. I can’t give you the factual medical terminology or diagnosis. We’ve all known for years that Rudy was a serious egomaniac and a dedicated aspirant to the mantel of super patriot but it wasn’t until recently that it became obvious how crazy he has actually become. It’s unfortunate that Rudy isn’t bright enough to understand that the way to prove your patriotism is to support your duly elected president in times of exterior threats to our country.
They used to call it the loyal opposition. It meant that even though they had lost elections, the members of the losing party had enough class to understand that being a functional loser entailed remaining loyal to the winner because he now represented the country in general and its people. When there was honor in America, there was a sports saying that went; it’s not important whether you win or lose but how you play the game. It wasn’t quite true then and it’s not quite true now, because it is important whether you win or lose or there would be no reason to play the game at all, but it still is very important how you play the game… and the post game. It’s important because it helps to keep the country functional.
The concept of honor seemed to start slipping away when a young, charming politician from the deep south upended George HW Bush and kept him from enjoying an expected second term as president. The GOP went crazy and instead of standing by Bill Clinton, the President, in those things in which they were expected to be loyal, they went nuts and attacked him and his wife in the most inappropriate ways.
Things settled back to normal when George W. Bush was elected. After 911 even the democrats supported him in his ill-fated desires to go to war with everyone but Iceland. It wasn’t until his plans were proven to be dishonest and harmful to the nation that he began to get opposition from the Democrats and it wasn’t until he crashed the economy along with his destructive military ambitions that not just the Democrats but the nation turned on him.
The election of Barak Obama seemed to turn the entire GOP into wild dogs, attacking the new President relentlessly on every front after he had been elected by a decisive majority of the voters. The GOP didn’t care, Each seemed to possess a personal vendetta against him. This vendetta was so furious that it eventually halted the government and hurt the country but the Republicans no longer seemed to care. They just weren’t interested in the welfare of the country, only that of their party and the billionaires that supported it,
Now the country finds itself in a situation to which there is no ready answer, a battle with terrorists the like of which we have never seen. At the time when we were known to have never lost a war, and I remember when that time was, we had been triumphant over nations of all kinds and sizes. But that opponent no longer exists. We are no longer fighting a nation, with territory and physical attributes to capture. In the case of ISIS, yes there is a certain amount of military might, but they are not so dependent on that military might as to be defeated without it. Like al Qaeda, al Nusra and a number of other terrorist groups that have not been as territorially acquisitive as ISIS the terrorist movement will continue to exist as long as there is motivation for its existence.
Like almost every terrorist movement in the history of the world, this Islamist movement was born of an enormous amount of misery, poverty and hopelessness in the Arab world of the Middle East. It is already moving to Africa and if something isn’t done about the root cause it will eventually move to Indonesia and the Far East.
Contrary to right wing belief, this is not a religious movement. It is a political power grab that is using the religion of Islam as a rallying point with which to recruit its followers. Its leaders are intelligent enough to understand that in a religious milieu it is far more effective to use the local God as a motivation than it is to use an abstract concept like a better life.
Yes, there are certainly a lot of Muslims in the terrorist organizations, mainly because, as in most poor countries most people cling to some kind of religion, either to have a God to pray to, or to have one, on which to blame their plight.
Obama understands this situation, which is why he has tried to use analogies to draw the discussion away from Islam and have it concentrated on terrorists and terrorism. Of course the right has attacked him for it which only proves that the right doesn’t have the intelligence to understand the problem or its solution.
I can remember when the Irgun, the Stern Gang and the Haganah were hunted as terrorist groups all over the Middle East but they were, more than anyone else, responsible for the creation of Israel. These were men, fighting for a downtrodden people, using any tactics that were available to them to win a place in the world. Sound familiar?
I am not trying to equate the Zionist groups with ISIS which may have similar of goals but is pursuing them in quite another way, but I can remember when the world reacted in disgust and horror at the bombing of the King David hotel in Jerusalem. Nobody remembers that the Irgun gave the Brits twenty minutes warning that the hotel was going to blow up and the Brits ignored it. What I am saying here is that, the same people we consider terrorists, may be thought of by others as patriots and heroes. Of course, ISIS is doing their absolute best to be thought of as what they are, inhuman monsters.
Obama trying to use an analogy involving the Crusaders to illustrate this situation caused a furor among the Christian Right in this country. What does the twelfth century have to do with today, was the great outcry among those who are not intelligent enough to understand that an analogy is timeless. In fact it has everything to do with the excesses of any power mad hierarchy in the name of religion, which is exactly what the Crusades were and what the search for a Caliphate is now.
The Middle East, Africa, India and many other parts of the world are still sunk in a quagmire of misery, poverty and hopelessness. There are as many reasons for this as there are nations in which it exists. In the Middle East it can be the result of dictatorships that go back centuries or those established by colonial Europe when they fled the area. These strong governments held their people in thrall. In Africa, the reasons are often just the opposite. Nations almost without government structure, left the people in small tribes that were forever at war for each other, and just as forever at the mercy of whoever was temporarily the strongest. That’s why a group like Boko Haram can, almost without opposition plunder a series of nations in Central Africa.
This is a phenomenon that we have been involved with since the end of WWII, in places like Vietnam were the local population were trying to get free from the last tentacles of French colonialism and where the finger of Communism was pointed at the North who had actually gotten most of the French out of their country. At that time, just the mention of Communism was enough to have us backing up the landing barges and rolling out our tanks.
The same was true with any number of South American nations at that time. Dictators installed by United Fruit, ruled over that continent. They had only to shout Commie and we were there in support of the worst governments, driving back so called terrorists, who were trying to free their people from the kind of autocratic rule that we had fought our own war to escape.
I’m not saying that the Arab terrorist groups are good guys, but neither are the governments that they are fighting. They hate America because it’s an easier sell than hating their Arab brothers who are on the other side of the fight. We have to understand this. We have to decide whether we want to react tactically to immediate provocation or whether we want to react strategically to the overall situation and come up with a plan for how to deal with the Middle East now, Africa in a short time, and eventually hot spots all over the globe.
es, Obama has not come up with any kind of long term strategy on how to deal with what is happening all over the world but despite their loud and angry condemnations, neither has anyone else.
This plan, if it ever materializes, will eventually come from some kind of global strategist, not a president plagued with political problems, not a general, not necessarily a member of any government but a man with a view of humanity and an understanding of human interaction. This man will need a president with the right instincts to take his plan and run. Obama could have been the man to do it but it would be much to optimistic to expect such a plan to materialize in the time that Obama has left in office.
There has been a history of the world that intimates that in times of great challenge, great men emerge to lead us. This is such a time. Let’s hope that some great man or woman moves to the fore now, when he or she is needed most.