Be afraid! Be very afraid!

Submitted by Michael S. (United States), Nov 3, 2014 at 10:01

Hi, Tovey. You said,

An interesting observation, of a lame duck even considering crossing in all that traffic; but pushing someone else to clear a path to make a crossing, now that would be worth film at eleven.

Lots of yuks (hearty laughs) on that one. It would be funny, if it weren't so close to reality: Our "lame-duck" President is not very careful about what roads and red lines he crosses; but this would not concern us if he were not at the same time asking the American people to support him in foolhearty wars and foreign policy. You said further,

It is the premise of proxy fighting, is it not?

It is, and all our allies and "allies", from Turkey to Britain to Iran, know it. That's why we have gotten such a tepid response from them. The use of the word "terrorist" as an excuse for engaging in these wars, meanwhile, has gotten rather worn: Every side uses that term, to describe his enemies: To the American public, ISIL is supposed to be synonymous with "terrorism", making us afraid, very afraid. To the Turks, "ISIL" doesn't sound so bad -- just another flavor of the Islamic State they're trying to create in their own country; but anything "Kurdish" smacks of holy terror. The Iranians and Syrians have their own bogeymen, and the Israelis theirs. I'm not terrified by any of this; and I don't consider "terror" to be a legitimate way of promoting national policy -- including the policy of proxy fighting.

The current American Administrative Chief Executive's mindset and this ideology he keeps trying to insist is not his own has now been persuasively demonstrated as not only his, but it is shared with every sensibility that opposes a peaceful solution for Israel.

That's a tough sentence to parse, and I'm not even sure where the commas and semicolons should be inserted. You've been reading too much New Testament Greek again (joke). Concerning what seem to be your main points, (1) Yes, this proxy war against ISIL is very much the "baby" of Obama and his advisors; and (2) it has NOTHING TO DO with a "peaceful" solution for Israel.

Despite the fact that Obama, Kerry and 185+ members of the UN General Assembly believe that Israel is to blame for the lack of peace in the world, it's really insulting to the Kurds of Kobane, who are fighting for their national survival, to try to link the Arab-Israeli "Middle East Peace Process" with their life-and-death struggle. Ditto for the Christians, Sunnis, Shi'as and others of Syria and other places. Those people are suffering greatly, because of political and religious manipulation from every side, essentially none of which is coming from Israel and the "Middle East Peace Process". We are fighting ISIL for very short-sighted political reasons, most of them domestic (Election time, hello?). To your credit, you said,

What is happening north of Israel is part and parcel of what is happening in the south of the Negev. PM Netanyahu indeed, is playing hardball; and like the Giants' Baumgartner, seems to have an upper hand in making the right plays, in spite of some earlier issues.

Yes, and I respect Netanyahu as a true patriot and an astute politician. I disagree with many of his decisions; but even America's President Lincoln said he voted 90% of the time against his own convictions, in order to vote for them the other 10% of the time. It's a tough field to master, but Bibi has come pretty close.

The American Administration does not like Israel's play for peace and security and the answer as to why they do not is plain: they do not like Israel...[FULL STOP belongs here]

Barack and Michelle seem to have a long list of things they don't like, most of them more fair-colored than themselves. Most Jews are more white than most Arabs. Add to this some historical European antisemitism, and this is the bottom line in the policies of most world leaders. With the Obamas, I think a simmering personal grudge is also at work. You went on,

if American foreign policy has not learned anything, why has it not learned from 1948, 1967, 1973, 2006, 2014: that Israel is not going quietly into that dark night; but the lame duck just might.

Clinton also used his twilight years to come up with an imbecilic Middle East "Peace" plan; and GW Bush ended his tenure with the Annapolis Conference, where the Arabs came through the front door but the Jews, literally, had to use the servants' entrance. Clinton was in three-cornered pants in 1948, and getting stoned in 1967 and 1973. Bush, meanwhile, was piloting National Guard aircraft to ship bananas for personal friends. I don't thing any of them was fully aware of the significance of those years. As for the "lessons" of 2006 and 2014, Obama can be excused: There was nothing to be learned, other than the fact that Israel can be expected to turn victory into defeat with a mere disapproving glance from Washington, DC.

Back to the OP, "Be afraid, be very afraid!" Terror lurks everywhere! Only Big O and Big Government can keep us from it! ...and other Halloween tales.

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