Lee Bollinger, the president of Columbia University, introduced the president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the student body Monday. The introduction consisted of a series of verbal slaps to the face and insulting kicks on the shin. I'm sure it made Bollinger look like a big man in his own eyes, but the images that will remain with the people of the world will be different. My feelings were these:
1) Bully - you agree to introduce a guest, and instead you insult him instead without warning.
2) Barbaric - Ahmadinejad is not an Arab, but he is Muslim and a player in that arena. To insult a guest in that culture is to demonstrate barbarianism.
3) Sophomoric - Bollinger's words were not those of an educator, one who is a seeker of truth, one who constantly tests and looks for new ways. Instead they were the words of a preacher, one who already knows everything important and knows all the facts.
4) Stupid - Ahmadinejad was known to be slipping badly in public opinion throughout Iran, the Moslem, and particularly the Arab world. Many felt he was through and finished. After Bollinger's insults, Ahmadinejad was regarded well, as handling himself properly.
5) Shrouded - Bollinger's tirade tended to obscure Ahmadinejad's true lack of understanding of critical factors.
6) Wasted - Instead of challenging Ahmadinejad to comment on several important concepts, Bollinger told him before he began speaking that he (Ahmadinejad) was not worth listening to.
Columbia University fell in my own estimation as a result of this sad performance, and Ahmadinejad did what he could to save the day, including his faux-pas about no gays in Iran, and yet, one was left to wonder how George Bush would have performed speaking to and entertaining questions from the student body of a college in Iran, or anywhere else, like – for example – any American university.
© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
The Angel of Death Theory
The neocons seem near the end of a disastrous period of rule in the United States and hopefully they will be succeeded by saner heads. They are in such disgrace that nothing could possibly save them. Nothing that is, but the Angel of Death.
Who is the Angel of Death? It is George Bush of course, but wait – there’s much more to the story than just that basic fact. Think about what is at stake:
1) Many powerful Christian fundamentalists seem convinced Armageddon is near, that God’s Kingdom is at hand, and they have a role to play in that fulfillment of destiny.
2) Some Jewish fundamentalist seem to believe that there is window in time that is currently open, in which it will be possible to destroy not only Iraq, but Iran as well. Then, Saudi Arabia and Egypt will will be split asunder by New Israel which will expand to include Jordan, Syria and all of Palestine.
3) The American military is not in good shape. It may be near collapse and it now needs, according to some neocon aspirations, to be reborn as a great mercenary army. The current “surge” then would become not a temporary offensive but the beginning of a new invasion and a new military.
4) The Republican Party, which would be the “host” of these neocons, fundamentalists and mercenaries is in significant disarray. Its traditional leaders are in no position to confront these powerful members of its new core areas.
5) Nuclear strikes by the United States on several Iranian targets would render the United Nations helpless, and prove it to be useless.
6) The United States would then truly be the only superpower in the world and Israel would be free to control the Middle-east.
7) And this opportunity could be rapidly passing us by. If events run their normal course, and America begins a drawdown in Iraq, and the Republican Party loses badly in the forthcoming election, and the current administration is removed from power perhaps for years to come, then this great chance would be gone, and the neocons would lose an apocalyptic opportunity. It may well be now or never.
8) Last, and maybe most important of all, the American press and media are dying and continue to exist only on carefully fed bits of goodies dispensed from the government and are able to only broadcast crude cartoons and the most blatant sensationalism.
But you protest that the American people would not put up with any attack on Iran now, and the world community would see it as an outrageous invasion of a national sovereignty that would threaten them all. So how could such a sudden preemptive attack by America ever take place?
That’s where the Angel of Death comes in . It’s frighteningly simple. George Bush is assassinated. Willingly? Of course not. The assassin would be some member of the Neo-Con fraternity, perhaps one who seems poised for “greatness”. Someone with easy access to the president. He of course would be killed after the deed, along perhaps with other unaware members of the administration and they would become great heroes of a White House “shootout”. AND an Iranian would be produced as the villain, whisked off to Guantanamo, or elsewhere, never to be seen again as President Cheney took charge and immediately carried out the carefully planned series of missions, including carefully prepared leaks of false information about Iran’ s accelerating “preparation” to attack America.
© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.
Who is the Angel of Death? It is George Bush of course, but wait – there’s much more to the story than just that basic fact. Think about what is at stake:
1) Many powerful Christian fundamentalists seem convinced Armageddon is near, that God’s Kingdom is at hand, and they have a role to play in that fulfillment of destiny.
2) Some Jewish fundamentalist seem to believe that there is window in time that is currently open, in which it will be possible to destroy not only Iraq, but Iran as well. Then, Saudi Arabia and Egypt will will be split asunder by New Israel which will expand to include Jordan, Syria and all of Palestine.
3) The American military is not in good shape. It may be near collapse and it now needs, according to some neocon aspirations, to be reborn as a great mercenary army. The current “surge” then would become not a temporary offensive but the beginning of a new invasion and a new military.
4) The Republican Party, which would be the “host” of these neocons, fundamentalists and mercenaries is in significant disarray. Its traditional leaders are in no position to confront these powerful members of its new core areas.
5) Nuclear strikes by the United States on several Iranian targets would render the United Nations helpless, and prove it to be useless.
6) The United States would then truly be the only superpower in the world and Israel would be free to control the Middle-east.
7) And this opportunity could be rapidly passing us by. If events run their normal course, and America begins a drawdown in Iraq, and the Republican Party loses badly in the forthcoming election, and the current administration is removed from power perhaps for years to come, then this great chance would be gone, and the neocons would lose an apocalyptic opportunity. It may well be now or never.
8) Last, and maybe most important of all, the American press and media are dying and continue to exist only on carefully fed bits of goodies dispensed from the government and are able to only broadcast crude cartoons and the most blatant sensationalism.
But you protest that the American people would not put up with any attack on Iran now, and the world community would see it as an outrageous invasion of a national sovereignty that would threaten them all. So how could such a sudden preemptive attack by America ever take place?
That’s where the Angel of Death comes in . It’s frighteningly simple. George Bush is assassinated. Willingly? Of course not. The assassin would be some member of the Neo-Con fraternity, perhaps one who seems poised for “greatness”. Someone with easy access to the president. He of course would be killed after the deed, along perhaps with other unaware members of the administration and they would become great heroes of a White House “shootout”. AND an Iranian would be produced as the villain, whisked off to Guantanamo, or elsewhere, never to be seen again as President Cheney took charge and immediately carried out the carefully planned series of missions, including carefully prepared leaks of false information about Iran’ s accelerating “preparation” to attack America.
© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Proud to be an American.
If we are serious about fighting a real War on Terror, and intend to win in Iraq and the middle east let’s MAKE the congress declare war. Let’s have the draft reinstated and take every American man and woman between the ages of 18 and 46. Let’s pick them up from their homes and from where they work and send them off: six weeks training and then on to Iraq for two to three or more years – no leave or vacations until the war is over. Let’s institute wage and price controls, bring back rent control and freeze the interest rates. Let’s begin rationing of goods, sell no more tires, restrict the sale of gasoline, put a 35 mph speed limit on all American roads. Let’s shutdown the auto industries and most of the other major industries in America and turn them into great war production machines. Let’s start collecting trash and converting it into war products, re-institute war bonds and let our kids buy war stamps in school. Let’s do all of this, IF we really believe George Bush when he says we are in the greatest battle of civilization’s history.
After all, that’s what Iraq is doing and that’s what al Qaeda is doing, and that’s what the Taliban is doing, and that’s what “Greatest Generation” of Americas did during World War II. But it seems like we don’t do any of that any more. We want to fight wars on the cheap, we think we are simply invincible and nobody can stand to fight us anymore. Besides, God is on our side and He will see we win in the end.
But this war in Iraq is lost in spite of God and everybody. It’s lost like the last few wars we “fought”. And for the same reasons. We lost Korea because the American people didn’t really want to fight it, they didn’t really believe in it. President Truman sent the troops in for an easy victory but the people had to be “sold” on the war later when the fighting turned tough. They didn’t buy it. We lost in Vietnam because the American people didn’t want to fight that one either – especially after they found out Lyndon Johnson lied to them about the Gulf of Tonkin “attack” so we could get rough with North Vietnam and the Veit Cong. We lost Afghanistan because we just simply quit there so we could go invade Iraq. We lost Iraq because the American people never did believe George Bush and they didn’t want the war in the first place.
After all, Bush wasn’t “just wrong” on every single issue from the WMD to the AlQuida in Iraq, to the Saddam Hussein planning the 9-11 attacks, to the yellow-cake thing, to the “MIssion Accomplished” thing, and the “bring them on” thing, and his cute little “what insurgency?” thing. He wasn’t just ignorant about Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, Abu Ghraib, Walter Reed, and so on. He was lying. He was lying to the congress, lying to the American people, lying to the world. It’s his war, his personal war and he has only a few people really behind him, namely a few Bush patriots like Cheney, Libby, Gonzales, Perle who have sworn allegiance to Him, not the constitituion, and – of course – “the troops”.
So now this war has become a special kind of hell for a few Americans. Those are the “Troops” we just mentioned. They go and come and go again. We say we won’t forsake our “troops” there so we send them back again to relieve themselves. And we send them back sooner and keep them there longer. And again. And again. And again. And we still won’t forsake them there so we send them back again – too often they are the same guys – we did that in Vietnam, remember? Meanwhile, the rest of us are here at home, building our lives, moving up in our jobs, putting down roots, getting our kids through schools, moving to new neighborhoods, buying better houses, new cars, TVs, computers, and we won’t forsake our troops, either. We help them to rotate over again to relieve each other more quickly and help them to stay there longer to give “the troops” back home a break. We watch our own kids get married, we go to the high school football games, and watch the news occasionally. We put new bumper stickers on our new SUVs to show we really do support our troops. We wave the flag. We stomp our foot. We support our president! Hot damn! It’s good to be an American.
© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.
After all, that’s what Iraq is doing and that’s what al Qaeda is doing, and that’s what the Taliban is doing, and that’s what “Greatest Generation” of Americas did during World War II. But it seems like we don’t do any of that any more. We want to fight wars on the cheap, we think we are simply invincible and nobody can stand to fight us anymore. Besides, God is on our side and He will see we win in the end.
But this war in Iraq is lost in spite of God and everybody. It’s lost like the last few wars we “fought”. And for the same reasons. We lost Korea because the American people didn’t really want to fight it, they didn’t really believe in it. President Truman sent the troops in for an easy victory but the people had to be “sold” on the war later when the fighting turned tough. They didn’t buy it. We lost in Vietnam because the American people didn’t want to fight that one either – especially after they found out Lyndon Johnson lied to them about the Gulf of Tonkin “attack” so we could get rough with North Vietnam and the Veit Cong. We lost Afghanistan because we just simply quit there so we could go invade Iraq. We lost Iraq because the American people never did believe George Bush and they didn’t want the war in the first place.
After all, Bush wasn’t “just wrong” on every single issue from the WMD to the AlQuida in Iraq, to the Saddam Hussein planning the 9-11 attacks, to the yellow-cake thing, to the “MIssion Accomplished” thing, and the “bring them on” thing, and his cute little “what insurgency?” thing. He wasn’t just ignorant about Jessica Lynch, Pat Tillman, Abu Ghraib, Walter Reed, and so on. He was lying. He was lying to the congress, lying to the American people, lying to the world. It’s his war, his personal war and he has only a few people really behind him, namely a few Bush patriots like Cheney, Libby, Gonzales, Perle who have sworn allegiance to Him, not the constitituion, and – of course – “the troops”.
So now this war has become a special kind of hell for a few Americans. Those are the “Troops” we just mentioned. They go and come and go again. We say we won’t forsake our “troops” there so we send them back again to relieve themselves. And we send them back sooner and keep them there longer. And again. And again. And again. And we still won’t forsake them there so we send them back again – too often they are the same guys – we did that in Vietnam, remember? Meanwhile, the rest of us are here at home, building our lives, moving up in our jobs, putting down roots, getting our kids through schools, moving to new neighborhoods, buying better houses, new cars, TVs, computers, and we won’t forsake our troops, either. We help them to rotate over again to relieve each other more quickly and help them to stay there longer to give “the troops” back home a break. We watch our own kids get married, we go to the high school football games, and watch the news occasionally. We put new bumper stickers on our new SUVs to show we really do support our troops. We wave the flag. We stomp our foot. We support our president! Hot damn! It’s good to be an American.
© John Womack, 2007. All rights reserved.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Fred Thompson
It is already apparent one of the approaches that Thompson will try will be that of the good ole southern gentleman. He will admire Hillary, and even hold a door open for her should the occasion arise, and he will make it clear that while he thinks she is fine and dandy that it is simply God's own words that the ladies belong in submissive status in someone's home. Of course he won't say any words that come close to stating such beliefs, but it will be interesting to see how he and his handlers approach that. As far as Barrak is concerned, Fred will again evidence admiration for the good boy, he will be proud of him and will make it clear – again without words to this effect – that Barrak is a credit to his race. Thompson's role will be that of the gentleman with the white man's burden, he won't say this but his actions will not be lost on his core.
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