Sunday, May 29, 2005
Nancy Pelosi Gives A Pep Talk to Congress
More on House Minority Leader's speech to AIPAC from Tom Gaffney.
An excerpt:
But her most revealing statements concern nuclear proliferation, and they show why the Democrats (who don’t get it) are no improvement over the Republicans (who always get it wrong). In fact, the Democrats may be even more dangerous, precisely because there is still the perception in the land, however mistaken, that the Democrats are the party of enlightened ideas. I would be willing to bet that most registered democrats are not aware of how extreme their elected Democratic representatives are on these key issues. Nor can most thus have a true sense of how dire the situation is.
According to Pelosi, the biggest danger to Israel today comes from Iran, whose nuclear ambitions, though still unproved, also threaten the US. Her perspective contains the seed of ominous things to come, because, after all, something will have to be done about Iran, right? Yes, and soon.
Meanwhile, Pelosi manages to overlook Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinians, which undoubtedly is the greatest danger to Israel, by far, and comes from within. Nor does she mention Israel’s massive nuclear, chemical and biological weapons arsenal. But her statements additionally contain the tacit and troublesome assumption that the only people in the region who matter are Israelis and Americans. Everyone else, virtually the entire population of numerous countries, though no less imperiled by nuclear weapons (arguably even more so), simply don’t count in this calculus. In fact, Pelosi’s remarks are implicitly racist for this reason.
The shocker, though, also near the end, is where Pelosi takes the US and Israeli nuclear monopoly in the region for granted, as if this were a good and necessary thing. The purpose of the NPT in her view is to shut down the rogue proliferators, who by definition are always those other guys, never us. It’s the stuff of which nuclear nightmares are made. I would also bet that the vast majority of people who live in the Mideast take sharp issue with Pelosi’s thinking, and probably have a bone to pick with her about where the actual threat lies.
An excerpt:
But her most revealing statements concern nuclear proliferation, and they show why the Democrats (who don’t get it) are no improvement over the Republicans (who always get it wrong). In fact, the Democrats may be even more dangerous, precisely because there is still the perception in the land, however mistaken, that the Democrats are the party of enlightened ideas. I would be willing to bet that most registered democrats are not aware of how extreme their elected Democratic representatives are on these key issues. Nor can most thus have a true sense of how dire the situation is.
According to Pelosi, the biggest danger to Israel today comes from Iran, whose nuclear ambitions, though still unproved, also threaten the US. Her perspective contains the seed of ominous things to come, because, after all, something will have to be done about Iran, right? Yes, and soon.
Meanwhile, Pelosi manages to overlook Israel’s brutal treatment of the Palestinians, which undoubtedly is the greatest danger to Israel, by far, and comes from within. Nor does she mention Israel’s massive nuclear, chemical and biological weapons arsenal. But her statements additionally contain the tacit and troublesome assumption that the only people in the region who matter are Israelis and Americans. Everyone else, virtually the entire population of numerous countries, though no less imperiled by nuclear weapons (arguably even more so), simply don’t count in this calculus. In fact, Pelosi’s remarks are implicitly racist for this reason.
The shocker, though, also near the end, is where Pelosi takes the US and Israeli nuclear monopoly in the region for granted, as if this were a good and necessary thing. The purpose of the NPT in her view is to shut down the rogue proliferators, who by definition are always those other guys, never us. It’s the stuff of which nuclear nightmares are made. I would also bet that the vast majority of people who live in the Mideast take sharp issue with Pelosi’s thinking, and probably have a bone to pick with her about where the actual threat lies.
