Friday Afternoon Roundup 4/13/07
- "The criticism came a day after House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos told reporters in San Francisco he has been trying for 10 years to obtain a visa to visit with leaders in Tehran. "Speaking for myself, I'm ready to go," said Lantos (D-Calif.). "And knowing the speaker, I think she might be."
Pelosi, standing next to Lantos at a press conference, said that while she finds Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's remarks "to be so repulsive that they're outside the circle of civilized human behavior," the willingness of Lantos, a Hungarian-born survivor of the Holocaust, to meet with Ahmadinejad "speaks volumes about the importance of dialogue." New York Post
I wish papers would constantly stop referring to Congressman Lantos as a Holocaust survivor. It smacks of clumsy reporting at best and of exploitation at worst. In reading a dozen articles about Lantos, this is constantly brought up where it has no relevance.
Congressman Lantos being willing to meet with a genocidal madman tells us nothing about the importance of dialogue, it tells us about Lantos' own personal priorities. The logic of those priorities is inexplicable, but that's an explanation he owes to the voters who elected him. He represents his particular district in California, not the Jewish people or Holocaust survivors. For him to allow a status as a Holocaust survivor to be made use of in this way is grossly inappropriate.
Congressman Lantos' own experiences in the Holocaust clearly did not dispose him toward raising Jewish children in a Jewish family. They did not dispose him to resist empowering Ahmadinejad in the manner he is attempting to do. Instead he is doing his best to give that madman a perfect propaganda photo opportunity. Even as he's also giving the murderous Putin regime a massive present by lobbying for the removal of the Jackson-Vanik amendment.
- Caroline Glick has an excellent article demonstrating the flaws of the process of promoting Democracy in the Arab world, that allowed those Islamist groups with better organization and force to seize the advantage.
"Rather than promote liberty, which at its core revolves around a certain foundational understanding of human dignity, the administration promoted elections - fast elections - in Iraq and throughout the region.
In so doing, the administration placed the cart before the horse, with predictable results. The legacy of tyranny is hatred and dependence. And the values of hatred and dependence were those that were expressed at the ballot boxes in Iraq, Egypt and the Palestinian Authority. In all jihadists, often allied with Iran, were empowered while those that were considered moderates modified their positions in opposition to the US.
These forces, who receive no money from Iran and Saudi Arabia to buy votes, and have no private militias to intimidate voters, couldn't compete against the likes of the Dawa party in Iraq, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or Fatah and Hamas in the Palestinian Authority.
By pushing fast elections, the US entrapped itself. It inadvertently empowered its enemies and so was unable to embrace the duly elected governments. In opposing the forces it expended so much energy getting elected, the US was perceived as weak, foolish and hypocritical."
- I've been award a Thinking Blogger award by Maggie's Notebook.
I'd like to mention Maggie herself whose blog combines interesting analysis with current events reporting.
Linda whose blog Something and Half of Something which is always worth reading for provocative and daring commentary.
The Ignoble Experiment is one of the few personal blogs I read regularly.
Right Truth collects information and informed commentary into a great bundle of posts.
And of course NeoCon Express which is a daily read for insightful posts on what's going on in the world today.
- Excellent http://www.israpundit.com/2006/#">article and commentary at IsraPundit on the cost of being prepared to make any concession.
- Finally a must read post from Linda on the consenquences of freeing terrorists.