This the first article I've submitted with the secret hope that it will not be published. Some of my work has an edge to it and I've not been reticent to call ˜em as I see's em. This piece is different. It will point out some facts and the result may well be that I will be branded an anti-semite. The first fact is, I am not an anti-semite. As a Christian (although a serious contender for the title of World's Worst Christian) I consider myself of the spiritual seed of Abraham. I relish Jewish victories from the walls of Jericho to the sands of the Sinai, to the runway at Entebbe. I am pained by their losses, whether at the hands of Nebuchadnezzar or Hitler. They have been the ultimate underdog for over five thousand years of recorded history, and you know how Americans love an underdog. I'm going to make a partial list of historic facts in the following paragraphs just to see if everyone is playing from the same deck of cards. I think what we may see is that Israel is a user and that Israel is being used in cynical and dangerous ways. The why, I leave for the reader to decide.
Lets consider two of the many legacies of Harry S. Truman. I've always admired Truman. Aside from the fact that we both hail from the "Show Me State (not the "Prove It State as was trumpeted in the Lee Iacocca TV Ad), I always admired Truman's approach to warfare, his fierce defense of family and his lack of pretense. He is the only President I've been alone in the same room with, although he was not in office at the time. Two of Truman's legacy's bother me. One is Vietnam.
Truman made the decision to let France reclaim that Colony at the end of the Second World War, in full consideration of the efforts made by Father Ho and his guerilla fighters against the Japanese throughout the Pacific Campaign. In fact, the Vietminh were a much stronger and potent ally than the French, who were already defeated by the Germans (again) by the time we entered the war. Father Ho had a Constitution and a National Anthem prepared, which were modeled after our own, and planned to establish a Constitutional Democracy for his new country. It would have been the first in Southeast Asia. Instead Truman let DeGaulle have it back as a Colonial Property, rubber plantations and all. Of course, Father Ho had something to say about that and it was not easy on the ear. Rather than do his own fighting, Degaulle secured the release of thousands of Japanese POW's, rearmed them and turned them loose in the jungle to do his dirty work. This was no more popular with the Japanese than it was for Ho and the French finally had to resort to investing their own blood and treasure. Father Ho easily handed them their asses and Eisenhour and his successors, unwisely and unnecessarily, took up the gauntlet. We all know how well that worked out for us.
A second enduring legacy was his hand, along with the League of Nations, in the creation of the State of Israel. We see now how well that is turning out. Truman no doubt saw an Israeli State as a stronghold for western values and influence in the middle east as well as a weapons platform from which to project American interests in the region. To be generous, he also may have thought it the right thing to do. Collective guilt may have also played a role, considering America's inaction in the face of clear evidence of Nazi atrocities.
The problem now is that the tail is wagging the dog. It is not OUR skipper, but THEIRS, in command of that weapons platform, which, by the way, is armed with several hundred nuclear weapons. It is not OUR strategic and economic interests, but THEIRS which are being protected and projected now. We are just along for the ride and hoping the driver will consider our welfare as well as his own as he chooses course, speed and destinations. Also understand that Israel has no more moral compunctions than we do when it comes to advancing its National Interest. It freed Jerusalem from British control by the efficient, repeated and ruthless application of terror tactics which culminated with the bombing of the King David Hotel; certainly not a military target. An unbroken stream of civilian as well as military deaths, men, women and children, at the hands of the Israelis continues to this date; the most recent being Operation Cast Lead against Gaza.
Literally surrounded by sworn enemies, Israel is paranoid to the extreme and with good reason. It has proven time and time again that there is no treaty, friendship or alliance which trumps what it perceives as its own National Interest. It employs spies constantly and effectively against friends and enemies alike. We currently house several in our prisons for doing just that and having the bad luck to be caught at it. It will attack militarily or covertly any target it sees as a real or potential threat; from Iraq, to Syria, to the USA. Yes, the USA; remember the USS Liberty? That was NO mistake. That attack lasted for hours against a Flagged US Naval Ship and resulted in multiple US Navy dead and wounded.
Its black operations are ongoing and pervasive. No international constraints are effective against Israel's missions. They strike who, where and when they like regardless of International Law, Border or Treaty. You may remember how often George W. Bush pointed gravely to the fact that Sadaam Hussein had ignored UN Resolutions so and so and so and so. No one seems to mention that our good friend and ally, Israel has ignored some SIXTY-SIX UN Resolutions to date and will continue to do so as long as it likes, of that I'm certain. Of course, I remember his daddy referring to Kuwait as a Democracy, so there's no accounting for what a Bush will say.
Then there is the so-called Christian Right, which, by the way, in my opinion is neither. They whip up their faithful with crackpot interpretations of the Bible, mostly from John's Revelation, which declare God unable to quite manage the End Times without their active political assistance. End-timers invest their time, energy and dollars advocating total war in the Middle East to move the Rapture farther downfield and score for Jesus through Armageddon. Many Zionists happily align themselves with these End-Timers, apparently oblivious, having never paid much attention to the New Testament, that the Jewish Race must be obliterated in the coming conflagration in order for the Christian Prophecies to be fulfilled.
For someone to deny that Israel is the flashpoint for trouble in the middle east is simply the height of denial, and we and Israel are joined at the hip. There are only two political solutions to the problem. You'll notice I said "political not military. One is a two state solution, which will never be agreed to by Arabs because of the draconian restrictions Israel insists on: no military, etc. The other is a one-state solution, which the Israelis will never agree to since it would mean the end of Israel in a matter of two or three generations simply based on comparative birth rates alone.
So, my man Truman put us in a couple of tight spots in his day. One meant a deadly, expensive and humiliating military defeat in Southeast Asia. The other one; I doubt we'll get off so easy.
