Friday, September 21, 2007

It's going beyond surrealism



Bush is definitely disconnecting from reality. He also doesn't realize that Nelson Mandela was sentenced to life in prison for terrorism by the apartheid regime. Here's a link to a right wing site about Mandela's terrorism. Here's Mandela's statement at his trial, courtesy the ANC website. Mandela never renounced violence (what head of state could?). He thought violence was necessary to free South Africa. It turned out that sanctions woke up the South African government, and the fall of Communism left them without their justification for suppressing the South African people. But no one in a struggle like the South African freedom struggle should have to renounce violence. It they do, as Gandhi did, and as Solidarnosc in Poland did, that's powerful, and a potent weapon, but they are under no moral obligation to do it.

Nelson Mandela didn't become the "Mandela" Bush is referring to until the South African government changed policy and became willing to talk to him. In the case of Iraq there are simply no Iraqis who are willing to talk to other Iraqis. Unlike the case in South Africa there simply are no democratic forces to talk. The people who want majority rule (Shi'ite extremists) want to kill the minority Sunnis. Everyone seems to want to kill the Christians, Yazidis and Mandeans. The Jews are lucky. They already got out. Of course all the Iraqi factions most want to kill Israelis. That's who the Iraqi Jews are now. Israelis.

Sunday, September 16, 2007

Too much to post about

so I haven't posted, but I've got to post this.

General Clark endorses Hillary!

No, I'm not about to endorse her myself. I think she will learn a lot from General Clark. I hope she makes him Vice president, or at least makes him National Security Adviser or Secretary of State. She needs his expertise on those questions. She's not the devil some people portray her as, and I have long said that I will vote for her whenever she wins the nomination (sames goes for all the other Democrats) but I'm just not ready to endorse her, or anyone else, for the nomination.

I'm still numb, though. I'll get back to the blog, maybe with a report on what's been keeping me away. I'm backing whoever gets the Democratic nomination, but with General Clark out of the race, I'm not backing any candidate for the nomination, even at the urging of General Clark himself.