Juan Cole has a typically conspiratorial theory for explaining why congressmen have ignored the pro-Palestinian marches that occurred in a handful of American cities this past weekend:
The US Senate and the US House of Representatives are not afraid of street protests in San Francisco. And why should they be? What sort of threat is it to them, that we say if they don’t change their legislation we will . . . walk in the street? Their response would be, ‘Make sure you have comfortable shoes; now, I have to see this nice lobbyist in my office in a thousand dollar suit and alligator shoes who has an enormous check for my current political campaign.’
Well, I have an alternative to Cole’s thesis: maybe it’s not the slimy pro-Israel lobbyists – who are so rich that they practically wear money – that pro-Palestinian activists should blame for not being heard. Rather, maybe the problem is the pro-Palestinian activists themselves.
Indeed, maybe congressmen ignore pro-Palestinian rallies because the ANSWER Coalition – an offshoot of the communist World Workers Party (WWP) – organizes them. Maybe congressmen know that the WWP – a longtime supporter of Fidel Castro and Kim Jong-Il – actively protested Slobodan Milosevic’s war crimes tribunal, and therefore feel uncomfortable associating with it.
Or, maybe congressmen stay away because these rallies are just as anti-American as they are pro-Palestinian, with banners declaring the U.S. “racist” and “terrorist.” Or maybe it’s because congressmen don’t want to march with protesters who cover their faces, which is something that only truly nefarious groups do in this country. Or maybe it’s because congressmen don’t want to be around people who burn flags; haul mock coffins; splatter clotheslines of baby t-shirts with fake blood; and never – never – advocate for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
Of course, these issues are just the tip of the iceberg. But, if pro-Palestinian activists really want to know why their cries fall on deaf ears in Washington, they should start by looking in the mirror. Politicians are, after all, deeply image-conscious: they are unlikely to march alongside people who appear immoderate, and certainly won’t give much weight to rallies that communist-affiliated groups organize. It’s strange that Juan Cole – who claims political expertise with his regular treatises on the remarkable influence of “Likudniks” – doesn’t recognize this most basic political reality.
(By the way, the images of pro-Palestinian activists that I linked to in this post were from the recent demonstration in San Francisco.)
“Southwest Asia” is regularly used by the military to describe that area. See the Southwest Asia Service Medal, for example.
Actually, at least in Pentagonese, Southwest Asia has always been roughly considered to include Iran, Afghanistan, and depending on the day of the week, Pakistan.
What’s the problem here again?
Sorry to break the news to you, but the US military issued me a South West Asia Service Medal back in the nineties for sailing around the Persian Gulf with 10,000 of my closest friends. To the US government, that’s south west as opposed to Vietnam in the south east. I think your quibble detracts from the larger point that the administration is (presumably) intentionally blurring lines of authority. Now the neat thing about that is if no one knows who’s in charge of an area, no one below the top has to accept responsibility for the mistakes that are made there. Too bad for the president that he’s at the top.
When I was much younger, a short story in Asimov’s ‘I, Robot’ introduced me to the concept of span of control; how many subordinates can you effective supervise? This administration appears to have no concept of the chaos caused by unsupervised bureaucrats engaging in their favorite pastime – turf wars! Frankly, anticipating the administration’s ambitious agenda grinding to an internal halt has been the bright spot for me in the last five weeks.
Well, Rod T., I thank you for your service in what was in the 90s one very hot spot of South West Asia.
Obama’s glibness about wanting to have a team of rivals will, as you point out, quickly dengenerate into turf wars, and a slew of mixed signals and intentions will be sent to our enemies and allies. I fear that any hope of stitching together a coalition of Gulf states to economically coerice Iran will go by the wayside.
Someone please explain to me why Dennis Ross – who has been wrong at every critical juncture, and who has, thru his incompetent exercise of presidential authority and will upon the Israelis, contributed to the unnecessary death of thousands – is now being recycled as a statesmen?
He even wrote a self serving little book detailing how fooled he was – as if that clears the plate for him to try again.
Pathetic, pathetic.
Thankfully, it seems the SW Asia definition does not encompass Israel, which will be left to the misguided mercies of the deluded old dinosaur Mitchel.
Ross should take the hint and scram