HerodotusLive! - Commentary on Current Events with an Eye on the Past by a Curmudgeon

Letter from GW

On 4/19/07, GW wrote:

> Dear Herodotus:
>
> I was reading your blog at http://herodotus.memebot.com/ and I thought, hey, this guy's pretty
> cool! But then I read "Bush & Cheney Should Resign" and I thought, "What's up with that???" I mean
> I thought you were on our side! But noooooooooooooooo. You think me and Dick should resign and
> let that old broad Pelosi take over? What the hell are thinking about!? I mean she's not bad looking
> and all, and sometimes I have had a naughty thought or two about her, even for an old broad, but
> still I just can't see her in the Oval Office! At least not sitting at the desk... maybe underneath it...
> hehehehe. Naw just kidding. You'll have to get Clinton back in office for that stuff.
>
> But I digress. Although I didn't like your comments about how me and Dick should resign, I thought
> some of things you said made some sense.
>
> Now the "Surge-Thing" is not working out quite like I wanted it to. Yes, our troops seem to be a
> little safer since there are more of them out there and it seems neither side is targeting them so
> much, and the Shiites seem to be lying low for now, but I am not sure if we are making any real
> long-term progress with them, and the Sunnis are acting up worse than ever.
>
> What should we do?
>
> Your friend.
>
> GW
>
> ps: don't print the stuff about me liking old broads like Pelosi, ok?

Dear GW:

I am glad you wrote as I was thinking a lot about the "Surge-Thing" lately and wondered if you were keeping track of the progress. Glad to see that you are paying attention to these things. It does indeed seem like some things are getting better in Iraq. The rush to the Jordanian and Syrian border by terrified Iraqis seems to have slowed a bit, but that might just mean that everyone who was able to get out has already left. More encouraging is the fact that people are starting go back to Baghdad, a clear indication that things are getting better there. And although it is hard to believe, it appears that both sides seem to want the US troops to stay, if only to hide behind them as they carry on their relentless attacks against each other. It seems that US troops are no longer being targeted like they were.

But I think you are wise to be concerned. It is clear that there has been no let up in the violence on the part of the Sunnis, and it seems that the Shiites are just biding their time waiting for an opportunity to strike. Radical Shiites have infiltrated every part of the Iraqi government, military and police force. I am not sure what you can expect to get out of more efforts in Iraq other than bad press. Remember, no matter what happens in Iraq the Democrats and the Media are not going to let up on you so don't count on them for support. And the truth of the matter is that it will take years to convince the knuckleheads down their to stop fighting each other, you just don't have that kind of time. If you are not going to win this one, you might want to consider cutting your losses and moving on.

This is what I suggest you do:

Take a play out of the old Clinton Play Book and tell everyone that you really tried hard. Declare Victory by reminding everyone how you beat the hell out of Sadam, his world famous army, and his gangs of thugs, and that you really really tried to do your best in the occupation. However, it just wasn't really your fault since all those crazy Arabs just seem to want to blow themselves up. You've spent billions of dollars on trying to rebuild Iraq, and all they seem to want to do is tear the place apart. Remind everyone that there is no shame in quitting when you have done your best, and then try to look very serious, sympathetic and caring, and say, "We have done all we can in Iraq. We have done our very best. Now it is time to give others a chance to solve this problem."

While you are doing all this you need to be cutting secret side deals with all the other powers in the region:
* the Kurds need to be controlled in regards to Turkey but need to be rewarded by giving them Kirkuk and other areas, and provided with a healthy dose of US military aid and support. The new Kurdistan needs to be our well mannered and obedient Ally in the region.
* Turkey needs to know that we will not let the new Kurdistan do anything to interfere with their internal problems. We need to to be clear about this, and make sure that the Kurds understand this as well. If the Kurds misbehave they will find themselves with Turks to the North, Iranians to the East, Sunnis to the West, Shiites to South, all trying to kill them, and the USA no where to be found.
* We need to let the Iranians know that we understand that they have a very special relationship within the Shiite south of Iraq, and that as long as they do not try to expand beyond that area, we will have no problems with them.
* We need to let the Sunni states know that we support them in the face of Iranian aggression and that we will stand behind them (well behind them) as they proceed to support the Sunnis against the Shiites in Iraq. However, since we don't really have any authority in the UN, with the Europeans or with the Russians, there is really very little we can do to stop the Iranians from doing whatever they want to do, whether it is building nuclear weapons or overrunning the Middle East. (That should put the fear of Allah into them!)

Now the result should be a nice safe place in the Kurdish north where US troops and "security forces" can operate freely, an agreement with Turkey to lighten up a bit if there is a quid-pro-quo from the Kurds, and total chaos in the south as the Iranian backed Shiites and the Saudi backed Sunnis proceed to fight a bloody proxy war for a generation or so. If things are handled correctly, the Iranians will wear themselves out trying to fulfill their dream of a New Persian Empire (this could turn into a Vietnam for the Iranians instead of for the USA -- remember what happened to the Russians in Afghanistan?), the Arabs desperate for our help will be more cooperative than ever, the oil will continue to flow out of the Kurdish held areas and neither the Saudis nor the Iranians will allow the conflict to escalate to the point of interrupting the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf, and we may even be able to lure Syria out of its alliance with Iran with promises of increased trade and support. And with our catbird seat in Kurdistan, we can carefully manipulate both sides to insure that neither side ever gets strong enough to win.

Think about it. You have a lot of friends running for office in 2008, and I bet they would really appreciate it if you would solve this problem in Iraq one way or another, and let them focus on other things.

Your Friend.

Herodotus

herodotus on 04.19.07 @ 11:05 AM CST [link] [No Comments]

Jason Whitlock - An Honest Voice: "Imus isn’t the real bad guy"

COMMENTARY
Imus isn’t the real bad guy
Instead of wasting time on irrelevant shock jock, black leaders need to be fighting a growing gangster culture.
JASON WHITLOCK

http://www.kansascity.com/182/story/66339.html

Thank you, Don Imus. You’ve given us (black people) an excuse to avoid our real problem.

You’ve given Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson another opportunity to pretend that the old fight, which is now the safe and lucrative fight, is still the most important fight in our push for true economic and social equality.

You’ve given Vivian Stringer and Rutgers the chance to hold a nationally televised recruiting celebration expertly disguised as a news conference to respond to your poor attempt at humor.

Thank you, Don Imus. You extended Black History Month to April, and we can once again wallow in victimhood, protest like it’s 1965 and delude ourselves into believing that fixing your hatred is more necessary than eradicating our self-hatred.

The bigots win again.

While we’re fixated on a bad joke cracked by an irrelevant, bad shock jock, I’m sure at least one of the marvelous young women on the Rutgers basketball team is somewhere snapping her fingers to the beat of 50 Cent’s or Snoop Dogg’s or Young Jeezy’s latest ode glorifying nappy-headed pimps and hos.

I ain’t saying Jesse, Al and Vivian are gold-diggas, but they don’t have the heart to mount a legitimate campaign against the real black-folk killas.

It is us. At this time, we are our own worst enemies. We have allowed our youths to buy into a culture (hip hop) that has been perverted, corrupted and overtaken by prison culture. The music, attitude and behavior expressed in this culture is anti-black, anti-education, demeaning, self-destructive, pro-drug dealing and violent.

Rather than confront this heinous enemy from within, we sit back and wait for someone like Imus to have a slip of the tongue and make the mistake of repeating the things we say about ourselves.

It’s embarrassing. Dave Chappelle was offered $50 million to make racially insensitive jokes about black and white people on TV. He was hailed as a genius. Black comedians routinely crack jokes about white and black people, and we all laugh out loud.

I’m no Don Imus apologist. He and his tiny companion Mike Lupica blasted me after I fell out with ESPN. Imus is a hack.

But, in my view, he didn’t do anything outside the norm for shock jocks and comedians. He also offered an apology. That should’ve been the end of this whole affair. Instead, it’s only the beginning. It’s an opportunity for Stringer, Jackson and Sharpton to step on victim platforms and elevate themselves and their agenda$.

I watched the Rutgers news conference and was ashamed.

Martin Luther King Jr. spoke for eight minutes in 1963 at the March on Washington. At the time, black people could be lynched and denied fundamental rights with little thought. With the comments of a talk-show host most of her players had never heard of before last week serving as her excuse, Vivian Stringer rambled on for 30 minutes about the amazing season her team had.

Somehow, we’re supposed to believe that the comments of a man with virtually no connection to the sports world ruined Rutgers’ wonderful season. Had a broadcaster with credibility and a platform in the sports world uttered the words Imus did, I could understand a level of outrage.

But an hourlong press conference over a man who has already apologized, already been suspended and is already insignificant is just plain intellectually dishonest. This is opportunism. This is a distraction.

In the grand scheme, Don Imus is no threat to us in general and no threat to black women in particular. If his words are so powerful and so destructive and must be rebuked so forcefully, then what should we do about the idiot rappers on BET, MTV and every black-owned radio station in the country who use words much more powerful and much more destructive?

I don’t listen or watch Imus’ show regularly. Has he at any point glorified selling crack cocaine to black women? Has he celebrated black men shooting each other randomly? Has he suggested in any way that it’s cool to be a baby-daddy rather than a husband and a parent? Does he tell his listeners that they’re suckers for pursuing education and that they’re selling out their race if they do?

When Imus does any of that, call me and I’ll get upset. Until then, he is what he is — a washed-up shock jock who is very easy to ignore when you’re not looking to be made a victim.

No. We all know where the real battleground is. We know that the gangsta rappers and their followers in the athletic world have far bigger platforms to negatively define us than some old white man with a bad radio show. There’s no money and lots of danger in that battle, so Jesse and Al are going to sit it out.

To reach Jason Whitlock, call (816) 234-4869 or send e-mail to jwhitlock@kcstar.com. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com
herodotus on 04.11.07 @ 10:22 AM CST [link] [No Comments]

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