That Pelosi Visit To Syria: Why?

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, back in early April, took a quick trip to Syria.

At the time, she supposedly delivered a botched message from Israel that they were ready for peace talks with Syria, which Jerusalem promptly denied.

The Washington Post called it Pratfall in Damascus.

Looking back, that reason for her visit was a thin tissue that blew away under the first faint breeze. Anybody who watches the power players come and go knows there must have been a more durable, industrial strength reason for a major trip like that.

Even in Baltimore and San Francisco, they know that.

So, what was the real reason she jetted off to Damascus?

What message, what offer did she really carry to the Syrian leader?

And who was she acting for?

Learning The Ropes

One of the features of our system of government is the turnover process. Every couple of years we send some experienced people home and bring in another bunch of new folks who have to learn where everything is and how it works. Sometimes, when power shifts, this includes bringing in new leadership, which may not know how things really work but will figure it out as they go.

One of the benchmarks used by the observers in the bleachers is how quickly the new folks find the cash register. The latest news on the cash register front is that the new arrivals have indeed found it.

They are giving themselves a pay raise. The raise process, incidentally, entails sharing the raises with some others around town, including the Vice President.

Needed: Another Vandenberg?



Time Cover Story, Apr 30, 1945

To me “bipartisan foreign policy” means a mutual effort, under our indispensable two-Party system, to unite our official voice at the water’s edge so that America speaks with maximum authority against those who would divide and conquer us and the free world. It does not involve the remotest surrender of free debate in determining our position. On the contrary, frank cooperation and free debate are indispensable to ultimate unity. In a word, it simply seeks national security ahead of partisan advantage. Every foreign policy must be totally debated (and I think the record proves it has been) and the “loyal opposition” is under special obligation to see that this occurs.

Senator ARTHUR H. VANDENBERG, The Private Papers of Senator Vandenberg, ed. Arthur H. Vandenberg, Jr., pp. 552-53 (1952).

Free Orioles Tickets from Chavez?

Get Free Orioles Tickets When You Fill Up 4 Times.
Read the details.

Yes, that’s the same Citgo that is owned by the government of Venezuela. And yes, that’s the government currently being run by Hugo Chavez, who is busy getting noticed these days.

So is this a good thing or not?

Might depend on your politics.

There are strong opinions out there about the Citgo Kid.

You can review the bidding on Citgo and Mr. Chavez at some web sites that check out the “truth” (whatever that means during an election season like this one) here or here or here.

Worth 1000 Words

Once in a while, a picture just jumps out and sticks to our minds. We go back to it, again and again.

This picture was taken just after a car bombing in Baghdad, and is all over the internet, along with strong emotional responses among the bloggers.

Another picture, published by Army Times, seems to have been taken just moments before, and is credited to Khalid Mohammed / The Associated Press.

Its caption (and credits) probably apply to the above picture as well:

A young boy seeks shelter behind a soldier with the 82nd Airborne Division on May 28 after gunshots rang out in a busy commercial district in central Baghdad. A few minutes earlier a car bomber had blown himself up, killing at least 21 people and wounding 66, police and hospital officials said.

Bitter Enders

When something just has to be done, and nothing gets done, the roadblock often turns out to be a group we sometimes call the bitter enders.

They thrive when there is a roughly even split between two sides on some issue. They love to demonstrate their clout by bringing things to a standstill. When no action is taken, when nothing is decided, they celebrate a victory.

Maybe it’s time to get something done about immigrants.

Maybe it’s time to let them ride in the back of the bus, for a change.

No, not the immigrants, the bitter enders.

In Iraq, semper fidelis

Under a sweltering Iraqi sky, the general asked for questions from his troops. Many were reluctant, but one stepped forward.

Marine Lance Cpl. Jack Kessel, 19, of Raleigh, N.C., asked about something that had been gnawing at him as he and his buddies go about the dangerous business of winning hearts and minds in Al Anbar province.

“How are we supposed to fight a war when people back home say we’ve already lost?” he asked.

It was a question that Marine Lt. Gen. James N. Mattis had anticipated as he toured Marine outposts in the sprawling province that is the home of the Sunni Arab insurgency in Iraq. After four years of war — and nearly 900 Marines killed and 8,000 wounded — many Marines believe they have begun to drive a wedge between the civilian populace and the insurgency in Al Anbar.

But at the same time, troops are keeping an eye on what is happening at home, where polls show that an increasing percentage of Americans feel the war was unnecessary, has been poorly executed and is unwinnable, if not already lost. In January, for instance, a Times poll showed that 62% of Americans thought the United States should not have invaded Iraq — up from 43% in November of 2003.

During the Vietnam War, the growing opposition of the American public to the war had a devastating effect on troops in the field. Drug problems among soldiers, race-related disputes — and even faltering support among the troops themselves for their own fundamental mission — could often be traced back to the fact that the public had turned against the war.

So what is the effect on troop morale of declining public support for the war in Iraq and the increasingly contentious political debate at home? Like so much about modern military life, the answer may seem counterintuitive to civilians.

. . . .

Many of the Marines were the sons of Marines or soldiers who had fought in Vietnam. They had grown up hearing tales — real or apocryphal — of returning veterans being scorned. There seemed to be a palpable fear among the Marines that the same fate might await them if the public changed its mind about the mission.

Instead, something different happened. As support for the war waned, support for the troops increased. A tidal wave of paperback books, goodie boxes of candies and other things and banners done by schoolchildren has engulfed the troops. At Christmastime, so many stockings and presents arrived for the troops that the loot had to be distributed to Iraqi children to keep it from clogging warehouse space.

It’s a point that Mattis, the commanding general of Marine Forces Central Command, made repeatedly as he talked recently to troops.

“There’s a lot of dissent about the war, but there’s zero dissension about the troops,” he said. He used the example of Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), possibly President Bush’s most ardent opponent on the war but also the most aggressive member of Congress in getting money for a safer combat vehicle.

Mattis told the Marines to believe their own eyes rather than news accounts on the issue of who is winning the war. Don’t be discouraged by the politicians and pundits who haven’t been to Iraq and don’t understand, he said.

“Don’t hold it against them,” he said to Kessel and the others gathered at a base in Habbaniya. “The only reason they have that freedom of speech is because you’ll fight for it.”

Kessel nodded. “I understand now,” he said later.

Read the whole piece by Tony Perry, staff writer for The LA Times.

Slavery Persists

Trafficking in Persons Report, 2007

The Secretary of State submits the annual “Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000: Trafficking in Persons Report” to Congress. This report covers “severe forms of trafficking in persons” defined as:

(a) sex trafficking in which a commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion, or in which the person induced to perform such act has not attained 18 years of age; or (b) the recruitment, harboring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for labor or services, through the use of force, fraud or coercion for the purpose of subjection to involuntary servitude, peonage, debt bondage, or slavery.

The 2007 report, just released by Secretary Condoleezza Rice , is available for study.

It is not light reading.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!



President Reagan at Brandenburg Gate

West Berlin, Germany
June 12, 1987

The speech was delivered to the people of West Berlin, yet it was also audible on the East side of the Berlin wall.

. . . . General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate! Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! . . . .

The Wall was finally breached by jubilant Berliners on November 9, 1989, unifying a city that had been divided for more than 30 years.