Neither to the Left or to the Right

I had a friend in my youth who was a really nice guy. He still is, even though he's been through some really rough times in his life. This man though, was a guy that problems just seemed to follow. He made plenty of wrong-headed decisions, and you could just see him doing it. It was almost like you could watch whatever life-scenario he was involved in and say, "Okay, if he's making that decision, the rest of us need to do it another way, and we'll be alright."

I sometimes wonder if we could set foreign policy in this country in much the same way. I'm chuckling at the thought, but not very much, because the subject is tragic. Yesterday for example, the diplomatic leadership from both Russia and China spoke out against using the threat of force against Iran over its nuclear weapons program. After speaking with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, "We are convinced that no modern problem has a military solution, and that applies to the Iranian nuclear program as well." Maybe the "modern problem" here is that Russia has been aiding Iran with their nuclear development program and seeing huge financial benefits from their involvement.

It's pretty easy to read China's government. They just don't like the U.S.A. to do anything but export jobs to them and then import the products back from them. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said that, "We believe the best option is to peacefully resolve the Iranian nuclear issue through diplomatic negotiations, which is in the common interests of the international community." I agree with her that a peaceful resolution here would benefit everybody, but Iran's leadership on all levels has emphatically stated that (allow me to paraphrase) A: We're going ahead with our nuclear weapons program and we aren't going to stop for anything, and B: We want to wipe Israel off the map and every Jewish person alive on the planet. Actually, I cleaned that up a bit. We know of course too, that Iran's leadership lied when they said they were not taking their nuclear program into weapons-grade territory, so that gives just a little bit more punch to statements A and B.

I wonder what interests China has in this area? I mean, after her talks with Foreign Minister Kouchner, Foreign Minister Jiang said, "We do not approve of easily resorting to threatening use of force in international affairs." That statement is so ridiculously untrue. China. You remember China, the country where this lady is from? The country that has repeatedly threatened to nuke the United States over the last couple of decades or so? I can remember two years ago in the early summer, when one of China's generals warned us that they could wipe out several hundred cities in the U.S.A. with nukes if our two nations collided in a dispute over Taiwan at the time.

Since I was a kid, the Chinese government has said many times that they have a "no first use" policy, but that hasn't stopped that government from threatening first. Of course, they've always done it "diplomatically," by talking "retaliation", for the subject of an attack by us, which they raise in the first place, but they get their message across, loud and clear. Perhaps China's only interest in this matter is their seeming paranoia that America is out to get them, and the more potential arms that can be pointed in our direction, the better. Iran's President Mahmound Ahmadinejad is coming to New York next week to address the UN General Assembly. Maybe we will gain some insights from him at that time.

Let me ask who said the following?

Because of the war, America's "prestige was broken globally and it was bled dry economically,"

"not giving the United Nations expanded jurisdiction in Iraq is an implicit admission of his (President Bush's) loss and defeat there."

"American statistics speak of the killing of more than 650,000 of the people of Iraq as a result of the war and its repercussions."

"The vast majority of you want it (the war) stopped.

"This war was entirely unnecessary,"

"In fact, the life of all mankind is in danger because of the global warming resulting to a large degree from the emissions of the factories of the major corporations, yet despite that, the representative of these corporations in the White House insists on not observing the Kyoto accord, with the knowledge that, the statistic speaks of the death and displacement of the millions of human beings because of that, especially in Africa."

A far left leaning member of the Democratic Party? No? Give up? Or maybe you know that Osama Bin Laden conveyed these words over Arab television September 8th. Maybe we should allow a master terrorist to advise us as to how to proceed. The most clever lies are always mixed with a little truth. Maybe the many members of both sides of the political aisle who have made similar remarks should take a second look at their positions and weigh them against the ridiculousness of some of these statements, made by people with agendas, and apply some common sense to what is being said, and why. Maybe that will help them discern the truth, from the lies, and the best source for common sense, from an uncommon source, is in the pages of the Bible.