Trump Is at Yogi's Proverbial Fork in the Road

I wonder what his good friend Bibi is telling Donald Trump about the need to show strength in the face of unprovoked attack, about the need to strike quickly to teach miscreants a lesson that Israel, er, the United States is not to be trifled with. Of course Bibi Netanyahu would like nothing more than the U.S. annihilating Iran’s power. Ditto the leaders of Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Trump and some of his advisors, notably National Security Adviser John Bolton and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, want regime change in Iran. They hope to see an Iran not led by a religiously despotic ayatollah. Iran’s last regime change occurred in 1979. Since then the United States has had six regime changes led by half a dozen presidents with divergent world views. Given this historical perspective it is more likely there will be a new president of the U.S. before a new ayatollah with a fresh view that America is not satan. 

Rather than react rashly to the downing by Iran of an unarmed intelligence gathering drone early Thursday morning, Trump trod cautiously, even providing Iran with a plausible explanation for the assault, that a stupid officer went rogue and fired the surface to air missile that shot the drone out of the sky above the Strait of Hormuz. It was an uncharacteristic response from Trump. 

Or was it? A certified bully, Trump, it could be said, reacted just as any bully would when confronted. He cowered at the prospect of actual confrontation. Iran is not like Syria that was in no position to retaliate when Trump twice ordered cruise missiles to strike Syria after Bashir al Assad rained down chemicals on rebels. 

Perhaps Trump’s wariness was the result of an underreported fact about the incident. The drone was capable of flying at 55,000 feet, a height believed to be above Iran’s defensive capabilities. Wrong. “That is a demonstration by the Iranians that they have that capability, something the United States will take note of in the future,” according to The New York Times.

Perhaps Trump’s pulpit has more than bluster. We learned Friday morning he authorized three strikes on three targets. But with 10 minutes to spare, he cancelled the counterpunch. 

Politico reported he said he felt such a move was “not proportionate” to Iran’s attack on an unmanned drone. “We were cocked & loaded to retaliate last night on 3 different sights (sic) when I asked, how many will die. 150 people, sir, was the answer from a General. 10 minutes before the strike I stopped it, not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone. I am in no hurry, our Military is rebuilt, new, and ready to go, by far the best in the world,” Trump tweeted.

Besides Bolton and Pompeo, and perhaps Vice President Mike Pence, the only disappointed faces most probably are in Riyadh, Abu Dhabi and Jerusalem. No one should embrace the idea of a war, but a proxy war by America against Iran would be welcome in those Middle Eastern capitals, even if Iran fulfilled a threat to retaliate by launching missiles into their countries. “Minor” damage and casualties would be a small price to pay for the elimination of an existential threat. 

Iran has complicated the calculus, asserting it exhibited restraint by not shooting down a military transport carrying 35 servicemen that accompanied the drone (how they knew the number of passengers was not explained). 

Trump is at a critical juncture. Yogi Berra allegedly said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” Trump must now choose the path his administration will take and project during his presidency. He blasted Barack Obama for not following through on his threat to punish Assad for use of chemical weapons. 

Few people especially politicians believe Trump is a man of his word. With scant credibility to marshal international or domestic allies Trump must engage a strategy few believe he has any idea how to originate, much less implement (https://nyti.ms/2L3jliS). 

Blogging as an Exercise in Writing

Non use of muscles impairs them. Causes them to atrophy. Singers who don’t practice their chords every day risk losing vocal strength. Professional athletes, be they baseball or basketball players or from any sport, rely on repetitive exercise to instill muscle memory so they can perform at a superior level even under extreme pressure. 

Writers—bloggers—are no different. Writing requires more than a haphazard dedication. I can’t believe it has been two weeks since my last posting. Lots of things have happened since then. I’ve started to write several blogs but laziness, sometimes abetted by real reasons, stifled my creative juices. So, here’s a jumble of thoughts on a variety of topics:

Evening News: Gilda and I eat most dinners while watching the evening news, usually recorded so we can fast forward through commercials. When Dan and Ellie were young we restricted their TV viewing to limit their exposure to violent shows. Yet we justified their watching the most violent broadcast of all, the evening news. 

Perhaps as a carryover from my parents’ home, CBS News was our preferred outlet. From anchors Walter Cronkite through Dan Rather, Connie Chung, Bob Schieffer, Katie Couric, Scott Pelley and Jeff Glor we remained loyal to the Tiffany Network’s newscast. Until recently. I like the CBS correspondents, but Jeff Glor as an anchor just does not measure up. So we switched, mostly to ABC World News with David Muir. 

After several months of viewing I noticed that compared to CBS and NBC, ABC has a different way of presenting female correspondents when they appear in conversation with the anchor at his glass desk. They sit across from him, closer to the camera, wearing short skirts with their legs crossed to the right, directly at the camera. Am I suggesting this is a woke moment during this #MeToo time? You betcha!

Another Genocide in the Making? Its denials of an Armenian genocide 100 years ago notwithstanding, Turkey seems poised to undertake another fateful exercise in ethnic eradication. Emboldened by Donald Trump’s capricious decision to withdraw 2,000 American troops from Syrian territory near the Turkish border where Kurdish forces have been fighting ISIS, Turkey has signaled it will launch an assault against the Kurds (https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/turkey-masses-troops-kurdish-held-syrian-town-59984033). 

It is to the everlasting embarrassment, shame and dysfunction of America’s political standing in the world that Trump cares more about the wishes of foreign tyrants than the counsel of American politicians and experts. Trump ordered the troop withdrawal after conversation with Turkey’s despotic leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan despite his own advisors’ strong recommendation to maintain a military presence in Syria.

Vigilance for the Truth: I was reminded again of the need to be forever vigilant in pursuit of the truth during this era of instant mass communications. A friend sent an email suggesting the alleged disrespect for the American flag and the national anthem can be traced to Barack Obama. So I checked its veracity by googling “Snopes: Obama Explains National Anthem Stance?” Of course the claim proved to be false.

“Disinformation campaigns, whether inspired by Russia or any extremist entity, succeed only when recipients of such emails fail to research their authenticity. Any democracy demands vigilance and a healthy skepticism. John McCain provided the best (now viral) demonstration of what we all must do when confronted with salacious untruths. During a campaign town hall meeting in 2008 he respectfully disagreed with a woman who claimed Obama was a Muslim and unAmerican. He corrected her misinformation. Maybe it cost him some votes. But he stood up for the truth,” I wrote my friend.  

Is It Christmas Yet? CBS Sunday Morning reported a survey that found 51% of Americans said they have sent a letter to Santa Claus. I chuckled when I saw that, but truly snorted when I read a Facebook post shared by my sister Lee: “Before you mock children who believe in Santa Claus, remember that there are still adults who believe in Donald Trump.”

Over a picture of takeout Chinese food, my cousin Stan posted on Facebook: “Ok......Hanukkah is over, time to start planning a traditional Jewish Christmas Eve !!!!”

Why do many Jews eat Chinese food on Christmas Eve? Here’s a defining reason from an article in Tablet:

“Whether they have fully thought it through or not, Jews who eat Chinese food on Christmas are proclaiming that, for them, Jewishness is what philosophers call a second-order value. In contrast to valuing Judaism on the first order—enjoying the rituals themselves, sincerely adhering to the tenets themselves—they value the fact of their Jewishness. They go out of their way to do it. They may or may not enjoy General Tso’s Chicken, but if they are eating it on Christmas, their prime motivation is not the general’s sweet, spicy deliciousness, but rather the knowledge that they are doing something that in some adapted way reinforces their Jewishness. They are moved by their hearts, not their tastebuds.” (https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/53569/jewish-christmas?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=3b46bc98d0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2018_12_21_12_57&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-3b46bc98d0-207614241)

Gilda and I will be eating Chinese food Christmas Eve.

John McCain, an American Hero, but a Conservative in Policy and Heart

I admired John McCain, the maverick Republican U.S. senator, former prisoner of war who endured more than five years of captivity and torture in North Vietnam and who dramatically gave a thumbs down to Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell’s plan to kill Obamacare, despite his overall disapproval of the Affordable Care Act. Yes, McCain had his moments during a distinguished life and career that ended Saturday, four days shy of his 82nd birthday. He deserves to be lionized for a life lived to the fullest. 

But let’s not forget in his heart McCain was a conservative. Had he outpolled Barack Obama in 2008 the Supreme Court today would look vastly different. Absent would be Sonia Sotomayor and Elana Kagan. The court’s tilt to the right would be so steep a slant that it would be decades before even a semblance of balance could be attained. The judicial packing of conservative judges on lower federal benches now underway by Trump would have been part of a sustained 16 year program started by George W. Bush and continued by McCain. 

Let’s not forget he elevated Sarah Palin to national status. She might well have been his successor as president. McCain opened the door for an inexperienced, unprepared, uninformed blowhard of a candidate to be accepted as appropriate for the most important position in the world. 

Let’s not forget he was a military hawk. Would he have engaged us in Ukraine or would Russia not have dared to take over Crimea and mettle in eastern Ukraine? Would he have pushed for involvement in the Syrian civil war? Would he have triggered a military response to North Korea’s quest for a nuclear bomb? Would he have escalated our commitment in Iraq and Afghanistan or, as a veteran of one futile war, seen the absurdity of winning any Middle Eastern conflict? 

McCain was a straight talker. He took principled positions. He understood the need for bipartisan governing. He worked with liberal senators on such issues as immigration reform and campaign finance reform. But let’s not forget: he was a conservative. Social programs to provide a safety net were not his top priority. He did not champion civil rights. 

He believed in America. Perhaps his most enduring moment came not when he defied an egotistical, mean-spirited, cold-hearted incompetent president at 2 am on the Senate floor by casting the decisive vote on Obamacare, but rather when he defended candidate Obama in 2008 as a man and woman challenged his religion and allegiance to the United States. McCain forcibly, passionately, refuted them. He disagreed with Obama’s policy ideas, but never questioned his patriotism or qualifications (https://youtu.be/jrnRU3ocIH4).

How different the tone of government would have been under McCain compared to what we have today.  But let’s not conflate McCain with compassionate Republican conservatism. All that Trump has done domestically to reduce protective regulations on business, the environment, voting rights, social services and labor safeguards would have transpired under any Republican president, including McCain. on the other hand, we probably would not be in a trade war with anyone or be hostile to our allies and friends around the world. Russia would not be favored over our intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Flattery would not be the sine qua non for foreign relations. 

John McCain was a tower of a man. He was a patriot who ably represented his state and country. These last two years he was a noble foil to the fool in the White House. With his death (and the pending retirement of senators Jeff Flake and Bob Corker) reason and rational thought have departed the GOP side of the Senate (save, perhaps from Ben Sasse). We are left with no mavericks but with lemmings blindly in lockstep with a leader racing to the edge of the precipice and beyond. 

Bombs Away: Actions Have Consequences

I cannot denounce Donald Trump’s decision to punish Syrian president Bashar al-Assad for his alleged chemical weapons attack on rebels and civilians earlier this week.

In truth, ever since Assad ruthlessly bombarded rebels and residents of Homs and Aleppo several years ago I was in favor of targeted military strikes to educate Assad that actions, particularly inhumane actions, have consequences. I wanted President Obama to issue a warning, and follow through on it, that he would systematically destroy Assad’s palaces, government buildings, and state infrastructure after any attack on civilians. But Obama didn’t, and one consequence of his inaction was the mass flight of millions of Syrians who felt insecure in their homeland, an exodus that has had significant international repercussions.

I am not ordinarily a war monger but I do believe a civilized country like ours has a responsibility to defend and protect the innocent against heartless slaughter or natural disaster, wherever they live. We did so in Bosnia. We did not during the Rwandan civil war. We are failing to do so in the humanitarian crisis of famine in East Africa.

We are not the policeman of the world. But we are the richest and mightiest nation. And the freest. We have some obligations to the rest of humanity.

Donald Trump will discover his actions, his words and those of his administration, have consequences, as well. Assad, it is reasoned, felt empowered to drop chemicals on Khan Shaykhun after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson indicated his removal from office no longer was U.S. policy. Now it may be.

Beyond Syria the military response has implications for our relations with Iran and North Korea. Trump has more than hinted he would unleash American forces to deny both countries the ability to develop nuclear weapons. Will their leaders be more circumspect now that they’ve seen Trump’s trigger finger is primed for action?

Presidents who successfully flex their muscles are apt to do so with impunity until catastrophe reins them in. Trump has all the leadership characteristics of a strong man who demands to get his way. He thinks in the moment. He is impulsive. Long term analysis is not one of his strong points. Nor is adherence to prior statements. Back in 2013 Trump tweeted against military action in Syria, especially without prior congressional approval.

Obama was more strategic in thinking so he deferred military intervention in Syria, North Korea and Iran.

By striking Syria, Trump may have set the United States on a new course of action with as yet unknown consequences.

More Help for Lester Holt: A New Set of Questions for the First Clinton-Trump Debate

Less than a week until the first presidential debate. The pressure must be excruciating on … Lester Holt of NBC News, the first moderator. Two weeks ago I suggested questions Holt should ask both candidates. 

They were almost exclusively designed to elicit differences between Hillary Clinton’s and Donald Trump’s policy positions. It wouldn’t necessarily make for good television, but it would be educational (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2016/09/policy-questions-for-first-clinton.html).

But TV, if anything, is about ratings and keeping an audience engaged. So here’s a different list of questions I believe Holt should ask of them individually and sometimes together (you’ll notice I have more questions for Trump because, in my humble opinion, he has more explaining to do). 

Trump and Clinton:  What is the greatest threat facing the United States?

T: What information changed your mind about President Obama’s birth in the United States? When did this information reach you?

C: What made you think the public did not have a right to know about your recent pneumonia?

T: Why do you feel the public does not have the right to see your tax returns as all presidential candidates, and many seeking lower offices and judicial positions, have released them over the last four decades?

T: You have called Hillary Clinton crooked. Can you point to any examples of crooked behavior?

T: You have called for paid family leave. Do you already provide it in your own companies, and if not, why not? Also, you have promised paid family leave but Republicans in Congress have not supported such a measure. How can the public expect you to fulfill that promise?

C: If Republicans maintain control of one or both houses of Congress how will you be able to get your platform passed?

C: Why should the American public trust you when time and again you have not been totally forthcoming when explaining your email server and your recent illness?

T: You have called Secretary Clinton “lyin’ Hillary,” yet time and again independent fact checkers have labeled more of your statements as untrue by a wide margin even though you have promised never to lie to the American public. Why should they believe you?

T: Almost all reputable scientists believe sea levels are rising due to climate change. Your property, Mar-a-Lago, sits on the beach in Palm Beach, Fla. Do you believe in the forecasts by the scientists and if not what evidence have you to the contrary? 

C and T: What can be done to stop sleeper cell terrorists, many of whom would be natural or naturalized citizens, from attacking Americans on our homeland? 

T: You have said “to the victor go the spoils,” that we should have taken Iraqi oil and left troops in Iraq to guard the oil wells and that to combat terrorism we should torture suspects and kill the families of terrorists, all violations of international law. Is that the standard you want to set for the United States?

C: The Clinton Foundation accepted donations from foreign governments and citizens. Why should we believe you have not been influenced or would not be influenced by such funding?

T: Why do you believe right wing and racist fringe organizations have expressed support for your campaign?

T: Illegal immigrants commit fewer crimes than American citizens. What would you do to reduce crime in America?

C: What went wrong in Iraq, Libya and Syria under your watch as secretary of state and why should we believe you would handle future crises differently and better?

T: You have said your response to threats against NATO allies would be dependent on their financial support of our troops. Is that a prudent plan in dealing with Russia?

C: Time and again you advocate a cautious, measured response to events and the status quo in government. Yet the American public appears interested in decisive leadership that would break up the status quo, which you seem reluctant to provide. Why should they expect you to be an agent of change?

T and C: Which three presidents or world leaders, living or dead, do you admire and why?

T: Our greatest economic gains over the last 40 years occurred under Democratic administrations that advocated and passed higher taxes on the wealthy, while lower taxes under Republican administrations did not produce the promised gains for the middle and working classes. Please explain why your tax strategy would reverse this reality?

C: As a senator you voted for the Iraq war. As secretary of state you advocated involvement in Libya and Syria. What is your standard for military intervention by the United States?

T: You recently said if Irani planes or boats interfere with our ships we should shoot them. Are you willing to risk a war over such provocations?

T and C: Almost all of our domestic terror attacks have been perpetrated by lone wolves. Is there any way to prevent such attacks?

C and T: How would you change the Affordable Care Act? Would you reduce or eliminate benefits that the ACA  provided?

C: Do you endorse a path to legalization for illegal immigrants? Would they earn the right to vote?

T: Clarify your position on who and when deportations of illegal immigrants would occur. What is your position on dreamers, the children of undocumented aliens who were brought here as children?

C: A Clinton administration to many would seem to be a continuation of the Obama administration. What would be different?

T and C: After you are sworn in what executive actions would you take within your first week in office?

Trump Channels Nation's Founders

A recent article by Politico’s national editor Michael Hirsh argued that far from being a boorish yahoo with extreme un-American views Donald Trump really is channeling the thoughts of the nation’s founders and some of its greatest presidents in their advocacy of few if any foreign entanglements (http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/05/founding-fathers-2016-donald-trump-america-first-foreign-policy-isolationist-213873). 

It’s a piece replete with citations quoting Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, John Adams and John Quincy Adams to buttress the idea that foreign ventures would ensnare the country in affairs best left to people on the other side of the Atlantic, the Pacific, of course, being no point of reference to their late 18th and early 19th century minds.

Since the start of World War II, however, the United States has been globally engaged, first fighting the Axis Powers, then confronting Communist Soviet Union, China and Cuba in a Cold War, followed by a patchwork of alliances and adventures in the Middle East, the most recent being our tragic years-upon-years involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and our arms-length position vis-a-vis Syria.  

“But it is fair to ask, as Trump is, why we are simply continuing, through inertia and with little change, a system that was built up to thwart a set of threats that no longer exist,” wrote Hirsh. “Maybe this vast, expensive global order was necessary against Hitler, and later Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev—the very real threats of tyranny, totalitarianism and international communism in the 1940s, ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s—but is Putin’s Russia, or Xi Jinping's China, really enough of a threat to justify the same expense and effort? It’s also fair to ask—as Trump does, in his blunt way—whether U.S. allies have grown a bit spoiled and barely notice any longer who’s holding that defense umbrella over their heads, allowing them to continue massive spending on their welfare states.”

Trump’s advocacy of a reimagined United States relationship with our allies, and by extension our adversaries, has tapped a reservoir of innate American isolationism made all the more potent by a failed war in Vietnam (though the feared Domino Effect never transpired) and the twin disasters in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

In the end, though, it should come down not to the electorate’s knowledge of historical admonitions but rather to the confidence Americans have in the knowledge, leadership and diplomatic skills they want in their next president. Trump has displayed little of those skills as he has rampaged through the Republican primary process, flipping positions as quickly as one changes gears in a sports car. He is not thought highly of in most foreign capitals. If he’s elected, heads of state will have to deal with him but they might never be confident his word would be his bond.

The closest we have to a Republican head of state is Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, the second in line to be president should tragedy strike the chief executive and the vice president. Ryan has yet to endorse the presumptive nominee of his party, but with each passing day Republican office holders appear to be swallowing their scruples and lining up, however reluctantly, behind Trump. It’s only a matter of time before Ryan caves, and without extracting any implementable concessions.

It seems they are all more interested in winning than in protecting the principles of the republic and their party. Their professed animosity toward Hillary Clinton trumps (pun intended) the reality that The Donald is unfit to be president of the mightiest country in the world, a country that has been a symbol of equality and decency throughout the world but under Trump would be willing to discriminate against Muslims and would sanction torture. The damage to American prestige would be incalculable.

No criticism is more pointed than from within one’s family, so here’s an excerpt from Ross Douthat, a conservative columnist of The New York Times, describing the factionalism of the Republican party that led to Trump’s rise and his own failure to foresee his appeal: 

“So to catalog my wrongness: I overestimated the real commitment of both factions’ leaders to their stated principles and favored policies. (Even though I didn’t agree with many of those policies myself, I assumed from the party’s longstanding resistance to change that someone did!) I overestimated their ability to put those principles ahead of personal resentments. And yes, since to acquiesce to Donald Trump as the Republican nominee is to gamble recklessly with the party’s responsibilities to the republic, I overestimated their basic sense of honor.” (http://nyti.ms/1rZxgcB)

Questions to Trump the Trumpless

With the first votes ready to be cast Monday in the Iowa caucuses, how much do we really know about the positions of the Republican candidates. Sure, we know they all want to repeal Obamacare and undo virtually everything he has accomplished. But specifics are sorely lacking, at least to my general knowledge and perhaps to yours as well. So, with The Donald not on the stage Thursday night (at least as I write this), here are some specific questions I’d like to see asked to and answered by the Republican contenders (some might remember that I posed similar questions last September):

1. Should worker health and safety be protected by OSHA? If not by OSHA what recourse would workers have under your administration?
2. Which cabinet departments and government agencies would you eliminate? Would you replace any of their functions?
3. Do you believe in a federal minimum wage? If yes, what level should it be at? Should it be pegged to rise with inflation? 
4. Do you believe in the Social Security system? At what age should workers be entitled to collect social security? How would you protect its solvency?
5. In a global economy what incentives would you favor to bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States?
6. Should the federal government own any land, such as national parks or wildlife refuges? If not, how should the government dispose of that land?
7. Are there any Defense Department programs you would eliminate?
8. After scrapping the Affordable Care Act, would you replace it with a different form of health insurance available to all Americans? Are there any aspects of the Affordable Care Act that you would retain? 
9. How would you replace the non abortion-related health care provided by Planned Parenthood if you defunded it?
10. Does the federal government have any obligation—legal or moral—to help its less fortunate citizens?
11. Should there be any restrictions on voter registration such as producing a valid ID or driver’s license?
12. Should medical marijuana be legalized in all states?
13. Should marijuana for general use be legalized?
14. Do you support stem cell research? Would you impose any restrictions?
15. Would you build a wall along the border with Mexico?
16. Would you restrict immigration from any country, region or religion?
17. Should the federal government have any role in education?
18. Is there a need for campaign funding reform?
19. Do you favor any form of regulation for Wall Street, banks and the financial sector?
20. What is your plan for rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure?
21. Does ISIS or any Islamic fundamentalist group pose an existential threat to the United States?
22. What and from whom is the greatest threat to our country?
23. Are you in favor of the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact as currently negotiated? If not, what changes would you want?
24. Do you believe in “personhood,” the concept that an embryo has the same rights as a fully born person, such as the right of inheritance and the right to sue for damages if injured in an accident?

I am under little illusion that any of these questions will be aired but at least you know what I would want Megyn Kelly and her Fox News cohorts to ask. 

Traveling Through Budapest

How ironic!

Budapest is serving as the transit point for Middle Eastern refugees fleeing conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and other parts of the Muslim world.

How ironic that Hungary is the clearing house of humanity caught up in the savagery of war. How ironic that the human tide wants to flee to Germany (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3217584/Angela-Merkel-hints-bringing-border-checks-Syrian-refugees-boarding-trains-Hungary-chant-Germany-come.html).

Hungary, specifically Budapest, possesses an infamous history when it comes to exporting casualties of war. During World War II Hungary was aligned with Nazi Germany. Yet, through 1943, Jews were relatively safe within its borders. It was only after the government was replaced by a more Nazi-sympathetic regime in March 1944, after Hitler’s troops took control of the country, that mass deportations of Jews to the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp began.

As per Wikipedia,  “On March 19, 1944, German troops occupied Hungary, prime minister Miklós Kállay was deposed and soon mass deportations of Jews to German death camps in occupied Poland began. SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann went to Hungary to oversee the large-scale deportations. Between 15 May and 9 July, Hungarian authorities deported 437,402 Jews. All but 15,000 of these Jews were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, and 90% of those were immediately killed. One in three of all Jews killed at Auschwitz were Hungarian citizens.” 

In all, an estimated 600,000 Hungarian Jews were murdered during the war. Most of the dead came from the countryside, not Budapest.

When our family visited Budapest during the summer of 2008, we learned first-hand the logistics behind the deportations. Budapest served as a way station for the doomed who were brought in from all parts of Hungary.

Budapest was a central railway hub because of the oddities of the European rail system. Located in central Europe, Budapest had two rail systems with different track gauges and separate railroad terminals across the city, one to serve passengers and freight headed west toward Poland and Germany, one for travel east toward Russia. When Jews would arrive from the eastern provinces of Hungary, they would be marched cross-town to the western-oriented station for immediate transport to Auschwitz-Birkenau. An estimated 12,000 souls were shipped out each day with the enthusiastic help of Hungarian Nazi sympathizers.

For centuries Jews had thrived inside Hungary but the country fostered deep anti-Semitic prejudices which linger unto today. It is ironic to see Arab refugees— Semites—flocking to Hungary for a chance to escape oppression. It is ironic to see them trying to reach Germany for a chance for a better, safer life.

A Day of Liberation Not Yet Fulfilled

Tuesday’s weather forecast included snow with temperatures hovering a few degrees below the freezing mark, colder if you calculated the wind chill. It’s the forecast for Auschwitz, Poland, fitting weather for the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp where more than one million, mostly Jews, were slaughtered during World War II. 

By contrast, the atmosphere seemed a little out of whack when our family visited Auschwitz during the summer of 2008. The sun shone brightly. The grass was lush and verdant. Birds chirped. Everything was neat, in its place. Serene even. Color was everywhere. It made it difficult to comprehend that this was the epicenter of man’s bestiality toward his fellow man. 

A former Polish military installation of mostly brick buildings, Auschwitz proved to be too small for the mass murder the Germans had in mind. So they built Auschwitz II, also known as Birkenau, just down the road. That’s where the often-pictured railroad gateway with the Arbeit Macht Frei (work brings freedom) slogan greeted the wretched crammed into boxcars, most of them transported from Hungary and surrounding countries during the latter stages of the war. Those “fortunate” enough not to be immediately consigned to the “showers” and crematoria at the rear of the camp found shelter in row after row of wooden barracks (I’ve previously written how the Nazis carried fire insurance provided by Allianz for the structures: http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2010/01/chain-of-one-person-events.html). 

We’ve all seen concentration camp scenes from movies. They’re often rendered in black and white or gauzy color meant to take the life out of the reality. Now a museum dedicated to preserving the memory of those killed and meant to be a cautionary monument to the extremes every generation must guard against, Auschwitz, to me at least, did not evoke the same sense of loss and despair I experienced when visiting Holocaust memorials in Washington, DC, New York City or Jerusalem. It lacked context. Personalization. Scope. 

Sure, the seemingly endless number of victims was remembered through mounds of luggage. Eyeglasses. Shoes. Hair. But what escaped my consciousness was an overwhelming feeling of individual suffering, of agony, of crushing horror and hopelessness. The museum was…too clinical. Too…German. Apparently, mine was not the only such reaction. Plans are underway to humanize the tragedy (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/24/world/europe/for-auschwitz-museum-and-survivors-a-moment-of-passage.html?smid=nytcore-iphone-share&smprod=nytcore-iphone&_r=0). 

Will it matter? Will mankind stop mass murder and genocide? The record over the last 70 years is not reassuring. Think China’s Cultural Revolution. Cambodia’s Killing Fields. Rwanda’s Hutus and Tutsis. The massacre of Muslims in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Boko Haram in Nigeria. Saddam Hussein in Iraq. The Assads in Syria. Sunnis and Shia in Iraq and Syria. 

I don’t find it depressing (ok, too depressing) that atrocities of unspeakable scale still occur. What I find truly depressing and maddening is that the civilized world does not or cannot, or does not want to, stop them from happening. With all the knowledge and technology available to us, with our commitment to “Never Again,” again keeps happening again and again. 

The commemoration of the liberation of Auschwitz should be a moment of reassurance. Sadly, it has not yet attained that status.

A Dialogue on Freedom and Peace

(Editor’s Note: This is a realllllly long entry as I have chosen to reproduce two blogs from Rabbi Barry Konovitch who I knew as head of the waterfront in Camp Columbia back in the early 1960s. Barry is the rabbi of Temple Anshei Shalom, a Conservative synagogue in Delray Beach, FL. For more background on him, click on this link: http://www.templeansheishalom.org/abouttherabbi.html. His blogs are reproduced in italics. My thoughts follow his.)

President Obama’s Legacy

The world is in crisis because the United States has relinquished its traditional leadership position as the most powerful democratic nation on earth. Free people everywhere have always looked to America for inspiration, guidance, and when needed, military intervention to support and protect basic human freedoms and rights. It has been a heavy and sobering responsibility but we have risen to the task each time we were called. We supported our friends unequivocally and unhesitatingly; and we punished the enemies of freedom decisively and unsparingly. For the better part of the 20th century we imposed a Pax Americana that encouraged the spread of democracy and improved the daily lives of all people under our umbrella.

Now our leadership role is being relinquished as we retreat from global challenges instead of facing them head-on. The enemies of democracy are emboldened by our indecisiveness and wavering in the face of serious challenges. The murder of our ambassador in Benghazi and his compatriots produced “what difference does it make” from the Secretary of State. The Russian invasion of the Crimea and Ukraine and the concomitant, threats to the Eastern European NATO countries resulted from the ‘reset of our relationship” with the Russian government. The Iranian program to produce a nuclear warhead with which to threaten the Middle East and the Western world with the avowed promise to “wipe Israel off the face of the map” has produced a sham agreement that will allow the Ayatollahs to move with alacrity toward their nuclear goal. Our red lines threat to attack Syria’s Assad regime if they used gas weapons, evaporated as the gas floated over Aleppo. Our friends are appalled by the American paper tiger and our enemies are emboldened. Islamic terrorists arise in every corner of the globe where we have retreated. Nature abhors a vacuum and so does geopolitics. Everywhere American troops are “drawn down” (a euphemism for ignominious retreat) Islamic terrorists arrive to take their place. They terrorize the local populations into fearful submission and they dare to challenge the might of the American military. When the Boko Haram Islamic terrorists murder men women and children in Nigeria, and they blatantly kidnap several hundred young girls from their villages, we are led in a protest to “bring our girls home” by none other than Mrs. Obama. The protests and the interest from the public lasted no more than a week before it no longer captured our interest, much less our concern, or heaven forfend, any real attempt both politically and militarily to “help our girls”.

To understand what has happened to us, American citizens, we need to be reminded of the presidential agenda clearly set forth for us right at the beginning of the political campaign and underscored, reinforced and elaborated upon in such “democratic” venues as Cairo and Riyadh. We would do well to remember Pres. Obama’s words and, yea his promise to bring the troops home, to disengage ourselves from all wars and conflicts and leave a much smaller American footprint on the world. We will contract into ourselves and concentrate on improving our internal economic and political lives. Conveniently forgotten is the basic lesson of the 21st century; the world is connected, for better or worse, and no nation lives in an isolated vacuum, and no ocean or mountain chain will protect us from our enemies.

“Yes, Virginia,” we have enemies around the world who seek to destroy us, and are just waiting for the chance to take advantage of any perceived American weakness or hesitation. Pres. Obama has projected American weakness and indecisiveness to the world and our enemies are on the move.

No one should be surprised. We elected a president who by virtue of being the first black man to attain our highest office, was immediately granted the Nobel peace prize, for doing absolutely nothing to advance world peace. The award was a sham and an embarrassment to all responsible citizens. This was the president who spent 20 years sitting in a church pew listening to the right Rev. Wright spewing anti-American and anti-Semitic hatred to his parishioners. And the future president sat quietly and without protest and absorbed the lessons of black revolutionary theology. This is the President who apologizes to the Muslim world for the American anti-Islamic transgressions and bows low to despotic Arab potentates. This is a president who promised the president of France that he will “deal” with the Prime Minister of Israel who dares to disagree with his utopian plan for the Middle East. After all, this is the president who was raised in the largest Muslim country in the world, Indonesia, and was sent to school to absorb the lessons of Islam at a young age. A man who accepts the name “Hussein” is clearly trying to tell us something about his mindset.

Our friends around the world feel abandoned and our enemies are emboldened. And we sit quietly waiting for the next 9/11, which is certain to come.

The Ongoing War on Islamic Terrorism

 The latest war against the Hamas terrorists in Gaza has come to an end, but by no means to a satisfactory conclusion. The Negev communities are still susceptible to mortar fire and the major Israeli cities are still within rocket range. The Army has not packed up the Iron Dome and the reserves remain on alert. The ominous quiet is merely a precursor to the next round of attacks and the Israeli public remains uneasy if not downright angry and disgusted. People tread lightly in the streets of Ashdod and Tel Aviv, anticipating the next air raid sirens announcing the start of yet another terrifying round of terrorist attacks. The question is asked in the streets: Why hasn’t the Army finished the job? Why does the government hesitate to give the orders: destroy the Hamas terrorist once and for all? Why should the deaths of the Gaza so-called “civilians” concern us or at least prevent us from doing the job which is protecting Israeli citizens?  The world clearly sees, but as yet refuses to understand, that Hamas terrorists use their neighbors as human shields in the hope that they will be martyred and sacrificed on the altar of public relations. There is absolutely no interest in and condemnation of the tens of thousands of people massacred by Islamic terrorists in Syria, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Lebanon, Mali, and a host of other countries. Only Israel is singled out for vilification which clearly is the 21st century is manifestation of anti-Semitism.

The civilian population of World War II Germany and Italy and Japan were “enemy populations”, subjected to indiscriminate carpet bombing by the US and British air forces until these enemy governments surrendered unconditionally. There was no hand wringing and mea culpas in the White House or in Whitehall. Clear eyed Western leaders understood that destroying the Nazis and fascists and militarists was the moral thing to do.

The Islamic Jihadists are the 21st century version of the Nazis; they have the same brutal intentions. These barbarians are at the gates of Western civilization, all across Europe and even in our United States. How many warnings do we need before we truly awake and take action? What we have witnessed on 9/11 and at the Boston Marathon is only the beginning of a spreading cancer that will destroy our civilization if we don’t act decisively and unhesitatingly. I fail to understand how known Islamic radicals, or even suspected terrorists are not stopped at our borders, removed from our airplanes and deprived of their visas and passports. How do we tolerate Muslim preachers who exploit their thousands of followers and hundreds of mosques across America, to murder all infidels in the name of Allah?  Infidels, of course, mean all of us; Jews, Christians, Mormons alike and anyone who doesn’t accept Islam.

This is not the time to hide behind political correctness or cultural liberal ideas of personal freedoms. Our first order of business must be self preservation and the preservation of our Western democratic way of life, and if it means giving up some of our personal freedoms to accomplish it, then I for one say so be it.

How refreshing to hear the British Prime Minister layout a detailed and thoughtful program for immediately taking up the challenge of worldwide Islamic terrorism. Would that are own president would follow suit instead of “leading from behind”. The people of Israel are on the front lines of the war against Islamic terrorism. The  names may change across the world but make no mistake about it, they are all the same with the same tactics and the same goals: kill the infidels, destroy western corrupt civilization, impose Islam on the World. Isis, Nusra, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Hamas, Fatah, Muslim Brotherhood, Al-Aqsa Brigade, these are all manifestations of the same barbarians, who wish to erase  thousand of years of Western enlightened civilization and return us to the savage evil caliphate fulfilling the call of the Koran “convert or die by the sword”. How many beheadings do we have to watch, how many exploded bodies do we have to see, how many genocidal massacres do we have to witness before we are galvanized into self-defensive action? The Israeli public continues to feel vulnerable. The Hamas terrorists have not been eradicated; they will resupply, rearm and continue to attack. The Israeli government can surely finish the job, but at what expense? 100 more young soldiers would die in the alleyways of Gaza before every Hamas terrorist would be dead. Israeli parents would be up in arms; it is too costly a proposition. So the terrorists nurse their wounds and make their plans. And Israel waits and prepares for the next round. And so should we, because it is coming to a “theater near you”.

Sorry, Rabbi, I Respectfully Disagree

As head of the waterfront of Camp Columbia, Barry Konovitch saved my life when I, a non swimmer, slipped under the deep water during an ill-fated intermediate swimming course training exercise. But, as a respected rabbi and blogger, Barry Konovitch is misguided in his analysis of America’s place in the world and what should be our response to the increasing rise of Islamic fundamentalism and the terror it has engendered.

Foremost among his missteps is his willingness to give up some of our cherished liberties if it meant more protection from terrorism, as if we would be able to control this downward slope on our freedoms. It is the same compact with the devil Jews, intellectuals and businessmen made with Hitler in the hope he would restore order to Germany and they would be able to control him. Once liberties are ceded to government officials they rarely, if ever, are reinstated. Scapegoats throughout history, Jews should never, ever, be on the side of restrictions.

Yes, we are appalled at the evil that Islam has fostered. But as a country we cannot hope to be the police force to 1.6 billion world-wide adherents to the Koran. We cannot go back in history and become a colonial power.

The world is suffering because of decisions made 100 years ago by the then colonial powers to create countries with borders that made little sense to the indigenous peoples they contained. This divide-and-conquer strategy has come back to bite western civilization. After World War II, America’s corporate and military industrial complex layered on another form of oppression on people who wanted nothing more than we had—a life of freedom to pursue happiness in peace and prosperity. But we supported dictators who strong-armed their subjects while they enriched themselves. 

Militant Islam is found throughout Europe. In France. In Great Britain. In Germany. In Holland. In Denmark. Is America to blame? I think not. 

Barry Konovitch laments the United States no longer is the beacon it once was to the rest of the world, that it “has relinquished its traditional leadership position as the most powerful democratic nation on earth. Free people everywhere have always looked to America for inspiration, guidance, and when needed, military intervention to support and protect basic human freedoms and right.”

Last I checked the United States was still the country most people aspired to enter, both legally and illegally. The U.S. still was the country people called out to for military relief.

Barry is wrong to say we encouraged democracies. Truth is, we repeatedly overthrew or undermined governments when we disapproved of the leaders voted in by their respective electorates. We supported feudal leaders throughout Arabia. Under four Republican presidents we negated the success of the Suez War of 1956 (Eisenhower), abandoned Lebanon after 241 Marines were killed in Beirut (Reagan), illegally sold arms to Iran and illegally supported the Contras in Nicaragua (Reagan), let Assad I gas thousands in Hama (Reagan again), let Saddam Hussein wreak revenge on Shiites after the first Gulf War (Bush I) and started a war in Iraq under false pretenses while ignoring the real enemy in Afghanistan (Bush II). 

Yes, Barack Obama did not deserve the Nobel Peace prize. But it is a canard to accuse him of bowing to Arab despots. Did Barry criticize Bush II for walking hand in hand with the Saudi king, the same king who has supported and funded the extreme Wahhabi form of Islam that is the root for much of the fundamentalism now spreading throughout the Muslim world?

I, too, would have liked Israel to wipe out Hamas. But it would have required a re-occupation of Gaza, with no end in sight for a withdrawal, not to mention the numerous casualties, civilian and military, both sides would have incurred. 

It is most unfortunate that technology has overtaken diplomacy. The means of inflicting destruction and death have outpaced any sincere effort in finding a solution to the Arab-Israeli question. Perhaps, if Israeli leaders had been more imaginative and accommodating (yes, accommodating) in decades past, they would have achieved a solution that would have lifted Palestinians out of the poverty so easily exploited by Islamic jihadists. When your family has few or no jobs, little to eat, no dignity, insufficient housing, sanitation, medical care and education, there is too little to keep youth from committing to the tantalizing dream of the jihadist. 

Palestinian and Arab leaders have repeatedly rejected Israel’s presence. They are more culpable because they rejected offers of peace. And the Arab Street was silent in asking for peace. The latest war in Gaza, however, has demonstrably shown that creativity must be employed to secure a lasting peace because, surely, destructive minds are hard at work creating new means of terror, above and below ground. 

There Is Such a Thing as a Good War

I am, by nature, anti-war. A non belligerent. A pacifist. Yet, I am increasingly finding myself comfortable with the notion that some wars may be justified, that some wars are good.

Take what’s happening in the areas controlled by ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. Are we willing to just sit by and watch our television or computer screens convey the evil being inflicted on people and their heritage merely because they do not share the same religion as ours or their conquerors? 

Slaughter, genocide, is being perpetrated in the name of God. Holy shrines are being blown up and toppled. We are witnessing tribal behavior abhorrent to 21st century mores, but apparently acceptable to those who seek a return to 8th century customs (I’m not sure if that’s 750 CE or 750 BCE, but either way, the treatment of the vanquished is not what rational man has evolved into, though there are many recent examples—Rwanda, Serbia-Croatia, Cambodia, to name a few—that would argue against such a enlightened state). 

ISIS has engaged us in a battle of cultures. We would be foolish to trust these fanatics to soften their extremism once they subjugate all of Iraq and Syria. They seek domination throughout the world.   

So the question becomes, is there such a thing as a good war?

For sure, peaceful coexistence is the desired state for all but the most unbalanced mind. But we do not live in a perpetual nirvana. Conflict has become part of mankind’s daily ritual. I’m not happy with that reality but short of God installing a miracle fulfillment to our eternal wishes we are destined to kill and maim.

Another question is, can we morally justify combat even when we know for certain civilians will be injured or killed?

By the way, I did not say “innocent” civilians because not all civilians can be exempt from responsibility. Many, after all, may have voted in a regime intent on war. While they may not be soldiers, they empowered the military to act on their behalf. They are not innocent. Non combatants? Yes. Innocents? No.

My rabbi pointed out an interesting, applicable verse from the beginning of Exodus 22 last Saturday. The verse states, “If a thief be found to be breaking in and be smitten so that he dieth, there shall be no bloodguiltiness for him.” The sages interpreted “breaking in” to mean tunneling at night, with the intent to kill if discovered.  Furthermore, it was postulated that if you are aware someone is planning to kill you, act precipitously—kill him first.

Hamas with its tunnels had murder in mind. No legitimate government could not respond as Israel did to protect its citizens.

Sadly, too many non combatants died in Gaza, even if they were Hamas sympathizers and empowerers. But let’s not trot out any doctrine of equivalency. Wars are waged to win, not tie. A country, a legitimate government, doesn’t put its own people at risk.

Here’s an interesting idea for equivalency: In Israel, tens of thousands have gathered to lobby for peace. When was the last time Palestinians marched for peace? The answer is never. When has Hamas recognized Israel’s right to exist? Never. When has Hamas chosen construction instead of destruction, except, that is, to carve out tunnels meant to inflict casualties on Israel? If the 1.8 million residents of the Gaza Strip want peace, let them march for peace. They have permitted their homes, mosques, schools and hospitals to be shields of war.

It used to be fashionable to exempt ordinary German citizens from the butchery of the Holocaust. But recent scholarship has revealed that ordinary Germans were complicit. Israel is within its historical and current rights to vigorously defend itself, even if civilians suffer in Gaza, for they are not blameless or powerless to demand a safer, better life from Hamas.

Hamas wants the blockade lifted. No doubt to import more cement for more tunnels and for more rockets. Hamas spent billions on weaponry, virtually nothing to shelter and provide for the population of Gaza.

It is beyond irony for the U.S. and Europe to castigate Israel for civilian deaths in defense of its borders. I don’t recall Israel issuing any tsk-tsks after U.S. or NATO missiles mistakenly killed Afghani or Iraqi civilians over the last 10 years. Israel recognized that in the fog of war mistakes happen. Civilians may be killed. Not intentionally, as terrorist organizations like Hamas pledge to do, but rather because war is still an unmanageable, imperfect science. 

Let’s be clear. Israel is in a war of survival. Even as a truce held for a third day in Gaza, a leader of Hamas, Mushir al-Masri, told a rally of supporters, the group’s arms will not be “relinquish(ed) until all our lands are liberated.” In other words, until they destroy Israel and kills all the Jews.

The Iraqis may be too cowed and cowardly to resist ISIS. Israelis have no illusions about Hamas. Residents of the Gaza Strip should have no illusions about the Israeli response to future aggression.

Bizarre and Bazaar Turn of Events

I made Gilda promise me that when the time came, and I’ll explain shortly why that time seems to be rapidly approaching, she’ll place me in a nice, nearby facility for the memory challenged, one that she’ll visit at least weekly, a home with good looking attendants, for after all, I might become forgetful but I would hope I would retain my appreciation of the finer things of life. 

I told her Sunday morning I had found the missing white sheet. 

“Where was it?, she asked. 

“On the bed,” I sheepishly replied.

“You mean we were sleeping on it all this time?”

“Yes, and no.” Thinking the white sheet was a cover for the new Sleep Number mattress, I had somehow placed the next sheet set on top of it. It was only when I went to plug in our heated mattress pad that I discovered my mistake. 

Now, if I could only find that missing dryer ball ...

My initial optimism about a negotiated settlement for the removal and destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons stash has dissipated. We've now entered what may be called the “Arab suk” phase, and the bizarre twists and turns Assad has begun to play would make any bazaar merchant proud. He's trying to impose conditions on President Obama, not the reverse, despite the deal the U.S. and Russia seemingly reached. 

So let’s just employ the age-old tactic of walking away. If Assad doesn't capitulate and live up to the schedule in the Russo-American deal, strike. Don't wait for Congress or the United Nations to act. The “consequences” Secretary of State John Kerry said would rain down on Syria will never force Assad’s hand. Only action will. 

I'm reminded of when I sold one of my cars, a Buick, to a young man in Yonkers back in 1982. Not in any way comparable in importance to negotiations on chemical weapons, but instructive, nevertheless, on the give and take (mostly take) tactics of the Middle Eastern mind. 

The young man in question was a Palestinian student. I met him in Yonkers. His uncle represented him. He told me how much he liked Buicks. Solid, reliable cars. Still, his nephew was not rich. He couldn’t afford the $2,000 price tag. We haggled. The give and take was fun, but we reached an impasse. I wanted $1,600. He was stuck at $1,550. We didn’t split the difference. I said I was going home. 

Would I mind driving his nephew home as it was on my way to the parkway? No problem. When we arrived in front of his building, he asked if I would like to come up for tea. Recognizing this as a further attempt to negotiate the price down, I declined. Twenty minutes later I walked into our home. Just as I finished telling Gilda I should have accepted the lower price as the $50 difference would be eaten up by another newspaper ad (yes, these were pre-Craig’s List days; newspapers actually carried classified ads), the phone rang. The uncle called to say they’d pay $1,600.  

I don’t normally advocate military action. But this is an exceptional situation, one that Assad will play out. In the end, I doubt he will comply with any of the deadlines set in the agreement. We must be prepared to act. And act quickly.

Hoping to Avoid Another Gas Attack

Apropos Bashar al-Assad’s Oscar-worthy portrayal in the Charlie Rose interview of an aggrieved head of state wrongly accused of killing his subjects by using chemical gas attacks, I can only refer him to an old American saying, “If it looks like a duck, swims like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then it probably is a duck.”

Let’s not kid ourselves or anyone else. Assad gassed his people.

When I was a small child, my parents used to entertain some of my father’s relatives. One of them scared me. He looked like Lurch on The Addams Family. He was older than my father, probably around 60. He had wispy, blond hair. He had deep sunken eyes that had a faraway look to them. He was tall, even by a youngster’s perspective. His hands were large. His fingers never closed. Instead they were splayed out, lifeless.

I asked why he looked the way he did. He was gassed during World War I, my father explained. I was too young at the time to fully comprehend the meaning behind his affliction.

You might have noticed I have not mentioned him by name. I don't remember it. Like so many, I have put victims of gassing out of my mind. The world has a tendency to forget atrocities. It’s too convenient for our leaders and their citizenry to let incidents pass without repercussions, especially when they happen in distant lands and cultures.

Gilda sent me a commentary from Tom Friedman of The New York Times (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/08/opinion/sunday/friedman-same-war-different-country.html?emc=eta1&_r=0). He's against any military action in Syria. Among other reasons, he cites the lack of results our might achieved in Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. Friedman believes lack of pluralistic-minded leadership dooms these sectarian conflicts to be catalysts of state destroyers. Just let the factions fight their own intolerant wars.

I agree bombing wouldn't resolve any part of the current crisis. But we wouldn't be bombing for regime change. We would be bombing to firmly define the limits of warfare, that gassing civilians cannot and will not be tolerated. That there be no next time.

Assad threatens retaliation. Are we seriously going to quiver? Does he seriously think his state can stand toe to toe with America, or has he determined that his best long term prospect is to lose a war with the United States a là The Mouse That Roared? (He does look like someone Peter Sellers could play, if he were alive today.)

President Obama’s firm resolve to punish Syria may have led to a diplomatic breakthrough, however inadvertently it appeared, courtesy of Secretary of State John Kerry's suggestion that Assad relinquish control of all chemical weapons (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/10/world/middleeast/kerry-says-syria-should-hand-over-all-chemical-arms.html?hp&_r=0). I hope this proposal takes root. But let's not be fooled. If it does, it is only because Assad was convinced of, and afraid of, Obama’s commitment to action. Otherwise, Assad would be gassing up again and again.

Syria Is Serious Business

We didn’t know precisely what happened 49 years ago in the dark waters of the Gulf of Tonkin. We were told North Vietnamese gunships engaged in a battle with one of our destroyers. So Congress hastily and precipitously passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and though it did not authorize a war, that’s what we fought for the next nine years at a cost of 58,286 lives and 153,303 wounded and a fraying of the bonds of trust between the government and the people it is supposed to serve. Those were just the American casualties.

We were told weapons of mass destruction in Iraq threatened the stability and safety of the world. Our respected secretary of state, Colin Powell, the former chief of staff of the armed forces who led us to victory against Iraq in the Gulf War a little more than a decade earlier, reassured us intelligence confirmed the presence of WMDs stored all over Iraq. We believed him and his toy mockups, pictures and drawings and so we went to war. And we unleashed hell in Iraq at a cost of nearly 5,000 lives and more than 32,000 wounded and a near total meltdown of our domestic economy to fund the war. Those were just the American casualties.

When President Obama drew his chemical weapons red line in the Syrian sand a year, or was it two years, ago there were few who argued with his deliberation. Times, tempers and tenacity are different today. While still reserving the right to act unilaterally, Obama has downshifted our country's response mode to the apparent gassing by Bashar al-Assad of his people, albeit people who would like nothing better than to dance on his grave or see him rot in prison or be indulged in some Idi Amin-like asylum in another country.

Obama wants to hear from Congress what the U.S. should do. I am mostly a pacifist but on this question I come down on the side of military action. Even a war weary country must come to the conclusion that doing nothing will cast America as a paper tiger and encourage tyrants, terrorists and all sorts of enemies to be bolder while our friends and allies question our resolve to stand by our words and commitments. 

Unlike Vietnam and Iraq, Syria provides overwhelming evidence (circumstantial to some, but nevertheless overwhelming) that the Assad regime gassed its own people, killing more than 1,400 including 400 children. There is a moral imperative for America to act, not to topple Assad but rather to convey our resolve that there are lines in the sand that cannot be crossed. 

Can we be the world’s policeman? No. Not even an entire police force can monitor all the abuses under its domain. Not every humanitarian crisis will evoke a response. One could argue Obama spoke too hastily in setting a red line. But no rational person wants chemical weapons used. It is in our best national interests, not in Israel’s or in those who would oust Assad, to strategically punish the Syrian government, even at the risk of killing innocents, what the military euphemistically calls collateral damage. 

Many in Congress fear more U.S. boots on the ground despite administration assurances the military campaign will be limited to air attacks. Others, including many in the Tea Party, want America to hark back to its isolationist days, not understanding that by looking inward after World War I we enabled the rise of fascist, war-mongering governments across Europe. 

Cruise-bombing Syria will not bring peace to Arabia, will not settle the sectarian strife dividing Islam, will not help or hinder efforts to forge an Arab-Israeli peace, will not make Iran or North Korea more pacific. It will, however, reaffirm America’s commitment to combat and avenge any use of weapons of mass destruction. And that is a good thing.

Calamity Mitt

There’s an exegesis that major calamities suffered by the Jewish people occurred through the ages on the ninth day of the month of Av, known in Hebrew as Tisha B’Av. Calamities such as the destructions of both temples in Jerusalem 656 years apart, first by the Babylonians and then by the Romans. 

Tisha B’Av was commemorated over this past weekend, coinciding with Mitt Romney’s visit to Israel and Jerusalem. Need I say more? No, but I will.

Despite what Sheldon Adelson and other near-sighted people, including some of my friends, think, the worst development for Israel would be Romney’s election. As he so mis-ably demonstrated yet again on his “world tour” of England, Israel and Poland, Romney has no idea how to speak diplomatically. After publicly insulting the British, he publicly insulted the Palestinians. No amount of backtracking can remove his lack of diplomacy. Perception is reality in the eyes of the Palestinians. He has given them no reason to believe he would be an honest broker of a fair and equitable peace (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/31/us/politics/romney-angers-palestinians-with-comments-in-israel.html?_r=1).

Palestinians are industrious. Educated. They have been productive citizens and residents wherever they have been given an opportunity. The tragedy of the Mideast is that too many Arab countries used them as pawns, consigning them to live in squalor instead of absorbing them into society, as Israel did with Jewish refugees who had to flee repression in Arab countries. Romney naively attributed the economic disparity between Israelis and Palestinians to “culture.” That’s but one of the reasons.  I don’t have the time or inclination to expound on the full set of reasons. Perhaps, given all his money, Romney can hire experts who could educate him on the differences between the two peoples.

As could be expected, Romney was well received by Israeli hawks for his no-questions-would-be-asked-nor-criticism-leveled should Israel decide to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Just as candidate Barack Obama in 2008 expressed sympathy for those living near the Gaza Strip under constant danger from missile attacks and condoned retaliation, Romney scored points when he said, “We respect the right of a country to defend itself.” Romney also fawned on the Israelis, and further angered the Palestinians, by saying Jerusalem was Israel’s capital. 

Interestingly, Romney, and for that matter, most other politicians, have chosen to stay silent on a more imminent threat to Israel and other Western countries, namely, the huge stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons of mass destruction in Syria that could fall into the hands of terrorists or unstable factions should the government of President Bashar al-Assad tumble. Would Israel and the United States risk a foray into Syria to secure these stockpiles? Israel is already distributing gas masks in its northern regions, but the threat would be far wider to the Jewish state, indeed, to the world at large if groups like al-Qaeda or Hezbollah had access to these WMDs. 

Romney always seems to be trying to say what he thinks his audience wants to hear. Back in Great Britain he opined he would restore the bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office. Sounds great to an Anglophile. Churchill was the symbol of British grit in World War II, the staunch anti-Communist thereafter, originator of the term “the Iron Curtain.” But what do India and other non-Caucasian members of the United Kingdom think of Churchill? Reading about the fall of the British empire, Gilda has related to me stories of how racist Churchill was, how he felt Indians were inferior people, and thus could be sacrificed (read that, starved) so Anglo-Saxons would have enough food during WWII. Millions in India died after their foodstuffs were shipped to the British Isles. 

Perhaps Romney wasn’t aware of this “small” fact. I, for one, wasn’t aware of it until recently. But I’m not running for president. My comments won’t anger a nation. 

If Someone Comes to Kill You ...

Most Tuesday mornings from October through early June I participate in a Bible study class at our temple. We’re making our way through Exodus this year. Part of today’s lesson from chapter 22 of Exodus dealt with the concept of self-defense. If a home invasion happens when it is light, it is not permissible to kill the intruder as it is presumed he would flee or surrender if discovered. However, if a thief enters a home at night, a resident may kill the intruder with impunity as it may be presumed the criminal would have had murderous intent if confronted. 

This reasoning led to a long-accepted rabbinic maxim, “He who comes to kill you, kill him first.” 

Today, June 5, was a most appropriate time to consider this precept. It is the 45th anniversary of the Six Day War, Israel’s pre-emptive strike on Egypt and Syria. (Interestingly and coincidentally, today the United States confirmed Al-Qaeda’s second in command had been killed Monday, presumably in a drone attack inside Pakistan.)

The 1967 crisis in the Middle East had been building for months. Egypt expelled United Nations peacekeepers who guarded the Sinai border with Israel. It closed the Straits of Tiran to ships bound for Eilat. A blockade is considered an act of war. Arab countries vowed to drive Israelis into the sea, to dismember the Jewish state. 

Jews the world over feared another Holocaust. Anyone with relatives or friends in Israel were doubly worried. My sister, Lee, was in Israel, studying at Hebrew University. For the last few weeks she had been packing crackers for army rations. 

Monday morning, June 5, 1967, I drove from our parents’ home to Brooklyn College, taking up my usual position at the Knight House “fraternity” table in the Boylan Hall cafeteria. Around 10, word started to trickle in that war had broken out. This was not the era of instant worldwide communications, of CNN or cell phones, of 24-hour news cycles. Israel controlled the dissemination of news from its territory. In those first, terrifying, stomach-churning hours, the only reports we heard were those coming from Egypt, communiqués about Arab troops advancing on Tel Aviv, of Zionists falling in a jihad of epic proportions.

It was not until well into the afternoon or early evening that the true picture of the day’s events became known. The startling revelation of Israel’s air power superiority, coupled with its armored division successes, exceeded even the most optimistic expectations of the 19-year-old country’s supporters. 

Sometimes it is hard for contemporary observers to fully comprehend the fragility of Israel’s existence. From being considered a David facing the Arab Goliath in 1967, the roles have been reversed in the ensuing 45 years. Yet even today a visitor to Israel cannot be anything but wary when hostile borders surround the state, which is but a speck of green in an otherwise sandy expanse. Artillery fire could easily reach Israel’s population centers back in 1967. As it can today. It’s too much to expect friendly neighbors. Secure, peaceful borders, however, are legitimate demands. But if one side is still determined to annihilate you, rising up early to kill them is not just a biblical injunction, it’s a present day imperative. 

News of the Last Few Days

Reason to Celebrate: Sorry for the delay in reporting on my jubilee bar mitzvah day last Saturday. You can exhale now—all went well, especially Ellie’s singing. As usual, she emotionally charged the congregation, even bringing one woman to tears, according to our cantor.

As mentioned a few days ago, my secular birth date is March 6, a day I usually have associated with the fall of the Alamo. But thanks to an article in today’s NY Times, I can now relate March 6 to a happier occasion, the anniversary of the first sale by the National Biscuit Company (Nabisco) of an Oreo sandwich cookie in 1912. To control my blood sugar and triglycerides levels I no longer indulge in Oreo binges, but I just might buy a package to put out for the poker game I’m hosting that evening. Hopefully my friends will be kind enough to let me win for a change.


Hearing My Age: Overall, I thought the Academy Awards Sunday night was a feh, or in today’s word, meh, show. No real excitement. If the academy brain trust was trying to convince a younger audience that going to the movies was more special than watching a DVD at home or on your computer, they could have picked actors more readily identifiable with their demographic. Heck, even Adam Sandler, for all his adolescent movie persona, is 45.

As for Billy Crystal, what I could hear of his opening act was okay, but let me be honest, I couldn’t hear half of his lyrics either because he didn’t sing loud enough or the band overwhelmed him. And speaking of the band, the breakaway shots showing the band playing before commercials were really bad.


Playing Hooky: The bar mitzvah weekend was capped by a Saturday afternoon visit from our niece Julie, husband Matt and their children Maggie and Harrison. The kids were interested in playing with Finley who found it fun to be entertained by bigger folk just eight and six years his senior. Maggie, however, soon retreated to the couch and wasn’t feeling up to staying with us during dinner. She felt a little warm so Julie asked if we had a thermometer.

Under the mouth it went. By the time Dan found Finley’s Exergen Temporal Thermometer, the one you scan across the forehead, Maggie’s temperature clicked in at 101.2. The Exergen quickly recorded a temp just 0.1 degrees higher. By the next day Maggie was diagnosed with pneumonia, but she’s doing better today, glad to report.

Meanwhile, the Exergen lived up to its advertised claims as being easy to use and virtually mistake free. A far cry from a temperature-taking incident when Ellie was a little older than Finley’s two and a quarter years. We were using a rectal thermometer back then. Gilda stuck it in and during the three minutes it was supposed to reside in Ellie’s butt, my dear wife fell asleep. So did Ellie. When they awoke about two hours later, Ellie whimpered, “Mommy, the thermometer is still in my tushy.”

Yes, the Exergen Temporal Thermometer would prevent any such mishaps from occurring. But had such technology existed back in the 1980s we might well have missed such classic movies as E.T. and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, as Elliott and Ferris would not have been able to fake their illnesses to play hooky. Off they would have trooped to school.


Passing a Compliment: About 10 days ago Ellie complimented me for being “prolific.” At least I took it as a compliment. Anyway, it’s hard not to find something to write about when there’s so much going on and, with a discerning eye, so much worthy of comment or just simply noting.

Take, for example, a recent headline of an Op-Ed piece in the NY Times: “How to Halt the Butchery in Syria.” How could I not point out the irony of the author’s name: Anne-Marie Slaughter!?!

As long as we’re on the subject of Syria, the plaintive cries for help by those opposed to the Assad regime are heart-rending. But I wonder why it seems the cries are aimed at Western ears when it should be fellow Arabs that should be the first responders. It’s not as if Arab princes and potentates do not have the money or the means to provide relief.


Bottled Up: The economy is said to be improving, but the other day, for the first time in a long time, I noticed someone culling through the recycling bins on our cul de sac looking for redeemable bottles.


Back Page: Okay, after several comments from loyal readers wanting to know why I haven’t written about Jeremy Lin of the Knicks, let me remind people I am not a basketball fan. I did try a few times to see what all the hype was about, but every time I tuned into a game, Lin either was on the bench because the Knicks were way ahead or the Chinese-American sensation was in the middle of a not very productive stretch where he turned the ball over repeatedly and looked just plain overmatched. Still, there’s no denying the Knicks are playing better because of him.

P.S. I hope everyone noticed—no gratuitous Lin-puns.