Friday, December 1, 2006

WILDERNESS HEROES - OR MARTYRS

I've already mentioned Sandra Mackey's extraordinary book: "The Reckoning, Iraq and the Legacy of Saddam Hussein".  Now that I've finished reading it, I must mention it again: it should be reissued, because it contains all the information our politicans apparently didn't have when they made the decision to invade Iraq.  The book was available, but it was a voice in the wilderness.  Maybe now that they know they made a monumentally wrong decision, they will study it, to try to pick up the pieces.  I recommend it to anyone who wants to know why things have gone so wrong.

Another voice in the wilderness is ex-president Jimmy Carter.  He actually has to justify the title of his new book, "Palestine, Peace, not Apartheid", when presenting it.  He is waging an uphill battle to educate the American public about the wrongness of U.S. unconditional support for Israel and the all but totally ignored plight of the Palestinian people.  Carter isn't afraid to puncture the myth that people fighting for their freedom are terrorists.  I'm willing to bet that if anyone asked him whether he made any decisions he regrets when he was president, he would probably say that he didn't know nearly enough about the Middle East when the Iranian revolution took place.  Whatever history decides about his presidency, it will acknowledge him as the most meritorious ex-president.

Speaking of Iran, my bet is on Ahmadinejad for Time's Person of the Year.  It will probably be a toss up between the Iranian president and Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president.  Both of them are acknowledged leaders among the populations of a Third World, which we will probably continue to blow off until it's too late: they are the majority in this world, the developed countries are the minority, and the United States is, if I may abuse scientific terminology, is the absolute minority.  Which is why we need to bring voices in from the wilderness.

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