Bibi Selassie: Dotted Points of Light
A. An historical analogy
When you reach a certain age, events
that to younger people seem dim and distant still remain fresh in memory.
Watching the events surrounding Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s invitation
to address Congress, I am reminded of Haile Selassie’s address to the League of
Nations.
As he spoke in 1936 and as Auden
warned in his poem "September 1, 1939", the likelihood of a coming conflagration grows
and yet a few people still stand for civilization:
Defenceless under the night
Our world in stupor lies;
Yet, dotted everywhere,
Ironic points of light
Flash out wherever the Just
Exchange their messages:
May I, composed like them
Of Eros and of dust,
Beleaguered by the same
Negation and despair,
Show an affirming flame.
As you will recall, the League of
Nations was created with high-minded intentions to end war, with covenants
between its members to come to their aid in case of attacks. Italy attacked
Ethiopia and Haile Selassie passionately addressed the League, begging it for
assistance which it had earlier denied, a cowardly breach of promise by the
League. Not long after that, fascism engaged the world in the worst, most
global battle for civilization, a battle won only after the loss of
millions of lives and the infliction of untold suffering. His entire speech is
worth reading, but these snippets stand out as particularly relevant today as Israel’s most
important ally – us -- clearly prepares to abandon her, leaving Israel ,us and
the rest of the world at great risk from a nuclearized Iran.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/selassie.htm
I, Haile Selassie I, Emperor of
Ethiopia, am here today to claim that justice which is due to my people, and
the assistance promised to it eight months ago, when fifty nations asserted
that aggression had been committed in violation of international treaties.
There is no precedent for a Head of
State himself speaking in this assembly. But there is also no precedent for a
people being victim of such injustice and being at present threatened by
abandonment to its aggressor. Also, there has never before been an example of
any Government proceeding to the systematic extermination of a nation by
barbarous means, in violation of the most solemn promises made by the nations
of the earth that there should not be used against innocent human beings the
terrible poison of harmful gases.
[snip]
I have heard it asserted that the
inadequate sanctions already applied have not achieved their object. At no
time, and under no circumstances could sanctions that were intentionally
inadequate, intentionally badly applied, stop an aggressor. This is not a case
of the impossibility of stopping an aggressor but of the refusal to stop an
aggressor.
B. Sanctions that are “Intentionally
Inadequate, intentionally badly applied”
The administration’s response to
Iran’s belligerence in the face of inadequate sanctions to stop its drive for
nuclear arms is nonsensical blather by the secretary of state and the
administration’s Samantha Powers and Susan Rice, among others.
Gerard Ingethron, who identified
himself as a “former corporate speech writer,” took aim at the nonsense blather of a Kerry op-ed in the Wall Street Journal:
The more I read it, the funnier it
gets. If one has nothing real to offer, use the important words: “global
conversation,” “best practices,” “global partnership,” “proactive,” “concrete
alternatives,” “empowering leaders,” “transform the environments,” “building
alternatives,” “identify the zones of greatest vulnerability,” “tailor our
efforts,” “target our resources,” “envision a future,” “positive progress,”
“funnel more resources, creative ideas and energy,” “catalyze a global effort,”
“but let me be clear,” “send a clear signal,” “we will not cower,” “we will
prevail” and “we charge forward.”
I’m surprised he didn’t conclude by
saying, “At the end of the day. . . .
In the meantime from what little has
been made publicly available, it is crystal clear that
as with Ethiopia in the 1930s, "the inadequate sanctions already applied
have not achieved their object”, and, in fact, we are about to enter into an
even more toothless agreement with the mullahs.
The news from the nuclear talks with
Iran was already troubling. Iran was being granted the “right to enrich.” It
would be allowed to retain and spin thousands of centrifuges. It could continue
construction of the Arak plutonium reactor. Yet so thoroughly was Iran
stonewalling International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors that just last
Thursday the IAEA reported its concern “about the possible existence in Iran of
undisclosed . . . development of a nuclear payload for a missile.”
Bad enough. Then it got worse: News
leaked Monday of the elements of a “sunset clause.” President Obama had
accepted the Iranian demand that any restrictions on its program be
time-limited. After which, the mullahs can crank up their nuclear program at
will and produce as much enriched uranium as they want.
Sanctions lifted. Restrictions gone.
Nuclear development legitimized. Iran would reenter the international
community, as Obama suggested in an interview in December, as “a very
successful regional power.” A few years -- probably around 10 -- of good
behavior and Iran would be home free. The agreement thus would provide a
predictable path to an Iranian bomb. Indeed, a flourishing path, with trade
resumed, oil pumping and foreign investment pouring into a restored economy.
Meanwhile, Iran’s intercontinental
ballistic missile program is subject to no restrictions at all. It’s not even
part of these negotiations.
Why is Iran building them? You don’t
build ICBMs in order to deliver sticks of dynamite. Their only purpose is to
carry nuclear warheads.
As if the administration’s slavish
concessions to Iran weren’t fueling enough opposition, we learned this week
that for three and one-half years it has been sitting on documentary proof of Iran’s
secret ties with Osama bin Laden:and South African intelligence exposed Iranian efforts to bypass sanctions using civilian covers
One 2010 document shows that Iranian
intelligence had been using various other civilian covers, including an Iranian
news agency, the country’s national airline, its shipping services, and much
more.
Among other things, these Iranian
spies were making contact with citizens of the country considered to be
extremists, and who maintained ties with Hizb’allah and Hamas cells in certain
target countries, or who recruited people to join them.
One of the more troubling details
was the shipment of arms to Iranian embassies, “both the Ministry of
Intelligence and the revolutionary committees have used diplomatic tags in
order to send weapons to Iranian embassies overseas,” the report said. These
weapons are “then stored in the embassies, with full knowledge of the local ambassadors.”
The next step, according to the
intelligence report, was to train terrorist cells in various missions against
specific targets, which are usually “Israeli or American.” By using local
terrorist cells, South African intelligence noted, the Iranians can claim that
they are not involved in the subsequent incidents.
The report noted that this, for
example, was how between 1989 and 2002, 24 agents carried out accurate and
well-planned assassinations in Europe and Turkey, which were personally approved
by the Iranian president or the country’s spiritual leader.
C. How Desperate is the
administration to Shut Bibi Up?
Very. Because the minute attention
is diverted from the usual media nonsense to the reality of the
administration’s chicanery with Iran, the second “centerpiece” of this administration (the first
being ObamaCare) will be exposed for the equally foolhardy nonsense it is.
When Selassie addressed the League
of Nations, Italy withdrew its delegation and Italian journalists in the
galleries jeered and blew whistles given them by Mussolini’s son-in-law to
drown out his message, Selassie waited for the demonstration to end and then
delivered his powerful message.
I don’t know if the administration
has handed out whistles to the sycophants in the American media, but it has fed
them a bill of goods suggesting falsely that this tiff is merely the result of
personal antagonism between the two leaders. But the running dogs of the jihadists are, like Mussolini, boycotting the speech:
The boycott lists consists of
two groups. Congressional Black Caucus members who are offended on Obama’s
behalf and can smell racism anywhere.
The other consists of opponents of
Israel.
It’s instructive to compare the list
of boycotters to the 54 members of Congress who signed a letter calling for an
end to Israel’s blockade of Hamas in Gaza.
Of the 25 current boycotters, Earl
Blumenauer, Raúl Grijalva, Keith Ellison, Peter DeFazio, Betty McCollum, Jim
McDermott, Barbara Lee, and John Yarmuth had also signed the Hamas letter in
2010.
Considering how much the makeup of
the House has changed then and not in the favor of the Democrats, the overlap
is quite significant. A number of these are also among the top recipients of
CAIR cash in Congress.
Their boycott isn’t some new
response to something Netanyahu did. They’re longtime opponents of Israel.
Here’s what I wrote about some of
these creatures back then. The makeup of Congress has changed, for the better,
but some of this remains relevant.
Congresswoman Betty McCollum has
been waging her own private war on Israel, right down to issuing an imperial
demand that Israeli Ambassador Oren attend the national conference of the far
left anti-Israel group, J Street. McCollum famously belittled Hamas’ shelling
of Israel as nothing more than a drug gang’s drive by shooting and repeated the
discredited white phosphorous smear.
McDermott was actually named CAIR’s
Public Official of the Year.
And it is instructive to note how
many of the congressmen and congresswomen on the list are funded by CAIR money.
Keith Ellison, John Conyers, Loretta Sanchez, Betty McCollum, Lois Capps, Bill
Pascrell, Elijah Cummings, Bob Filner, Mike Honda, Barbara Lee, John Dingell,
James Moran, Nick Rahall, Andre Carson, Mary Jo Kilroy, Carolyn Kilpatrick and
Jim McDermott are among the top receivers of CAIR money in congress.
In 1963, long after the conclusion
of World War II Selassie said:
“Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted,
the indifference of those who should have known better, the silence of the
voice of justice when it mattered most, that has made it possible for evil to
triumph.
As memorable and iconic as that
speech was, the League failed to create effective sanctions and only six
nations members refused to recognize Italy’s occupation.
While the rest of the world may not
think a nuclear Iran would threaten them it certainly does, and I, therefore,
wish Bibi much better luck at persuading Congress and this country of this than
Selassie was about allowing evil to triumph at the League of Nations.
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