International Political Will

The skewed Western value placed on human life reared its ugly head again on Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid - a Democrat, proving once again that stupidity and racism is a bipartisan trait - looked like a fool in the face of a (unusual and surprisingly) good question from ABC News’ Jake Tapper: (edited for length)

TAPPER: Senator Reid, what do you say to critics who say, “Look, the Senate voted…to use force in Iraq. Is there not a moral obligation of the United States to make sure that the Iraqi people are safe before the U.S. withdraws”? It’s very clear that withdrawing U.S. troops might make U.S. troops safer, but it won’t necessarily make the Iraqi people safer.

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER HARRY REID, D-NEV: As reported in the news this morning, 69 percent of Iraqis feel they are less safe because of the presence of Americans; 21 percent of the Iraqi people feel they’re safer…[T]hat’s why the Levin-Reed amendment is so critically important…by the first day of May of next year…our combat troops will be out of there. They will be left to do counterterrorism…continuing to train the Iraqis and protecting our resources. That’s what the Iraqi people want and that’s what American people want.

TAPPER: I’m sorry, if I could just follow up very quickly…Do you think the Iraqi people will be safer with U.S. troops out?

REID: It is clear that the Iraqi people don’t want us there. It is clear that there is now a state of chaos in Iraq. And it is up to the Iraqi people to make themselves safe…We can’t do it. It’s time the training wheels come off and they take care of their own country. We have spent billions dollars. We’re now spending $12 billion a month on Iraq. That’s enough. In the last six months of the surge, six months, 600 more dead Americans, $60 billion more of American taxpayers’ money. We, Democrats, unitedly believe that’s enough.

TAPPER: With all due respect, Senator, you didn’t answer my question.

REID: OK. This is not a debate.

TAPPER: Will the Iraqis be safer?

REID: We’re answering questions. (calling on someone else) Yes, young man? Anyone else have a question?

Reid was ambiguous and left it open that not all troops would leave; some would be left to “protect our resources.” (read: Oil, oil, oil!) And after Tapper specifically asked Reid’s opinion - regardless of news polls, about the safety of the Iraqi people - Reid goes back to using the pronoun “we” over and over.

Somehow I don’t think he was including Iraqis when he said “we.”

It’s more of the same; the Democrats claiming “this isn’t the war we voted for.” What the hell do you think you voted for? Wake up and smell your campaign donations from the military-industrial complex, Democrats! (And defecting Republicans, for that matter.) You don’t get to pick and choose the details when you invade a country.

I don’t want to see the occupation continue, by any means, but leaving now isn’t the humanitarian answer. I’ve suggested my own ideas, not that anyone listens to me. If America really wants to move forward it needs to address this issue in a comprehensive manner and stop painting it as a false dilemma between two bad choices. There are never only two choices.

But Reid’s racism and apparent uncaring attitude for anyone not white, American or rich isn’t anything new.

Maybe “anyone” is the wrong word. Perhaps “anything” is a better fit.

Molly McKew, a former fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (a conservative think tank that Ronald Reagan once affectionately referred to as the most influential on government policy), displays a similar distaste for the brown and non-Christian. She was interviewed by Hugh Miles for his book, Al-Jazeera.

They were discussing the possibility of an English-language Al-Jazeera channel, and McKew responded with:

“It will be inevitable that Al-Jazeera’s coverage of an event will be so anti-American and so just non-moral and non-human that it will just turn people against it.” –Molly McKew, AEI (taken from: Al-Jazeera: How Arab TV news challenged the world, by Hugh Miles p. 420)

Now they are not even human. Of course, they aren’t white or Christian, either.

And if you really want a taste of the underlying racism, you can go back to the great war where great men “stood up to evil,” as President Bush likes to remind us.

The leader who fought evil, who rallied the British people and the world with his “Finest Hour” speech, who defied Hitler? The venerable Winston Churchill, of course.

Speaking in 1937 (during the First Palestinian Intifada) about whether Jewish immigrants had a right to the land which was then under British mandate, Churchill let his “democratic and freedom-loving” colors fly:

“I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher grade race, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.”

Not exactly his finest hour.

Have we made any progress in the battle against discrimination and racism since Churchill’s remarks? Of course we have.

I mean, at least Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid just tried to avoid answering, rather than expressing his true feelings. But why must the Civil Rights Movement stop at the US border?

And by the way, props to Jake Tapper for asking a question that much of the mainstream press is too self-absorbed and racist to ask themselves.

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