Posted on 11/30/2006 7:48:45 AM PST by Tirian
From what we know so far, the Baker Commission is going to recommend that we cut troop levels in Iraq, attempt to make nicey-nice with our determined enemies in Iran and Syria, and demand Israeli concessions to serve as the deus ex machina to bring about peace in our time. In a word, oy vey!
Coming from a commission headed by James Baker, the latter recommendation is especially jarring. During his tenure as Secretary of State, I believe his most famous quote regarding Israel and the Jews was (and pardon his French), “Fuck the Jews. They didn’t vote for us anyway.”
Whether or not Baker is an anti-Semite or merely a non-comprehending putz is a disputable but largely academic matter. A report from America’s putative best minds that focuses on the six million Jews in the region rather than the one billion Muslims is fatally suspect. Of course, it’s more politically expedient and just plain easier to focus on the Jews. Regardless of what idiocies the Baker Commission pukes out, our government won’t have to put itself on alert for a gaggle of flying rabbis determined to terrify airliners.
THERE’S SO MUCH THAT JIM BAKER doesn’t understand and never has understood; I honestly don’t know where to begin. Perhaps a good place to start would be in 1941 when the Palestinian leader, Mufti al-Husseini, journeyed to Berlin and aligned himself, his people and his movement with the Nazi agenda of annihilating the Jews. Since that time (which was actually seven years before Israel was born), extermination of the Zionist Entity and those inside of it, not any kind of peace agreement, has been the lodestar of the Radical Muslim world. To think that this leopard is suddenly going to change its spots or be satisfied with a Sudentenland-sized chunk of Israel is ludicrous. When Ahmadenijad said he wanted to wipe Israel off the map, he meant it.
Aaah, Ahmadenijad. What does this man have to do to convince our country that he means business? Last night, John Kerry was on Larry King (there’s a convergence of some sort). Kerry was fresh from having testified before the Baker Commission. Why the Baker Commission needed the insights of this particular Senator will be yet another mystery of our era for historians to unravel.
Kerry seemed quite satisfied with what the Baker Commission was going to recommend. He seemed especially tickled that the Commission was poised to seek a diplomatic settlement with Iran and Syria to bring about peace in the Middle East. The fact that a diplomatic settlement with these nations would depend on the good faith of their lunatic leaders either doesn’t bother or fails to register with the Kerry and the Commission.
Perhaps the most disturbing and most dispiriting aspect of the entire Baker Commission exercise is that it represents a distinctly post 9/11 view of things, but that the commission and apparently great swaths of our government have learned all the wrong lessons from that day. Bad generals always fight the last war, and 9/11 was the last war.
Let me explain: It’s not terrorism that’s our biggest problem, but hostile regimes. Donald Rumsfeld went on TV the weekend after 9/11 and characterized it as a battle in a new kind of war, a battle that we had lost. This was a fruitful way to look at things. In the epochal clash whose arrival was heralded on that day, the losses suffered on 9/11 by historical and future standards were a pinprick.
I don’t mean that disrespectfully. I cried that day, and cried again a week later when my wife and I attended the funeral of a close friend of hers. But 9/11 signaled the start of a long war with implacable foes. And the losses of 9/11, while shocking, were nothing compared to the losses suffered in London during the blitz let alone those suffered contemporaneously in Dresden, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The larger point is that 9/11 showed the maximum of what maniacs can accomplish with guile, a little money and an impoverished regime providing them safe haven. Compared to what maniacs will be able to accomplish with hundreds of billions of petro-dollars while running regimes flush with cash and having a limitless desire for martyrdom and murder, 9/11’s damage comes into a different, sharper focus.
WE KNOW WHO’S GOING to love the Baker Commission recommendations. The Democrats at home who think getting out of Iraq is the only thing that matters will jump aboard the report as an intellectual life raft. Bereft of any ideas of their own for the past five years, Democrats will seize on the report as cover for getting our illiterate children in the armed forces home.
But the Iranian mullahs will be even happier. The Baker Commission report will give them the same feeling that Hitler got in Munich – these men will not fight. They will see a solid chunk of the American body politic eager to sell out an ally while making concessions to our enemies without requiring those enemies to fire a single shot.
But here’s the killer part: Even if President Bush does the right thing and shoves this report in a part of James Baker’s anatomy where the sun don’t shine, the Commission will still do incalculable harm. The media, the Democrats and even many Republicans have already given the Baker Commission the sheen of omniscience once wrongly bestowed upon the 9/11 Commission. Regardless of the obtuseness of the Baker Commission’s recommendations, they will be hailed as genius and indisputable by wide swaths of the public.
Our country will look ridiculous. And a country like ours can’t afford to look ridiculous. Or weak. Especially at this point in history.
Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.
The larger point is that 9/11 showed the maximum of what maniacs can accomplish with guile, a little money and an impoverished regime providing them safe haven. Compared to what maniacs will be able to accomplish with hundreds of billions of petro-dollars while running regimes flush with cash and having a limitless desire for martyrdom and murder, 9/11’s damage comes into a different, sharper focus."
Lest anyone forget: Jim Baker was instrumental in convincing the first President Bush to break his word and raise taxes.
But don't forget, he's Realistic. That's the important thing. /sarc.
I wouldn't trust Jim Baker with a 10-cent stamp.
Bush should take this report from Baker and Hamilton, smile at them, and then before everyone throw it in the trash.
The Iraq commission has ZERO expertise in running a war or the aftermath.
They are a bunch of diplomates, who think that the answer to everything is to talk the enemy to death -- except this does NOT work with terrorists.
Here is the list of the members:
http://www.usip.org/isg/members.html
"It is led by co-chairs James A. Baker, III, the nation’s 61st Secretary of State and Honorary Chairman of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice University, and Lee H. Hamilton, former Congressman and Director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.
The other members of the study group include: Lawrence S. Eagleburger, Vernon E. Jordan, Jr., Edwin Meese III , Sandra Day O'Connor, Leon E. Panetta, William J. Perry, Charles S. Robb, and Alan K. Simpson. "
Look at their detailed credentials at the link above. Even the respected ones only have experience in diplomacy, some have no experience even in foreign policy, such as Sandra Day O'Connor.
The only ex Sec Def is Perry, who was SecDef under Clinton -- not an illustrious recommendation.
Why isn't the Bush Administration -- not to mention the MSM -- point out the total lack of experience of the panel in the matters at hand, the Iraq war, about which they are making recommendations.
This is like asking a bunch of medical malpractice lawyers, instead of doctors, a second opinion about whether or not to have surgery. They may be highly successful lawyers, but giving a second opinion on surgery is NOT their field by long shot.
One of the articles mentioned that they had Kerry and McCain testify in front of the panel -- great experts! (/sarcasm)
Jim Baker was involved in that and, as Secretary of State, in the decision not to oust Saddam in 1991. He was rejected as a candidate for President in 1996, why would we let him make our policy now?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." -Manuel II Paleologus
What I see for the future of this country......First, we will, if the Democrats have their way, pull out of Iraq. We won't loose the war, we will loose our strength politically around the world. Second, muslims will take over the region and they will attack us again. Third, once we are attacked again, possibly with nukes, this country will be embroiled in a world war that will be so big, it will set Iraq, Iran, Syria and other countries back 1000 years.
Don't forget that Sandra Day O'Connor is on the Commission. The test will be whether the war is an "undue burden."
Bush should take this report from Baker and Hamilton, smile at them, and then before everyone throw it in the trash.""
I agree if that is what these "statemen" are recommending.
I thought a lot more of Jim Baker until this last couple of months. He has feet of clay, IMO.
Was Baker instrumental in letting the Republican Guard take most of their equipment back to Iraq? Did he sway Bush 1 to leave Hussein free to kill the Kurds when they revolted?
Just wondering the depth of his worthlessness.
Vernon Jordan? Charles Robb?
The only person on that panel who truly understands the problem and the consequences is Eagleburger, whom I've heard speaking as forcefully about the Islamists as anyone on FR or Jihadwatch. He does get it.
The Baker Report should come with a Chamberlain umbrella.
"Jim Baker was involved in that and, as Secretary of State, in the decision not to oust Saddam in 1991."
Baker and Scowcroft, another "realist", who's thankfully not on this panel.
Good morning.
?.....""detonate a nuclear bomb in New York City"...
"And the downside of this is?....."
Brilliant statement there, arbooz.
Michael Frazier
Ping!
Come on
This report is really an admission that the Commission doesn't know what to do but they had to come out with something to CTA . They couldn't say "We don't know what the hell we are doing "
Leave Iraq but NO TIME TABLE --Big deal
Talks with IRAN --Talking is OK as long as you don't stop shooting . It is the phoney talks where you allow the bad guys to re-arm while you stop shooting or limit the shooting that are problems
A Big Nothing ( except it will give the MSM some ammo to ballyhoo on the nightly shows )
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