Republican House Foreign Affairs Chair Mike McCaul (R-Texas) called Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) coup against the Speaker, Kevin McCarthy, “dangerous.” But, in spite of being unseated, McCarthy outlined a strategy to help Israel. He stated that our strategy for the present Israel crisis is “five-pronged: rescuing U.S. hostages currently being held by Hamas, supplying Israel with new weapons, confronting Iran, addressing U.S. domestic national security and confronting anti-Semitism.” It’s a five point “strategy” that for this writer is part of Congressional Mealy-Mouthese which is why McCarthy deserved to be unseated. Let us consider each of his five points and try to explain why each would leave heads nodding in a mood of soporific disgust.
“Rescuing U.S. hostages currently being held by Hamas” Accounts of hostages is estimated at 700-1200. Hostages – mostly Israelis –have been taken. We do not know if the American hostages are alive or dead. We do not know if they are being held in broom closets in a Gaza apartment or if they are in a more formal jail. Here we have one of the most heinous, barbaric and vile incursions in world history, and first on McCarthy’s to-do list are 7-22 Americans who may not even be alive. For him to begin his list with a short list of priorities with a vague statement about hostages when we are looking at mind boggling crimes against humanity is part of what Matt Gaetz and others find repulsive about a politics-as-usual politician like McCarthy. Instead, he should be stirring up the American people to see that the extensive hostage taking that includes Americans but is mainly of Israeli Jews is vile kidnapping.
This kidnapping – often accompanied by beatings, torture, and threats – is vile and itself deserving of the death sentence. He should be calling for the immediate return of all American hostages and all Israeli hostages, and that if they are not returned he will fully support wiping Hamas’ leadership off the face of the Earth FOREVER. He should thus not call for rescue but for death. He should be insisting that if American hostages are not given up within 24 hours that U.S. warplanes will be deployed to hit targets in Gaza because holding U.S. citizens as hostages is an act of war. McCarthy’s understated statement is insufficiently pro-active.
“Supplying Israel with new weapons.” McCarthy should be saying emphatically that we demand to know how many new weapons the U.S. has sent and is committed to sending to Israel as direct military aid. There is no shortage of statements about the weapons intended for and sent to Ukraine. We want to know practically, that is with specifics, what weapons are being sent and when they have been sent or will be sent. We need to hear leaders ask the administration and the Joint Chiefs “What have you sent?” McCarthy should be saying, “I should not have to ask for weapons. rather, the House should already have in its hands the numbers and types of weapons that have been sent and will be sent on an ongoing basis to Israel.” His general talk about supplying should be replaced with questions about how many and when. His lack of specificity is what we the deplorable public find so frustrating about the political class that speaks vaguely in order to “leave room for negotiation.” Why can he not say what type of planes he wants deployed, what type of guns he wants sent, what type of short-range or longer-range missiles are needed to thereby get the vile Hamas people afraid for their very lives!!!
“Confronting Iran”. Our dear EX-Speaker knows that Obama and his lackeys including former Secy. of State John Kerry were playing knee-sy with Iran for eight years. They came up with the stinking JCOPA “deal” and sent pallets of billions of dollars to Iran during Barry’s miserable eight years as Muslim-in-chief of the USA. Despite Iran having taken hostages in 1979, despite their acknowledged involvement in the bombing of the Khobar Towers, in the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon, in the attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, and in the creation and maintenance of Hezbollah and Hamas, President Biden – known for his creativity, intelligence, and initiative as a leader – has doggedly tried to reinstate or mimic the Barack initiatives of 2009-2017 regarding Iran. If Obama and his clone successors saw no reason to confront Iran during the years of 2009-2017 nor during 2021-the present, by what logic will McCarthy’s “call to confront” push the government to do so. Rather, it is not mere confrontation that is needed but an aggressive, even savage reversal of U.S. policy towards Iran.
So, again, we must ask, to what end are these seemingly endless negotiations involving the U.S. and Iran? How does the world benefit from these negotiations? We even recently broke our longstanding policy of paying ransom for hostages by exchanging five Iranian prisoners for five American hostages where we paid billions to Iran as well as returning the Iranians. That was a ransom payment! Thus, to speak, as McCarthy does, about confronting Iran is to soft sell something that will require a complete about face. It must be made clear that confrontation if properly presented means unquestionable rejection and repudiation. We must withdraw from all negotiations with Iran. We must freeze Iranian assets that have been unfrozen. We must bully Iranian ships throughout the world. And our leaders must declare that Iran is an enemy of the USA and will remain an enemy until, somehow, its leadership of Shi’ite Radical Muslims is overturned. We must take a lesson from our response to the Tripoli pirates in the early 19th century. At first it was tepid, but then we ramped up and won. In the present state of affairs, calling for “confrontation” is a mealy-mouthed statement, not a statement of unequivocal opposition.
“Addressing U.S. domestic national security and confronting anti-Semitism.” How many attacks by Islamic terrorists are necessary in our country or throughout the world to know that this attack on Israel is a most serious – even hideous – threat? Again McCarthy’s language is too tepid to justify leading a great country like the USA. We are confronting a mentality that is savage, cruel, and uncompromising to be even considered anti-Semitism. It is a mentality worse than anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism led to the expulsion of Jews from England, from Spain, and even from Arab countries after the founding of Israel. What we are considering with Hamas and their defenders and helpers is a primitive, barbaric, and animalistic hatred justified by various verses of the Quran which, sadly, more peaceful Muslims are unwilling to disavow. These have to do with cutting off heads and killing Jews and infidels. It is a form of anti-Semitism found in Nazism and Islam. People are free to reject or not like other people and to distance themselves from others of an offending religion or sub-culture, but we are not free to maim, kidnap, kill, or torture those individuals. Those all constitute crimes against the state and against the moral law.
EX-Speaker McCarthy’s remarks are too tepid. They are typical political prattle. We deplorables are dissatisfied with prattle. We want leaders who will say what they mean and mean what they say.
Jeffrey Ludwig
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
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