 |
Jesse goes a-courtin' Let Us Pray? No Way.By Rick Horowitz This is exactly why I could never be a diplomat -- I'm not nearly diplomatic enough. You take your basic Jesse Jackson moment, zipping around the world to chat up some major monster like Slobodan Milosevic -- I just couldn't do it. Not even when the chatting up is for some ostensibly good purpose, like getting three brave American soldiers sprung from Yugoslav prison cells. I still couldn't do it. I'm just not built that way. I carry grudges, for one thing. I tend to remember things that get me ticked off, and even when I've forgotten some of the details, I still remember exactly who did the ticking. In this case, the details are absolutely fresh, not to mention absolutely horrible, so I'd have a hard time even thinking of sitting down with the sort of man who could be responsible for those kinds of things. Jesse Jackson can do it. I couldn't. Sure, I can make small talk with people, even people I don't especially like, but there are limits. I'd have real problems with "Good morning, Your Excellency," or "Nice to see you, Mr. President," when the proper greeting under the circumstances is more along the lines of "Spread 'em, Butcher!" You can see where that might not go over too well. To be a good diplomat, you also have to swallow lots of hooey. You have to sit there for hours while the object of your attentions goes on and on about how he's the victim here, how he's been misunderstood. "Let him vent," you have to keep telling yourself. "Let him get it off his chest." I'd want to punch him in the chest. Also in the teeth. I'd want to tell him I've never heard such a crock in all my life. In diplomatic circles, this is considered poor practice. A tete-a-tete in the great outdoors? A little private chat, the way Jackson and Milosevic did it, sitting on the garden wall for 45 minutes or so? That would be a problem for me. I'd have a hard time concentrating on the conversation; I'd keep wondering whether I could push the guy off the wall and how far he'd fall and how high he'd bounce. I'd probably smile to myself just at the thought of it, and Milosevic would see my smile and think he was winning me over with his charm. That would be a mistake. I certainly couldn't pray with him right there in public, I know that -- not the way Jesse Jackson did. I see where Jackson says you can't pray only with your friends; you have to pray with your adversaries, too. He's a better man than I am. Before I grabbed Milosevic's hand for prayer or anything else, I'd be trying to get my hands on one of those secret superspy decoder rings with the tiny poison dart. Inappropriate behavior, yes? But it's not just that I'm not diplomatic enough to be a diplomat like Jesse Jackson. I'm also too much of a worrier. When I wasn't dreaming about doing violence to a Slobodan Milosevic, I'd be concerned about giving him the wrong impression. Trying to get those three American servicemen released, for instance -- it would be a great humanitarian gesture on my part, and I know the soldiers and their families would be eternally grateful to me for trying, especially if I actually got them out. But I'd be worried about the message I was sending. Maybe Milosevic would think of me flying across an ocean to try to rescue those three soldiers, and he'd realize how much value America places on every human life. He'd be so impressed by my intercontinental compassion that he'd change his ways and become a better person and stop the killings and the atrocities and all the rest. Fine. But I'd be much too worried that he'd see it exactly the other way around. He might decide that our priorities were totally out of whack, that any country that would expend that kind of effort just to get three soldiers out of prison isn't about to risk the lives of hundreds and thousands of other soldiers to do whatever it takes to stop him. He might even decide that he could win all sorts of brownie points just by releasing those three soldiers, that he could send me home talking about how we have to do something nice for him -- a bombing halt? a face-to-face meeting with President Clinton? -- in return. We'd be so happy about our three soldiers that we'd forget about the thousands of corpses and the hundreds of thousands of refugees. That wouldn't be fine at all. If I were a diplomat like Jesse Jackson, I'd worry about being used. It's a good thing I'm not a diplomat. Posted
5/4/99. Don't tick Rick -- come back
soon!
 |
  |
