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America the Pinata Step Right Up! Take a Shot!By Rick Horowitz
You know what it's like? It's like the dunking booth at the state fair. You know the one --there's some guy sitting on a stool right above a big tub of water, and you throw a ball or a sponge or something at a bull's-eye, and if you hit the bull's-eye just right, the stool tips over and the guy goes "Splash!" Right into the water. Only this time, we're the ones sitting on the stool. And the line to take a shot at us runs clear across the midway. Welcome to the United Nations. Welcome to now. Is it frustrating, watching the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hugo Chavez strut and slither their way to the General Assembly podium? Watching them launch attack after attack at us, the greatest force for freedom in the history of the world -- questioning our history and our policies and our honesty, and even our humanity?
Now, if only we could tell ourselves the attacks were totally unprovoked. At the state fair, you remember, the guy on the stool doesn't just sit there waiting for business. He stirs things up. He'll make a crack about your muscles, or your girlfriend. (Or your girlfriend's muscles.) He'll stick out his tongue, say something really nasty about your mother, or your clothes. He'll get you so riled up you can't wait to slam down your money and start firing away. But that's the whole idea! The guy on the stool wants you throwing things; that's how he and his pals make their living. And the angrier he can get you, the more they make. At the U.N., it's different -- or at least it's supposed to be. We're not supposed to be in the needless-provocation business. There's no particular advantage in saying and doing things that make the rest of the world only too happy to see us brought down a peg. What kinds of things? Oh, I don't know. How about invading and occupying other countries for reasons that turn out to be either a) inaccurate or b) trumped up? That might get some people riled up, don't you think? How about operating secret prisons, or holding detainees without charges for year after year? How about electrodes? How about snarling dogs? Can you imagine any of those things getting people...perturbed at us? How about arguing that the Geneva Conventions have to be changed? For us, that is -- not for anyone else. How about claiming the right to use "alternative procedures" to extract information from prisoners? (If we say it's not "torture," does that mean it's not?) Can you see where those kinds of arguments, those kinds of claims, might not sit too well with others? Here's the thing: There are people out there -- the Ahmadinejads and the Chavezes and such -- who don't need any provocation. They're perfectly willing to come after us with their insults, with their sarcasm and their disdain. They'll say whatever they want to say, and there's not much we can do about it. But we don't have to hand them extra ammunition. And we certainly don't have to give the rest of the world reason to think, "Hey, maybe they're right." As big as we are, as strong as we are, we still can't do it all alone. A generation ago -- even a decade ago -- Ahmadinejad's and Chavez's comments would have been laughable. Now they're dangerous. And we help them become even more dangerous. The president and his people are always talking about "the tools" they need to fight all the different threats they see out there. Does it make any sense, then, to give extra tools to other people, to people who mean us harm? Of course not. So why do we keep handing out the balls and the sponges? Posted 9/22/06. Tell your friends about
"Rick's" - they'll be so glad!
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Rick Horowitz
