Tuesday, May 01, 2001
Dr. Paranoia spins the answers to national and international crises
In these days of political revelations and accusations, paranoia lurks just barely below one's conscious surface. I mean, come on, why did Newsweek's xx save up the story of Senator Bob Kerrey's nightmare Mai Lai type attack on Vietmamese civilians until now, when the 56-year old ex-hero might be about ready to be drafted as the 2004 Democratic candidate for the Presidency?
Why is the story of graft involving New Jersey's. Democratic Senator Robert G. Torricelli hitting the news now, with the potential of forcing his resignation at the time of the death watch of the centenarian Republican Senator Strom Thurmond? Is it that a Republican replacement Senator from New Jersey would kill any opportunity of turning the balance of the US Senate until the election of 2002? With that in mind, is there an equal opportunity Democratic counteroffensive in New Jersey to discredit the Republicans, via the acting Governor Donald T. DiFrancesco? (If so, it has succeeded, DiFrancesco has left the gubernatorial race amid allegations that he broke the legal ethics rules). Is the attack on the NJ Supreme Court Justice Peter G. Verniero, and the call for his impeachment for misleading testimony regarding racial profiling all a part of the strategies for control of the US Senate?
And what about the stories of how the four Democratic candidates in New York's majoral race are using their jobs, their staffs and the government funds to gently push their candidacies with the voters? Messrs Vallone and Ferrer use their taxpayer-paid mailings tto advance their causes, Mr. Hevesi has hired Senator Clinton's campaign spokeswoman to fill the office of the Controller's communications director, vacant for three years, and Mr. Green's office staff prepares his campaign material. All of this helps for the September primary, since the campaign funds limit, $5.33 million for each candidate, must be earmarked for the expensive TV commercials. Are the stories planted to help the Wealthy Republican candidate? If so, it is all in vain. The City Campaign Board and the City Conflicts of Interest Board will not find anything wrong with the campaign activities of these time-hardened politicians, no matter how much the competition prompts them.
Enough of domestic strife, let's look to international events. How does the Intifada II fit within Dr Paranoia's scenario? Well, it all started with the Camp David peace negotiations in OCTTTTT. The three participants agreed to meet because they needed the event to establish credibility with their constituents, and they succeeded. Prime Minister Ehud Barak could up his offer to return an incredible 92 percent of the West Bank occupied territories because he knew that Yassir Arafat could not come back to his constituents without acquiring a big piece of Jerusalem. A surrender of Jerusalem to Israel would assure his assasination, with Hamas, Hezbollah and any number of other Palestinian Muslem fanatics contending for the honor. By holding out he pumped up his flagging stature with his Palestinians.
Barak, by making the offer, established his standing as an earnest advocate of peace, who would go to the limit, and thereby prove the irrationality of the Palestinians' demands. He too would have been a goner, assassinated or otherwise, if he had surrendered Jerusalem.
President Clinton knew all along that an agreement between the two parties was impossible, but organized the peace talks and pushed and prodded the two antagonists to establish his own bona fides as an earnest broker who tried, both for the benefit of the peace community and for his stature in the history books.
So, why then, after the breakup of the talks, did the two parties not go back to another eight years of a post-Oslo like hibernation? What prompted the new deadly Intifada?
Well, folks, there are also other interests. In Dr. Paranoia's scenario, the Likud leader Ariel Sharon needed a cause to bring forth a political upsurge in the standing of his party. By provoking the Moslems with his jack-booted visit to the sacred Temple Mount, he expected to evoke Palestinian attacks, suicide missions and riots that would prove to the peace Israelis that the Palestinians cannot be trusted. The pro- peace Israelis had begun to envision a final solution of co-existence, and there were those who would have surrendered parts of Jerusalem to be the capital of a new Palestinian state, for the sake of providing a peaceful life for all future generations. Sharon's plan succeeded, the Palestinian extremists used the excuse of his visit to start up a new Intifada and reactivate their demands for reclaiming Jerusalem and restoring the borders of 1947, and Arafat had to move fast and talk tough, so as not to lose his leadership of the troops to some real militant. The poor disenchanted pro-peace Israelis, convinced that there is no way to assure a co-existence with the Palestinians, groaned and formed a national unity coalition behind Sharon. The Labor an Likud parties are now one, for national security purposes, and the Mideast world is back to the permanent low-grade war status. In a sense, that is reassuring, since the Gulf kingdoms, afraid of the Palestinians, will not finance a big war, and the Israelis, afraid of a Kosovo-like reaction on part of the UN or the NATO forces, will keep their retaliations to a minimum. Note that the Israeli tanks came back from the Gaza Strip in a day, after securing their objective of destroying the hiding places used for mortar attacks, and the work permits for Palestinians have been expanded. The Intifada may wind down.
Now, what about the US and China, are we going for a big confrontation? Nah, says Dr. Paranoia. Look, we left a lot of secret stuff on the plane that will reassure the Chinese of our peaceful intents. As for our promise to protect Taipei, we did not sell the Aegis system to the Taiwanese, we gave them the Kidd-class destroyers, built for the Shah of Iran - in the 1970s, for goodness sake - to be delivered in three years, and diesel submarines that we have to build, with parts to be bought from the Germans or the Dutch. In their secret hearts the Chinese leaders should feel quite comfortable. If Dr. Paranoia did not know better, he might think that the US dropped the EP-3 plane on the Chinese in Hainan to give them an opportunity to learn what we are doing, as part of an effort to reassure them of our peceful intents (Dr. Paranoia has misspent his youth reading Ian Fleming and Tom Clancy and studying Winston Churchill, the Spectra case and disinformation). The tough talk that President Bush and the Chinese leaders mouth is strictly for public consumption and preservation of face. President George W. must have some agreement up his sleeve, else the wily Rxx, the stra ight-talking Powell and the plain-thinking Laura Bush would have held him back. He is no Jack Kennedy, and even the K. brothers did not threaten Khruschew into withdrawing the rockets from Havana without a secret quid-pro-quo of withdrawing our Jupiters from Turkey. The Beijing crowd has to maintain the posture of tough independence, and hope that the US Congress will not mistake it for the real thing and decide to respond in kind by screwing up the trade talks.
Dr. Paranoia suggests that we should stay cool, the behind-the-scenes world may be more rational than we think.
Why is the story of graft involving New Jersey's. Democratic Senator Robert G. Torricelli hitting the news now, with the potential of forcing his resignation at the time of the death watch of the centenarian Republican Senator Strom Thurmond? Is it that a Republican replacement Senator from New Jersey would kill any opportunity of turning the balance of the US Senate until the election of 2002? With that in mind, is there an equal opportunity Democratic counteroffensive in New Jersey to discredit the Republicans, via the acting Governor Donald T. DiFrancesco? (If so, it has succeeded, DiFrancesco has left the gubernatorial race amid allegations that he broke the legal ethics rules). Is the attack on the NJ Supreme Court Justice Peter G. Verniero, and the call for his impeachment for misleading testimony regarding racial profiling all a part of the strategies for control of the US Senate?
And what about the stories of how the four Democratic candidates in New York's majoral race are using their jobs, their staffs and the government funds to gently push their candidacies with the voters? Messrs Vallone and Ferrer use their taxpayer-paid mailings tto advance their causes, Mr. Hevesi has hired Senator Clinton's campaign spokeswoman to fill the office of the Controller's communications director, vacant for three years, and Mr. Green's office staff prepares his campaign material. All of this helps for the September primary, since the campaign funds limit, $5.33 million for each candidate, must be earmarked for the expensive TV commercials. Are the stories planted to help the Wealthy Republican candidate? If so, it is all in vain. The City Campaign Board and the City Conflicts of Interest Board will not find anything wrong with the campaign activities of these time-hardened politicians, no matter how much the competition prompts them.
Enough of domestic strife, let's look to international events. How does the Intifada II fit within Dr Paranoia's scenario? Well, it all started with the Camp David peace negotiations in OCTTTTT. The three participants agreed to meet because they needed the event to establish credibility with their constituents, and they succeeded. Prime Minister Ehud Barak could up his offer to return an incredible 92 percent of the West Bank occupied territories because he knew that Yassir Arafat could not come back to his constituents without acquiring a big piece of Jerusalem. A surrender of Jerusalem to Israel would assure his assasination, with Hamas, Hezbollah and any number of other Palestinian Muslem fanatics contending for the honor. By holding out he pumped up his flagging stature with his Palestinians.
Barak, by making the offer, established his standing as an earnest advocate of peace, who would go to the limit, and thereby prove the irrationality of the Palestinians' demands. He too would have been a goner, assassinated or otherwise, if he had surrendered Jerusalem.
President Clinton knew all along that an agreement between the two parties was impossible, but organized the peace talks and pushed and prodded the two antagonists to establish his own bona fides as an earnest broker who tried, both for the benefit of the peace community and for his stature in the history books.
So, why then, after the breakup of the talks, did the two parties not go back to another eight years of a post-Oslo like hibernation? What prompted the new deadly Intifada?
Well, folks, there are also other interests. In Dr. Paranoia's scenario, the Likud leader Ariel Sharon needed a cause to bring forth a political upsurge in the standing of his party. By provoking the Moslems with his jack-booted visit to the sacred Temple Mount, he expected to evoke Palestinian attacks, suicide missions and riots that would prove to the peace Israelis that the Palestinians cannot be trusted. The pro- peace Israelis had begun to envision a final solution of co-existence, and there were those who would have surrendered parts of Jerusalem to be the capital of a new Palestinian state, for the sake of providing a peaceful life for all future generations. Sharon's plan succeeded, the Palestinian extremists used the excuse of his visit to start up a new Intifada and reactivate their demands for reclaiming Jerusalem and restoring the borders of 1947, and Arafat had to move fast and talk tough, so as not to lose his leadership of the troops to some real militant. The poor disenchanted pro-peace Israelis, convinced that there is no way to assure a co-existence with the Palestinians, groaned and formed a national unity coalition behind Sharon. The Labor an Likud parties are now one, for national security purposes, and the Mideast world is back to the permanent low-grade war status. In a sense, that is reassuring, since the Gulf kingdoms, afraid of the Palestinians, will not finance a big war, and the Israelis, afraid of a Kosovo-like reaction on part of the UN or the NATO forces, will keep their retaliations to a minimum. Note that the Israeli tanks came back from the Gaza Strip in a day, after securing their objective of destroying the hiding places used for mortar attacks, and the work permits for Palestinians have been expanded. The Intifada may wind down.
Now, what about the US and China, are we going for a big confrontation? Nah, says Dr. Paranoia. Look, we left a lot of secret stuff on the plane that will reassure the Chinese of our peaceful intents. As for our promise to protect Taipei, we did not sell the Aegis system to the Taiwanese, we gave them the Kidd-class destroyers, built for the Shah of Iran - in the 1970s, for goodness sake - to be delivered in three years, and diesel submarines that we have to build, with parts to be bought from the Germans or the Dutch. In their secret hearts the Chinese leaders should feel quite comfortable. If Dr. Paranoia did not know better, he might think that the US dropped the EP-3 plane on the Chinese in Hainan to give them an opportunity to learn what we are doing, as part of an effort to reassure them of our peceful intents (Dr. Paranoia has misspent his youth reading Ian Fleming and Tom Clancy and studying Winston Churchill, the Spectra case and disinformation). The tough talk that President Bush and the Chinese leaders mouth is strictly for public consumption and preservation of face. President George W. must have some agreement up his sleeve, else the wily Rxx, the stra ight-talking Powell and the plain-thinking Laura Bush would have held him back. He is no Jack Kennedy, and even the K. brothers did not threaten Khruschew into withdrawing the rockets from Havana without a secret quid-pro-quo of withdrawing our Jupiters from Turkey. The Beijing crowd has to maintain the posture of tough independence, and hope that the US Congress will not mistake it for the real thing and decide to respond in kind by screwing up the trade talks.
Dr. Paranoia suggests that we should stay cool, the behind-the-scenes world may be more rational than we think.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 6:06 AM 
