The day may come when people who believe that there is a
difference between friendly terror and enemy terror, will be compelled to see a
mental specialist or be committed.
The thing is that when a large number of people are fooled
into believing in the honesty of an absurdity that has become popular for some
weird reason, the phenomenon can lead to the making of bad policies and the
taking of erroneous decisions at the highest levels of government. And these decisions
may very well carry within them the seeds of future disasters.
If you accept the notion that in a so-called democracy, the
pundits and commentators – who are subsets of the opinion makers – have the
power to sway the legislators and ultimately entice the government to adopt the
courses of action they recommend, you'll come to appreciate how much horror
someone like Benny Avni and those like him can create. This time, Avni wrote:
“Trump is inheriting a world that's gone to hell,” an article that was
published on December 13, 2016 in the New York Post.
The world is going to hell, he says, because in the span of
a few weeks, violence has erupted in four Middle Eastern places, he goes on to
explain. They are in Yemen
where 48 soldiers were killed; in Egypt
where 25 people were killed; in turkey where 44 people were killed; and of
course there is an ongoing civil war in Syria .
Can we honestly embrace the premise that what Benny Avni has
enumerated constitutes a world that has gone to hell? The tally is 117 dead
people and a war that has gone on for 5 years. The violence took place over a
few weeks in four countries whose combined populations add up to 220 million
people. Of course, one death is one too many, and there is no belittling the
tragedy of those who die or get hurt in such circumstances. But we're talking
about the effect of language on those who listen to it and have the power to
make decisions that affect the lives and well being of millions of people now
and in the future.
To put all that in context, we contrast the Avni description
with what has been going on in Iraq where the war has dragged for 15 years
already – three times as long as in Syria. It has affected a population that is
approximately 22 million people, which is one tenth that of the other three
countries combined. And this is where as many as 3 bombings or more do happen
in a single day. What would Benny Avni call that? Would it be: The world has
gone to a place a hundred times more hellish than hell?
The result is that the Iraq occurrences kill hundreds and
hundreds of people, not spread across three countries, but concentrated in a
single spot. So we ask: what do opinion makers of the Benny Avni kind say about
the situation in Iraq
in the face of these realities? Believe it or not, they say this is the sound
of democracy marching in Iraq .
But perhaps, we should call it explosive democracy that creates terror they try
to sell as a bouquet of friendship.
We now try to solve the puzzle. What do the four countries
have in common between them that makes them different from Iraq ? Also, what is there that
might account for the difference in perception between the Avnis of the world,
and regular folks like the rest of us? The answer is that Iraq was and continues to be under the control
of the United States
… and by extension under Jewish control. Thus, Avni and those like him view it
as being “one of us.” It flows from this that no matter how violent and how
bloody things get within Iraq 's
borders, Avni and company will deem those acts acceptable.
This approach reduces the culture to a series of
bumper-sticker declarations. When this happens, the people's ability to think
in terms of complex strategic ideas is gradually diminished and replaced with
thinking in short term tactical creeds and dogmas. “Being one of us or being
against us,” is one such creed, having contributed mightily to the erosion of
the American culture over a number of decades.
The result is that no matter how good or experienced America 's
public servants get to be, the hand they are dealt with which to measure
themselves against the competition, makes them look like amateurs. This is what
Avni has noticed: “While the crusty Russian diplomat has a strategy, Kerry has
nothing but words”.