Charlie Rose

JohnGelles  03/18/2011 01:45 AM Report

I has the feeling reading the transcript and remembering the show (I watched to day on my recorder) that it was fair and balanced.

So I went to Wikipedia to read about Malley. I liked him. This is part of what I read.

==== excerpt from Wikipedia ====

In response to what they called "vicious, personal attacks" on Malley, five Jewish, former U.S. government officials — former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, Ambassador Martin Indyk, Ambassador Daniel Kurtzer, Ambassador Dennis Ross, and former State Department Senior Advisor Aaron David Miller — published a letter (dated February 12, 2008) in the New York Review of Books defending Malley.[5] They wrote that the attacks on Malley were "unfair, inappropriate, and wrong", and objected to what they called an attempt "to undermine the credibility of a talented public servant who has worked tirelessly over the years to promote Arab-Israeli peace and US national interests."[13] This view is also shared by M.J. Rosenberg, Director of Policy for Israel Policy Forum and a former editor at AIPAC, who condemned the attacks on Malley, writing that Malley is "pro-Israel" and the only reason he is being criticized is because he supports Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.

==== excerpt from Wikipedia ====

There is a lot more on Malley and his Jewish family. He is another Johnny Netanyahu type -- that is a wonderful person with famous Jewish family ties. As a Jew, myself, with ordinary family ties, I often admire -- even love -- distinguished Jews whose politics seems acceptable to me.

I may be further to the right than some of the Malley's. Maybe not. The issues are often very complicated. I've admired Netanyahus, father and both sons. I sometimes smell what I don't like in comments on this forum. But I know my own odor is no perfume for others, either.

In all events, it's fitting on St Patricks Day to discuss these matters. James Joyce I was taught at CCNY when I was young had created the perfect Jew in literature for my time. Not that I could really understand the cleaner parts of Ulysses when I tried to read it.

I am sure CR had a perfect panel for the Middle East Review. But the issues are right up there with Ulysses as far as difficulty is concerned. The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is more my speed.

REMant may think Zionism stinks. I don't. I believe in family ties -- and the Golden Rule as well. Those young Arab democrats are my family ar the moment. I trust we do right by each other in the morning. The Security Council has done its duty. Now let's do ours.

JohnGelles  03/18/2011 01:07 AM Report

China-men not Chinaware. Damn this software.

JohnGelles  03/18/2011 01:03 AM Report

The Middle East conflicts, and the larger rivalries that surround them, present wheels within wheels, plays within plays, that make rational debate on the many issues we can tease out of the whole pattern of surprises as close to impossible as debate can get.

Yet Charlie Rose, Robert Malley, Zalmay Khalilzad and John Negroponte offer us discussion and written transcript with embedded wisdom to be mined. Three commentators so far chime in -- and leave me (a fourth) cold to their conceit. self-contradiction, and abyssal ignorance compared to CR and his guests.

What are the facts? What are the issues? What is in store for America and its friends and enemies in the next twelve months? Just ask me. And I'll tell you -- if you do.

If you don't -- hear this.

India and Pakistan will not engage in a hotter war than the cold one now in progress. Russia, China, America and NATO will not go crazy and go to war against each other or get married either. Israel will be what Zalmay Khalilzad said it was, "a special case". Palestine may make history and become a nation in law if not in weaponry.

And none of us really care much about all of that above. What we want to know is IF LIBYA is for real and are young modern Arabs about to celebrate a victory or be crushed by war and chaos that Jefferson would have settled in their favor.

America's Christian and Jewish Zionists, with their love and money, attract adversaries here in this forum. They are seen as the problem even if they would not be missed if they were never born.

Not that Pakistani, Chinaware, Russians, Indians, American and Europeans are chopped liver. It's just that Jews and Irishmen, no matter their total numbers or special talent to find trouble, are there -- while their enemies are invisible.

I, for one, do not long for American isolationism or desire for Tory values no matter what they claim. I am with the Arab independents who for one glorious month proved freedom and a good life are still what people want.

Who is to fly the planes and plan the victory in the wings? An American leader or Winston Churchill as an Arabian riding and Arabian horse? I like to think David Petraeus knows the questions and the answers CR was looking for. And I'd like him to be in charge to untangle all the quarrels and call all of to attention before failure gets a grip and we begin to rot. The transcript speaks for four. Now the comments do as well.

But the topic overwhelms all eight. Too bad Johnny Netanyahu was killed at Entebbe on July 4th 1976. He might have has the answers we're looking for today. They smack of rescue and airplanes and young people unafraid.

robdverity  03/17/2011 05:35 PM Report

REMant - word for word in total agreement. We are run by such a bifurcated bunch of children (oil or democ; Zionism or democ; or god forbid: oil or Zionism).

Money rules (Obama and US) policy and war. The truculent Jews exhorting a proxy war: US v Iran; or continuation of the decade (and decadent) Af-Pak senselessness. War for profit will have to do until something better comes along. I'm sure we wont let a good catastrophe like Libya elude us. The Zionists are doubtlessly lobbying hard.

salgadoce  03/17/2011 11:56 AM Report

My foreign policy advice is simple: ask what Zbigniew Brzezinski would do; and then do the exact opposite.

REMant  03/17/2011 11:05 AM Report

I'm sorry that it looks like the administration will have egg all over its face, but it is richly deserved. By calling now (screaming might be more like it) for immediate intervention in Libya to keep the rebels from losing, the Ms's Clinton and Rice should realize they can no longer effectively represent this country diplomatically, and submit their resignations, or be asked to. That leaves the president, who if he orders American servicemen there, I trust will be impeached, and rot in hell along with his predecessors and their minions.

It is, in fact, nauseating to have one of them here again advocating what has been universally condemned by US and world opinion, as if it never happened. And this IS exactly the same as Iraq. We want Qaddafi gone, because we don't like him, he doesn't like Israel, and he's got oil. The admin has tried to play both sides of the street on this, and no American lives should be sacrificed to its conceit. The Arab League is Sunni (except for Iraq nowadays) and worried, so I am not surprised at either their proclamation or seeing the warmongering establishment pounce on it. But it is too much like buying uranium from Africa and the WMD plant. It brings us that much closer to war between Shiites and Sunnis, which I am sure is exactly what Israel, the apocalyptic types, and their globalizing and feminizing fellow-travelers would like. This has all the earmarks of the latter, first holding out affection, then denying it and finally rabid, foaming hate.

But let us suppose, as with Iraq, Congress and the public are again so supine they get their way. What plan do the invaders have to keep order, or deal with Qaddafi, his sons and supporters? Hunt them down, shoot or hang them? How long will it take before someone realizes this is not about democracy, but vengeance? How long will it be before the Libyans can be rid of turmoil and lead a normal life? How many lost lives and wasted dollars we clearly cannot afford? And how much more damage will it do to our military and world opinion? Despite the notion conveyed I thought this was all one-sided and simple-minded, Mr Malley's fence-sitting notwithstanding, and entirely typical of American hubris, about on a par with what one has come to expect from NPR. I would say all the participants could use that head examination.