Politics, Compassion, and Justice

It is interesting that your article’s title is drawn from the teaching of Hillel, a founding sage of rabbinic Judaism (whose version of the Golden Rule Jesus quoted). Jews should be pround of their still relevant ethics being mentioned. However, your line “Arab leaders need to show that they care about Muslim children being shot even when Israel is not responsible.” I shudder to think Mr. Kristof is comparing the genocide in Sudan to the collateral damage of Palestinian youth whose parents send them into battle with the soldiers with stones and guns, and yet are still not targeted to be killed.

If Not Now, When? - New York Times
“It is very clear there is a plan to redraw the region,” the Sudanese president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, said last month, explaining the calls for U.N. peacekeepers in Darfur. “Any state in the region should be weakened, dismembered in order to protect the Israelis.”

Sudanese journalists say that Mr. Bashir has cleverly used such arguments to portray himself as a nationalist, and as a result is in a stronger position now than when he started killing babies in Darfur. Arab leaders need to show that they care about Muslim children being shot even when Israel is not responsible.

In response to this article

“If Bush had gone to war with Iraq immediately after 9/11 and waited to attack Afghanistan, Democrats would now be pretending to support the Iraq war while pointlessly carping about Afghanistan. Afghanistan didn’t attack us on 9/11! The Taliban didn’t attack us! What’s our exit strategy? How do you define “victory” in Afghanistan, anyway? It’s a quagmire — aahhhhh”

I wrote to her at Townhall:

The things you say are very motivational.  You are a great motivational speaker. But why do you feel you have to intentionally distort your opponent’s views in order to win the argument? Shouldn’t your position speak for itself without your trying to frame democrats/liberals as weak/hollywood/clueless/directionless when you’re probably smart enough to know that things don’t work that way?  Your frame doesn’t match the facts. I don’t understand.

-Benjamin
p.s. I am responding to your article in Yahoo News about how Democrats aren’t for the War on Terror.  I’m sure you knwo that the Taliban in Afghanistan protected Al Qaeda which launches the 9/11 attacks, making them a part of the war on Terror.  Iraq only became a locus of terrorism after we invaded.

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