Posted on 12/31/2001 1:51:39 AM PST by H.R. Gross
December 31, 2001
My last New Year's column contained a statement that stands out, in retrospect, as a prediction and a warning that, unfortunately, went unheeded. America, I wrote,
"Stands astride the world, a global Gulliver lording it over the Lilliputians. But at the apogee of its power, the US is subject to the irony of world hegemony – increased vulnerability."
Little did I know how vulnerable. Like most Americans, I never imagined that, less than a year later, we would all be staring in disbelief at the smoking ruins of the Pentagon – and a good part of downtown Manhattan. But I knew something was amiss: "In the coming year," I predicted, "the profiteers of empire will be especially busy selling the whole panoply of 'good works' the US is performing overseas," especially in "the Middle East, where we are ostensibly fighting another bogey of the modern world, 'terrorism.' Whether the American people are buying it is another question."
Well, if they weren't buying it before, now they certainly are – and with a vengeance. As the US goes rampaging through Central Asia in search of Osama bin Laden and his Terrorist International, the War Party has been given a blank check – and they're diddling over how much to make it out for. But you didn't have to be a certified seer, a Nostradamus or a Jean Dixon, to see what was coming over the horizon. Reiterating the Clintonian record – a new military intervention every few months – I wrote:
"These days, the brazen belligerence of the US goes way beyond arrogance and all the way to hubris, the old Greek conception of a pride so overweening that it literally begs to be toppled, like Icarus felled for daring to approach the sun."
Yet Icarus hasn't learned his lesson. Still reaching for that bright orb, he doesn't realize he's been blinded. Lashing out, he stumbles about in the darkness, bellowing like a wounded giant, and wreaking devastation across the globe. Already the ripple effect caused by the US military campaign has caused disruption throughout the region, with India moving quickly to destabilize Pakistan. The nutball Hindu nationalists who hold sway in New Delhi have recently acquired a cache of new weapons from Israel – and don't think they won't use them.
India and Israel have a lot in common: not only a mutual hatred of Islam, but also an expressed willingness to use nuclear weapons. It was not for nothing, after all, that Israel recently admitted what it has always officially denied (even though everyone knew the story of Mordecai Vanunu): yes, they have nukes. But why admit this now, at the height of the crisis, unless it is meant as a warning that they won't hesitate to use them?
On the other side of the Middle East, New Delhi's Brahmins are wielding the nuclear stick more openly, explicitly threatening Pakistan with the unthinkable. At issue is the Vale of Kashmir, a section of Central Asia so mountainous and inaccessible that it makes the terrain of Afghanistan look like a golf course. India has always claimed it, in spite of its overwhelmingly Muslim population. If India allowed a real national referendum, Kashmir would doubtless go with Pakistan, but New Delhi's "Great Power" conceit would never permit that, and so the region has been in a constant state of war since the partition of India and Pakistan more than 50 years ago.
From this lair of Islamic "terrorism," various Islamic tribes and groups have launched attacks on India proper, and the Brahmins, asserting their regional hegemony, have decided to follow the good example of the United States in pursuing "terrorism" to its source. Since the Indians aver – without offering any proof – that the terrorist attacks have been organized and directed by Islamabad, and that these groups are little more than proxies for Pakistan, in effect a de facto state of war already exists between the two nuclear-armed nations. And the conflict is rapidly spreading….
The news that China has moved its troops up to the border with India should have hit the headlines like a thunderclap. The dominoes are falling fast, and even rippling outward to the edge of the world, where North Korea – starving, desperate, and demented – teeters on the brink. The "mystery ship" that invaded Japanese waters and was sunk by the Japanese Defense Force sent shockwaves through Japan, and globalized this perilous moment.
Are we standing on the brink of World War III? It all depends on just how crazy are the Hindu nationalists who rule an increasingly bizarre and militant India. Perhaps not all of them are particular devotees of Kali, goddess of destruction – all I know is that Kali holds a central place in the Hindu pantheon, and she no doubt has lots of fans. Here, for example, is an Associated Press story detailing the mindset of the people of Jaisalmer, India, who live near the border with Pakistan, who are "aching for war":
"'Bring on another war, we are ready,' shouts Jagdish Prasad Vasa, a craggy shopkeeper who has lived through the three wars between India and Pakistan since independence from Britain in 1947. His war cries draw similar chants from the old turbaned men drinking sweet tea at the foot of the sandcastle-like fort.
"'The Jaisalmeris are warriors by nature, always on alert and never afraid to fight,' says Vasa, spitting out juice from his 'gutkha,' a concoction of tobacco, betel nut and spices. 'It's time to put Pakistan down, for good.'"
We've heard all this highfalutin' theorizing about how Islam, at least in its Wahabist incarnation, is the equivalent of "Islamo-fascism," but how much more explicit can you get than deifying the concept of Destruction? If I were the Pakistanis, I wouldn't rule out the distinct possibility of an Indian first strike – would you?
LOL Don't slow down, several others are in hot pursuit of your record.
THE MAN IN THE BOX
by Rabbi Baruch Melman
Adam was placed in the Garden by G*d (Gen 2:8- last week's sedra) whereas Avraham (Avram) was directed by G*d to go to a place where He will show him (Gen 12:1- next week's sedra). Noah was asked to chart a middle ground. Whereas with Adam G*d directly placed him where he wanted him, and whereas with Avraham (Avram), it was Avraham who was the active determining agent in causing his arrival where G*d wanted him, with regard to Noah, G*d played an indirect, yet active role in guiding his destiny. Lech lecha, G*d's command to Avraham, then, could be read as G*d telling him to take charge directly of his sojourn. Each central character in the developing story of mankind represents a greater striving for independence and autonomy on the part of mankind vis a vis its Creator.
The text makes pointed reference that Noah was not the captain of his ship, for indeed their was no ship. It was not even a boat. The Hebrew term used for the flotation device is teva -tawf, vet, hey. Teva, literally meaning "box," is a storage receptacle. The English word "tub" quite possibly derives from the Hebrew, as they share the same root letters. According to its blueprint it was built in a rectangular shape, with squared edges and a flat bottom, not like a boat which is designed with the rounded, curved features more useful for navigation. A boat, by design and practice, more readily belongs in the water. A tub, by contrast, more readily belongs on the earth. A man-made mikva must be a tub built into the ground, halakhically. It cannot be a portable spa. The mikva, like the Torah itself, cannot be made impure through contact with that which is ritually impure. Whether we immerse inert vessels (kelim) or living humans, the grounded tub serves as a vehicle for cleansing and salvation.
Noah's ark, then, was built as a receptacle for the salvation of the remnant of all living things, as a refuge from the violence (hamas) which consumed all the earth. The terminology of implicit groundedness by the pointed use of the word teva indicates also G*d's inclination that the ark NOT be used. Rather, it implies that G*d's deepest wishes were for mankind to do teshuva and to pull back from the brink of destruction. In other words, were the ark to have in its design a bias for floating, it would indicate G*d's predetermination to bring on the flood. Because of its design bias for groundedness on the earth, it indicates G*d's preference for mankind's teshuva and healing.
Not being a ship, then, there was no steering mechanism, no rudder, no navigational controls or source of power other than the Divine guidance system. Noah built the box, but G*d steered it. To counteract the feeling of helplessness that Noah must have felt, a skylight was built into the roof to let him feel connected to Heaven even if he couldn't see it for the rain. It was a symbol of hope, of tikva, that the whole earth had become now one mikva, one giant pool of water, consisting of forty (time) units of rain, paralleling the mikva's forty units of volume (seah). The Talmud tells us that the volume of a mikvah is also the volume which could contain 5760 (chicken) eggs. With the spillover of violence with the the New Year 5761, the waters of the mikva are now overflowing, threatening a new flood over all the earth. Not a flood of water which G*d promised would never reoccur, but a flood of fire.
As Adam was ten generations from Noah, who was ten generations from Avraham, mankind needs to incorporate the peace blueprint of the Ten Commandments for her survival. Mankind is ever moving to greater independence, greater autonomy, incorporating G*d's will as its own will, but out of choice rather than coercion. Teshuva exists. Teshuva literally means to return, to come back from the abyss. Noah's generation chose to ignore it. We must learn not to repeat their error.
As Noah looked through the skylight, trusting that all will be good in the end, so too, we must look heavenward and trust in the same.
Shabbat Shalom. Good Shabbos.
Midrash Tanchuma, Qedoshim.
The waters of the mikva spilled over on Rosh HaShana 5761. It started on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, and it will engulf the world.
Matthew 24:37 But as the days of Noah were, so also will the coming of the Son of Man be.
I bump that piece of trash every now and then, lest anyone take raimondo's America First act seriously.
It's at times like these that I tend to believe the wrong side won the war in the Pacific. Just think: if we all woke up one day living in some alternate history, as in Phillip K. Dick's The Man in the High Castle, our cultural malaise would disappear overnight. Instead of listening to the latest loutish lyrics of Eminem, American teenagers would be contemplating the subtle beauty of the Japanese tea ceremony. If contemporary Japan is any clue, the crime rate would be cut by 95 percent, and the literacy rate would skyrocket. Certainly everyone's manners would improve. All in all, life would be far more civilized, imbued with a gentility that would make the New York Post an impossibility.
What a historically illiterate idiot.
and, dead -- I can see why you chose your screen name.
Gee that’s real original! Haven’t seen that lame response about 900 times. Please, tell me more about your scary abilities as a humorist.
You know, just because the Americans won in WWII, there is no reason you can't still embrace hari-kari. It would be further proof that you are culturally enlightened!
By foreigners you mean people who don't live in Costa Rica, choo-choo? Or, non Islam-Firsters?
Let's see: we shouldn't investigate Fox News reporting on Israeli spying ("Move along, nothing to see here!"), but we should stand by and watch as our troops are vaporized. Oh, yes, and World War III is a good idea. Some patriot!
What I like about you is that you're so self-sacrificing. In order to serve your allegiance to a foreign power, you'd be perfectly willing to breathe deeply and inhale as a nuclear cloud passes over Hollywood as along as it serve's a certain sh*tty little country's agenda. What a patriot! Unfortunately, it isn't American patriotism that we're talking about here....
Just over CAA Justin. (-; (Hollywood agent joke)
By advocating Japanese WWII victory you have forfeited forever the privilege of "American patriotism."
Anybody who doesn't think dead has a sense of humor is an idiot. That would be you.
In WHAT horsesh!t? That fantasy war between the two you have swimming around in your brain. Considering you do not support the war effort, or military tribiunals, appear to defend terrorist supporters, and don't think people should fly the flag, I think you are the one who needs a loyalty check.
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