Ron Paul on too much blowback!

Watching this piece from Ron Paul in the House today makes you wonder what American foreign policy is all about. The more I hear him, the more I wish he was going up to swear the oath of allegiance, but hey that was then and now is now.

Ron Paul on the Gaza conflict -

Suffer little children

The Holy Land should be holy, but it is currently turning into a paradise for the Devil. I suppose it is because there is no real authority in the White House at the moment. The Israelis saw their chance to fight back as they see it against the intransigence of Hamas. I've met and known Palestinian Arabs. The one thing I can tell you is that they will never give up the idea of a Palestinian state. Some are on the rather casual end of the spectrum, others are far more rabid about it. But they all support the proposition.

I've been accused on other sites of being anti-Jew or anti-Israel. Far from it, but you can't always debate with some because they take the slightest hurt from the mildest comment. The vast majority of the world believes in a settlement based on a two-state solution. This is not a winner takes all contest.

The Israelis have usurped the Peace of Christmas and the Manifestation of Christ to the World by bombing and burning in order to win some position of strength. All it has done is turn people against them. United Nations agencies are being stopped from their life-saving work because of this assault. The Jews of all people should understand suffering. Why then turn the Gaza into a ghetto? Is this Old Testament vengeance?

Wherever little children are massacred for the crazed notions of adults, we must be concerned. "Suffer (allow) little children to come unto me" is far better than having a millstone round our necks and being flung into the deepest part of the ocean!

Georgian unrest

The Russian incursion into Georgia is very troubling. Not just because innocent people are yet again being slaughtered in another grand-scale political potboiler, but because it spells trouble for the concept of the nation state. The Russians declare that they are coming to the aid of the bealeagured South Ossetians. Possibly, but the look on Putin's face as he adddressed trouble Ossetians could be taken two ways. He could just as well be telling them they were on there way to Siberia. Putin is very typically Russian. Using people to get to the greater Russian glory.

I think we misunderstand the Russians. They are both cultured and corrupt at the same time. Their history is a mixture of brutality and the sublime. In a way, I can understand that they feel the West is encircling them. That was why Gorbachev once said "We are Europeans too, you know!" Well, the Russians are, the tribes reaching out to the Siberian wastelands are not, but have embraced Russian values to a certain extent.

Georgia is an independent country, but thanks to vinegar Joe Stalin, a man raised in the republic, it is left with a legacy of minorities. Ossetians being one of them. The European Union has being giving the nod to the President of Georgia that th EU would be a place to be. This, coupled with the idea of joining NATO, has upset the Russians.

Now I heard Jim Murphy, Europe Minister, on the radio this week. He's a man given to thinking that black and white are all shades of grey. Asked about Kosovo and its independence from Serbia, he blithely commented that that was different. Not really, but because it had a UN backing of sorts, he could say so. However Serbia does not agree, but what the heck.

I think this all serves to undermine democracy and the notion of the nation state. If countries are forced to stay together or forced to break up, then it just means bigger countries win all the time. In Europe there are many minorities all seeking some individuality even if it is short of independence. Spain has the Catalans and Basques, France has the Bretons, Germany has the Bavarians, the Netherlands has the Frisians and so on. Nearly every country in Europe has a minority that could get uppity at any given time.

It is no good holding people together if they don't want it but at the same time they should not be forced apart. I've always wondered what would happen if Texas decided to go it alone again. They did for nine years. They wouldn't last nine hours today because the US Army would roll into Houston to put it all down. Scotland may go independent, it may not. I would hope not, but democracy means the Scots may decide so.

Most people of different backgrounds stick together through a common language, history or religion. Where these differ, differences are greater. It is no great shakes if a country splits, as Czechoslavakia did, but the power of larger countries doesn't always go with democracy.