Quagmire

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Quagmire

“Militant Islam tells us that the enemy of our enemy

is still our enemy.”--Benjamin Netanyahu.

Today Benjamin Netanyahu

                          gave a long speech to the Congress

                                              of the United States, invited by

                          the Republicans not by the administration, not

                  by Barack Obama. It was given calmly, well-rehearsed, 

             sans histrionics,  as it was streamed live

on Goggle, with witnesses, standing room only,

tweeting results moments after every talking point. 

Clearly             there must be, are issues, facts, factions, politics

          & diplomacy below the surface here,

that we are not, 

& may never be          privy to--yet, hey,

         what the hell are we to think?

The hard clapping, smiling Republicans welcomed

the Prime Minister of Israel

                like he was long-lost Uncle Bernie, parading

                him like a trained seal under the gaze

                of the President, at the same time our

Secretary of State, John Kerry, is in Geneva       endeavoring to broker

                a Peace Agreement with Iran “diplomats”.

The picture painted by Netanyahu

was ebony bleak indeed, reminding        us that Iran has been sponsoring

                International Terrorism for over 30 years, 

                            & that their mock competition with ISIS

                over who will become the big Ayatollah of Militant Islam

is a sham; ISIS is but a motley conglomerate of zealous thugs

& we must not forget that Iran is a country, with huge resources

& a million axes to grind. His mantra was repeated like a Zen chant--

                 if Iran is left unchecked

                 it will develop nuclear weapons in less than a year,

                            & much like North Korea it will stockpile those weapons

                             like a troupe of rabid squirrels hoarding chestnuts. 

Daily we are advised by genuine Islamic leaders       & scholars, that

Militant Islam is not, never has been Islamic by its

very nature, any more than David Koresh at Waco 

                    actually represented Christianity. 

Netanyahu compares himself to a 

shouted-down Winston Churchill in         the 1930’s, warning

          his country, & the whole world, that Adolf Hitler

          & his Nazi denizens needed to be checked, & stopped. 

“Remember,” Netanyahu said, “America is called the Great Satan”,

                          & that a marriage between Militant Islam 

                          & nuclear weapons can only lead headlong

               into deadly catastrophe, where all the nations of the Middle East

         would be forced into an arms race, wanting warehouses

    of their own nuclear bombs as a knee-jerk panacea,

as the most dangerous region in the world

would become a tinderbox, a powder keg. 

How is it possible to negotiate

with a group of people who will never consider

accommodation,          who consider us Infidels, unworthy, unclean, Godless.

They gave those recently kidnapped Christians

a simple choice--convert to (their version of) Islam      or die.

We feel like appointed ambassadors to Jonestown,

trying to appeal to Jim Jones’ humanity,

as the beheadings & beastiality continue, &

are considered forms of acceptable behavior. 

So what are we to do?

Just look around--          North Korea & Pakistan already have

               a substantial nuclear arsenal, & so far

               they have been wise enough not to use them.

                                        Vladimir Putin may, or may not have had        

               anything to do with silencing his chief critic.

Muslim extremists in Africa still flourish.

Drug Lords & despots in South America still rule.

                                         Innocent people everywhere,

               in every corner of the globe

    are being held for ransom, raped, starved, assassinated 

& murdered      as the New Millennium Crusades dove-tails

                         with the old conflicts      still unresolved, 

regarding combating tyranny & totalitarianism. 

Meanwhile           in a quiet corner of the     

         international front page,

I found this tiny article about Benjamin’s younger brother, 

        Iddo, who is a doctor & a playwright living in NYC, 

                 who was being interviewed          about the opening

        of his new play, A HAPPY END;            a story about a Jewish family

                  who lived in Berlin in the 1930’s,

                      who were trying to assess the magnitude

of real threat that Adolf Hitler

          & his maniacal horde of Nazis      actually posed;

which really pleased me

as I abandoned the planet’s chaos

          this morning, & dropped it into the lap of irony--

          where Art is allowed to portray both

          a pretense & a portent. 

Glenn Buittkus

Posted over on dVerse Poets Poetics

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