Butch Yellow Cake and the Red Line Kid
B. Netanyahu's performance at the U.N. the other day was eerily reminiscent of another, equally inglorious (and slightly comic if the subject weren’t so serious) day at the same location on the same kind of occasion, when the distinguished General Colin Powell stripped himself of every last bit of what remained of his credibility, by standing up before the nations of the world and declaring that Iraq was making weapons of mass destruction, and as proof he displayed some aerial photos that could’ve been of anything (and later proved to be even less). Also he brandished a tiny phial that contained what he purported to be something called "yellow cake," presumably a mineral, in this case mined in Niger, from which material could be extracted for making nuclear bombs.
At that moment I felt sorry only for the credibility of the United States government, and not at all for that of the celebrated rainbow general, for I had never been able to see what Powell had that had caused him to be so widely admired. At one time he was seriously thought to be a good possibility for becoming the first rainbow U.S. President -- by the Republicans even! From where I stood, if he had ever been admirable in any sense, he had set that aside permanently the moment he stepped onto the national stage – on the side of the Republicans. Anytime a rainbow does that, I instantly see him or her as being a Judas goat, a traitor to the cause in which they had been members from birth, until such time as they later turn their coats or backs on their birthrights, and later events almost never prove that wrong. From the first, despite all his medals and his distinguished military service and such, it was perfectly clear to me that Powell was only a poster boy, a mascot, a water carrier for his people of choice, the Republicans, and that continued to be true regardless of all the prestigious posts with which they showered him, one after the other -- until...
Until that day when he stood up before the UN holding that little phial, the perfidy of which has been shown by how next to nothing has ever again been heard from or about Colin Powell, or "Butch Yellow Cake."
One would hope that the same could be said about Netanyahu, after he stood up before the UN a few days ago and showed a little placard on which someone had drawn a fat but narrow-neck bomb with a fuse showing. It looked like something from one of those Bugs Bunny cartoons of the 1940’s and ‘50’s. He said the bomb represented Iran’s work on developing a nuclear weapon, and across the base of the bomb’s neck, he scrawled a red line that he said represented the point, which would come sometime next year, when it would be absolutely necessary to forcibly stop Iran from going any farther.
Netanyahu didn't say so openly, and later he made some apparently warm remarks about President Obama, but still it was all too plain that he had drawn that red line not to show what his own forces would do – they have shown an obvious distaste for the whole idea -- but instead for instructing the U.S. on when it should step up to the plate on Netanyahu’s behalf and at his bidding and do exactly the same as a previous U.S. President had already done, at the urging of the same parties, in the case of the tragic and totally unjustified attack that rained so much death and destruction on Iraq, a carnage that has still not ended, and that was almost 10 years ago.
But there's no hope that the same will happen with Netanyahu, I mean, fading out of sight completely and forever after this latest big kink in his spotty career.
Powell at least has shown a sense of shame -- a quality that has never been detected in the Israeli prime minister -- and, wherever he is now, Powell would not be amused by noting that the "Butch Yellow Cake" persona that he so disastrously draped on himself at the UN in 2003 has at last been exactly complemented by Netanyahu's getup today. By now Netanyahu is a proven keeper when it comes to being bad news, and after being removed from the scene he just keeps coming back -- the "King of Bad Pennies," he could be called, though now he has proudly put himself into a position to become even better known as "the Red Line Kid."
I thought the UN was founded to prevent those mass slaughters called wars, and not at all to allow guys in their Bolivia moments to justify starting new ones, and in the process butchering badly overmatched and essentially innocent nations.
At that moment I felt sorry only for the credibility of the United States government, and not at all for that of the celebrated rainbow general, for I had never been able to see what Powell had that had caused him to be so widely admired. At one time he was seriously thought to be a good possibility for becoming the first rainbow U.S. President -- by the Republicans even! From where I stood, if he had ever been admirable in any sense, he had set that aside permanently the moment he stepped onto the national stage – on the side of the Republicans. Anytime a rainbow does that, I instantly see him or her as being a Judas goat, a traitor to the cause in which they had been members from birth, until such time as they later turn their coats or backs on their birthrights, and later events almost never prove that wrong. From the first, despite all his medals and his distinguished military service and such, it was perfectly clear to me that Powell was only a poster boy, a mascot, a water carrier for his people of choice, the Republicans, and that continued to be true regardless of all the prestigious posts with which they showered him, one after the other -- until...
Until that day when he stood up before the UN holding that little phial, the perfidy of which has been shown by how next to nothing has ever again been heard from or about Colin Powell, or "Butch Yellow Cake."
One would hope that the same could be said about Netanyahu, after he stood up before the UN a few days ago and showed a little placard on which someone had drawn a fat but narrow-neck bomb with a fuse showing. It looked like something from one of those Bugs Bunny cartoons of the 1940’s and ‘50’s. He said the bomb represented Iran’s work on developing a nuclear weapon, and across the base of the bomb’s neck, he scrawled a red line that he said represented the point, which would come sometime next year, when it would be absolutely necessary to forcibly stop Iran from going any farther.
Netanyahu didn't say so openly, and later he made some apparently warm remarks about President Obama, but still it was all too plain that he had drawn that red line not to show what his own forces would do – they have shown an obvious distaste for the whole idea -- but instead for instructing the U.S. on when it should step up to the plate on Netanyahu’s behalf and at his bidding and do exactly the same as a previous U.S. President had already done, at the urging of the same parties, in the case of the tragic and totally unjustified attack that rained so much death and destruction on Iraq, a carnage that has still not ended, and that was almost 10 years ago.
But there's no hope that the same will happen with Netanyahu, I mean, fading out of sight completely and forever after this latest big kink in his spotty career.
Powell at least has shown a sense of shame -- a quality that has never been detected in the Israeli prime minister -- and, wherever he is now, Powell would not be amused by noting that the "Butch Yellow Cake" persona that he so disastrously draped on himself at the UN in 2003 has at last been exactly complemented by Netanyahu's getup today. By now Netanyahu is a proven keeper when it comes to being bad news, and after being removed from the scene he just keeps coming back -- the "King of Bad Pennies," he could be called, though now he has proudly put himself into a position to become even better known as "the Red Line Kid."
I thought the UN was founded to prevent those mass slaughters called wars, and not at all to allow guys in their Bolivia moments to justify starting new ones, and in the process butchering badly overmatched and essentially innocent nations.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 7:01 AM
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