my aunt charlotte ... benazir bhutto ... and u.s. foreign policy

my aunt charlotte died last night, succumbing to the years at age 89.  you have never heard of her, because all she ever did was lead a normal life, and, to the best of my knowledge, was never implicated in the violent death of any living soul.  she was the last of my mother's generation, and like my mother, was one of the short, fat and jolly sisters.  they all sat together on the same couch during family reunions told stories, turning beet red from the effects of prolonged laughter and shortness of breath whilst engaging in high good humor.  much to the disapproval of the tall, thin, severe sisters, who were never quite quick or glib enough to join in, so disapproved in a distant sort of way.

all the husbands of the tall, thin, severe sisters envied the husbands of the short, fat, & jolly ones, and made no particular secret of it.

i don't know much about the family life of benazir bhutto.  oh, the media have been full of stories quoting her mother to the effect that she had nursed an asp to her breast when rearing benazir, but this was just a mother's recrimination for suspecting that benazir had had something to do with the assassination of her son, benazir's brother.  i suppose we can infer from that, i.e., the dark, distraught, suspicious muttering of a distraught mother, that benazir was no stranger to the inner dynamics of families that have the interplay of family life and politics so wonderfully portrayed in hamlet, and lion in winter, and other such works.  the family that rules together, hangs together, and stabs, and garrotes, and strangles and scratches and gouges, and so on, and so forth.

well, yes, all very droll of me to make these observations, what?  laughing.

and, i notice from the title of this piece, all these ramblings have something to do with u.s. foreign policy.  well, in my opinion it does.

for you see, in my opinion, humble or otherwise, benazir bhutto's death has just about as much to do with the shaping of u.s. foreign policy as the death of my beloved aunt.  and, trust me, that jolly, chubby cheeked, feisty, prickly little woman was my favorite aunt, just like cousin jimmy is my favorite cousin.  so, i do not take her name in vain.

you see, it does no slight to my aunt to note that her death will have no impact on our** foreign policy.

nor, does it denigrate benazir bhutto in the slightest to note, similarly, that her death will have no impact on our foreign policy, substantial, cursory, tangentially, or otherwise.

these are quite easy propositions to prove, by simply noting that probably since the fall of the berlin wall, and quite certainly since the ascension of condi rice to the post of secretary of state, the united states has not possessed a coherent foreign policy.

not so anyone would notice, anyway.

when ronald reagan, whose only challenge to being ranked third best president in u.s. history behind abraham lincoln, franklin roosevelt would lie in the person of theodore roosevelt, intoned, mr. gorbechev (my good lord, were those not halcyon days, in retrospect), tear down these walls, he was merely giving eloquent and theatrical voice (what in the hell else did you expect) to a coherent policy of containing communism that had found expression in the formation of n.a.t.o., the fight against communism in the greek civil war, and the fights in angola, and the cuban blockade, and, off course, the great confrontations with communist aggression in korea and in south east asia in the war between the viet nams.

and more back alley assassinations and honey trap assignations than any one was ever able to keep track of.

from the beginnings of the cold war to its "cessation," (and if you believe the fight with russia and china are over, you have a very unpleasant "another think" coming, and your awakening to this fact is liable to be emotionally and psychologically unpleasant for you), the united states understood what its mission was.--  beat the communists, beat back the communists, and contain them in their enfeebled state.

as a foreign policy it was simple, cogent, expensive, oh god, was it ever, the struggle on the other side bankrupted the soviet union, led to the "formation" of russia, and the fall of the eastern bloc, .... , and, it was very, very successful.

and, it has led to the bone headed assumption that old fashioned struggle is, ... , well, ... , old fashioned, and, here is the clinker, out of fashion forever.

enter the age of diplomacy.

remember mr. molotov.  the russian ambassador to the united states.  remember john foster dulles.  and, george shultz.

those were men whose disapproving gaze caused some stout hearted men to pee ice water, and other to emit yellow dust.  they were not men to be trifled with.  they asked no quarter, and by damned, they were never inclined to offer it.  if you put your neck on the carpet in front of them, you received only the flat hard heel of a shoe grinding your life's blood into that carpet as they stomped your carotid arteries.  (you don't know how it angers me to have people talk about killing a person by severing his jugular veins.  a friend of mine, fresh out of medical school and looking for a job, was presented his first patient in the person of a logger who had severed a jugular vein when a chain saw "kicked back" onto his throat.  the man had driven 30 miles into town holding a hankie to his throat while driving a pickup truck with the free hand, then walking into the doctor's office asking if anyone could help him with his neck.)

returning to the diplomats, such men knew what they wanted, and they had armies and generals and tanks and missiles with which to make their points, they were not afraid to announce and assert their goals, and they were not afraid to put tanks and men on borders fully mobilized to lend some sign of conviction about their pronouncements.  oh, i will admit to a few nights of fitful sleep during such things as the cuban missile crisis, and several other minor fracases here and there, but, in the main, these people had a pretty tight rein on things, and, one went through the course of one's day, relatively certain that if something unpleasant happened, it was at least done on purpose.

oddly enough, i have no such faith in my state department at this juncture.

condi and company know how to talk, and presumably still remember where the knives and forks and napkin rings go at the dinner parties, and they know how to get the appropriations for all the poor cousins who inhabit the corridors of the united nations, but that is about all they have straight.

what are we to make, however, of a foreign policy that purports to fight the war on terror on the one hand, yet promotes that war by advocating an independent kosovo (run by jihadists, my friends, who openly flout the jihad by killing serbs even as we speak), yet promotes that war by giving funds to israel's tormentors, in the form of money, in the form of training hamas, hezbollah and abbas security forces (run by jihadists, my friends, need i elaborate, surely even the less intellectually adroit liberals who sully our midsts comprehend that). what are we to make of a foreign policy that implements a policy of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons by propping up the north korean economy through loans and capital improvements, and tries to "reason" with iran to curtail their nuclear adventures, even while iran openly continues to develop a nuclear weapons capacity?

i love casey stengel.  when he took over the yankees, he walked around his first spring training camp muttering to himself in awe as he looked upon the talented yankees, who included joe dimaggio and mickey mantle, along with yoggi berra.

i feel like casey stengel.  when he took over the mets, he walked through their first spring training camp, muttering to himself as he looked upon the miserable mets, "don't nobody here know how to play this game."

that is the way i feel when i look upon condi rice and minions.  don't nobody understand human nature, human, political, state and ideological aggression.

our state department types do not comprehend that our enemies work with a purpose.  they have not the native wit to understand that the aims of iran in working towards nuclear weapons, (which by the way, coupled with adequate delivery systems, completely kicks the u.s. navy out of the mediterranean and indian oceans), are entirely consistent with the aims of iran in advancing the goals of hezbollah in lebanon, with seeing the establishment of a muslim state in kosovo, and are entirely consistent with the aims of the muslim demographic conquest of europe.

instead, since we have moved "past history" and its little "unpleasantries," our state department thinks that if we just talk and talk some more, that everyone will just work things out, because, by golly, we are all just human beings and if given enough time, we will all understand one another and make nice.  tea, anyone?

no, we do not have a foreign policy to advance.  we have not the haziest notion of how to conceptualize a foreign policy, we have not the haziest notion of how to enunciate any goals to be achieved by a foreign policy, nor have we the haziest notion how to implement such goals by the use of military power, economic influence, or just by the clear, cogent and convincing enunciation of the great gifts conferred by democracy, free market enterprise, and political stability and civil discourse.

so, my aunt charlotte's death, regrettable as it was, will confer no benefit upon the hope for peace and harmony in the world, even though her sterling, her exemplary life, might have served as a very good model for others on how to live.

and, neither will the death of benazir bhutto.  it makes no difference that in an ordered world, what to make of her person would have presented something of a challenge, trying to comprehend a contradictory historical figure who was a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma (thank you mr. churchill).  in an ordered world of diplomacy, at least the circumstances of her life and death would have been rendered serviceable in the name of coherent intellectual and policy aims.

there is no such context existing in this day and age, in terms of foreign policy.

those who are interested in integrating her death into the aims of modern feminism will have no such difficulty in formulating the appropriate dogma by which to comprehend her.

but, her death will serve no such purpose in terms of united states foreign policy.  it does not understand itself sufficiently, let alone her relations to policy goals, to know what to make of benazir bhutto.  as a consequence, her death will be put to no useful purpose, in terms of policy.  her death will advance no foreign policy aim.

in this regard, it can be said with absolute clarity and certainty, that the death of my aunt charlotte was just as important to the advancement of the interests of this country, as was the death of benazir bhutto.

i can say there was no riddle, no mystery, no enigma surrounding the life of my aunt.  she was a good and decent woman, funny, fun loving and warm, and always full of laughter.  i will miss her, of that i am certain.

i haven't the foggiest of what to make benazir bhutto, nor her death.  and neither does the united states department of state.

Comments

[x_dhimmi]

Bravo, Mr. Jay! RIP,Aunt Charolette.

[Pamela]

I would be with the fat jollies on the couch ...

Good stuff JJ
welcome to the club

[Jeremiah]

Notable in your honorable mentions of your aunt, as fresh or raw as what you may be feeling about her passing, is a complete absence of gooey sentimentalism and self-absorption. Which is of a different order from emotion.

Ah! John, your stock is one that knows chores and duties and a quiet, self-reliant pride. The kind that works plows or washes diapers or skins game or pours cement, that gets the washing in off the line while the storm clouds gather but before they break, that knows it's about the baby and not the blood (nor the bathwater). In short, that gets the job DONE.

[Carolyn]

"i am part of this community, this little lincolnesque experiment in democracy, and i neither set myself apart from or elevated above my countrymen. i am, as they say, one of the peeps."

Well, the Net has just been lucky enough to get another peep. There's hope for this world yet! As an American, I thank you.
Woo hoo! Or rather I should say....

Peep! Peep!

[rocketsbrain]

JJ,

Welcome to the Blogos.

RBT

www.rocketsbrain.com

[--mdd--]

Trees, John, what about the trees?
Just laughing my ass off, you'll like me better next year, I'm sure
Great start-up, keep the motor revvin'

mdd

[JewishOdysseus]

JJ, congrats to you on the blog, amigo!

Hey, I put up a late, but long post at Pam's blog, it was partly addressed to you--hope you will take a look.

And Happy 2008 to you and all of "OUR" fellow infidels! ;- )

[john jay]

jewishodysseus:
thanks for the "comment."
have read your comment at a.shrugs, and will reply there.
still haven't figured out how to email back to you from typepad, e.g., directly from your posted "comment," but will work on that this afternoon.
typepad kind of has a way of gumming stuff up, and am having to learn on the fly. but, thank you for reading, and i hope that you drop in regularly.
jjj