There’s Gold in Them There Silences
Posted by: duckandgather on: March 3, 2009
In my last posting, I noted that in his lecture last night, Rick Santorum failed to once mention the “elephant in the room” of his talk. Santorum’s talk focused on the threat of radical Islamic fanatics getting hold of nuclear bombs and setting them off in our cities. The elephant in the room of his talk was Pakistan. That is, Santorum went on and on about Iran. But he never so much as even mentioned Pakistan.
In my last posting, I speculated on a reason why he ignored Pakistan. My answer is that Santorum has a gaping blind spot arising from his Christian fundamentalism. This post seeks to explore that answer further.
We start by noting that Santorum’s focus on Iran, and his ignoring of Pakistan, mirrors the public approach of Israel to those two countries. Indeed, in his talk, Santorum cited Israel’s positions on Iran to buttress his own arguments.
Like Santorum, Israel doesn’t have much to say about Pakistan either. Isn’t that interesting? Here is Pakistan, the home of the very sort of crazy Muslim fanatics who want to “push Israel into the sea” and to smite the “Great Satan” that is America. And here is Pakistan, an unstable country that has dozens of nuclear bombs.
To any citizen concerned with nuclear winter being caused by crazy religious nut-jobs, Pakistan is Ground Zero.
But not to Rick Santorum. Nor to Israel. Why is that?
I suspect the reason for Israel’s silence on Pakistan is a really simple one. I suspect that reason is that the Israeli Mossad has already penetrated Pakistan to a degree that a sheppard can’t take a shit in Pakistan without Israel knowing about it.
And if that guess is right, it would also explain why Israel goes on about Iran. That is, I suspect that the Mossad has not penetrated Iran to any degree that would satisfy Israel’s need to know. So Israel complains loudly and publicly about Iran.
Going further with this speculation, it would seem that the Iranians have a special talent for counter-intelligence. I mean, if the Mossad, the greatest spy force in the world today, can’t crack Iran, then the Iranians must be particularly good at rooting out the “spies among us”.
I don’t know. But Israel’s silence on Pakistan is deafening.
Which brings me back to Rick Santorum. I don’t think Santorum is an agent of Israel. I don’t suspect that his university speaking tour is being paid for by AIPAC.
Instead, I think he is exactly what he purports to be: a wacky Christian fundamentalist with 7 kids. Still, why would such a man see the world through the prism of Israel?
I think the answer to that is the same reason why if you were to meet my 3-year-old offspring, you’d learn lots about the life in our home. That is, children see only what they’re being shown, and know only what they’re being told.
Christian fundamentalists are like children when it comes to the Bible. To them, the Bible is Truth. Everything else is just argument. This is a child’s view, with “God” and the “Bible” sitting in the place of “parents”.
So, summing up, Israel focuses on Iran and ignores Pakistan because geo-political reality compels it to. But Rick Santorum focuses on Iran and ignores Pakistan because he is a Christian fundamentalist child, who looks to the Bible to tell him the truth, and that Bible tells him to listen to Israel.
This is how simple, white-bread Rick Santorum, without a Semitic bone in his body, can stand up at a lectern and sound like the Israeli foreign minister, without really having any clue about Israel.
2 Responses to "There’s Gold in Them There Silences"
March 4, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Thanks Kathy. This post explains why Santorum’s position dovetails so perfectly with that of Israel. But still, he’s an American. And after 9/11, any American who knows these facts about Pakistan and is concerned about nuclear terrorism would be alarmed. Given that Santorum has researched the hell out of Islam and its history, and served in the Senate on armed forces panels, it seems hard to imagine he’s never heard of these issues with Pakistan. So why would he ignore them?
I think the above explanation is only half of it. The other half is what I said in the first post. When we are so fearful (or angry or depressed or etc.) about something, we almost always make significant errors. The fear blinds us to the obvious.
In two hours of his talk and the Q&A that followed, it was clear that Santorum believes that radical Islam is an existential threat to America and Americans, and that that threat is easily the #1 problem for America today. In the face of the collapse-in-progress of the American and World economy, this position of Santorum says quite a bit about his level of fear.
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March 4, 2009 at 4:47 pm
You answered my question from the last post.
Interesting.
You know the sad thing about America? I wager that less that 0.1% of the population knows this information. And at least 20% can tell you about all the up to date info going on in Hollywood.