Friday, April 20, 2007

Pelosi Does Damascus: Nancy's Middle East Quest For Peace

Despite being told to keep out of Syria, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi would not be denied the opportunity to speak with the state sponsors of terrorism. In doing so, Mrs. Pelosi may have violated a U.S. law against such actions.The Democrats want us to remember the elections of last fall, but it is they who should remember who was elected president. The constitution provides the House of Representatives with many responsibilites, but setting U.S. foreign policy is not one of them. The president is given this responsibility, and the Democrats seem to want to forget that.In fact, the House has no real foreign responsibility given to them. The Senate is the legislative body that is in charge of foreign treaties. It is bad policy and setting a bad precedent for the Democrats to provide competing foreign policies, especially to nations whose Hezbollah party is a major terrorist organization.Speaker Pelosi has turned herself into a propaganda tool that can be used by these evil actors to claim some right of legitimacy.I know some people have complained about the focus being solely put on Mrs. Pelosi and not on the Republican congressman that accompanied her. In answer: First of all, Mrs. Pelosi is the Speaker of the House, and being of such a high office, should realize the credibility that title carries to nations like Syria. I will concede that these congressman from the right side of the aisle should not have made the trip into Syria either. By meeting with individuals like Syrian President Assad, they condone a country who is a state sponser of terrorism and wants to destroy Israel.How do we rationally talk with people who will not recognize the right to exist of our greatest regional ally? Besides, what has the talking of the past decades gotten us? The answer to that, in my opinion, is nowhere.It seems to me that Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats think they have some grand design to bring about peace in a region marred by war and destruction. I, personally, doubt it. The Democrats appear to have this perspective about the entire Middle East. How can we negotiate with nations like Iran, who have repeatedly denied the Holocaust, or Israel's right to exist? To me that kind of mindset is a deal breaker at the negotiation table. Democrats preach diplomacy. But unless that diplomacy is backed up with the threat of force it has no power.

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