Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is in Syria. Earlier this week she's been in Israel and Lebanon. There's lovely footage of her touring a bazaar in Damascus, enjoying free samples from various vendors, and then visiting a mosque in her beautiful headscarf and making the sign of the cross at the reported depository of the head of John the Baptist. She's due to meet with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to discuss Syria's role in stabilizing Iraq, it's peace process with Israel, and in general to begin the process cleaning up after the Bush administration's drunken bar-fight diplomacy.
The White House thinks this is bad.
Two remarks: first, as much as I have been critical of Congressional Democrats, this is really, really cool. The next time a conservative war-apologist says that liberals aren't doing anything to help the situation in Iraq, I might point this out. Diplomacy is the most effective tool our leaders can be employing right now to HELP the Iraqi people, and incidentally, "the troops" as well. It's sad that the Speaker of the House needs to be the one attending our foreign brothers and sisters - in theory, the President and the Vice-President get replaced by the Speaker only if they're dead. In our case, they're just incompetent.
My second remark is a quote:
"Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God." - Matthew 5:9
What a sad day when the ostensibly "Christian" president denounces a person for peacemaking. It is now Holy Week in Western Christianity - this weekend, Christians remember how God turns domination and death into liberation and life.
Out of the darkness of Bush's "doctrine" and betrayal of the global community, let there be a resurrection of respect, dialogue, and hope.
Good work, Speaker Pelosi.
1 comment:
she is such a great leader - so much intelligence and class and she has a strong backbone.
I am glad to see her out there doing visits to places where the idiots in the Bush admin won't go.
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