[Fresh Ink] Helen Thomas: Accepting various truths

[Richard Menec]

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=890123&category=opinion

Albany Times Union                 January 18, 2010

*Accepting various truths*

By HELEN THOMAS

No one in the Obama administration is going to acknowledge that our foreign 
policy in the Middle East has alienated many Arabs.

The U.S. pro-Israel policy and our shocking neglect of the beleaguered 
Palestinians underlie almost every initiative or tactical tilt that comes 
out of Washington.

President Obama and his predecessors in the White House have scored domestic 
political points by embracing this world view. This is one vantage point 
that is truly bipartisan, to the point where no one discusses it.

Michael Scheuer, a former CIA specialist on the al-Qaida terrorists, 
complained on C-SPAN recently that any debate about American support for 
Israel is "normally squelched."

"For anyone to say our support for Israel doesn't hurt us is to just defy 
reality," he added.

Another former CIA analyst, Ray McGovern, says the 9/11 Commission report 
noted that Khalid Sheikh -- the mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks --  
cited his violent disagreement with U.S. support for Israel as the 
motivating dynamic behind the attacks.

Obama knows enough about the Middle East that tightening airport security is 
not the whole answer to fighting terrorism. He should try a more even-handed 
policy in the region.

Grievances of the Arab man on the street include bitter criticism of the 
U.S. for supporting harsh authoritarian regimes in the Arab world and the 
failure of those U.S.-backed regimes to help the Palestinians in Gaza.

Surely after several years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, we can dispense 
with the obfuscation and evasion that flood forth from official U.S. 
megaphones.

Terrorism spawned in the Middle East is not the only threat we face.

As the American economy digs out from the debris of the Great Recession 
triggered by the collapse of the housing bubble, we should think about what 
could happen about another bubble that invisibly chugs through the American 
economy.

I refer to our bloated defense spending.

The United States spends more for its arsenal than any other 10 countries 
combined. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, 
the U.S. accounts for more than 40 percent of the world's total military 
spending. China is in second place, at a relatively puny 5.8 percent.

If the U.S. defense spending bubble were ever to deflate, domestic job 
losses would be catastrophic, a stunning fact that raises the question of 
whether we can ever afford peace.

The American people have long shown they can handle the truth. When it comes 
to the Middle East and to threats to our economy, so should our leaders.

Helen Thomas' e-mail address is hthomas at hearstdc.com.

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