Desperate Times Call For Daring Deeds

Will you join in our crusade?
Who will be strong and stand with me?
Beyond the barricade, is there a world you long to see?
Then join in the fight.
That will give you the right to be free!
- Do you hear the people sing? From Les Misérables

It seems like yesterday, there in a theater in San Francisco, enthralled by the beauty and power of the lyrics and music of Les Misérables. A check of the calendar shows it was more like fifteen years ago, and yet the words and images stir me still.

Brave men daring desperate deeds. Or was it desperate men? Is there bravery in desperation?

Desperate times demand daring deeds, and these are desperate times indeed.

And yet we bow to the madmen. And smile. Mustn’t make them mad now, mustn’t we?

“They have every right to mistrust us. Haven’t we threatened them?”

That’s right, we have. When we caught North Korea counterfeiting $100 bills and distributing them through diplomatic travel, primarily to Moscow, we told them to quit it. That made Kim Jong Il mad, and he considered the US sanctions against North Korean counterfeiting an act of war. How dare we!

When we caught them cheating on an agreement to not develop nukes if we provided them fuel and food, Kim Jong Il considered our cutting off of supplies because he cheated on the agreement to be an act of war. That’s right, if we stop giving him things because he cheated on the agreement, we’re the bad guys, and North Korea is righteously indignant.

When Ahmadinejad told the world of his desire to wipe out Israel, and refused to stop uranium enrichment, the US requested the United Nations Security Council enforce sanctions against Iran to make them quit their nuclear program and stop threatening a UN member nation, specifically Israel, with annihilation. Of course the UN ducked responsibility for doing the one thing that might make it of use to the world, preventing nuclear proliferation into the hands of madmen and terrorists.

Naturally, nothing stopped Ahmadinejad from indulging in his own round of righteous indignation. The nerve, catching Iran cheating and expecting them to stop! What’s the use of cheating if you can’t get away with it?!

Oh, by the way, mustn’t forget, threatening sanctions of Iran is an act of war. About the only thing North Korea and Iran don’t consider acts of war is letting them do what they want, and still giving them everything we agreed to if they behaved.

Into all this madness, from Israel comes a cry for sanity from Michael Freund to President Bush. Mr. Freund clearly sees there is only one path towards stopping the madness, and only one man who can choose that path, President Bush. All other nations and leaders of the world are either corrupted, impotent, afraid, accomplices to the criminals, in denial, asleep, or indifferent. Many of those world leaders are most or all of the above.

Mr. Freund sees in President Bush the qualities lacking in the rest. A man of faith, a man of conviction, a man of courage, a leader of destiny.

Let him say it in his own words: An appeal of faith to President George W. Bush. By Michael Freund.

All I can add is “Mozel tov.”