Yesterday we awoke to news that Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Some looked quick to see whether it was April 1. Most often folks mumbled resignedly “War is Peace.” I prefer the Vietnam era formulation that warring for peace is like fu**ing for virginity. A few wept tears of disappointment, certainly mainstream Medea Benjamin who, having recently come out definitively as a hawk, must have thought that with this adjustment the Nobel was certainly in sight. Code Pink needs a new name now. Justin Raimondo suggests Code Yellow. But I believe Whores for Wars might be better. (That would only apply to Medea and the national leadership, many of the local Code Pinkers being genuine anti- interventionists who cannot stomach the narcissistic national leadership like mainstream Medea.)

My good friend and Israeli expat Joshua was at first afraid he was having a bad dream or that the Nobel committee was working a cruel joke. After all, Joshua reasoned, Obama is war criminal, who has engineered the biggest military spending in human history, who daily drops bombs on innocents, women and children in at least three countries, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan, who supports the worst war criminals and lodges some in his administration, who destroyed in a few months the “hope” for a peace in the middle east. The western world has gone crazy, no doubt, says Joshua. And since war is now peace we might rename all organizations appropriately – United for War and Justice, War Action, and so on.

This led Joshua to predictions for future Nobels.

Next year, literature: Obama for “The Audacity of Hope” — the greatest fiction ever.

Next year, economy: Obama — creating a new statistical metric for recovery.

Next year, peace: Bush/Cheney — based on Obama’s peace prize precedent.

Year after, peace: Netanyahu — the man behind Obama’s peace in the middle east.

But to this writer we witness the second repetition of history. The US Empire’s first great colonial war on the Asian mainland in the last half century was Truman’s Korean war. This was repeated as tragedy in Vietnam at the hands of the Best and Brightest, with Johnson and Kennedy in the lead. And now the Iraq/AfPak war comes at us from Bush and Obama and Congresses both Democrat and Republic. If Vietnam was tragedy, then certainly Iraq/AfPak is farce. There were no WMD in Iraq and everyone knew it. By the military’s own admission there are about 100 Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, so the US troops are not there because of Al-Qaeda – and everyone knows it.

Now the ultimate comedic turn comes with the award to Obama of the Nobel War Prize. Perhaps the antiwar movement needs to adjust its tone from pure outrage to ridicule. After all Obama and the elite running this country are without clothes as they parade before us as men of peace, puffed up with talk of fake health care reform and assuring us of economic recovery that provides no jobs. It would be hard to make this stuff up. And through our tears at the predicament we are in, we can at least ridicule these hypocritical murderers. They deserve to be seen clearly as the cruel and absurd hollow men that they are. They march before us unknowingly naked.

If the Nobel Committee were serious, Cindy Sheehan would have won the award long ago.

Hinton’s book is a fascinating, absorbing and detailed account of land reform in a single Chinese village, Long Bow, near Changzhi in a liberated area in 1948 when land was turned over to the peasants. No less than the better known Red Star Over China, it is a classic of the revolution wrought by Mao’s Communist Party of China (CPC). The book is a very concrete, first person account. Hinton himself lived in the village of Long Bow in China at the time of land reform when the feudal estates were broken up and given to the peasants. Two of its characteristics make the book compelling. First the reader gets to know the participants, the peasants, by name and to witness their lives change forever as they take their destiny into their own hands for the first time in millennia. Second, the book begins by describing in detail what life was like before liberation. This writer is pretty much sob-resistant, but I wept several times as I read the condition of the peasants, ruthlessly exploited and degraded by the landowners in collaboration with the central government and the connivance of the Catholic “missionary” effort.

Hinton took over a thousand pages of notes and returned to the US only upon the termination of Truman’s widely despised war on Korea in 1953, which killed one million Asians and about 50,000 U.S. soldiers and contributed mightily to his defeat at the hands of Eisenhower. Hinton’s notes were promptly confiscated by customs and turned over to the notorious McCarthyite committee of Senator James Eastland. Hinton had his passport confiscated, was harassed by the FBI, blacklisted and unable to find work. He finally found land to farm which he did for a decade and a half. He finally got the release of his notes and set to work on Fanshen. No major publishing house would print it, but in 1966 Monthly Review Press, bless their Marxist souls, finally published it. In the splendid political climate of the 60s, it was a great but short lived success.

One especially stirring moment in Hinton’s account arrives when the landlords, deprived of any armed force to impose their will, take to threatening the peasants with the wrath of their ancestors. Standing before a monument to his ancestors, fearful and hesitant, one of the leading peasants finally takes a hammer to the headstone and smashes it to pieces. There is no thunderbolt from the skies, and at that moment the hold of the old exploiters was greatly weakened but not broken. The peasants remained afraid that Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists and their army would win and the old landlords would return; and the influence of the Catholics and their support of the old ways remained. But the peasants encouraged by the CPC cadre pushed on (Of course the threat of the displeasure of an ancestor is pretty thin gruel compared to the fire and brimstone fear that the monotheistic desert religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam, provided to the West.) Here Mao’s words found expression in the deeds of the peasants:

“What should we not fear? We should not fear heaven. We should not fear ghosts. We should not fear the dead. We should not fear the bureaucrats. We should not fear the militarists. We should not fear the capitalists.”

Pretty good advice –then and now.

During land reform in Long Bow, there was no presence of the People’s Liberation Army, just a few CPC cadre and in this case Hinton. More often than not the cadre had to restrain the peasants from killing the landlords at once and often in fairly merciless ways – and the cadre were not always successful. Millenia of rage at the beatings, rapes, theft, death of loved ones and worst human degradation imaginable poured out at the rulers of old China in those days. But revolution is not a matter of serving tea, as Mao put it.

I recently returned from a short stay in China. Without Hinton’s book, an adequate perspective on what I saw would have been impossible. New China is impressive in many respects, but it arose on the ashes of old China and the suffering endured for millennia by the Chinese peasantry until the end of Chiang Kai-shek’s U.S. backed rule. In Hinton’s book Mao makes no appearance nor do other giants of the Chinese revolution, but we see the fruits of their work up close. Chairman Mao liked to say that to understand society one should look down, not up; and Fanshen does just that. Look down not up – pretty good advice and so little regarded on the contemporary “left” which is so much given to watching those on high.

As a result of this betrayal, the numbers at Martha’s Vineyard were not large. But Cindy and her fellow anti-warriors were undeterred. While I was there, she mounted a spirited march down the road to Obama’s place, no more than a quarter mile away from where she stayed. The purpose was to present the President with a poster of Cindy bearing a signed plea to end the wars. The considerable armed force at the gate and the Secret Service officers would not even bring out the lowliest of staffers to receive the poster. Clearly the message from Obama was “Get lost, Cindy.” And we were quickly told to move a considerable distance down the road. At least in Crawford it had been possible to demonstrate at the checkpoint to the site – not so at Obama’s place. Thus, did Obama greet a mother whose son was lost in the wars, which he continues and enlarges by the day.

The site chosen by Obama for his vacation appeared restful, even idyllic, that afternoon though the house itself was a considerable distance away from the road, hidden from view. But the image of the “antiwar” candidate lounging comfortably by the ocean, his family nearby, while ordering the deaths, by drones and assorted other killing instruments, of people half a world away, complete innocents, unknown to this man or his advisers, was disturbing indeed. What sort of man could do this? Does Obama bring his much ballyhooed “coolness” down a degree or two for cold blooded murder? Are these wars a matter of conscience or patriotism for Obama? If that were so, does one suppose in a future imperial war that Obama will urge his daughters to volunteer to die in some Muslim land any more than did Bush offer his daughters? Is there no shame to this poltician, Obama, who rose to high office on the yearning of so many for peace? How long will we allow the soothing words of this latter day Elmer Gantry to cover up his deeds?

Despite the silence of the antiwar misleaders, news of Cindy Sheehan’s presence did make the rounds of Cape Cod and the Islands. And who knows but that it might have gone further. Was Obama going to be caught unprepared? A cynic or a realist, or merely someone familiar with the Obama PR machine, might be pardoned for thinking that a plan was in place — and executed in the form of an anti-Cindy mom. And so it came to pass that, while there was no time for Cindy, the Obamas did make it a point to pay a highly publicized visit to another mom, Lisa X, who had lost her son in Obama’s AfPak war. This young man Obama had happened to encounter earlier this year at Camp Lejeune. The Cape Cod Times reported the meeting thus:

So, yesterday afternoon, the family drove from Yarmouthport to Coast Guard Air Station Cape Cod. They waited about two hours at the base. … The Obamas entered. …. President Obama called them all by their first names, Lisa said. “It was like seeing a friend you hadn’t seen in a couple months,” Lisa said of the nearly 10-minute meeting.

President Obama offered his condolences. “He told us whatever decisions he makes, he has Nick (and others serving) in mind,” Lisa said. Earlier this year, Nicholas X met President Obama and shook his hand. The president gave a speech at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. Shortly after, Nicholas decided he wanted to be part of the new offensive in Afghanistan, his father told the Times in July.

Lisa said her son called her right after the meeting. “He shook his (President Obama’s) hand and called me moments later and said, ‘Mom, the President was amazing, his hand was the softest thing I’ve ever touched, like a baby’s bottom,’” Lisa recalled.

She made sure to tell President Obama that yesterday, drawing a laugh from him. Lisa X said her family is “still pretty numb and raw” over losing Nicholas. But she thought of his likely reaction to the family meeting the Obamas. “He is probably laughing hysterically … and proud.”

Such an account should break your heart and stir your anger at this hypocritical politician. The more so if, as one might suspect, this encounter made cynical use of this grieving woman’s trust. That soft hand of Obama’s is soaked in considerable blood now, some of it Nicholas X’s, no less than the rough hands of Bush and Cheney. Obama’s message is clear. Sacrifice your child and endure without complaint the “numb and raw” emotions that come of your grief. And then Barack Obama will glad hand you for “nearly ten minutes” and get some good press — after you cool your heels for two hours awaiting the cool, great man. But protest the senseless death of your son, and you get the bum’s rush at Obama’s gate. Thus, does the erstwhile “antiwar candidate” (How silly that phrase sounds now!) treat Cindy Sheehan whose like he once called on to join him in making peace. And the “leaders” of the antiwar movement are nowhere to be seen or heard.

Consider: When President Obama commits this nation to war against the Islamic terrorists, as he already has in Afghanistan, he will take millions of previously alienated and disaffected Americans with him, and they will support our troops in a way that most of his party has refused to support them until now. When another liberal, Bill Clinton went to war from the air, there was no anti-war movement in the streets or in his party’s ranks to oppose him. That is an encouraging fact for us . . .

Horowitz is now locked in fast embrace with Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor in chief of The Nation and Leslie Cagan and her cohorts at United For Peace and Justice (UFPJ). Vanden Heuvel’s most recent piece in The Nation runs under a title in the form of a query, “Obama’s War?” Whose war does she think it is anyway? Even the mainstream media calls it Obama’s war — sans question mark. Her piece ran shortly after Obama ordered 17,000 more troops to Afghanistan and almost a month after both Afghan and Pakistani civilians were first bombed at Obama’s orders. She concludes her piece, after citing the deployment of additional troops, “Up to this point the Afghan war belonged to George W. Bush, but Obama’s escalation threatens to make it his own. There’s still time to change direction. President Obama don’t make this your war”! (Emphasis mine. If escalation of the AfPak war (the war on Afghanistan and Pakistan) only “threatens” to make the war Obama’s, what will it take to give him ownership?)

Having supported Obama during the election when he was very clear about his coming Crusade in Afghanistan and having made no demands in exchange for their support, the liberals are now reduced, their leverage gone, to begging for a change in course. Pity, pathos, disgust or a sense of betrayal — it is hard to know what to feel when one encounters this stuff.

Similarly Cagan’s United for Peace and Justice, dominated by the “Progressive” Democrats of America (“P”DA) and the “Communist” Party of the U.S.A (“C”PUSA) — more or less the same thing, not because “P”DA is radical but because the “C”PUSA is not — has been all too silent on Obama’s AfPak War. As a result there have been discordant rumblings among the rank and file about UFPJ’s failure to call a national demonstration against the wars flaring from Iraq to Pakistan and refusal to join the only one called, that by ANSWER (Act Now To Stop War and End Racism) for March 21.

The first bombings of the AfPak war under Obama came on January 23, almost a month ago. Bombing a country is an act of war, and last time I looked Congress had not declared war on Pakistan, thus putting Obama in clear violation of the Constitution. The same crowd calling to “Indict Bush” should also be calling to “Impeach Obama.” Clearly a national action is called for in protest, but only ANSWER has done so. In fact until last Friday, Afghanistan was only mentioned in small print on the UFPJ web page. When ANSWER called for a national mobilization, UFPJ announced local actions for April 4, with no special mention of the AfPak war. This appears to be an attempt to divert people from the only national action to be called which will be a major embarrassment to Obama if the numbers are large. And a lot of people on the UFPJ national discussion groups, this writer included, have been told to shut up when protesting UFPJ’s inaction. But Obama’s imperialism will not go away despite the tut-tutting of the PC crowd — any more than his kowtowing to the banksters.

Let us be clear. I make no special brief for ANSWER. Their exclusionary politics are really not all that different from UFPJ’s, which loves to red bait them. (That is an amazing thing for those who call themselves “communists” or “progressives” to do.) But at least ANSWER has not been hypnotized into supporting Empire because the Dems are now in the imperial drivers’ seat. In this act of courage, they resemble the Libertarians and Greens and Naderites and many writers at The American Conservative who are consistent and impassioned in their aversion to war. That tells me we need a new and broad based antiwar movement which is open to one and all with an aversion to empire, no matter their feelings about tax breaks, abortion, national health insurance or anything else. Clearly UFPJ, the liberal democrats and others of that ilk are incapable of building such a movement — nor do they want to. We can only hope it will be born. Meanwhile I will be in DC for the ANSWER demonstration on March 21. For the moment it is the only game in a town now ruled by Emperor Obama and the Dems.

Thus the letter states: “Since your historic victory in the primary, there have been troubling signs that you are moving away from the core commitments shared by many who have supported your campaign, toward a more cautious and centrist stance…” Several paragraphs later, the letter finally gets around to mentioning “withdrawal from Iraq on a fixed timetable” as one of the positions that Obama “embraced” during the primary.

When others have raised such criticisms, Obama has responded that they have not been listening to him. On this one, I am with Obama. How can one take this guy seriously as an “antiwar” candidate when he has voted for hundreds of billions of dollars to fund the Iraq war and to slaughter hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis? Neither Ron Paul nor Dennis Kucinich, both presidential candidates, nor Barbara Lee voted for these funds for a “war of aggression,” as Ralph Nader has properly called it. On this score Obama’s voting record is no different from McCain’s or Hillary Clinton’s.

And Obama made it clear long ago in one of his few clear statements on the war that he does not oppose all wars and in fact supports “smart” ones. Iraq is thus not a criminal war, a war of aggression, but merely a “dumb” war. Presumably the war in Afghanistan that Obama so loves is to be a “smart” war. When you come right down to it, how different is Obama’s position that the war is not “smart” from McCain’s that, until the surge, the war was not “smartly” waged? I would say that the difference is less than a dime.

The letter is also frankly dishonest when it says that Obama is simply moving to a more “centrist stance” In what sense “centrist”? The war is wildly unpopular and close to 70% of Americans want the U.S. out of Iraq asap. What is “centrist” about moving away from a landslide majoritarian position? And what is the “peace”candidate doing when he calls for 100,000 more active duty army and marines, when he calls for more military spending, when he calls for stepping up the war on Afghanistan, when he talks belligerently about Iran, and when he equivocates on how many tens of thousands of troops are to be left in Iraq? All these are positions that the “peace” candidate took during the primary. They are not new.

The “open letter” also pretends that Obama took a position for universal health care during the primary. That is true only in words. As Paul Krugman has pointed out, Obama’s health care plan is even worse than was Hillary Clinton’s — a mighty low bar.

The worst part of the supplicants’ letter is that it is all based on wishful thinking. The idea that Obama is an “antiwar” or progressive candidate is a fantasy, never supported by the facts. And there is no way to change Obama by begging as the letter does. There is plenty of carrot, in fact downright ass kissing, in the letter — but no stick.

Ambitious pols understand sticks.

What is awfully irritating is that Katrina Vanden Heuval and the rest of the “liberal” elite criticize supporters of McKinney/Clemente and Nader/Gonzalez for “wishful thinking.” Compared to the sentiments and views of the supplicants’ letter, supporters of third party candidates are hard core realists. And it is very sad to see some of the signatories of this letter who in better times would have been men and women who put principle over “lesser evil” politics. Read the letter carefully. Look at the signatories. It may bring tears.

At the same time, Obama took another swipe at Black men for being the source of problems of Black youth. Drugs were not mentioned nor the grinding poverty of the urban ghetto nor the run down schools nor the high incarceration rate. For this Obama received some especially sharp criticism. But he quickly went on to support the death penalty for “heinous crimes,” supported the Supreme Court decision against gun control, voted to fund the Iraq war (again) and supported FISA-sanctioned.

Then one Saturday he abruptly cancelled an event, and emerged the next day to explain. That was the first time he wore the yarmulke. With Joe Lieberman at his side, he announced that he had converted to Judaism, because he said his father, whom he thought was Muslim, was actually Jewish. The last few days, he said, had brought him still farther on his voyage of self-discovery. He took the opportunity to repeat the position he had taken earlier that Jerusalem would be the undivided capital of Israel on which the Palestinians should have no claim. A reporter asked timidly, to a few hisses of “racism” from other reporters, whether that wouldn’t make any peace arrangement between the Israelis and Palestinians impossible. Obama said he had thought about that, and he and that he and his rabbi had in fact prayed over it. Obama said that on such an important question he had to defer to a “higher father,” as he put it. Lieberman beamed.

In response to this, there was stirring in many quarters. Many radical Black commentators expressed disgust with Obama, but Maureen Dowd, Tom Friedman and Bob Herbert quickly denounced them as “self-loathing Blacks.” They were not heard from much after that.

There was also movement on the other side. McCain soon stepped forward to announce that some old rumors were true and he had fathered a Black child. Thereupon, he apologized to his wife of many years and also announced he would divorce her. He would marry the mother who, it turned out, was Oprah Winfrey. Winfrey appeared at his side the next day on her show and switched her endorsement. From then on McCain began to denounce any disagreement with him as racist.

Both campaigns were now thrown into turmoil. It appeared that Obama’s rush to the center had been outdone by McCain. Obama quickly announced his own divorce and his plans to marry the love of his life, his e-mail pal, Scarlett Johansson. He said that although it might hurt his campaign, he had to follow his heart, which is one of his principles, and he was sure that America was adult enough to understand. The next day, Oprah, with Michelle at her side quickly denounced Obama who lost over 50% of the Black vote in polling that very day.

Then came the evening that Bush, accompanied by McCain holding Oprah’s hand and by Obama holding Lieberman’s, announced the bombing of Iran. All were wearing sunglasses because the klieg lights were more blinding than ever. Even the dark suits looked almost white. McCain said he backed the president as did Obama, but Obama went on to declare that the mission would be more quickly accomplished with tactical nuclear weapons. That would make it a “smarter war,” Obama declared and reminded everyone that since 2002 he had proclaimed his dedication to “smart wars.” Bill Kristol announced that McCain had no spine and threw his support to Obama. In a triumph of identity politics, everyone had arrived at the imperial “center.” The pundits were heartened, the war began and the election approached.

Meanwhile, the Left remains completely silent about the Nader/Gonzalez candidacy. Want to see what Nader/Gonzalez offers compared to Obama? I quote from the VoteNader.org web site:

There is one clear choice this year for peace in the Middle East.

Nader/Gonzalez…

Only Nader/Gonzalez stands with the courageous Israeli and Palestinian peace movements.

Only Nader/Gonzalez stands with the majority of Jewish Americans and Arab Americans which polls repeatedly show support a two-state solution as a way for peace in the Middle East.

Only Nader/Gonzalez would reverse U.S. policy in the Middle East.

Doubt it?

Then just listen to Barack Obama’s speech from this morning to the militarist and right-wing American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Did Obama make one mention of the illegal Israeli blockade of Gaza’s 1.5 million people and the UN-documented resulting humanitarian disaster there?

He did not.

Instead, Obama talked about “a Gaza controlled by Hamas with rockets raining down on Israel.”

Did Obama mention U.S. government supplied Israeli firepower resulting in Palestinian civilian casualties in Gaza at a ratio of 400 to 1 (Palestinian to Israeli)

He did not.

Many peace loving Israelis and Jewish Americans will be disgusted by Obama’s speech today.

Like the editor at the Israeli newspaper Haaretz who wrote that the Israeli government has “lost its reason” through the brutal incarceration, devastation and deprivation of the innocent people in Gaza.

Obama told AIPAC today that “we must isolate Hamas.” (In its current form.)

Did he mention that a March 2008 Haaretz poll showed that 64 percent of the Israeli people want direct negotiations for peace between Israel and Hamas, while only 28% oppose it?

He did not.

Instead, Obama said this morning that “Egypt must cut off the smuggling of weapons into Gaza.”

Did he say that Israel must stop bombing the people of Gaza?

He did not.

Obama this morning told AIPAC that “Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided.”

Did Obama mention that this pledge undermines the widespread international consensus two-state solution peace plan?

He did not.

So, in a nutshell:

In this critical election year, Nader/Gonzalez stands on these issues with the majority of Israelis, Palestinians, Jewish-Americans and Arab Americans.

Obama/McCain stand with the hard-line minority position of AIPAC.

The “Left” (and the Libertarians) should stop pretending that the Nader/Gonzalez candidacy is not there. The worst lies, as Obama himself shows, are those of omission.

Most interestingly, Benjamin’s statement declares: “The Bush administration has been a staunch supporter of Musharraf, providing his regime with over $10 billion in financial aid since 2001. … The U.S. government should withhold assistance until Musharraf steps down …” “Until”? “Until” says that once a Pakistani government is in place, which meets with U.S. “democratic” standards and U.S. approval, billions of mostly military U.S. aid should be poured into Pakistan once again. I am sure, if asked, Medea Benjamin and “P”DA would proclaim themselves “non-interventionists.” – well, maybe not “P”DA. But what business is it of the U.S. to determine by its aid what constitutes an acceptable government for the people of Pakistan? Contrast this to the clear call of Ron Paul to stop all military involvement and all aid to Pakistan. Nothing, no more, says Paul. That stance is not only the way to peace but is respectful of Pakistani self-determination, real democracy – in stark contrast to the neocolonial mentality of “P”DA.

The Medea Benjamin statement declares: “Bhutto was perceived by many Pakistanis as too ‘pro-Western,’ especially after remarks that if elected Prime Minister, she might allow U.S. military strikes inside Pakistan to eliminate al-Qaeda.” Those quotation marks around “pro-Western” speak volumes. Benazir Bhutto became Prime Minister for the first time with the backing and assistance of the Reagan administration in 1988. And she was sent back to Pakistan by the empire to help shore up the present Musharaff regime. In the end she paid with her life for that maneuver. When she agreed to work with Musharaff, she was denounced by many Pakistanis, including politician and former cricketer Imran Khan who accused her of “betrayal”. What kind of leader will compromise national sovereignity and allow entry to imperial troops? How is she different from Musharaff on that score? And how can a people enjoy democracy when they are under the sway of foreign forces and money?

Medea Benjamin’s statement states that Bhutto’s assassination is a “blow to women … who took strength from seeing a … woman playing a leadership role in a powerful Muslim country.” But is this not the triumph of identity politics over feminism? Bhutto did not want to enter politics as a young woman; but, according to Tariq Ali, she succumbed to her father’s wishes to continue the Bhutto dynasty. That bit of patriarchy is certainly no example for independent young women throughout the world. More significantly, Benazir Bhutto backed the Taliban, which in most quarters is not considered to be in the vanguard of feminism. Can we praise a woman who thrives personally at the expense of the common woman? Is Medea’s evaluation a harbinger of “P”DA support for Hillary Clinton who gained her “experience” in an administration which regarded the starvation of 500,000 children as “worth it” to make Saddam uncomfortable? Can feminists be proud of such women?

“P”DA’s nostrums are an echo of those that pour forth from the editorial pages of the NYT and the rest of the mainstream imperial punditry. These are more often than not advocates of a “benevolent” empire. But there can be no “good” empire; every empire represents the domination of one people over another. And there is no “good” in restoring billions in military aid to Pakistan once it toes the line, as Medea Benjamin and “P”DA wish. In many respects the propaganda of empire that preys on the good intentions of the common man and woman is the most insidious of all. It has led to countless tragedies; and until it is clearly recognized and firmly rejected, it is sure to lead to many more.

Imagine my surprise when, while browsing about the book store, I happened on an unusual volume entitled “Aesop 21: Fables for the 21st Century.” Fable #911 caught my eye because it was entitled, of all things, “Can the tail wag the dog”? But I could not figure it out, because there was no tail much less a dog in the fable. The story went like this:

The giant nuclear aircraft carrier had closed down its all-seeing bridge and handed control over to the tugboats. As the sun set, there was one lone tug pushing the behemoth, and it was busy pushing and pushing, pushing away in one direction. Always in the same direction, the little David moving the stupendous Goliath did not let up.

Most hands were below deck waiting impatiently to go ashore.

Only two lone sailors watched from the aircraft landing deck on high, far above the water as the tug moved the steel giant about. Suddenly the two lowly sailors realized that the tug was pushing the steel monster, not into the intended, welcoming channel, but ominously and relentlessly toward the shore.

The two sailors were scared out of their wits. One said to the other, “Something is amiss,” and the other replied, “Yes, something is awry.” On the shore were scores of giant petroleum storage tanks. The amiss sailor looked at the awry sailor and they both ran for the bridge and the commanding officer. There he was sitting comfortably at his desk sharing a drink with the second in command.

Sailor Amiss, breathless from the run, cried out, “Something is amiss. Our great carrier is being pushed aground by the tug.” The second officer, Lt. O’Witz calmly eyeing Sailor Amiss, turned to the befuddled commander, Captain MoreRon, and said in a very pontificating and self-assured tone, “Sir, Sailor Amiss is an alarmist. We are on course.” Commander MoreRon, who had changed his last name out of his admiration for Ronald Reagan whom he sought to emulate, put down his J&B. Somewhat quizzically, he addressed Lt. O’Witz by his first name, Wolfhard, “Wolf, I sensed that we were going the wrong way. Are you sure we should not take a look outside”? Lt. O’Witz retorted, “Sir, we are right on track. And I should warn you that this intruding sailor is well known to me. He is an anti-tugite (rhymes with “slug fight”) and has a deep paranoia when it comes to the tugs.” Commander MoreRon was quite incensed and turned to Sailor Amiss with one eye half closed in indignation. With a slight slur that came of one too many J&B’s, he proclaimed: “Sailor Amiss, you have broken into my command quarters and now you are spouting anti-tugite nonsense. If you do not desist, I will have you court-martialed for anti-tugite bigotry.” “Quite right, sir,” echoed Lt. O’Witz beaming heartily.

But the other watchful sailor, Sailor Awry, chimed in. “Commander MoreRon, Sailor Amiss is right. I saw it too. We have only a few minutes to turn on the engines and save our vessel from coming to grief by going aground. And I am no anti-tugite. In fact I was a tug captain for many years before joining the Navy.” “Sir,” Lt. O’Witz interrupted, “Pay him no heed. We have seen his type before, and they are the worst. They are self-hating, no, self-loathing tugites. They are beyond reason in their self-hatred.” Commander MoreRon looked at the second in command and then with his left eye squinting at the two sailors, he shouted, “Enough of your bigotry. Clap them both in the brig, Lieutenant O’Witz.”

But his command was interrupted by a great rumble as the carrier trembled beneath them. The carrier had been run aground by the tug. The tug for its part had pulled free and was sailing off. Then the carrier began to roll on its side. Some fires broke out, and it toppled onto the great oil tanks ashore. Flames roared to the skies, and explosions began to engulf the carrier, the shore and the nearby city. But unbeknownst to the tug crew, the carrier was bristling with nuclear weapons. As the temperature rose, the first of these exploded and then another and another until the harbor, city and region were engulfed in radioactive fire and death.

The superb warning systems of the US government detected nuclear explosions which were interpreted as a nuclear attack on a US city. Quickly, dutiful officers launched nuclear missiles from deep underground. Nuclear bombers, in every direction, targeted every suspect nation. And those nations responded. Soon the globe was on fire and nuclear winter followed cold on the heels of the fire. The world ended first by fire and then by ice.

Moral: The tail can easily wag the dog — but only if there is a dog to begin with.

Or, the only thing worse than a Holocaust is a Nuclear Holocaust.