Dog-pile on Nancy

[No, not THAT kind of dog-pile! It's meant to refer to "piling on".]

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is under fire this week, taking flak from all quarters. Even the liberal Washington Post editorialized that she'd gone too far in attempting her own diplomatic mission to the Middle East.

The criticism I've read is spot-on, and well-founded. She has absolutely no business meeting with America's enemies, including Syria, who's known as a state-sponsor of terrorism. She breached so many protocols, I wouldn't know where to begin with my own critique.

Rather, I want to focus on something she said on Sunday (April 1), and that was not widely reported. She held a conference call with Syrian President Assad, apparently to express her support in helping end the war of words between Britain and Iran over the latter's taking 15 British military members hostage. During the call, she was quoted as saying:

"We completely support the British troops in this matter, as we support our troops currently on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. But at the same time, we realize the British are using harsh language that is only serving to inflame Muslim and Persian passions regarding this unfortunate incident of unauthorized trespassing, and insist the British tone down their rhetoric. It is entirely up to the United Nations to issue words such as "unacceptable", "inexcusable" and "an intentional violation of international law. National pride has no business in this affair"

What is most disturbing in this quote is that Ms. Pelosi seems to think that sovereign nations should defer to the United Nations when other nations conduct acts of war against them. This is both dangerous and short-sighted.

In the first place, Iran's actions were clearly pre-meditated. They were also clearly an act of war:

• British Prime Minister Blair provided ample evidence that their military personnel were NOT in Iran's territorial waters when taken;
• Even had the British entered Iranian waters, the U.N. protocols clearly call for the violated state/nation to escort the offenders back to international waters, or to their own borders. Taking hostages is not, in any definition, an acceptable action;
• Iran further violated international norms (addressed clearly in the Geneva Convention) by showing video-taped images of the hostages, including clearly coerced "confessions".

With this backdrop, Ms. Pelosi is most concerned that the British are inflaming Islamic and Persian passions; called the incident an "unauthorized trespassing"; and she feels British leaders' use of words like "inexcusable" and "unacceptable" are over the line, or are reserved to the U.N.

I simply cannot imagine how anyone, let alone the Speaker of the House, could harbor such thoughts, let alone express them to terrorist, er, Syrian leader Assad!

So, while again showing that there is little, if anything, that Democrats feel worthy of defending, Ms. Pelosi may have tipped her hand: like many in the liberal intelligentsia, she apparently believes that we are all subordinate to the U.N.!

As if the Democrats being back in power wasn't scary enough!