The Asp Speaks

I've a story to tell before posting this piece about Henry Kissinger. When I was young, perhaps 11 or 12 years old, I recall visiting with a neighbour boy over their wooden fence. I was casually leaning on it with my arms crossed on top the fence as we conversed. I didn't realize for some minutes that there was a small brazil-nut shaped creature under my left wrist, at least not until I began to feel a tingling in my arm. Within half an hour, my left arm was completely lifeless and numb, most of the left side of my body was paralyzed, and I was vomiting almost uncontrollably. This lasted for several hours. The doctor informed my folks that there really wasn't much he could do for me.

That little creature is termed an asp in Texas, and has a powerful punch. Snakes, spiders, ants, and such are creatures that have too useful a purpose on earth to let Henry Kissinger be termed one of them. But the asp is such a vile thing that perhaps we can resort to calling the man one of those. At least, this asp seems to be getting pragmatic about the situation his buddy W has created.

Recall our post just previous and our comments about 'courage of convictions.' Richard Jehn

Kissinger Paints Bleak Iraq Picture
The Associated Press

LONDON -- Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said military victory was no longer possible in Iraq in a television interview broadcast Sunday.

In a wide-ranging interview on BBC television, Kissinger presented a bleak vision of Iraq, saying the U.S. government must enter dialogue with Iraq's regional neighbors -- including Iran -- if any progress was to be made in the region.

"If you mean, by 'military victory,' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," he said on the BBC's Sunday AM program.

But Kissinger warned against a rapid withdrawal of troops, saying it could lead to "disastrous consequences," destabilizing Iraq's neighbors and causing a long-lasting conflict.

"If you withdraw all the forces without any international understanding and without any even partial solution of some of the problems, civil war in Iraq will take on even more violent forms and achieve dimensions that are probably exceeding those that brought us into Yugoslavia with military force," he said.

"All the surrounding countries -- especially those that have large Shiite populations -- will be, in all likelihood, destabilized," he said.

Kissinger has been advising U.S. President George W. Bush on Iraq.

Source