Geography lessons

We’ve been subjected to the spectacle of a field of escaped zoo animals debating domestic and fiscal policy for a couple of years now, so it probably was time for the carnival to sweep into the foreign policy field as well given that things have progressed so wonderfully for the Empire lately. A number of commentators have pointed out the peculiar world our alleged ‘leaders’ live in when they can grill prospective Pentagon chief Chuck Hagel for hours on countries on the other side of the globe while ignoring the ones next door.

Someone took the trouble to search the transcripts of the bizarro-world Senate hearings with Hagel and found that Israel and threats to that state were brought up 178 times, followed by Iran at 171 mentions.

Compare that with the also-rans on the congressional priority list:

Iraq 30
Afghanistan 27
Russia 23
Palestinians 22
Syria 18
North Korea 11
Pakistan 10
Egypt 9
China 5
NATO 5
Libya 2
Bahrain 2
Somalia 2
Japan 1
South Korea 1
Turkey 1
Mali 1
Jordan 1

Note that all those other hotspots together add to up 171 comments. So in the minds of our distinguished solons, Israel is at least as important as the rest of the world combined. Or at least the Israel lobby is.

You’d think that someone, somewhere (Arizona maybe? Texas?) would think to ask the incoming chief of our military forces about the 1000-mile-plus border with, um, Mexico and how things were going with our next-door neighbor to the south? But if there’s a ‘Mexico lobby’ funneling money to them, we’re probably better off not knowing about it.