Don Wooten: On JD Vance, war in Middle East and hurricane Helene
This has been a news-heavy week. A journalist hardly knows what to cover and at what length: the horrific devastation of Hurricane Helene; the gradual shift of a war between mid-eastern proxies to direct attacks between Israel and Iran; or the vice-presidential debate between J.D. Vance and Tim Walz.
The latter was an unusually courteous encounter with exchanges that actually dealt with specific topics. But what counts in the political show biz of television is appearance and, on that level, Vance clearly was the winner. True, he repeated some of Trump's more outrageous lies, but in a calm and sincere manner. It was rather like watching a TV drug commercial in which viewers are so distracted by the sight of happy, enthusiastic users that they miss the disclaimer about possibly lethal side effects.
It was the best thing that has happened to the Trump campaign since the GOP's nominating convention. The former president gave Vance a glowing internet review, but the general consensus that he lost to Harris, while Vance overshadowed Walz, has to sting. Trump cannot stand being upstaged by an underling.
While Harris has pragmatically changed her views on several topics, Vance's reversal on Trump has been head-spinning. After blasting Trump as another Hitler, he now promotes his lies about winning in 2020 and echoes his irrational rants against immigrants, albeit in more measured speech.
"Establishment" Republicans detest Trump, but they need his followers' votes. When Trump is finally off the stage, Vance is well positioned to replace him. He's well connected with the money wing of the party and might be able to hold on to MAGA zealots. He is clearly looking ahead to a presidential run of his own.
-
The spreading war in the Middle East can be traced to the fatal mistake of rejecting the two-state solution of the Oslo Accords in 1993. Benyamin Netanyahu's early decision to undercut the Accords and pursue power at all costs lie at the base of the escalating violence. Now we see how his relentless drive to stay in power is playing out. The periodic bursts of violence of both sides has escalated to tit-for-tat exchanges between Iran and Israel that seem to be triggering a full-scale war.
Netanyahu knows that he has a free hand to exploit American military aid until Nov. 5th. Democrats and Republicans have their eye on the Jewish vote and don't want to do anything which might tilt that fractured bloc one way or the other in the election.
A lengthy, mid-week Washington Post story by reporters Karen DeYoung and Missy Ryan details Biden's long, frustrating attempt to moderate Netanyahu's aggressive tactics;
"(Biden) made clear our support (for Israel) was unqualified, the morally right thing to do," recalled David Satterfield, a senior U.S. diplomat with long Middle East experience, whom Biden called out of retirement to manage the looming humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza.
"But the president also 'made it clear' to Netanyahu that 'you've got to treat the humanitarian side of this with as much seriousness as the kinetic side,' " Satterfield said. 'Were maximum efforts made by Israel? No. They were not then and they certainly are not now.' "
Netanyahu continues to insist on U.S. arms supplies to carry out his war of Hamas and Hezbollah extermination, dismissive of the cost to innocent civilians. Demands for temperance from Biden and the U.N. are simply ignored.
After the election, President Biden will have two months in which to take more drastic action to stop the carnage, if he wishes. By then, it may be too late to halt a wider conflagration.
-
It may also be too late to mitigate the increasing damage induced by our changing climate. The devastating destruction wrought by hurricane Helene is emblematic of what we can expect from this point on. Changes are in motion across the world that won't be stopped, even we could shut down fossil fuel emissions overnight. Glaciers are melting in Greenland, The huge Thwaites glacier in Antarctica is sliding into the sea and frozen tundra is melting across vast areas of Siberia and North America: all releasing vast quantities of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Nothing we do now can halt any of this.
Helene was unprecedented. It formed off the coast of central America, moved across the Gulf of Mexico in a week, slamming into the Florida coast as a category 4 storm over 400 miles wide. It maintained hurricane strength well inland, pouring over 20 inches of rain and 100-mph winds into areas that had never expected to suffer such damage.
National and state resources were overwhelmed. There are still remote areas in North Carolina and Tennessee that can only be reached by helicopter. The six-state death toll continues to rise and many are still unaccounted for. Few homes in the region had national flood insurance. The effects of this catastrophe will linger far into the future.
Among the many economic impacts of the storm is the shutdown of factories in Spruce Pine, North Carolina, noted for the production of rare, high-purity quartz used to make solar panels and computer chips. While the factories may be up and running again soon, unnumbered homes - even wholesale villages - have been lost.
Meanwhile record temperatures are being registered on the west coast, the mountain states, and in Texas and Florida. Triple digit readings are becoming common. As the Earth continues to heat up, weather patterns are changing in deadly, unanticipated ways.
Here in the Midwest, we are in a drought, with its attendant warning of fire hazard. While the frequency of tornadoes has increased, we have largely avoided the fires and floods that have plagued other parts of the nation. Being temporarily in the sweet spot can be seductive, making us complacent; but our turn will come.
Don Wooten is a former Illinois state senator and a regular columnist. Email him at: .
