Sometimes sorting through the news of the day, one gets that same vague sense of unease one gets when one realizes he has just struck up a conversation with a stranger whose elevator doesn't go all the way to the top floor.
If you live in a big city, you probably have experienced it on a bus, or on a street corner, in an encounter with a homeless person, or some similar situation.
At first, everything seems ok, but then, as it dawns on you the person you are talking to isn't completely in touch with reality, the hairs stand up on the back of your neck a little.
You wonder just how nuts the person is . . . will they suddenly start shouting in your face, maybe even turn violent? It's usually just a fleeting feeling, but it is disconcerting, to say the least.
I've been getting that same feeling of late as I analyze current events . . . a vague, discomfiting sense that everybody is on Prozac but me, and I am bumping into them just as their meds are starting to wear off.
I don't know. You tell me.
When the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict was at its zenith, as bombs and rockets were raining down on both sides, France stepped up to the plate with a plan to create a buffer force that would patrol the Israeli-Lebanese border as part of the UN's overall cease-fire plan.
The French pressed the UN ceasefire plan by promising to take the lead in providing troops, making an initial commitment of at least four thousand, together with a promise to head up the overall peacekeeping effort. Then, suddenly, they backtracked, saying they'd only contribute 200 men to what was supposed to be a 15,000 man force.
It was like Paris collectively took another Prozac. A few days later, as the Prozac reached its half-life, Paris doubled its offer, to 400.
Then, as the last dose of medication started to wear off, they upped their commitment to 2,000. It makes one wonder if, when Paris takes its next happy pill, they'll suddenly forget what they were doing and order their forces to join the Hezbollah side and invade Israel or something.
Then there is the UN's Kofi Annan. Hezbollah invades Israel and kidnaps Israeli soldiers to hold as hostages, and Kofi Annan puts on HIS tinfoil hat to protect him from Israeli thought-control beams before blaming Israel for putting its soldiers too close to Hezbollah's reach.
Then he accuses Israel of war crimes for retaliating against a Hezbollah action that, according to the UN's own international conventions, IS a war crime.
He takes another Prozac and says Hezbollah started it.
When THAT dose wears off, he rethinks his statement. Kofi suddenly realizes that Lebanon is really an innocent victim of Israeli aggression -- as if Hezbollah and Lebanon were two entirely different entities on opposite sides of the planet.
Kofi speaks into existence a 15,000 man peacekeeping force and then rushes Israel into withdrawing, as if the force was already there. And, even when the force is in place, Kofi says they have no UN mandate to disarm Hezbollah. How's that again?
Without any troops, with no defined mission, no logistical system and no idea who will be in charge, Kofi starts demanding Israel provide a timetable for withdrawal, saying in advance that Israel's unspoken timetable is unsatisfactory.
All the while citing existing UN resolutions requiring the disarmament of Hezbollah as the justification for demanding an Israeli withdrawal as if, somehow, Israel was violating it by trying to disarm Hezbollah.
Another Prozac -- and now Israel is in hot water for trying too hard.
As the warm, Prozac-induced fuzziness takes hold, Annan explains that Israel has violated the 'principle of proportionality' and then he pretends that such a principle is a globally understood principle of warfare.
The rest of the members of the Security Council put on their tinfoil hats and claim the United States is under the influence of Israeli thought control beams.
To rectify this problem, John Bolton is immediately ordered by Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to put on his tinfoil hat, and presto!
"Shazzam," says Bolton. "I must confer with the UN's Human Rights Council."
Bolton wears his winter model, made of extra-thick tinfoil that prevents him from being affected by the June 20 Human Rights Council declaration that makes reviewing Israeli human-rights violations a PERMANENT feature of every Human Rights Council session.
Bolton's special tinfoil hat enables him to look past the fact that Israel's permanent referral is the ONLY mandate that has no year of expiration.
After conferring with Russia, Cuba, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Pakistan -- bastions of human rights and champions of human dignities all -- double-hatted John Bolton concludes:
"Israel has violated the internationally recognized principle of proportionality in warfare. Something must be done!"
Now that 'something' has been done -- a phantom UN peacekeeping force consisting of nobody and designed to protect Hezbollah from the UN's resolution ordering its disarmament, it is time to tackle the other nagging, but clearly less important problem of the day.
What to do about a mad nuclear-armed dictator that sees the destruction of Israel as his religious obligation?
The Russians (who don't need tinfoil hats) who voted in favor of the UN's legally-binding deadline of August 31 for Iran to either give up their nuclear weapons program or face sanctions, declared that they will reject whatever sanctions the UN imposes, despite Iran's refusal to give up their Russian-supplied nuclear materials.
Moscow explains that the best way to prevent Mahmoud Imadinnerjacket from pursuing his lifelong goal of bringing about the Islamic messiah by starting a nuclear war is to continue the path of negotiations until Iran tests its first working nuclear weapon.
The Security Council expressed surprise that such a bastion of human rights and global cooperation as Moscow would reverse itself so abruptly.
Why would Moscow, who built Iran's nuclear reactors -- over global objections -- and with billions of dollars to lose if Iran gives them up -- not want to put pressure on Iran to get Tehran to cut loose Moscow's cash cow?
Why? Why? And what to do now?
There is only one thing they CAN do. And thankfully, the Security Council is up to the task. It directs Kofi Annan to ask John Bolton to recommend his hat-maker.
Kofi then instructs everyone else to double their Prozac until the extra-thick tinfoil hats can be constructed by contented Chinese concentration camp inmates who joyfully leap at the opportunity to help out.
In the meantime, Cuba and Saudi Arabia will monitor Israel to make sure they don't violate Palestinian human rights by interfering with Hamas when they fire their home-made rockets into Israeli day care centers.
Now everybody is on the same page except Israel.
Somehow -- and I don't know how they did it yet -- Hezbollah managed to sneak into Jerusalem, kidnap Ehud Olmert and his entire cabinet, and surgically implant tinfoil hats on each of them before sneaking them back into the country, each equipped with a flesh colored intravenous Prozac drip prescribed by that humanitarian pediatrician, Doctor Ayman al Zawahiri.
So equipped, the Israeli cabinet voted to withdraw Israeli forces before things get out of hand and they accidently disarmed Hezbollah or killed all the innocent Lebanese Hezbollah fighters dedicated to Israel's destruction.
THAT would give Israel nothing to do tomorrow.
The rest of Israel's citizens, unable to get their tinfoil hats on over the helmets they wear to protect themselves from incoming Hezbollah rockets, head back to their bomb shelters to see if the Tooth Fairy left any Prozac under their pillows.
Alas, there is now a global shortage of Prozac, but the UN offers to send in enough RU-486 for everybody except the Israeli Arabs.
Makes sense to me.
"Hey, you got any more Prozac? I'm not Jewish."
By Jack Kinsella - Omega Letter Editor
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