What's Good For The Goose

Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs David Welch recently discussed the Israeli pullout from Gaza and offered the following:

"In the road map, there is a requirement to take steps toward the dismantlement of the terror organizations. Hamas is for us [the United States] a terror organization."

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"[S]ecurity is the beginning, the middle and the end and security can not be had either for the people in those areas or for those who live around them if there is a variety of armed organizations that are allowed to operate."

http://usinfo.state.gov/usinfo/Archive/2005/Aug/24-41933.html

Security cannot be had for people in areas where a variety of armed organizations are allowed to operate. Fair enough. It's not a very controversial point I suppose. Curiosity compels me to ask, however, if this same rationale applies to terrorist organizations within the United States.

Since we all agree that the existence of armed organizations within an area is a barrier to security, what is being done to disarm the Bloods, the Crips and all the Latino gangs that bring drugs, violence and misery to the residents of South Los Angeles? The KKK, America's favorite terrorist organization, is still up and running and I haven't heard much about efforts to disarm them. Why is it that American politicians are more concerned about the security of Israeli citizens than that of its own constituents?

Unless America figures out how to disarm 13-year-old gang members in South Los Angeles and until Israel disarms its terrorist settlers, they have no business making righteous demands to the Palestinian people to accomplish Herculean missions at which the U.S. and Israel have utterly failed.