More Middle East Fun-and-War Games from Tommy-boy, still talking "effect" instead of "cause", still refusing to admit to the empirical, empire-building goal behind the US strategy -- however off-the-wall that strategy may be.
Do any of these Neo-con types ever consider the underlying reason for the tensions between Israel and and her neighbors? Or between the United States and the rest of the world? Do they ever stop spinning bias into their pro-Israel and pro-American arguments long enough to realize that no thinking human being believes their one-sided claims? Do they ever fathom that their stick and carrot games will not bring about world peace?
I suggest they open their eyes and take a look at what their policies have thus far wrought.
American imperialism is about to blow, my friends. We have less to fear from so-called "terrorists" than we do from the crazies running us headlong into a world war.
Ask yourself the questions this administration and it's league of propagandists don't want you to ask: Why? Why do our "enemies" hate us? Why have they turned to terror? It's certainly not Bushie's answer: "They hate democracy." (Besides, we don't even have a democracy anymore). And it's certainly not because they "hate our freedom." They don't.
The answer is quite simple: they hate the fact that we meddle in their countries under the guise of friendship, offering all kinds of goodies, until we get our foot in the door, and then, like a wolf in sheep's clothing, we go for the kill, turning them into debtor nations to be manipulated and blackmailed into filling and refilling our bottomless corporate coffers. We rape their land, feast on their resources, destroy their economies, enslave their people and laugh all the way to the World Bank. That's why they hate us.
As for Israel? In the current Hezbollah fiasco, Israelis are being used by us and encouraged to die for our self-serving imperialist motives.
Does anyone really think that the longer the killing goes on in Lebanon and Israel the better will be the chance for lasting peace? Hardly! Let's say Israel succeeds in creating a "buffer zone" and pushing Hezbollah back. Then what? Once the fighting ends, Syria and Iran will supply them with bigger, farther reaching missiles and the buffer zone will no longer keep Israel safe (even if it were possible to police it adequately with an international force--ha!) Meanwhile, Israel will continue its conflict with the Palestinians and Hezbollah and peace will continue to elude the region.
Peace comes only through negotiation, give and take, and respect for one another's grievances--brokered by those who commit themselves to the process and to a non-violent solution.
No, friends, the longer the fighting goes on, the more we commit ourselves to war as a way to settle differences, the more entrenched will be the hatred on both sides--something not conducive to breaking bread over a peace table or stopping the recruitment of militants around the globe.
Talking Turkey With Syria
By Thomas L. Friedman
The New York Times
Damascus, Syria
One wonders what planet Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice landed from, thinking she can build an international force to take charge in south Lebanon without going to Damascus and trying to bring the Syrians on board.
Two Syrian officials made no bones about it when I asked their reaction to deploying such a force, without Syrian backing: Do you remember what happened in 1983, each asked, when the Reagan administration tried to impose an Israeli-designed treaty on Lebanon against Syria’s will?
I was there, I remember quite well: Hezbollah, no doubt backed by Syria or Iran, debuted its skills for the world by blowing up the U.S. Embassy in Beirut and the U.S. Marine and French peacekeeping battalions. This is not a knitting circle here.
Can we get the Syrians on board? Can we split Damascus from Tehran? My conversations here suggest it would be very hard, but worth a shot. It is the most important strategic play we could make, because Syria is the bridge between Iran and Hezbollah. But it would take a high-level, rational dialogue. Dr. Rice says we can deal with Syria through normal diplomatic channels. Really?
We’ve withdrawn our ambassador from Damascus, and the U.S. diplomats left here are allowed to meet only the Foreign Ministry’s director of protocol, whose main job is to ask how you like your Turkish coffee. Syria’s ambassador in Washington is similarly isolated.
Is this Syrian regime brutal and ruthless? You bet it is. If the Bush team wants to go to war with Syria, I get that. But the U.S. boycott of Syria is not intimidating Damascus. (Its economy is still growing, thanks to high oil prices.) So we’re left with the worst of all worlds — a hostile Syria that is not afraid of us.
We need to get real on Lebanon. Hezbollah made a reckless mistake in provoking Israel. Shame on Hezbollah for bringing this disaster upon Lebanon by embedding its “heroic” forces amid civilians. I understand Israel’s vital need to degrade Hezbollah’s rocket network. But Hezbollah’s militia, which represents 40 percent of Lebanon, the Shiites, can’t be wiped out at a price that Israel, or America’s Arab allies, can sustain — if at all.
You can’t go into an office in the Arab world today without finding an Arab TV station featuring the daily carnage in Lebanon. It’s now the Muzak of the Arab world, and it is toxic for us and our Arab friends.
Despite Hezbollah’s bravado, Israel has hurt it and its supporters badly, in a way they will never forget. Point made. It is now time to wind down this war and pull together a deal — a cease-fire, a prisoner exchange, a resumption of the peace effort and an international force to help the Lebanese Army secure the border with Israel — before things spin out of control. Whoever goes for a knockout blow will knock themselves out instead.
Will Syria play? Syrians will tell you that their alliance with Tehran is “a marriage of convenience.” Syria is a largely secular country, with a Sunni majority. Its leadership is not comfortable with Iranian Shiite ayatollahs. The Iranians know that, which is why “they keep sending high officials here every few weeks to check on the relationship,” a diplomat said.
So uncomfortable are many Syrian Sunnis with the Iran relationship that President Bashar al-Assad has had to allow a surge of Sunni religiosity; last April, a bigger public display was made of Muhammad’s birthday than the Syrian Baath Party’s anniversary, which had never happened before.
Syrian officials stress that they formed their alliance with Iran because they felt they had no other option. One top Syrian official said the door with the U.S. was “not closed from Damascus. [But] when you have only one friend, you stay with him all the time. When you have 10 friends, you stay with each one of them.”
What do the Syrians want? They say: respect for their security interests in Lebanon and a resumption of negotiations over the Golan. Syria is also providing support for the Sunni Baathists in Iraq. Much as the Bush team wants to, it can’t fight everyone at once and get where it needs to go. There will not be a peace force in south Lebanon unless it’s backed by Syria. No one will send troops.
I repeat: I don’t know if Syria can be brought around, and we certainly can’t do it at Lebanon’s expense. But you have to try, with real sticks and real carrots. Syria is not going to calm things in Lebanon, or Iraq, just so the Bush team can then focus on regime change in Damascus. As one diplomat here put it to me, “Turkeys don’t vote for Thanksgiving.”
Thomas Friedman. (Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times)
Related:
- Rami Khouri | Condi Rice's Mid-East Fantasy Ride
"American officials are very good at vernacular descriptions, but lousy at history and political reality in the Middle East," writes Rami Khouri. "Condoleezza Rice ... has described the massive destruction, dislocation and human suffering in Lebanon as an inevitable part of the 'birth pangs of a new Middle East.' From my perspective here in Beirut, what she describes as 'birth pangs' look much more like a wicked hangover from a decades-old American orgy of diplomatic intoxication with the enticements of pro-Israeli politics."
- Iran Says It's Ready for Nuclear Talks
Iran said Sunday that Western incentives aimed at persuading the country to halt its nuclear program were an "acceptable basis" for talks and that it was ready for detailed negotiations.
- U.S. Speeds Up Bomb Delivery for the Israelis - New York Times
- UK Govt Sources Confirm War With Iran Is On by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
In the last few days, I learned from a credible and informed source that a former senior Labour government Minister, who continues to be well-connected to British military and security officials, confirms that Britain and the United States. - "... will go to war with Iran before the end of the year."
- Eat The Press | David Sirota: CAUGHT ON TAPE: Tom Friedman's Shocking Admission | The Huffington Post
Technorati tags: Thomas Friedman, New York Times, George Bush, Lebanon, Syria, Hezbollah, Israel, Middle East, War, news, commentary, op ed
4 comments:
Tom has one point which the Unknown Candidate is ignoring. People more knowledgable than me concerning the foolishness of George W. Bush (Robert Fisk and Robert Baer, for two) have pointed out that our destruction of Sunni Iraq has made a swathe of Shia states across the near east which didn't exist before: Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon. These Shia are bound to get uppity.... and uppity they have become. The US describing them as "terrorists" makes little sense. They are a movement, and they are ready to move. Have you noticed how Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia condemned the Hezbollah attack on Israel? Why should they do that? Maybe because they are Sunni.... The Unknown Candidate is allowing his politics to blind him to the big story...
Sorry, I am not allowing politics to blind me to "the big story." I don't dispute what you say. My comments go far beyond the politics that seem to be blinding you to the bigger picture. From the US neo-con government perspective, all parties are pawns to be manipulated and propagandized in order to achieve their end goal: a global empire controlled by the U.S. Until the American people understand what is behind BushCo's reckless policies -- nothing else matters. Wars feed BushCo's coffers. They don't give a God damn about peace. Period. As long as they can keep people arguing over who is right, Israel or Hezbollah -- we will fail to see the bigger picture. Politics, my friend, is what is blinding most everyone to the deep, sinister goals of BushCo.
One of the reasons for Bush to have gotten us involved in the "liberation" or Iraq (and yes, the excuses keep shifting) was that if one of the pieces in the whole rotten Middle East edifice could be made into a liberal capitalist democracy, then the whole edifice could be so made. Even Robert Baer (See No Evil, Sleep with the Devil) believed some of that.
With Syria getting thrown out of Lebanon after Saddam's fall, this actually seemed to be happening.
Baer, who speaks Arabic better than I do, talked to one of the big Mullahs in Iraq soon after Saddam became suddenly unemployed. He discovered that the Shiite militia was taking care of security... was tied in close to Iran and that things had indeed shifted... but not in the way Bush had predicted.
Of course Bush and co. like war. I don't dispute that with you at all, UC. What I am saying is that Bush's war has not merely screwed up America.... it has changed things in unpredictable ways all over the world, but especially in the Middle East.
Things were bad before we got involved in Iraq.... now they are not merely bad, but incomprehensibly bad.
Although I never agreed with Middle East "domino' theory -- it ignores everything about the history of the region -- Bush was arrogant and dumb enough to believe that he could create his own reality through sheer will. It's the way he operates, in a smoke and mirror, bait and switch, truthy-falsey fantasy world of his making. Unfortunately for him -- and us -- there's a funny thing about "reality"--you can't change it.
I agree with you, Mickey. And thanks for the dialogue!
By the way, have you read "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins? If not, read it. It will make much of Bush's actions and policies that seem so senseless suddenly make a whole lot of sense. And it will largely explain how we have allowed ourselves to get into this mess. Plus it's a great read; true story that reads like a novel. I highly recommend it.
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