Posted on 04/10/2002 9:23:29 AM PDT by Seti 1
PRESIDENT PUSHED TO ESCALATE WAR IN ISRAEL AND BEYOND
WASHINGTON -- The mood in Washington these days is ominous, unlike anything anyone can remember. Although one hesitates to put it in these terms, it is almost a mood of wanting to strike out at perceived enemies anywhere and everywhere across the world. Beneath this pugnacious atmosphere, there is some hope that Secretary of State Colin Powell's upcoming trip to look in on the mayhem in Israel/Palestine may yield some answers. The secretary is the most accomplished leader of what's left of our polished diplomatic and political administration.
But increasingly, the zealots, the radicals and the "crazies" are gathering around George W. Bush -- and finally, analysts who have wanted to ignore this important development are beginning to ask: "Why?"
The Washington Post just attempted courageously and well to answer that question, now dominating foreign policy discussion on every level. "In the current debate, the Christian conservatives have joined forces with neoconservatives, many of them Jewish, to push the administration to apply the same moral clarity to its approach to the Middle East and Arafat as it has to the war on terrorism and Osama bin Laden," political analyst Dan Balz wrote in "Tension in the GOP."
In another fine article in The Wall Street Journal Europe, reporters Robert S. Greenberger and Jeanne Cummings tried to take apart George W.'s perfervid support of Israel at the expense of the United States' other relationships. Particularly, they pointed to the degree to which "W's" views differ from those of his father, who was very tough-minded and realistic about Israel.
In contrast, they show how George W. Bush is "bound to Israel by a strong religious faith molded by his convictions as a born-again Christian." He described his visit to Israel in 1998, one of his few visits abroad in his pre-presidential life, as "an incredible experience." He met with Gen. Ariel Sharon, apparently unaware of the man's shadowy past, and the two hit it off immediately; in fact, that encounter was an experience that has caused him to side without exercising even minimal judgment with Sharon, no matter what he does.
It should not be missed that the president was on that same trip miffed and insulted when Yasser Arafat, with his usual incompetence, refused to meet with the then-Texas governor, who was already a presidential candidate-in-waiting.
One begins to uncover a pattern here: A major clue to the president's thinking on foreign policy is his strong tendency to focus only on what he has himself seen and done. This is also true of his effusive relationship with Mexico, with which he feels comfortable because of his experience as governor of Texas.
Foreign policy by personal comfort level? "Unlike his father's vast diplomatic and government experience, the current president's philosophy toward Israel is based largely on personal experience," The Wall Street Journal Europe article averred, "and his relationships -- and grudges -- now are helping to shape his administration's policies."
But other congeries of people and ideas are also shaping these policies, and with ever greater consequence.
Most of the people now influencing Bush strongly on the road to a seemingly perpetual warfare -- men like Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, military adviser Richard Perle and Irving and Bill Kristol -- are either combative neoconservatives, fervent Israeli supporters or Christian conservatives. The majority of them, including their most aggressive spokesmen, have never served in the military.
Yet they don't hesitate to express their views; indeed, their influence has led the president from fighting the immediate war against palpable anti-American terrorism in Afghanistan and al-Qaida cells, to helping Ariel Sharon dissolve Palestinian institutions and structures so he can keep hold of Palestinian lands, to (in the works -- really!) overthrowing governments from Iraq to Syria to Iran to North Korea. (And I know I've missed a few.)
One of this group, the influential conservative editor and author Norman Podhoretz, was quoted in The New York Times, using a euphemism for overthrowing governments: "On tactics, (the president) may be listening to Colin Powell. But he's very clear as to his strategic objectives -- not just to clean up al-Qaida cells but to effect regime changes in six or seven countries and to create conditions which would lead to internal reform and modernization in the Islamic world."
One wants to ask breathlessly: Is that all? Why, we could do that before lunch! Why not eradicate evil from the heart of man while we're about it? Why not redirect the winds and change the coming of the tides, and not give up until we stop the ice at the North Pole from melting? Why not make the lame walk and the dead arise from their sepulchers? We are, after all, starting (but only starting, thank you!) with the Holy Land!
Any rational person's non-snide conclusion must be that President Bush is getting himself -- and us -- into choppy, dangerous waters.
Every day, Prime Minister Sharon commits some new horror, all in the name of the America that provides all of his busy bulldozers, tanks and planes. Hardly a day goes by when he doesn't insult President Bush. Yet, despite some recent hesitation, the president still takes Sharon's side more forcefully and goes along with his own advisers, many of whom are also adherents of the extremist-right Likud Party in Israel. That mentality and influence are now contributing to plans to extend the war(s) to enforce all those enticing "regime changes" all over the world.
The president may feel comfortable swimming in the shallows of these policies, but in the end he will find that he clearly knew nothing about rip tides.
Then why aren't you in Israel, if you think that is where you'll find democracy and the rights of man? Have you ever fought for anything or is that just big talk?
I don't find anything in that column which calls Bush stupid--unless you feel referring to his Christanity means that.
Here is a section that sets out the theme of the stupid, inexperienced Bush:
In contrast, they show how George W. Bush is "bound to Israel by a strong religious faith molded by his convictions as a born-again Christian." He described his visit to Israel in 1998, one of his few visits abroad in his pre-presidential life, as "an incredible experience." He met with Gen. Ariel Sharon, apparently unaware of the man's shadowy past, and the two hit it off immediately; in fact, that encounter was an experience that has caused him to side without exercising even minimal judgment with Sharon, no matter what he does.
It should not be missed that the president was on that same trip miffed and insulted when Yasser Arafat, with his usual incompetence, refused to meet with the then-Texas governor, who was already a presidential candidate-in-waiting.
One begins to uncover a pattern here: A major clue to the president's thinking on foreign policy is his strong tendency to focus only on what he has himself seen and done. This is also true of his effusive relationship with Mexico, with which he feels comfortable because of his experience as governor of Texas.
Foreign policy by personal comfort level? "Unlike his father's vast diplomatic and government experience, the current president's philosophy toward Israel is based largely on personal experience," The Wall Street Journal Europe article averred, "and his relationships -- and grudges -- now are helping to shape his administration's policies."
The passage, and the rest of the column, is fatuous manure.
I'm not having a good day.
Yes, that's what I thought.
I find it refreshing that we finally have a president who is willing and able to use America's Military (20 years active duty and still a DA Civilian in a Signal Battalion).
Military power is best used sparlingly, but with decisive force. Clinton was a coward and did not understand "Military" power in the World, and thus squandered both its value and respect within the World; conversely, Clinton was a know liar who could tell a lie not beleiveable by Gore who known to much more honest....Bush will eventually, one Shiekdom at a time, end the Arab stranglehold on the sensibilities of Europe and the UN - now that the Arab double-talk is being seen in the Public, what they spin for their population's consumption does not and will continue not to gain any influence in the rest of the World.
She speaks of atrocities, but I just can't remember the last Israeli bombing of civilians at an Islamic religious festival, or at a restaurant, or in a disco. I guess it's only an atrocity when commited by one of those dirty Jews, against one of those Palestinian freedom-fighter "civilians" - you know, the ones with their faces covered, carrying AK-47's and RPG's, hiding behind their women and children.
She really tells it like it isn't. But that's okay, as long as she's furthering the cause, and only deceiving infidels.
Only oil, huh? And what have we gotten from Israel except endless grief?
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