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.
You have such a way with words, Ohioman. Have you thought of joining the poetry thread?
One side is justified and the other isn't.
The Palestinians are murdering Jews. The Jews are trying to defend themselves against the murdering Palestinians.
There is no moral equivalence between murder and self-defense.
Maybe the you and the Palestinians really are too uncivilized to tell the difference.
If I hated Jews I would be 150% in favor of backing Israel at all costs. If the unthinkable (given Israeli atomic weapons) happened and Israel went under where do you think the survivors would go? Let me tell you. The US would move in massively to stop the killing and negotiate to allow Israelis to emigrate to the US (a large proportion would be only too happy to do so). The fall of Israel would mean several million more Jews in the US. So if I'm such a Jew-hater why am I not a charter member of the Israel First gang?
You might want to think about that Maybe some of these goy Israel Firsters just hate Jews.
the enmity of the 1/4 of the world's population which is Muslim
Inevitable, given the world view of Islam, with or without our support of Israel.
the contempt of Europe
The gelatinous mass of European politicians, who stand for nothing, but expect U.S. protection from everything (including Islamic terrorists in their midst), is contemptible. We are above their contempt; they (with the possible exception of Great Britain and a few minor players), are beneath ours.
the condemnation (and hidden glee) of Russia and China
Im not sure what youre smoking, but whatever face-saving grumbling Russia might make, she does not oppose our support of Israel, since she herself has quite a problem with Islamic terrorists, which has nothing to do with Israel; as for China, the act of Americans breathing brings condemnation.
She's been a major foreign correspondent for over thirty years. What have you done recently?
No, but she does tell it like a certain subset of society wants it to be spun. Maddy Halfwit and Billyboy Cartoon, for example.
Neville Chamberlain would approve, too.
These foreign policy "experts" who have been promoting Arafat and the P.A. ought to be begging forgiveness for creating creating a hell on earth in the West Bank instead of making snide remarks about the leaders trying to clean up the mess they made.
This is the party line of the Israel First gang repeated over and over by the media. That does not make it true. We are a major customer for Arab oil and the Arabs have every reason to be friendly to us as they were for years. They have their interests and we have ours and they are not the same but that does not require enmity.
Our support of Israel has been a disaster for American interests and at the moment threatens our peace, our economy and our internal tranquility. The Israel Firsters simply don't care--they would sacrifice the US for Israeli advantage any day.
Oh, you mean like blowing up buses...as occured today?
This is a point very obvious to anyone who has traveled in the Middle East. The Arab man-in-the-street does not, cannot, believe that the US is doing Israel's bidding. They believe that Israel is the US agent attacking the Palestinians for some American agenda. I have seen that view expressed on one of the Jews-Against-the-Occupation sites, as well. They, at least, should know better.
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