Posted on 10/27/2004 7:08:44 PM PDT by Little Big Man of Canada
Good One
LOL! The sad thing is that he looks quite comfortable in that.
Guess that shortage of flu vaccine was a good thing after all.
Looks like hell has a new opening.
Tomrrow's Kerry soundbite.....Bush secretly trying to kill Arafat to distract the news from missing weapons and scare the voters......Sad part is I can really see it. Not to sound bad but I hope he does meet the maker and burn in hell for all the pain and misery he has caused.
Yes_Sir Im_a_rat needs to be fertilizer in this life and burning in hell in the next
Finally, something Kerry can aspire to.
Actually, the PLO terrorists don't want him either...he has NO leadership abilities (...I didn't think it possible that someone could have LESS ability than Arafat)
"Has Arafat made his obligatory phone to John Kerry? Doesn't just everyone who is anyone have to call Kerry before they go to the great bedouin tent in the sky?"
Good point. Yassir Arafat, murderer of thousands, can remind Kerry about the importance of "integrity...integrity...integrity."
(Ahem, sound of PaMom clearing her throat, deepening her vocal tones and affecting an effete, patrician, Massachusetts accent...)"When yesterday I spoke for the last time with my good friend Yassir Arafat he reminded me that George W. Bush has been the greatest detriment to peace in the middle east since biblical times. This administration has caused more problems for the middle class of the middle east than the Roman Empire did. And when I become President I will ensure peace the middle east because I have a plan..."
actually, i see a lot of similarities between kerry and arafat. both tell their audiences what they want to hear, both will stab you in the back in a second, both are habitual liars, most of their supporters are at best luke warm about them, the rally cry to gain power is to hate someone (for kerry it is bush, for arafat it is israel), both are apparently quite comfortable carrying guns (haha),....
LOL! You go mom!
You wrote: "Die, MF, die"
My sentiments EXACTLY. Reminds me of Metallica's "Creeping Death", which paraphrased the Old Testament story about what happened to another Jew-hating Middle Eastern dictator after he made his life persecuting God's chosen people.
--"So let it be written/ So let it be done/ I'm sent here by the Chosen One/
So let it be written/ So let it be done/ To kill the first-born Pharoah's son/ I'm creeping death.....Die! Die! Die! Motherf***er!...etc..."
Arafat is one of the world's slimiest murderers, and it's a damn sorry state of events when a thuggish Fascist like Y-ASS-ir can pass himself off as a "world leader". His true reward awaits him (hopefully very) shortly. It's gonna get real warm real fast for this loser. I just wish we could have "arranged the meeting". Sigh.
He looks Nuanced, n'est pas?
Geopolitical Diary: Thursday, Oct. 28, 2004
October 28, 2004 0013 GMT
Yasser Arafat appears to be dying. He is certainly very ill and most indications are that his condition is extremely grave. It is not clear what he is suffering from and it is always possible that he will recover, but the working assumption among most observers is that recovery would surprise them.
The death of Arafat would end not only an era of Palestinian history, but also an era of Arab history. Arafat was part of the generation of Arab leaders that arose after the revolution of Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt. They were secularists for whom Islamic religiosity was secondary. Rather than Islam, they celebrated Arabic pan-nationalism. They were generally socialists, regarding the state as the primary vehicle for development. They were modernists in the sense that they pursued industrialization. They were militarists, regarding the army -- or the militarized party -- as the driver for their vision. And finally, they looked at the Soviet Union as a strategic partner in their struggle against Israel. Most Arab countries outside the Arabian Peninsula were swept by this fever.
Arafat was the last Nasserite firebrand. Here and there, in Syria or Egypt, a regime that can draw its lineage back to the Arab revolutionaries still hangs on, but the fire is gone. Arafat alone still stood and fought -- but he fought more as a fossil than as a contemporary force. Arafat, like much of the Arab world, saw the mantle of revolution taken away from the Arab secularists, and seized by the Islamist revolutionaries. The United Arab Republic gave way to al Qaeda. Hamas came to challenge the authority of al-Fatah, Arafat's party.
Arafat survived by tacking with the Islamist wind, but he never fully capitulated to the Islamist spirit. That spirit transcended the Arab world and focused on the broader Islamic world. Arafat remained, in his heart, committed to the Palestinian people as part of the broader process of Arab nationalism. He never dealt with the fact that Arab nationalism was no longer a driving force. He never really came to terms with the Islamic revolution.
He also never named a successor or defined a succession. In a sense, no succession is possible. How do you replace a symbol? But the problem is that he was more than a symbol. He was the leader of the Palestinian revolution and he left that revolution without the political institutions that could transcend his death. Indeed, the institutions he created could not really manage the Palestinians while he was alive. Part of the problem is that revolutionaries make poor managers. Part of it was simply that the Palestinian reality outgrew Arafat's paradigm. He never seemed to know what to make of Hamas and he could never really accommodate it in his structure. His personality sort of controlled the situation, but with his passing an entirely new structure will have to emerge.
Arafat's ultimate legacy could well be a civil war among the Palestinians. With Arafat gone, Hamas will lay claim to authority. And Arafat's associates -- bereft of Arafat -- are a singularly unimpressive lot, far more interested in protecting their own interests than in pursuing Arafat's revolution. They will not easily follow Arafat, and the more vibrant, Islamist wing of the Palestinians is not likely to bend its knees to them as it reluctantly did with Arafat.
The Israelis have long argued that Arafat is the main obstacle to peace. In our opinion, the main obstacle to peace is that there is now a Palestinian people, but there is no Palestinian authority that can speak for all Palestinians. In truth, Arafat couldn't do that any more either, but he could give the impression that he did. Now no one can give that impression and nothing can go forward -- among the Palestinians or with the Israelis -- until that issue is settled.
Arafat's legacy is that he willed the Palestinian nation into being. But his failure to create a Palestinian government means that he could well leave another legacy -- a bloody civil war between the various Palestinian factions to determine the nature of the Palestinian state and government. It cannot be simultaneously secular and religious, socialist and mercantile, Arabist and Islamist. These issues not only were not settled by Arafat, but also he prevented them from being effectively addressed. The piper now will have to be paid.
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