Jul 16, 2006

Revenge, Hubris and World War III begins...

The recent events in the Middle East should remind us just how morally bankrupt is the current administration of the U.S. "republic." In an almost verbatim (canned?) response to reporters during the G8 summit, Bush parrotted his May 2004 speech to AIPAC (one which was interrupted 67 times by applause and chants of "Four more years."):
"As a sovereign nation, Israel has every right to defend itself against terrorist activity,"
Daniel Ayalon, Israel's Ambassador to the US apparently thinks that barbequeing innocent civilians is the means to "show restraint."
"If we do not want to see further escalation, deterioration, violence, this is the time to stop Hizbollah and what we are doing is the most effective (way) to stop them."
Gee, Danny, do you actually think that bombing apartment buildings and fleeing civilians is a means to stop Hezbollah? The Washington Post confirms that the US administration and Israel share the same interests when it comes to current events:

For Israel, the goal is to eliminate Hezbollah as a security threat -- or altogether, the sources said. A senior Israeli official confirmed that Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah is a target, on the calculation that the Shiite movement would be far less dynamic without him.

For the United States, the broader goal is to strangle the axis of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran, which the Bush administration believes is pooling resources to change the strategic playing field in the Middle East, U.S. officials say.

As somebody who is old enough to remember, this all looks like revenge. Israel was by most accounts, whooped by Hezbollah which gained a reputation amongst those who have noticed facts rather than Israeli propaganda, of targetting the military rather than civilians.

The US still hasn't gotten over Iran's rebuff and the debacle that was the Iran hostage crisis. Contrary to popular opinion, Carter actually did not appease "terrorists" in 1979. He refused to negotiate which is why the hostages were taken. When Carter let the Shah of Iran enter the US and refused to extradite him to Iran to be charged for crimes the Iranians believed he had committed against the people, violence erupted.

The entire affair was a foreign policy disaster going back to 1953's Operation Ajax in which the CIA influenced Iranian elections.

Iran is still much maligned and there is plenty of leftover resentment to support their acts of revenge. The truly sad part about all of this is that the US administration, which takes grandiose claims about its striving to acheive freedom and democracy the world over, won't even comment on Israel's targetting of civilians.

It's deja vu all over again. During the Iranian hostage crisis, the US under Carter was ramping up to supply Mujahadeen fighters to battle the Soviet infadels who had invaded Afghanistan. Even to the point of ( in collusion with the ISI Pakistan's intelligence agency) schools which taught young boys the importance of Jihad so they could be recruited into the war later.

It was announced yesterday that the US has blocked Russia from entering the WTO. Putin is not amused. He has even taken to stating publically that Iran has the right to defend itself using Bush's own rhetoric in a sardonic twist.

WWIII Anyone?

No comments: