The West Needs a New Friggin' Brain

When it comes to the Middle East, the U.S. usually looks like a clueless dwerp. A few well-enacted and clear principles would go far to change that.

1. Human beings are all human. The West tends to think of Arabs as non-human. A sort of mongol race, with a terrorist bent. Think of all the paranoia about the Muslim Brotherhood, as if it's back to its 1950's ascendancy, as if it proposes a return to "the caliphate", GW Bush's touted raison d'etre for the GWOT (war on terror). Think of the cries of "we don't know who these people are!" when considering aid to democracy movements in The Middle East. This is all bullcrap. Drop that load and get real.

2. Freedom and Peace are legitimate goals to defend. Humanity is diminished without them. But... they CANNOT be achieved by FORCE! It must be a willing achievement of the free will of those seeking freedom.

That's why Iraq and Afghanistan failed. We sought to IMPOSE freedom. That's an oxymoron ... moron!

3. In the Arab Spring, our help, no matter how military, is asked for by willing seekers of freedom from oppression. Examples: Libya and Syria.

To compare that to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is either ignorant or political posturing to an ignorant power base or both. Or worse, it could be mean-spirited cynicism appealing to a snarky, nasty power base.

Helping Libya is the same as helping France fight Hitler in WWII. What's in it for us? Our high ground. Freedom is a universal good. Who's gonna defend it? Unarmed civilians?

4. Terrorism cannot be successfully fought as if it's a foreign army with leaders, etc. while ignoring what it is: a freedom-seeking rebellion against oppression. Yes! In this case, seen as superpower-imposed dictatorships and repressive regimes. The latter includes, from the point of view of the Palestinians under their brutal thumb, the state of Israel.

Terrorism is not some sort of pro-caliphate ideology described by George W. Bush. Its idea (in Islamist-style terrorism) is that Islam will make people free from tyranny by non-Muslims. Look at the Palestinians under the Israelis, look at the Arab streets under their dictators. The dictators are all westernized, including the Saudis, whose duplicity is legendary. What could the people be expected to assume??

The only way terrorism could gain a power base of any kind is by the existence of repression that it appears only terrorism could remove. It gained a foothold only as a means to conquer oppression. PERIOD.

Many Arabs and Muslims believe that the word "terrorism" is a ploy invented by repressive regimes - including that of Israel vis-a-vis the Palestinians - in order to maintain and excuse their repression. We have clearly seen how Mubarak used the "threat" of terrorism to justify atrocities against his people. Do the people then not have good reason to believe this, O men and women of supposed minds???

5. Israelis are human beings. And therefore responsible for their actions. They are not fetuses. They are not angels. If the Israeli government is a repressive regime to the Palestinians, then how can they tout their "democracy" while denying Palestinians their basic human rights??? The word "security" is the same reason given by ALL midde eastern dictators for their repression. Are we not then supporters of oppression? Are not taxpayer dollars lavished on oppression? Then what is meant by "freedom-loving"??

6. The naming of groups of people as "terrorists" and thus justifying all manner of torture, murder, repression, abdication of human rights and principles CANNOT be a path to freedom or democracy. It is immoral, unjust, hateful, hypocritical, is itself oppression and repression, and destroys everything we claim to uphold as principle.

Without principles and a high ground, what exactly the hell are we???

Note to the U.S.: The View from the Arab Street

When the U.S. and the West wallows in heartfelt indecision on Libya, and decisive ambivalence about Mideast democratic revolutions in general, it sends a clear message to the Arab "Street" - as opposed to the Arab "throne", from which emanate winks, nods, and solemn, secret applause. The message is that the U.S., and the West,
WANT, NEED, tyrants in the Middle East. The U.S. and NATO want to avoid "instability". They can't "interfere" in "civil wars". The West will help with "humanitarian efforts" - the band-aids. But to get at the cause??? Well, everybody loves a tyrant!

Arabs on the Street see the West has adopted their much-loved "domino theory". If one tyrant goes, others could fall. And the U.S., apparently, NEEDS tyrants.

Oh yes, we condemned Qaddafi. Reagan even tried to assassinate him back in the day. And we have no problem with regime change, assassination, fomenting civil wars in other countries, or even occupying them. Just look at Iraq, and don't forget Vietnam. But Libya?? Heavens, no!

Why? Simple. We're not calling the shots. We didn't start the revolt. Libyans did. Therein lies the issue, the trigger-finger block. We loathe any revolution that wasn't, shall we say, "made in the U.S.A." If it wasn't our idea, to tell with it.

But...let's look more closely at this domino theory. We're not talking about nations falling to communist revolutions. We're talking about repressive regimes falling to democratic revolutions, about fights for freedom, democracy and representative government - the West's rhetorical ideals. We're talking about the very sorts of revolutions we've been blaming the Arabs for not having for decades, the lack of which has been brought out ad nauseum as proof of Arabs' "backwardness" and lack of "readiness for democracy". And now, here's your true-blood, liberal, Western-style revolt! These are not Islamists. They want a real, free democracy. They want out of dictatorships.

Yet the West gives credence to the worst of all regimes, buying into Qaddafi's "civil war" story, buying into his propaganda that his people "love" him. The West doesn't quibble with this, presumes - for their own convenience - that he has loyalists who have not been bought or terrorized into submission, and that these loyalists are fighting for what they conceive of as a legitimate cause.

The U.S. backed Mubarak until it became openly hideous to do so, and now backs Qaddafi by allowing him to decimate his population and call it a "civil war" instead of a massacre. It seems the U.S. is also trying to shore of Yemen's Ali Saleh, and OMG don't mention the Saudi regime - now there's one hell of a repressive regime if there ever was one! Let alone...please don't say it... the unmentionable, the sacred, the fetus-in-a-jar...Israel. (When Israel openly supports fellow democracies in the region instead of trying to decimate them in some way as per Lebanon, I'll stop calling it a fetus. A democracy that doesn't support democracy is not a democracy, but some kind of hybrid. Is the US trying to rebrand itself, too?)

So what is the Arab on the street to presume? That the West loves democracy? That they believe in human rights and freedom? Or that they only impose, by force of arms, "freedom" when it suits their needs, when they are in full control of that freedom. But isn't "freedom under someone's control" an oxymoron???

Israel Invades Lebanon 2006: Was It Cheney's Practice Drill for Iran?

Remember 2006, when Israeli bombers decimated the Beirut airport, along with a significant number of innocent civilians - men, women, children, the elderly - while Condi Rice played Head Cheerleader? Remember the news coverage that wept at an Israeli woman's shattered nerves and dented car, but barely managed a quick pan of the human debacle, the decimated infrastructure, the wailing mothers, the dead children, that was on the ground in Lebanon? Remember how Hezbollah brought the Mighty Israeli Military Machine of Legends Past to its knees? Remember how the Middle East saw Nasrallah as a hero conquering the oppressors who kill thousands because of two?

No wonder the U.S. was whistling Dixie and looking in the other direction... it was their idea! With friends like that.... what was Israel thinking??? And guess who was the sinister mastermind behind the carnage? Who else? The ominous Dick Cheney...well, sort of, as an enabler.

Adding to the growing list of war crimes committed by Dick Cheney is a report by Sy Hersh that Cheney actually planned the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon. He also considers it "a prelude to a potential American preemptive attack" on Iran. Ominous times, these...

In the days after Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel, on July 12th, to kidnap two soldiers, triggering an Israeli air attack on Lebanon and a full-scale war, the Bush Administration seemed strangely passive.

Glad to hear someone of Sy Hersh's stature noticed!

The Bush Administration ... was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks.President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

According to Hersh, a middle east expert stated:

“The White House was more focussed on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because, if there was to be a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities, it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both. Bush was going after Iran, as part of the Axis of Evil, and its nuclear sites, and he was interested in going after Hezbollah as part of his interest in democratization, with Lebanon as one of the crown jewels of Middle East democracy.”

Note the pattern: YOU WILL BE A DEMOCRACY. But not until we demolish you first! It's crush and convert, the new Holy War, a right-wing "love-fest", sort of like their own Woodstock, except instead of rapes and orgies with women, they assault whole nations, especially middle eastern nations, whom they learned they can call "terrorist" and get away with murder... literally! Instead of drugs, they have Rovespeak, always the perfect way to disconnect reality and "turn on, tune out, drop the opposition off", preferably at the morgue.

A Pentagon consultant said that the Bush White House “has been agitating for some time to find a reason for a preëmptive blow against Hezbollah.” He added, “It was our intent to have Hezbollah diminished, and now we have someone else doing it.”

And who else but Israel could do it? Not that Israel minded being the "workhorse" for Bushco's military designs, of course. Now, to be fair to ol' Cheney, the idea to bomb Lebanon was Israel's brainchild, and they actively pursued U.S. involvement. And they were also pretty cool with the idea of bombing Iran, an idea both parties cling to (along with their guns, presumably) to this very day. In spite of all evidence that both ideas are really bad news:

According to Richard Armitage, who served as Deputy Secretary of State in Bush’s first term—and who, in 2002, said that Hezbollah “may be the A team of terrorists”...If the most dominant military force in the region—the Israel Defense Forces—can’t pacify a country like Lebanon, with a population of four million, you should think carefully about taking that template to Iran, with strategic depth and a population of seventy million,” Armitage said. “The only thing that the bombing has achieved so far is to unite the population against the Israelis.”

Yes, it succeeded to unite the population - Shi'a, of course, but also Sunni, Christian, Druze, and others - against Israel, and in a sense, also the United States, whose pretend non-chalant "Infrastructure? What infrastructure? Civilians? What civilians? Invasion? what invasion?" didn't exactly win friends. Except among the Saudi royals and their ilk, and apparently among Sunni anti-Shia extremists in - who else? - Al-Qaeda. Both of them were remarkably friendly and sympathetic with the U.S.-Israeli invasion of Lebanon, as were their websites and spokespersons. Guess it's times like these that let you know who your real friends are.

Cheney’s point, the former senior intelligence official said, was “What if the Israelis execute their part of this first, and it’s really successful? It’d be great. We can learn what to do in Iran by watching what the Israelis do in Lebanon.”

Yes, Cheney may not have come up with the idea of invading Lebanon, but he was one of its most passionate cheerleaders. Same is true of the always almost-impending invasion - and an air war against Iran IS an invasion - of Iran. Let's hope he's far, far away from the Oval Office before that debacle and its horrendous consequences could ever get off the ground.

Isn't it time to bury Cheney's crazy, security-bashing ideas and elect someone who won't "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran"???

Iran Internet Cut Off: Is It War Against Iran Oil Bourse?

Buzzing all over the net: 5 internet cables in the Middle East cut off, some only a few kilometers apart, interrupting internet connectivity to Egypt, India, Qatar, and mostly, yes, most completely, to Iran... although all this is in the fact-meets-speculation stage. One of many synopses:

A ship's anchor severed one undersea Internet cable damaged last week, it
was revealed on Thursday amid ongoing outages in the Middle East and South Asia,
but mystery shrouds what caused another four reported cuts.
There has been speculation that five cables being cut in almost as many days was too much of a coincidence and that sabotage must have been involved.

It's too early to really assess the situation, but the timing is definitely significant. Namely, Iran's announcement that it will not trade its oil in U.S. Dollars. The impact of such a move, especially if it's emulated by others, which is a real possibility, could bring disaster, as eloquently explained by Len Hart of Existentialist Cowboy:

Certainly, when oil is no longer traded in dollars, it is not only the
dollar that will collapse. It means that the US --on the bad end of a huge
balance of trade deficit --will no longer be able to afford to import goods or
services. For a nation that long ago (Reagan years primarily; See Vidal, cited)
gave up its role as a manufacturing nation, this collapse will be monumental,
catastrophic. The fact that oil had been traded in dollars was the only thing
propping up the dollar.

This, in turn, could lead to our overextended debtor nation still called America to an economic tragedy on an unprecedented scale. So cutting off the internet, in comparison, looks sort of like a desperate prelude to war. War on Iran's threat - its economic threat to our empire.

Monitoring the news today --it is clear that the Middle East cables were
deliberately sabotaged and the effect has been to cut Iran off the internet.
Isolating a nation by cutting off its systems of communication is a first step
preceding a military attack. Bush no longer cares about even the pretense of
pre-text! His charge that Iran has weaponized grade fuels is universally and
credibly debunked. The real threat is to the poohbahs of US empire --the
Military/Industrial complex.

The spectre of impending doom, however, will not just trickle down. It may just avalanche down.

That there was a demand for dollars because there was a demand for oil
meant that you could continue to buy imported goods with dollars. Now --imagine
a world in which no other country need "purchase" dollars in order to import
oil! What if oil producing nations agree to accept other currencies? What if
they refuse to accept dollars? Go to Wal-Mart or even your local supermarket.
Almost everything on the shelves is imported.

How are we going to afford our lifestyles if we have to import things we can't pay for? Will the dollar ultimately become worthless? And another issue: what will all the victims of our senseless wars fighting "monsters" like the bin Laden "Antichrist", all those millions of refugees, all those families robbed of their homes, what will they do to, or about, us - or shall I say, US?

With this hanging, unspoken, like a looming cloud overhead, an unknown possibility, and with all our money hanging on the petroleum trade, is there any question now why we are in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Middle East, fawning over Saudi Arabia while blindfolding everyone we can, in order to shore up an empire that collapsed decades ago by invading every oil-rich piece of earth we can manage to invade? Yet that only makes things much worse.

It's Republican mismanagement and squander on wars that devalued the dollar, and now when oil-producers don't want to trade in dollars they become Enemy Number One. It's sabotage time... But to the deluded Petrocorporate War machine, they're Hans Brinker putting his finger in the dam. Let's expose them before it's too late: it isn't even their dam.

Dubai Bigger Than China? Same Boom, Labor Issues...

Check out this video on CNBC discussing Dubai's new emergence as a world tech Mecca - even allegedly bigger than China, according to the Guy from Google.

Note how the Dubai elite brush off issues regarding the slave labor conditions of their mostly Asian workers - who make up about 80% of the population in Dubai - who are not, and cannot become, Dubai citizens. Got a few issues here, if Dubai wants to be, as Mr. Alabbar, the man in charge of much of the building boom here, says, the new "hub" of the region that includes Pakistan, Iran, and of course, the Middle East. There has to be some honesty in the face of their long-held elitist attitude. One of the prices of the perks of progress. (Israel, are you listening?)

In Sports at Least, Palestine is a Nation - with a Winner

While doomed negotiations with the ever-refusing Israelis crawl in the vacuum tube called U.S. Foreign Policy, Palestine and its flag flies over athletics and bench-pressing as this record-setting athlete, Ahmed Abukhater, represents his country in world competition.

Who, incidentally, is also a water resources specialist at the University of Texas who can comment on the water crisis facing Gaza's 1.4 million residents.

Read more...

Bigger Towers, Bigger Crimes: Dubai a "model" for the Mideast?

"Utopia II: Built by Slaves, Enjoyed by Businessmen"

Bridgethought of the Day: Just when you think you're getting somewhere, someone has to go and tell everybody how you got there. Another good reason to watch your step...

Human Rights Watch has come out with a report on the abuse of workers who build the famous towers in Dubai that is downright horrifying. At the same time, Dubai is having something of a "coming out" party, both as a potential high tech business mecca and tax shelter, according to an article by Michael Kanellos, editor at large at CNET News.com. Although Mr. Kanellos' source, Ghazi Benothman, a Senior Associate with Crosslink Capital, says "there's almost no poverty," the Human Rights Watch report, as discussed in a piece by Rafia Zakaria, tells a shocking and very different story:

"Workers in the Gulf States face some of the most horrendous work environments on the planet. Forced to work sixteen- to twenty-hour days in debilitating heat, without any vacation for years and with compensation withheld for months on end, the Dubai construction workers eke out an existence devoid of any dignity or freedom. Living at the mercy of the employers, who literally "own" their employment visas and hence their freedom of movement, these modern day slaves are unable to leave any employer for fear of deportation.

The employers, on the other hand, can, like the Pharoanic rulers of Egypt, easily trade them for cheaper workers or sell them via trading their employment contracts to other companies."

But it gets worse ...

"In addition to the restricted freedom of movement, companies in the UAE, both large and small, often refuse to pay these workers since few legal enforcement mechanisms exist to force them to do so. According to the Report, Al-Hamed Development and Construction, a company worth over $300 million dollars and one of the fastest growing construction companies in the world, failed to pay 7000 of its construction workers in 2005-2006. The smaller companies are also notorious for absconding or simply closing up shop without paying their workers.The fact that the construction workers are "guests" without equivalent legal rights that would enable to contest such actions without fears of reprisals, further entrenches their status as slaves in a society that surely treats them as such. In addition, most workers still owe debts to their handlers and so cannot return without wages to pay them off; so they are caught in a vicious circle of persecution."

Most of the workers are Pakistani, Indian, Sri-Lankan and Bangladeshi, and other Asian nationalities. The Arabs of Dubai behave in a way that reveals their totally un-Islamic racism . These workers are treated as human chattel, slaves. It reminds me of the attitude of Sudanese Arabs in Darfur. This ugly side of Sunni Muslims must be faced-down - by other Sunni Muslims, those with a conscience. Those with no allegiance to corrupt governments, such as the Saudi government.

Their "mainstream" position certainly doesn't look deserved from a human rights standpoint. What message are they trying to convey? Did they never hear that superiority is not attained by hubris or fantasy? And on the flip side, what are the "rebels" trying to say that can only be written in the blood of the unguilty? When did al-Qaeda ever unseat a dictator? Well, at least they are egalitarian - Asians welcome alongside Arabs...

On the other hand, while Dubai is showcased as a "model" for Middle Eastern "development" and "cooperation", this is all greased by plenty of liquor and, of course, prostitution and oil money splurged by "fun-starved Saudis" and Kuwaitis for their "entertainment" on the abuse of children as jockeys and the abuse of young women, many of them Russian, as prostitutes. Although much of this is in fact illegal (with the exception of alcohol), enforcement is slim to rare, probably mostly for appearances.

This only feeds into the constant refrain that the so-called "war" between the West & Islam is actually a cultural war between those who drink alcohol and engage in non-marital sex and "show some skin", to those nasty Islamists who emphatically do not, and are willing to fight for a world where these things are kept to a minimum. The "West" sees it as a war between "backward" ways, always using the example of cutting off hands as a punishment for theft, stoning to death for adulterers (not common, since even in the strictest sense, it requires 4 uninvolved male - or 8 female - eyewitnesses), wearing head coverings for women, and of course, that favorite one about "jihad", wildly & widely thought to mean "cutting off heads of infidels NOW". Even Christiane Amanpour went to great lengths to show how difficult and disturbing it can be to wear those head-coverings, while in fact, it could take about 10 seconds to pull on a "Taliban-strength" hijab, much less time than the most perfunctory hairdo.

Both sides exaggerate the nefarious intent of the other, and when they attempt to bridge the gap, you get people from the Islamic world falling all over themselves to baptize themselves in buckets of corruption and imitation Westernism meeting slick-looking but basically unaware businessmen from the West with dollar signs in their brains more than willing to overlook the side effects of this awkward version of cultural detente. After all, human oppression, be it in China or the Middle East, is all in a day's work. And somewhere in the thick of it all, ominously, lies the long shadow of Halliburton and its godfather, Dick Cheney.

But Divine intervention may be on the way. They say very tall buildings may actually cause or trigger earthquakes in places where none were before. So how long is this history's tallest manmade structure going to last? And what do you think it symbolizes?

A handshake from Israel is a Kiss of Death

Bridgethought of the Day: If a nation keeps repeating lies and enforcing belief in them, and refuses to air the truth, what does that do to Democracy? What does it do to truth when the collective psychology around us teaches us to avoid that "evil danger"?

Here is an article about the truth in the Middle East, sad but real, and how the core issue between Israel and Palestine is twisted for American consumption. American protoplasm, take note: use your minds, will ya...

When Olmert and Abbas shake hands
Nora Barrows-Friedman writing from Deheisheh refugee camp, occupied Palestine, Live from Palestine, 10 August 2007

What will follow their handshake?: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas meets with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in the West Bank city of Jericho, 6 August 2007.

On Monday, Israeli occupation Authority Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and occupied Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas once again met and shook hands, each promising respective constituents that a so-called "peaceful solution" is near. Olmert "agreed" that cooperation between Israel and the PA will expand, something that is not lost on the millions of occupied Palestinians who continue to suffer each day as many other things expand beneath their feet -- the settlement colonies, the apartheid wall, the egregious acts of violence and oppression enacted by the Israeli occupation military.

What does an expansion of cooperation between the PA and Israel mean when the prisons of the foreign occupier, the nuclear state, are filled to the brim with Palestinian political prisoners, as many as 12,000 people who are tortured and broken and humiliated?

An expansion of cooperation comes with Abbas' capitulation to Olmert's designs of an ethno-centric state for Jews only, whose second-in-command, Avigdor Lieberman, is an unashamed proponent of ethnic cleansing from Moldovia who consistently demands that all Arabs be "transfered" or wiped out. An expansion of cooperation is called for as Mahmoud Abbas' private militia continues to beg Israel for arms and power moves against the democratically-elected Hamas party, like a kid asking a rich man for a few pennies to buy candy.

An expansion of cooperation means more whittling away of the rights of the Palestinian people. It means the further dispossession of land and farms and freedom and time and money and childhoods. It means the only true "solution" -- one state, for every person, and a respect for human rights and the Palestinian right of return -- continues to be further away from realization.Meanwhile, as Abbas thanks Olmert for scraps, life here on the ground continues to worsen and sour.

The Israeli military death squads are scooping people up in Nablus and throwing them in prison camps. Or shooting them. Or dropping bombs on them in Gaza. Or sealing off entire villages with the apartheid wall. Or making them wait in the blistering hot sun at some of the 450 checkpoints.

Yes, thank you, Olmert.A friend here in Dheisheh posed this question with a glint in his eye: What will happen when Abbas' constituents, the millions of Palestinians who see right through his capitualtions, go to back to the polls and re-elect Hamas? What will he do then?

Nora Barrows-Friedman is the senior producer and co-host of Flashpoints on Pacifica Radio, and also reports for InterPress Service in Europe. Her website is http://electronicintifada.net/v2/norabf.com.

Why There's No Mideast Peace: Square One is for Hanging

Bridgethought of the Day: Killing your enemies doesn't make peace. Winning a war isn't a solution. Peace is organic - war requires oversimplification. Peace is about a lot of little real struggles not being bulldozed by gigantic, possibly pointless, fantastic battle. The bigger the power, the more they like the latter.

Square One in the Alpha-Omega of Mideast Peace always begins between Palestine & Israel. The Palestinians were pushed out by the Zionist movement, who routed Palestinians from their own land by force to make room for a well-armed invasion of what were essentially foreigners. The whole thing has been re-written to suit the Israelis and presented over years to Americans and "Westerners" in a pro-Zionist light, any thoughts to the contrary being relegated to the devil called "anti-Semitism". Saeb Erakat, the prominent Palestinian negotiator, once (many years ago) put that argument to the test in his eloquent remark during a public discussion, "I am Semite."

In the excellent article by Tony Karon, he says,

"Hamas deputy head Abu Marzook recently made clear in the Los Angeles Times, not because of some religious absolutism but because, for Palestinians, Israel's creation in 1948 meant their violent dispossession. Hamas believes it is being ordered to legitimize this dispossession before negotiations can even begin, and it refuses to do so.
The fact that Fatah did eventually recognize Israel -- and got so little in return -- has cost the organization dearly on the Palestinian street. Nine months into the Western financial blockade that followed Hamas' election victory, a survey conducted by the Western-funded Palestinian Center for Social and Political Research found 54% of Palestinians dissatisfied with Hamas' performance in power and only 40% ready to vote for it again. Nonetheless, when asked whether Hamas should recognize Israel in order to get the siege lifted, 67% said no. "

Square One begins with Palestinians asking for a legitimate and autonomous state. Not too much to ask. Then they ask for "right of return" which means that those who were deprived of their lands way back when can now have the right to return to the Homeland of Palestine. Israel staunchly refuses this, using an argument that more or less the US government used in dealing with the native American populations in places such as South Dakota. "You just can't go back home now - too much has changed." But unlike native Americans, Palestinians don't really have "reservations" even - just places they live in as refugees or immigrants. And in reverse, where did Israelis get a superior right to live there and create a multi-million-person-strong refugee population roaming the world with no country?

Israel then asks to be recognized unconditionally. As you can read above, this too is a non-starter. They want security, but the pride issues always come first. Beforessecurity, before peace.

Now here's another issue. Who's got the power? Who calls the shots? The Israelis. Who's the underdog? Who is oppressed? Who is struggling to simply survive in the meanest sense? The Palestinians. In this situation, who bears the onus of responsibility to take the first risk, the first step, the first gamble? The stronger of the two: Israel. They've been hemming & hawing on this since... Square One. They've hung every Palestinian leader there since Day One. Every step toward peace is always a non-starter. As long as the power are powerful, there's no motive to be a risk-taker. Why lose it when you got it? Why take a chance?

Then, as Mr. Karon explains,

"The Arab autocrats whose presence is now required whenever Bush puts on one of his no-clothes shows recognize themselves in Abbas' predicament. They, too, have precious little to show their people in return for allying with Washington. Their citizenry, too, has watched them stand by helplessly as Washington has sanctioned and encouraged the systematic trampling of the Palestinians, the pulverizing of Lebanon, and the chaotic destruction of Iraq (which now produces a 9/11-equivalent death toll at least every few weeks). Those citizens, too, see that only the Islamists seem willing to stand up to the U.S. and Israel.

The autocrats, too, beg and plead with Washington to enforce a two-state solution based on Israel's 1967 borders and face the same smug dismissal of their concerns or the same meaningless ritual endorsements.

How many times do they have to be reminded by administration officials that President Bush was the first American leader to publicly call for a Palestinian state? Of course, he was also the first to formally endorse Israel's right to the massive settlements built in the occupied West Bank in violation of international law. "

With this background of oppression of most Arab and Muslim people by their own oppressive regimes backed by the U.S. & Western powers, it should be no surprise that they feel no love or trust for the US who has only showed them tyranny, never democracy or freedom, and who have only encouraged the dictators that oppress them. The one supposed "freedom fight" against Saddam Hussein looks more like a power-grab or oil-grab gone bad with "democracy" only as a cover story, one very very thin and unbelievable with zero credibility. Actions always speak stronger than words.


So Hamas takes over Gaza. It forms a threat. For the first time, Israel makes concessions. It's only a show, but it is something, I guess. But nobody really means or intends to do anything. Except Hamas, whose bloody takeover took everyone by surprise, but appears to the people in Gaza to at least have bolstered their pride, at least commanded a little respect. And since Israel offers nothing in the way of food, jobs, hope, or being treated as human beings with families, respect is a very big thing. Israel, take notice: R-E-S-P-E-C-T, Find out what it means to me - and every other Palestinian.

Then there's another bad issue - the Palestinian government and leadership itself is so corrupt, visibly corrupt and unjust, that it's far short of inspiring. The Hamas alternative looks better than the Fatah rich guys living off the largesse or God knows who while the rest of the people struggle right out there on the edge of existence.

I don't know what the solution really is, but it's not being found on Square One. It would help if both sides looked at the issue from the standpoint of being from the same species sharing resources on the same planet. Maybe then the movements toward negotiations, or what is left of such movements, would be less suicidal. But then, the responsible parties ain't gonna move until someone pushes them right there over the edge.

Oversimplify, oversimplify. Human beings are so damn complicated. And so is peace. So try using that internal organ stuck between the ears.

A Bridge over the River of Blood

Bridgethought of the Day: There's nothing quite so difficult to get over as the brutalization of one's loved ones - except possibly the death of one's conscience...

Now is for me not the time to write anything, which is probably why I am doing it. But wherever I look, images haunt me. Lebanon. I must post something about Lebanon, especially Lebanon last summer. The absolute callousness expressed, to my horror, by Condoleeza Rice, when Israel began their aerial slaughter of the civilian population of Lebanon. Her attitude - orchestrated by Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld, fed by an insane Israeli "movement" that seems to have taken over what was once a national conscience, or at least claimed to be - her cold "see no evil, hear no evil" blindness ignoring the obvious in front of her and the entire world, poisoned the world's view of America. America was no longer humanitarian. America was in it for power, and to hell with human beings. It was obvious to the world that for America, it's all about P.R.

Once upon a time, there was diplomacy. There was this veneer of compassion. There were token words acknowledging human struggles, human rights, universal values. I even fantasized that Condi Rice was a part of that veneer. She was human, someone who understood suffering, oppression, struggle. And in whatever decision, whatever power-drunk moment, whatever oblivious self-congratulation, whatever neoconical delusion, she just turned around. Turned her back. No, it was not evil. Israel must defend itself. No, it's not genocide. Israelis are victims. They are victims of terrorism. We must fight terrorism. Right down to the last Arab woman and child. To hell with terrorists. In the name of 9-11. In the name of the Holocaust. Bomb the airport. Those are not families. They are Islamists harboring terrorists. We will save our own, and then we will begin the slaughter. God bless America.

But what she turned her back on was her conscience. And she is not alone. A lot of people in power here have turned their back the same way. They play the word "evil" like some kind of satanic accordion. We are not evil. They are evil. See no evil. Hear no evil. Terrorism is evil. But killing children has to be "balanced out" by the effete pretty-boy complaints of those long-suffering residents who can't even get a decent night's sleep from the Devil's Katyushas. Let them sleep, so their armies can decimate the civilian population of Lebanon in exchange for two Israeli soldiers. Yes, Condoleeza, the applause is deafening. How brave. How free.

We used to chide the Soviet Union for their "propaganda". Before that, it was the Nazis' "propaganda" that promoted their evil agenda. Every dictator had no news, only propaganda. Every authoritarian regime was dominated by propaganda. We always refer to "state-run media" or state-run propaganda machines. But we were always about news, about information, about the free exchange of ideas, about truth, about telling it like it is. "We report - you decide." We were always for the journalists, the reporters, those brave souls who risk their lives to see what's really going on and telling the world, secreting out precious truths under the noses of tyrants. We were never the purveyors of propaganda. We were never a "regime". We were never the ones to sit back and watch slaughter. We sent our troops to save the world.

So where were we when Israel systematically slaughtered Lebanese civilians and infrastructure? Wasn't it enough that they had just begun to pull themselves out of a long, devastating civil war? Are we seriously blaming "terrorism"? Are we that callous, that stupid, that blockheaded? We can't even recognize a nation of peaceful citizens who love their country and once managed to be the only place where democracy, three religions at war elsewhere, and a mixed but sophisticated population managed to peacefully coexist? We can't even tell the difference between them with their various groups, and a group such as al-Qaeda? We can't even tell the difference between civilians and military? What the hell are we doing?

Condi fell suddenly from intelligent statesman (statesperson) to P.R. tool. It was no longer possible to view her as her own person. She would always be contaminated by Bush, Cheney, and the agenda of this right-wing Israeli National Socialist regime. She would always be no more than a P.R. person, a gofer working for the power-brokers for the Marie Antoinette of the Middle East. But this Marie Antoinette has her cruel side, despite that oh-so-cultivated air. She does not say, oblivious, "Let them eat croissants." If the Palestinians want bread, she knows where to dump her excrement. She just builds a nice big wall so all those lovely Marie Antoinettes can enjoy their non-Holocaustian excesses far from the madding masses of that Arab trash. We are the Israelis. They are low, evil, base, Arab, goyim. They are to Israelis what Jews were to Hitler, et al. Something to be eliminated. So bring on the bulldozers. Bring in the settlers. The Master Race. Manifest Destiny. The Chosen Ones. A new kind of peace.

Peace without bridges.

Peace without conscience.

It has all the stability of an atom with two nuclei.