Posted on 04/10/2002 6:09:48 AM PDT by Apolitical
Whether the Bush administration realizes it or not, it has reached an unwelcome fork in the diplomatic road with its ever-shifting policies on the terrorist threat to Israel. One path will lead to a reduction in the bloody carnage that comprises business as usual in the Middle East today. The second now-favored path -- more akin to a slippery slope leading into a precipice which is impossible to climb out of -- could open a nightmarish pandora's box of misery and suffering for the American people.
Many pundits have already pointed out the logical consequence of any further backtracking, by the Bush administration, from George W. Bush's original bold and clear post-9/11 opposition to terrorism in any form -- whether it's an attempt to appease the American "street" (read the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek and other vociferous proponents of moral equivalence in the mainstream media) or the Arab street (read all the supposed Arab allies needed diplomatically to appease world opinion during an all-out campaign to overthrow Iraq's Saddam Hussein).Further waffling will send a loud and clear message to the calculating cynics behind the car bombs and suicide bombers currently ravaging the holy land -- that their uncivilized, nihilistic tactics work: Blow up a sufficient number of ordinary civilians going about their everyday lives, and create enough bloody confusion, carnage and panic, and timorous American leaders will cave in and give you what you want diplomatically.
In other words, the recent attempts by Dubyah and company to respond to the chaos in Israel and the Palestinian Authority by taking a more "even-handed", "balanced" approach which recognizes Palestinian grievances sends a message -- whether it's by suddenly reversing previous policy and defining as unacceptable Israel military actions similar to those of America's own response to 9/11, or formally endorsing the establishment of a Palestinian state only after the most heinous atrocities against Israeli civilians.
Such panicked policy reversals sends one clear message to the cold, brutal nihilists who have recruited, trained and equipped the many willing suicidal "martyrs" for the Palestinian cause: Terror works, and absolute terror works absolutely, in cowering the timid West.
Of course, the hope of the Bush administration, in its recent erratic attempts to appease the Palestinian terror machine, has obviously been to put a damper on the tinderbox of the current Middle East conflagration. But the effect of each mistaken act of "sympathy" and "understanding" by this administration has instead been to throw yet another log on the fire and spark the conflagration even more. In other words, each display of rubbery diplomatic knees has only encouraged more terror attacks, in a cynical attempt to extort more concessions from the weak-kneed Colin Powells of the American foreign-policy establishment. And as members of the Bush administration continue to show their faltering resolve in response to what seems to be an escalating armageddon in Israel and its environs, the psychotic fringe in the Middle East is even more emboldened to raise the ante and unleash more murderous and anarchic acts to cow America and the West into giving them what they really want. And we all know what that is -- abandonment of all support for Israel and symbolic permission to unleash a 21st-century holocaust on the Israeli people that ultimately brings about their total extinction one way or the other (perhaps by means of a rain of nuclear-tipped missiles unleashed by a still unbridled Saddam Hussein).
So what, you may ask. Maybe we should never have gotten embroiled in this mess in the first place, by always siding with Israel. And besides wouldn't America be justified in leaving the Israelis to the wolves, considering all the injustices done to the Palestinian "nation" by the Israeli "occupation", as objectively chronicled in seemingly balanced news reports by the usual suspects -- the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, CBS News and company?
Well, whether there really is such an entity as a Palestinian nation or an Israeli occupation is problematical. And certainly to mention the New York Times, CNN or CBS news and balanced, objective news reporting in the same sentence is an outrageous oxymoron.
Yet regardless, the cautionary amber lights are blinking so brightly, one is hard pressed not to remember the classic biblical injunction: "As ye sow, so ye shall reap".
After all, let's face reality. Appeasement in this one policy area will only embolden the extremist forces of expansionist Arab Islamo-fascism to lobby for appeasement in others -- whether it's in pursuit of a repressive feudal Taliban-style pan-Arab religious autocracy ruling over the entire Middle East (and maybe later Turkey, Spain and even Italy), or demands for the imposition of Taliban-style restrictions on American culture, to purge the unholy decadence of the democratic, secular American state (and wipe out for good the perceived roots of modernist, secular 'globalization' throughout the world). And let's be realistic here. The Islamo-fascist notion of 'lobbying' does not mean simply flattering and bribing corrupt, amoral politicians like William Jefferson Clinton (though that obviously helps). It means exporting its most potent weapon -- car bombs, fanatical suicide bombers and mindless carnage and murder -- to the thoroughfares, restaurants and shopping malls of the target of its intended diplomacy.
In other words, if America caves now, it sends the message to the Middle Eastern fanatical fringe that there is one weapon that works in cowering the most powerful nation in the world -- unleashing the Arafat brand of murderous terror on vulnerable civilian populations and urban settings. Today it may be the streets, restaurants and gathering places of ordinary Israelis in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv which are the target. Tomorrow it may be the streets, restaurants and gathering places of ordinary Americans in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, Topeka or who knows where?
In their hearts, Americans may have tired of being long-distance spectators to the carnage in the Middle East. And they may crave the disengagement and moral high ground promised by liberal opinion makers if the diplomatic "peace process" is restarted. But the appeasement, equivocation and moral cowardice advocated in the name of "peace" by the likes of the New York Times editorial board, NPR, Peter Jennings and Dan Rather (along with their favorite intellectual gurus like Noam Chomsky and Edward Said) only promise greater chaos, conflict and suffering in the future.
This time, however, Americans won't be spectators in this nihilistic battle. They will be participants, as the psychotic fringe of Islamo-fascism brings its car bombs and suicide bombers to the cities and streets of America and attempts once again to impose its irrational will on American policy with the senseless slaughter of innocent men, women and children -- and, let's be clear about this, innocent American men, women and children.
After all, the psychotic Islamo-fascist fringe must already be thinking: If it worked in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, imagine how effective it will be in New York, L.A. and even Boise, Idaho.
Which Part of giving Sharon a Long Leash, yet distancing himself from the carnage, do you and the author not understand.....Exactly.
Well, you're getting your wish. Sharon is telling the world to f**k off.
Unfortunately, his tactic is an abject failure considering today's suicide bombing...
1) Before Israel's military went to work, there were six days in a row of suicide bombers killing civilians. Since the military went to work, this is the first...
2) It's very difficult to tell exactly whose tactics are at work in Israel. Sharon is a "leader" who has to run everydecision past a committee with representatives from every political interest group in the world -- including symps of the PLO!
Mark W.
The Pali camps are in a state of siege/lock-down.
If they got through that, Israel must consider a permanent occupation, right?
Is it really clear to you that "America's interests" are furthered by allowing the continued existence of the Arab milieu? If Isreal is allowed to be forced to capitulate to terror not based on principle or shared civilized values, but rather out of fear of pscyho violence, then America will, eventually, knuckle under to bin Laden BECAUSE BIN LADEN OR HIS FOLLOWERS CAN CONTINUE THE 9/11 KIND OF CRAP for a heck of a long time.
Israeli interests are American interests. PLO demands against Israel are simply the interface where Arab civilization meets Western civilization. If we don't win the war there, then the interface will switch to some place closer...
Mark W.
I don't know that we can conclude that a bomber "got through" the military lock down. Israel is surrounded by Arab countries sympathetic to the PLO, and Israel allows Arabs free movement within Israel. This bomber could have come from outside, or been an Arab Israeli free to move around the country who decided to use his freedom to kill Jews.
Mark W.
A better statement would be "Israel and America have the same interests," but unless we get on with the business of neutralizing Saddam and his fellow conspirators, Israel won't be inhabitable, and we will face horrendous casualties. It's a lousy game, but Israel's going to have to play it for the short term.
Bush is Playing to an audience of fools, per Tony Blankley in today’s Washington Times.
So you think that isn't happening??? LOL!!!! Ever hear of the "slow boat to China"? That's the one Powell is taking on his way to Israel. He left Sunday. Gets there Friday. LOL!!! Got a very cold shoulder in Egypt (his first stop). They wanted to know what he was doing there ... why wasn't he in Israel?? LOL!!!
Don't be naive. What you see and hear from Bush is for "public consumption". Let's not forget the mentality of that world-wide "public" and remember that perception is reality to the vacuous. You have no idea what's going on behind the scenes that is not meant for public consumption.
But you should .... if you know Bush, and his team. LOL!! But ... maybe you don't.
>"Those of the president's supporters who are getting agitated over his recent circumlocutions should understand that he is play-acting to an audience of fools — and (as Shakespeare once wrote) he is signifying . . . nothing."
[shrugs] Was Klinton "play-acting to an audience of fools?" When the US attacked the Serbs, was Klinton "winking" at us to let us know he didn't really mean it?
Please.
The US policy currently playing itself out in the Middle East is coherent with policy going back more than a generation. For a very detailed review of US policy in the region written by a former US intelligence officer, check out: "THE COMING WAR IN THE MIDDLE EAST," September 4, 2001, by: S.R. Shearer.
Mark W.
If a very poor child is very happy about having five pennies, and a pack of very rich children attack the poor child and began beating up the poor child and screaming that they have a right to four of his five pennies, then any adult in their right mind would step in and do whatever he or she could do to protect the poor child with his five pennies.
That is a parable for the Middle East. Israel is a tiny, tiny little country. The Arab world is vastly large in comparison. The PLO, as Arabs, would be welcome and fit in any where within the Arab world. The Jews have been victims of mass murder every where else in the world and Israel is the only place they can call home. And now, the oil rich Arab states have poured uncounted billions of dollars in funds and resources of all kinds into the cause of stealing from Israel the only thing it has -- it's small plot of land, and the peace and safety within the small plot of land.
You are flat out wrong. There is something "unique" about this conflict. It is morally absolutely clear. There is no ethical haze here. Israel is right, and the Arabs are wrong.
Any country which purports to be a "super" power -- or even a "hyper" power as some now bill the US -- would crush the PLO/Arab alliance the way an adult would swat away a bunch of lunatic kids who were bothering an innocent child.
Mark W.
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