They really believed Sharon! [Archives:2004/739/Opinion]
He came on like a harmless walrus to the White House convincing his good friend George W. Bush that he was finally pulling out of Gaza and embarking on a dramatic peace initiative all on his own, and he saw no reason to wait for anybody to like it, discuss it or even hate it. Peace after all does not have to wait for time. Mr. Bush could not find anything more pleasurable going towards the election with at least some “partial success”. He patted Ariel Sharon on the back and naively or presumptuously thanked his “very good friend” on the back and told him” “Go right ahead. We will get everybody to agree with your peace initiatives. Sure enough, and notwithstanding the criticism of the White House blind support for Sharon's “unilateral”, peace, Sharon changed the realities on the ground and on paper; he threw away everything: Madrid, Oslo, Wye, and Camp David – everything out the window. Moreover, Sharon got exactly what he wanted: a free hand to move any way he liked in Gaza. The West Bank is already firmly in place and Washington has already put its stamp of approval and in fact issued land deeds for most of the West Bank illegal settlements to Sharon. Bush says Israeli settlements on the West Bank are an undeniable fact of life. This was just hours after he patted President Husni Umbra on the back in the same White House Lawn to reassure him that he understood of the Arab position. One wonders; is there still such a thing as an Arab position, or are they just talking about connubial matters when they say, the “Arab Position”? No matter, Sharon is not worried about the Arab position or any position. If Umbra got a pat on the back, Sharon got a “letter from Bush to underline the free hand the White House has granted to him. Even Sharon was smart enough to trust his true friend in the White House. He demanded and got a letter from Bush. Sharon knew his friend couldn't be trusted with just a pat on the back or sweet words to the “man of peace” in the Middle East.
As Sharon finished his political game at home with the phony “referendum”, to underline the fact that his “peace initiative” was no more than a ploy, while his generals worked out the final plans for establishing new realities in Gaza, that Bush or maybe whoever takes his place will have no choice but to succumb to. Now those realities are being put on the ground with full speed. The Israeli “Defense Forces” have been unleashed to destroy hundreds of homes, mosques shops, and even tents to make way for “protective buffers” and God knows whatever security that Israeli homesteaders will need to be protected. That should take care of the “defeat” that the Sharon referendum was hit with. Carry on Sharon, you are doing just fine!
Of course, Sharon wanted the Likud to defeat his initiative. Other Israeli public opinion was of no importance. If the Likud did not want Israel to pull out of Gaza, then so be it! Sharon's thugs were given the green light to destroy, kill, maim, and obliterate anything Palestinian in their way! What are the Israelis in Palestine for, anyway?
Meanwhile, Bush went along with the Sharon ploy. He sent Colin Powell and Condi to convince “our friends” in the Arab World that there is no backing off from the Sharon Plan for Gaza. Forget about Abu Ghraib or Nick Berg or even the upcoming US Election. He wanted the Arabs to understand that the only reason you should have a summit conference is to give the Arab go ahead for the elimination of Rafah! Carry on Sharon, you are doing just fine.
Ghraib and Gerb
There are some in the United States, who use the unfortunate murder of Nick Gerb in Iraq to suggest that the crimes against humanity in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere are second tier evils. This would be an appalling misreading of the facts and certainly do not do any justice to Nick Gerb, let alone the Iraqi and other victims in the tens of detention facilities now manned by the United States forces and its allies in Iraq and all over the world. In this context, one should not forget that had it not been for the uncalled for and miscalculated invasion of Iraq by the United States, neither the blatant and systematic tortures (and deaths) of mostly innocent Iraqis revealed in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in Iraq, nor the equally distasteful horrifying murder of Nick Gerb would have been causes for all of us to ask, just where is this world heading? In other words, the jubilant American service men and service women, who carried out the heinous mistreatment of the Iraqis, would not be in the setting that “induced” them to be “un-American”. Similarly, the barbarians, who murdered Nick Breg, whoever they are, would not have been able to enter Iraq, let alone enjoy the security vacuum left by an illegal invasion to wreak havoc to satisfy their appetite for spilt blood. To those who rushed to view Nick's murder as a manifestation of Islamic terrorism one should not forget the hundreds of Moslems, who have become victims of the same dubious kind of bloodletting that have been perpetrated from Indonesia to the World Trade Center, none of which have anything to do with Moslem dogma or the character and attitudes of the overwhelming majority of Moslems and Arabs throughout the world.
Yes, Nick Breg's untimely loss of life in such a cruel and senseless manner was atrocious, but then again so are the tortures and indemnifying treatment accorded to the Iraqis in Abu Ghraib, the majority of whom would be hit with the same convulsion at the gross murder of Nick Breg. Abu Ghraib has nothing to do with the fight against terror, and absolutely nothing to contribute to bringing democracy and human rights to the Iraqi people. On the other hand, the murder of Nick Breg has nothing to do with the war for the liberation of Iraq from the occupiers or with the defense of Islam. This observer and many analysts are simply not ready to shrug off the possibility that both transgressions emanate from the same fiendish masterminds, who will go to any lengths to serve their narrow minded and satanic agendas.
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[archive-e:739-v:13-y:2004-d:2004-05-20-p:opinion]
