Troublemaker at home and abroad [Archives:2007/1095/Opinion]
With the Administration of George W. Bush at the helms in the United States, one can be sure that neither America nor the world ever became the same again. So much was changed in terms of how the United States conducted itself, not just overseas but in the home front as well. It is not clear what this means in the long run for the United States itself, but for the rest of the world, the general perception is that the United States simply cannot be trusted to play a meaningful and constructive role in the shaping of a free and peaceful world, especially as it has been driven to carry out the policies that serve the interests of Israel irrespective of human and material cost to the American taxpayers.
Notwithstanding all the rhetoric on democracy, freedom and human rights, the truth of the matter is that the US policies under the current Bush Administration were far from reflecting a sincere attitude towards the promotion of these three fundamental features of sound governance. For one thing the attitudes of the United States in Iraq have clearly demonstrated that the United States has the least respect for the rights of the Iraqi people, although the Iraqis, even under Saddam Hussein did not engage in any acts of hostility towards the United States or the American people. On the contrary, the Iraqis have suffered dearly because they have succumbed to a dictator who would probably never find it easy to take control of Iraq had it not been for the American support provided to Saddam as he rose to power in Iraq. Moreover, even under Saddam, the suffering of the Iraqis (as well as the Iranians) during the Iraqi – Iranian War was indeed the result of an American supported and desired effort to destroy the Iranian regime that arose with Ayatollah Khomeni's revolt against the more favored (by Washington) Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi regime. Needless to say the effort eventually failed, but left deep wounds in Iraq and prompted the Iraqi dictator to continue menacing the very states that supported him when he was striving to remove the unwelcome Khomeni regime in order to make up for colossal losses in the failed effort against Iran. Thus, the United States found itself directly enmeshed in the Middle East, when it was perceived that the oil fields of the Gulf States were supposedly under imminent threat. Moreover the inability of the Arab States to reshape themselves into an effective security and economic bloc that will safeguard the common and collective interests of all the Arab states allowed the affairs of the region to be pretty much to be dominated by the dictates of the Zionist State of Israel that was the obvious demonic threat to all the states of the region. The needed stability that would help bring about the development of the nations that had just come out of hundreds of years of foreign mandates and occupation, some of which have left the Arab countries with much despair and destruction, was far from coming. The Israelis, by themselves or with the help of their supporters in the International Zionist Establishment encouraged the United States to play a more aggressive role in the wake of the replacement of the Soviet threat by the over-exaggerated Moslem “terrorist” threat that was exploded by the Zionist lobby with the entire Moslem World apparently forced to take the blame for the ungodly demonic actions of a few misguided Moslems, who have been directed to serving the goals and aspirations of the Zionist enemies without so much as contribute one degree of support to the security and peace of the region or their fellow Moslems.
On the contrary, these demonic misfits have vastly been responsible for encouraging the Bush Administration, with strong prodding by the Zionist organizations, like the American – Israel Public Affairs Committee and elements of the American Right, who have been misled to believe that they are the modern bearers of the Cross and that they are supposedly carrying out the will of God, to eliminate the people of the Middle East. The latter is to be either carried out by the people of the region themselves as is the case in the Sudan, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, Kurdistan, Turkey or by the direct involvement of the United States through wars waged by trigger happy mercenaries. With this scenario, it is not hard to say that Arab and Moslem blood is cheap and that as long as the Arabs have no sense of the pathetic reality they are all being forced to live through, the carnage will spread to every nook and cranny of the region and then there will never be any way, easy or hard to come out of the horrible mess that will be generalized for the region at large, while Israel continues to complete the full annihilation of the Palestinians either by death or exile. The signs of a peace in the region are far from being visible, even if Condoleeza Rice calls for ten conferences.
Hassan Al-Haifi has been a Yemeni political economist and journalist for more than 20 years.
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