Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 07:05:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ali Kazmi <thekazmis2001-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: the return of free fisk



So President George Bush tears up the
Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and that's okay.
Israeli settlements for Jews and Jews only on the West
Bank. That's okay. Taking land from Palestinians who
have owned that land for generations, that's okay. UN
Security Council Resolution 242 says that land cannot
be acquired by war. Forget it. That's okay.

 

Does President George Bush actually work for
al-Qa'ida? What does this mean? That George Bush cares
more about his re-election than he does about the
Middle East? Or that George Bush is more frightened of
the Israeli lobby than he is of his own electorate.
Fear not, it is the latter.

 

His language, his narrative, his discourse on history,
has been such a lie these past three weeks that I
wonder why we bother to listen to his boring press
conferences. Ariel Sharon, the perpetrator of the
Sabra and Shatila massacre (1,700 Palestinian
civilians dead) is a "man of peace" - even though the
official 1993 Israeli report on the massacre said he
was "personally responsible" for it. Now, Mr Bush is
praising Mr Sharon's plan to steal yet more
Palestinian land as a "historic and courageous act".

 

Heaven spare us all. Give up the puny illegal Jewish
settlements in Gaza and everything's okay: the theft
of land by colonial settlers, the denial of any right
of return to Israel by those Palestinians who lived
there, that's okay. Mr Bush, who claimed he changed
the Middle East by invading Iraq, says he is now
changing the world by invading Iraq! Okay! Is there no
one to cry "Stop! Enough!"?

 

Two nights ago, this most dangerous man, George Bush,
talked about "freedom in Iraq". Not "democracy" in
Iraq. No, "democracy" was no longer mentioned.
"Democracy" was simply left out of the equation. Now
it was just "freedom" - freedom from Saddam rather
than freedom to have elections. And what is this
"freedom" supposed to involve? One group of
American-appointed Iraqis will cede power to another
group of American-appointed Iraqis. That will be the
"historic handover" of Iraqi "sovereignty". Yes, I can
well see why George Bush wants to witness a "handover"
of sovereignty. "Our boys" must be out of the firing
line - let the Iraqis be the sandbags.

 

Iraqi history is already being written. In revenge for
the brutal killing of four American mercenaries - for
that is what they were - US Marines carried out a
massacre of hundreds of women and children and
guerillas in the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah. The US
military says that the vast majority of the dead were
militants. Untrue, say the doctors. But the hundreds
of dead, many of whom were indeed civilians, were a
shameful reflection on the rabble of American soldiery
who conducted these undisciplined attacks on Fallujah.
Many Baghdadi Sunnis say that in the "New Iraq" - the
Iraqi version, not the Paul Bremer version - Fallujah
should be given the status of a new Iraqi capital.

 

Vast areas of the Palestinian West Bank will now
become Israel, courtesy of President Bush. Land which
belongs to people other than Israelis must now be
stolen by Israelis because it is "unrealistic" to
accept otherwise. Is Mr Bush a thief? Is he a
criminal? Can he be charged with abetting a criminal
act? Can Iraq now claim to Kuwait that it is
"unrealistic" that the Ottoman borders can be changed?
Palestinian land once included all of what is now
Israel. It is not, apparently, "realistic" to change
this, even to two per cent?

 

Is Saddam Hussein to be re-bottled and put back in
charge of Iraq on the basis that his 1990 invasion of
Kuwait was "realistic"? Or that his invasion of Iran -
when we helped him try to destroy Ayatollah Khomeini's
revolution - was "realistic" because he initially
attacked only the Arabic- speaking (and thus "Iraqi")
parts of Iran?

 

Or, since President Bush now seems to be a history
buff, are the Germans to be given back Danzig or the
Sudetenland? Or Austria? Or should we perhaps recreate
the colonial possessions of the past 100 years? Is it
not "realistic" that the French should retake Algeria
- or part of Algeria - on the basis that the people
all speak French, on the basis that this was once part
of the French nation? Or should the British retake
Cyprus? Or Aden? Or Egypt? Shouldn't the French be
allowed to take back Lebanon and Syria? Why shouldn't
the British re-take America and boot out those pesky
"terrorists" who oppose the rule of King George's
democracy well over 200 years ago?

 

Because this is what George Bush's lunacy and weakness
can lead to. We all have lands that "God" gave us.
Didn't Queen Mary die with "Calais" engraved on her
heart? Doesn't Spain have a legitimate right to the
Netherlands? Or Sweden the right to Norway and
Denmark? Every colonial power, including Israel can
put forward these preposterous demands.

 

What Bush has actually done is give way to the crazed
world of Christian Zionism. The fundamentalist
Christians who support Israel's theft of the West Bank
on the grounds that the state of Israel must exist
there according to God's law until the second coming,
believe that Jesus will return to earth and the
Israelis - for this is the Bush "Christian Sundie"
belief - will then have to convert to Christianity or
die in the battle of Amargeddon.

 

I kid thee not. This is the Christian fundamentalist
belief, which even the Israeli embassy in Washington
go along with - without comment, of course - in their
weekly Christian Zionist prayer meetings. Every claim
by Osama bin Laden, every statement that the United
States represents Zionism and supports the theft of
Arab lands will now have been proved true to millions
of Arabs, even those who had no time for Bin Laden.
What better recruiting sergeant could Bin Laden have
than George Bush. Doesn't he realise what this means
for young American soldiers in Iraq or are Israelis
more important than American lives in Mesopotamia?

 

Everything the US government has done to preserve its
name as a "middle- man" in the Middle East has now
been thrown away by this gutless, cowardly US
President, George W Bush. That it will place his
soldiers at greater risk doesn't worry him - anyway,
he doesn't do funerals. That it goes against natural
justice doesn't worry him. That his statements are
against international law is of no consequence.

 

And still we have to cow-tow to this man. If we are
struck by al-Qa'ida it is our fault. And if 90 per
cent of the population of Spain point out that they
opposed the war, then they are pro-terrorists to
complain that 200 of their civilians were killed by
al-Qa'ida. First the Spanish complain about the war,
then they are made to suffer for it - and then they
are condemned as "appeasers" by the Bush regime and
its craven journalists when they complain that their
husbands and wives and sons did not deserve to die.

 

If this is to be their fate, excuse me, but I would
like to have a Spanish passport so that I can share
the Spanish people's "cowardice"! If Mr Sharon is
"historic" and "courageous", then the murderers of
Hamas and Islamic Jihad will be able to claim the
same. Mr Bush legitimised "terrorism" this week - and
everyone who loses a limb or a life can thank him for
his yellow streak. And, I fear, they can thank Mr
Blair for his cowardice too.






	
		
__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Photos: High-quality 4x6 digital prints for 25¢
http://photos.yahoo.com/ph/print_splash