Israelisation of Bush's America

There is a way for America to win in Iraq, which Mr. Bush in his arrogance will never entertain. My father used to say that you couldn't ask for the blessings of someone you have insulted. First, you had to ask for his/her forgiveness. To win over the Iraqis, America has to apologize to the Iraqis for the repeated bombing of their country for 13-years and the crippling 13-year US-UK sponsored UN sanctions that killed millions of Iraqi men, women and children and turned a prosperous Iraq into an impoverished one. America also has to honestly explain its intentions vis-à-vis Iraq's oil reserves, world's second largest after Saudi Arabia's. None of this will work without addressing the fairness issue. If America continues to cast its unfair vetoes to protect Israel's heinous crimes against the Palestinians, defying world opinion, no sugarcoated words will convince the Iraqis, or for that matter the Arabs and Muslims, that America is in Iraq for any other reason than to enhance America's and Israel's economic and military interests. That being the case, the Iraqi insurgency will only intensify.

After eight years of Clinton, in 2000 the Republicans wanted to win back the White House so bad that they handpicked George W. Bush, who had the right pedigree and name recognition, and through character assassination destroyed the candidacy of war hero Senator John McCain, who would have been a much better President. The problem with George W. Bush is that he is a child of privilege, a C student and an underachiever who nevertheless managed to attend Yale and Harvard through family influence! He never had a proper job until he was in his forties, that too, as the head of a professional baseball team, the Texas Rangers. Unlike intellectual Presidents like Kennedy and Clinton, Bush does not read newspapers, but every night makes time to watch the 11 P.M. telecast of ESPN's "Sports Center!"

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Mr. Bush likes to compare himself to President Reagan. The comparison does not go far. Mr. Reagan was in politics for thirty- two years, first as a Democrat, then a Republican, including two terms as the Governor of California (1966-74) before becoming President. Reagan won two Presidential elections (1980, 1984) in landslides. (Mr. Bush won none.) Reagan had enormous political stature. Reagan would formulate a policy and ask his subordinates to carry it out. No subordinate would dare to manipulate him. Mr. Reagan talked tough, but acted moderate. Unelected Mr. Bush talks moderate but acts extreme. Unlike President Reagan, Mr. Bush, not a man of great intellect or political philosophy, asks his subordinates WHAT his policy should be, and HOW to carry it out. If your boss asks you WHAT his policy should be, you own him! This is how Deputy Defense Secretary Dr. Paul Wolfowitz and his pro-Israeli, Jewish neoconservative cabal took over the Bush Presidency by becoming Bush's brain! A learned person has so much information stored in his head that he cannot be swept off his feet by an argument easily. He percolates the new idea in his head and assesses how it stacks up against similar information stored in his brain and almost by definition is judicious and moderate. A person, whose head is fairly empty, like our "incurious" President, can be prevailed upon to act recklessly and extremely. These days it appears that the American Presidency has been hijacked to serve not America's but Israel's interests.

President Bush condemns any Palestinian misstep or crime with the speed of light, but has never, ever, criticized Israeli atrocities against the Palestinians. It was therefore ironic that recently four former heads of Israel's Shin Bet security service Yaakov Perry, Avraham Shalom, Ami Ayalon and Carmi Gilon "delivered a blistering collective criticism of Israel's tough military policies towards the Palestinians, saying Israel urgently needed a political solution to the Middle East conflict." (NY Times, November 15). It may be recalled that last month, Israel's army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, said that the network of restrictions placed on the Palestinian population had proved to be counterproductive, breeding greater militancy. While Israel's generals and security chiefs are blasting Sharon's repressive policies, our President only heaps praise on Sharon and contempt on the Palestinians. So much for Bush's fairness!

During the 2000 campaign, Bush had criticized Gore for nation building abroad. These days, the only good news from Iraq that Mr. Bush can offer the American people is nation building! Labeling the Iraqi insurgents "dead-enders" (Rumsfeld), "terrorists" (Bremer") or everything in-between including thugs and Al-Qaeda (Bush) will not make the problem go away. The Russians had called the Afghan Mujahedeen "bandits;" those "bandits" forced Russia to leave Afghanistan in 1989! In an article in The New York Times on November 9, former CIA agent in Afghanistan, Milt Bearden, says that the Iraqi insurgents are employing the strategies crafted by Chinese military tactician Sun Tzu 2500 years ago ("The art of war.") The first is to attack the enemy's strategy. Expecting street-to-street combat in Baghdad, and none occurring, America had to modify its strategy. Next, attack the alliances (UN, Red Cross, Jordanian and Turkish embassies bombings, as well as countless attacks on individuals and groups allied with the US, including Iraqi Governing Council figures and Italian peacekeepers). Next, attack the army (which is intensifying with regular frequency) to inflict casualties and provoke a reaction that alienates the local population (by bombing civilian targets, destroying civilian buildings and inflicting collective punishment on the Iraqi civilians, a la Israel, America is playing right into the insurgents hands!)

Mr. Bearden adds: "For every mujahedeen killed or hauled off in raids by Soviet troops in Afghanistan, a revenge group of perhaps a half-a-dozen members of his family took up arms. Sadly, this same rule probably applies in Iraq." Mr. Bearden ends on an ominous note: "There were two stark lessons in the history of the20th century: no nation that launched a war against another sovereign nation ever won. (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Pipes, Abrams or any of the other Jewish neocons never fought for America! How would they know?) And every nationalist-based insurgency against a foreign occupation ultimately succeeded." The Jewish neocons who manipulated President Bush into attacking Iraq may yet regret it. If America is forced to withdraw from Iraq, as seems likely sooner than later, that may not spell good news for Israel! Israelization of America can just as easily backfire on Israel! The searing memory I of Sunday, November 2, when a shoulder-fired missile brought down a Chinook helicopter in Iraq, killing 16 American soldiers, is of a President Bush in a particularly cheery mood, who did not even mention the incident in his speech. Bush is yet to attend a single funeral of over 400 US soldiers killed thus far in Iraq! Because attending a funeral will remind Americans of the bad things happening in Iraq and that is not good for his reelection campaign, his critics say! Why was the President so cheerful despite the horrendous American tragedy in Iraq that Sunday? According to Maureen Dowd of The New York Times, the President was off to a $2000 per person fundraiser to further fatten his already huge reelection chest!