by Don Hynes
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| Vantage Point | Culture and Politics by Don Hynes |
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"No man is prejudiced in favor of a thing, knowing it to be wrong.
He is attached to it on the belief of its being right; and when he sees it is not so,
the prejudice will be gone." - Tom Paine
June 17, 2003 Fighting with Our Eyes Wide Shut In Sunday comments to the press President Bush retracted his rare reprisal of Israel’s continued attacks on Hamas, which included the death of innocent civilians, and approved Israel’s militarism as necessary for “peace” in the Middle East. President Bush was quoted as saying “the free world...must deal harshly with Hamas and the killers.” Anyone with a shred of morality is opposed to the continuing suicide attacks on Israelis by Hamas, but with equal outrage over the continuing oppression of the Palestinians population by the Israeli military occupation. Though the President doesn’t seem to be aware of it “people in the Middle East who hate the thought of a Palestinian state” peaceful or otherwise, includes Ariel Sharon and the hard line Israeli right despite recent offerings to new Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, and the right wing militants of Israel are ideologically matched by Palestinian extremists who deal out death to innocent human beings and imagine violence is justified by their cause. Those immersed in the battle aren’t capable of a solution. The Brits couldn’t have found a solution to the violence in Northern Ireland if it floated down the Thames on a golden barge; neither were the militant IRA nor the assassination prone Ulster right wing. Peace, or at least a fragile truce, came because there were those above the fray, who had a greater vision than the retaliatory methodology that leads to anarchy. Mary Robinson was one of those people, the visionary Irish president who knew the value of peace above cliche and cynical political advantage. Desmond Tutu and Nelson Mandela were leaders of that calibre for South Africa. Mandela once said: “I was not a messiah, but an ordinary man who had become a leader because of extraordinary circumstances." The key wasn’t personality but a disciplined vision mastered during years in prison. Mandela was able to mediate a peace in South Africa because he wouldn’t allow himself to become enmeshed in the polarization of the struggle. President Bush is courting the Jewish American lobby while recent sales to India make Israel one of the top arms dealers in the world. The President’s peace efforts lack understanding of history or a plan for the future as documented in this essay by Immanuel Wallerstein. Bush led America into an invasion of Iraq without justifiable cause with increasing Congressional concern about the potential of forged evidence and as yet without a clue for reaching an operable extended peace. Israel has the fundamental military power and security to evolve foreign policy but not without American influence, which Senator Richard Lugar, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wants to extend to U.S. troops fighting Hamas. Rather than assisting the peace process, the U.S. is contributing to the downward spiral of attack and reprisal. Peace and justice are incontrovertibly linked, and if America is to retain credibility, these must be the foundation for diplomacy. Month Three in Iraq The invasion of Iraq occurred on March 20, 2003 with the President declaring an end to major combat on April 29, 2003. Since that time conditions inside Iraq have further de-stabilized at an alarming pace both for the citizens and the U.S. occupying military. Looting has left the oil industry in shambles while sabotage struck recent efforts to open the first operable pipeline. Although the Associated Press made the exaggerated claim that AP performed the first comprehensive review of Iraqi war casualties, the Iraq Body Count web site has been admirably in operation since the invasion’s start with well documented and substantially higher figures that are increasing as research continues. Civilian conditions deteriorate while U.S. forces have come under increasing attack and the recent response a U.S. military mounted a counterinsurgency (remember that term?) campaign. Recent reports have 100 Iraqis killed with follow-ups reports revealing the U.S. military battling a growingly organized opposition in the populace, while U.S. head of occupation Paul Bremer remains more concerned with drawing up policies for censoring the Iraqi press. Here’s a classic quote from a 20-year-old Army reserve engineer from Louisiana: "It's kind of contradictory for them, you bomb them, and three roads over you're fixing the school." Meanwhile the Bush Administration is putting an extraordinary and resented economic pressure on it’s newly found coalition partners of “the Balkans and eastern Europe to secure war crimes immunity deals for Americans and exemptions from the year-old international criminal court.” Pin the Tale on Somebody The intelligence community is refusing to take the rap on the questionable information that formed the basis for America’s war against Iraq. No one in the mainstream press is using the “L” word about President Bush’s arguments although Spinsanity continues to separate fact from fiction amidst the Administration’s continuing penchant for I-guess-they-don’t-call-it-lying-at-Yale. John Dean, former counsel to the President during the Watergate scandal has weighed in, with comments that carry historical as well as contemporary weight while Al Franken continues to take the hilarious high road with his latest book “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right.” If you think Al’s exaggerating, read Paul Krugman on Congressman DeLay. Meanwhile in our last theater of operations, Afghanistan, the BBC reports alarming levels of uranium in Afghan civilians, next door the Taliban are gathering political strength with the Pakistani military, while the Asian Times reports clandestine meetings between U.S. and Pakistani intelligence officials and the Taliban because of deteriorating security in Afghanistan. We’re going to need an I Told You So monument on the Capital Mall after all this. Ways to Help Support the Desmond Tutu Peace Foundation. Check out the Peace People of Northern Ireland. Help MoveOn.org support a bi-partisan Congressional inquiry into the distortion of evidence concerning weapons of mass destruction and sign True Majority’s petition of Congress. Common Cause is working to rescind the recent changes in FCC regulations that favor media monopoly. Help the Heritage Forest Campaign to block the Bush Administration’s planned changes to the roadless rules protecting American wilderness. Read Isabelle Allende if you’d like a history lesson first hand, Bill Moyers for a real patriot’s vision, or Yogi Berra for a beautiful taste of blue collar class . Oregonians Check out the Oregonian Arts Poetry section this Sunday. A little known but extremely likable local poet is supposed to be showcased. Peace. *** |
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