tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post115535199893669230..comments2024-03-25T16:03:36.810-07:00Comments on The Existentialist Cowboy: The Bush Administration: a study in failure, waste, and needless deathAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04598093941551759917noreply@blogger.comBlogger35125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155681069219216362006-08-15T15:31:00.000-07:002006-08-15T15:31:00.000-07:00Dante, let's send Karl to Israel...but, better, le...Dante, let's send Karl to Israel...but, better, let's send him to IRAQ! <BR/><BR/>Mark wrote <I>I think you mean "dike". The one implies holding back a torrent, while the other...well, never mind.</I><BR/><BR/>Uh...the other implies Ann Coulter?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04598093941551759917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155675611510931342006-08-15T14:00:00.000-07:002006-08-15T14:00:00.000-07:00Len:"Bush also claimed that Hezbollah had a fantas...Len:<BR/><BR/>"<BR/>Bush also claimed that Hezbollah had a fantastic propaganda machine. Maybe! But they DON'T have Karl Rove. "<BR/><BR/>LOL!! Good one Len! Absolutely right. Olmert too would love to have one of those, "Hey, George, how'bout putting a clone of Karl as a complementery gift with the next weapon delivery, uh?"Sebastien Parmentierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14510809227926364827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155650733667531482006-08-15T07:05:00.000-07:002006-08-15T07:05:00.000-07:00Hey, fuzzflash; at the risk of misunderstanding th...Hey, fuzzflash; at the risk of misunderstanding the actual intent of your phrasing, I think you mean "dike". The one implies holding back a torrent, while the other...well, never mind.<BR/><BR/>I see here - http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/<BR/>sf/nyt8_15_06_1.htm - that Alberto "Abu" Gonzalez will conduct a parallel review of U.S. and British anti-terror laws, to see if some baubles may be sifted from the dross. One early pick is the ability (on the part of the Brits) to hold a suspect for up to 28 days without charge - Mike Chertoff likes that one. Boy, that'd put a crimp in your overtime at work, wouldn't it?<BR/><BR/>The really funny part was when Abu Gonzalez posed the rhetorical question, "Is it consistent with our Constitution?" As if he cares anything about the Constitution!! Of course, the Times would just keep rolling, without figuratively raising a satiric eyebrow, if Gonzalez started speaking Urdu, or broke into "To Sir, with Love". Business as usual in the emerging police state.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155615336869048342006-08-14T21:15:00.000-07:002006-08-14T21:15:00.000-07:00Bush told several lies today. But here are the two...Bush told several lies today. But here are the two biggest.<BR/><BR/>He said that Israel defeated Hezbollah. But neither Hezbollah OR a significant majority of Israeli citizens think so. In fact, Olmert is is BIG trouble with Israeli citizens and even Olmert concedes there were "problems" with the conduct of hostilities. Yep! I would call <I>war crimes</I> a "problem". <BR/><BR/>Bush claims Hezbollah started the conflict! NOPE! There is convincing evidence that the Israeli soliders were CAPTURED inside Lebanon!<BR/><BR/>Bush also claimed that Hezbollah had a fantastic propaganda machine. Maybe! But they DON'T have Karl Rove. <BR/><BR/>The biggest threat to world peace and Democracy is Bush.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04598093941551759917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155586477759302982006-08-14T13:14:00.000-07:002006-08-14T13:14:00.000-07:00Why do you suppose it should be that we are still ...Why do you suppose it should be that we are still removing our shoes when going through security -although the trigger for that was wanna-be shoe bomber Richard Reid nearly 5 years ago - but the outright ban on liquids is being rolled back only a couple of days after the latest panic?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155585981397122812006-08-14T13:06:00.000-07:002006-08-14T13:06:00.000-07:00Hi Len, chek out FBI page and see Bin Laden's boun...Hi Len, <BR/><BR/>chek out FBI page and see Bin Laden's bounty. Notice he's not wanted in connection with 9/11 attacks.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155578698310516502006-08-14T11:04:00.000-07:002006-08-14T11:04:00.000-07:00Even better would be "Turncoat Joe" :)Even better would be "Turncoat Joe" :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155574772346635332006-08-14T09:59:00.000-07:002006-08-14T09:59:00.000-07:00I don't beleive Bush is reading anything written b...I don't beleive Bush is reading anything written by Camus. I am only familiar with The Plague. I have read it twice and will dig it up and read it again. I suriously doubt that Bush could read Camus and understand what Camus is writting about. Bush has shown me that he can't even grasp simple concepts. I doubt that Bush is capable of abstract thinking. Is only mental ability is in lying and fantasising.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155570567173085462006-08-14T08:49:00.000-07:002006-08-14T08:49:00.000-07:00I have it on good authority that the president pre...I have it on good authority that the president prefers children's classics such as, "The Pet Goat", which offer a rapid but satisfying read while the world is crumbling around you.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155560749241565362006-08-14T06:05:00.000-07:002006-08-14T06:05:00.000-07:00Oops! Typo alert! I should have written Gandhi, :...Oops! Typo alert! I should have written Gandhi, :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155560642411329362006-08-14T06:04:00.000-07:002006-08-14T06:04:00.000-07:00Ghandi - he merely held that book for the photo op...Ghandi - he merely held that book for the photo op!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155552588293355062006-08-14T03:49:00.000-07:002006-08-14T03:49:00.000-07:00Did you hear that Bush has beeN READING Albert Cam...Did you hear that Bush has beeN READING Albert Camus' L'Etranger during his vacation? See my blog for a lengthy discussion of this disturbing "worlds collide" scenario...Jaraparillahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06336314539987735082noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155545320542550302006-08-14T01:48:00.000-07:002006-08-14T01:48:00.000-07:00Slightly off-topic - I've just thought of a "buzzw...Slightly off-topic - I've just thought of a "buzzword" with which to label Lieberman - "Turncoat Lieberman" - spread it around, it should be amply used to help Lamont. Oh, an my blog provider's servers are up and running again, I only lost two days' worth of posts. :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155524518864793552006-08-13T20:01:00.000-07:002006-08-13T20:01:00.000-07:00Cherie Blair has borrowed a practice from white wi...<EM>Cherie Blair has borrowed a practice from white witchcraft and on a regular basis casts a circle, a deeply symbolic act in magic, to create ‘sacred space’.<BR/><BR/>Another revelation details how Blair himself always keeps a gray velvet pouch in his breast pocket. It contains a small piece of red ribbon and a piece of rolled up paper. Even his closest advisors do not know its significance, but he cannot operate without it. </EM><BR/><BR/>These are the <A HREF="http://www.prisonplanet.com/Pages/Sept05/210905Blair_revelations.htm" REL="nofollow">nuts</A> who are leading us.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155524175465216602006-08-13T19:56:00.000-07:002006-08-13T19:56:00.000-07:00Dante Lee - After Blair met with Bush in Washingto...Dante Lee - <EM>After Blair met with Bush in Washington, he flew to California where on July 30 he attended Murdoch's News Corporation private corporate executive conference at the posh Inn at Spanish Bay golf resort in Pebble Beach. Blair met with Murdoch, Israeli former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Newt Gingrich, and various Fox, Star, and Sky News executives. The final touches were agreed to by Blair and Murdoch on how the fake terror plot would play out in Murdoch's media empire.</EM> <BR/><BR/>Maybe they dropped in at <A HREF="http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2006/290706Grove.htm" REL="nofollow">Bohemian Grove</A>. Moloch got a good run in Lebanon, but a bit more never hurts.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155506538649665802006-08-13T15:02:00.000-07:002006-08-13T15:02:00.000-07:00There's wisdom in the parable that, the more lies ...There's wisdom in the parable that, the more lies you tell, the more difficult it is to keep your stories straight. It's simplest just to tell the truth, because you can be sure the story will not vary regardless the number of recountings. Only the most agile mind can stay on top of multiple lies, while intuiting the way ahead and what embellishments may be necessary. Even the kindest of Bush's supporters would not describe him as having an agile mind.<BR/><BR/>You're quite correct that a favoured tactic is to keep a hot potato under wraps until people have forgotten, and moved on. However, that's most difficult to do when the story involves people held on suspicion of committing a serious crime. What do you do with them, for how long, and how do you make them keep their mouths shut when you eventually let them go? Quite apart from the monstrosity of Gitmo Bay (how many people held there have actually been found guilty of anything, again?) there are "terror plots" in Miami, Toronto and now London again. It staggers the imagination that all those could be kept under wraps until Blair and Bush sunset safely, and Harper scores a majority government.<BR/><BR/>Something I enjoy is going back through old super-pro-Bush material from his devotees, and rereading the confident predictions they made, the ecstasy they expressed when he was reelected. Here's one of my favourites, by the Wall Street Journal's Peggy Noonan. <BR/><BR/>http://www.opinionjournal.com/<BR/>columnists/pnoonan/?id=110005879<BR/><BR/>Ms. Noonan would at one time have had George Bush's baby at the drop of a hat (as hinted at here in her rhapsodic discussion of his...hmm...undercarriage). She tries to distance herself from him now, as do many conservative commentators, by suggesting they are disappointed in him. Slow learners, I'd say.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155504037476725042006-08-13T14:20:00.000-07:002006-08-13T14:20:00.000-07:00"Ongoing investigation" is code for "We're going t..."Ongoing investigation" is code for "We're going to keep this out of the news until the public forgets about it. By that time, we will have destroyed any evidence that might convict us!"<BR/><BR/>That's what happened with 911! Every "investigation" of 911 has been a farce! We may never know precisely what happened. The best we can do is to punch out all the holes in the official conspiracy theory until nothing is left of it. <BR/><BR/>Then it should be asked: if Bush were not complicit in an inside job, then WHY the elaborate cover up, the tortured cover stories, the conflicting lies?Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04598093941551759917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155500551743116992006-08-13T13:22:00.000-07:002006-08-13T13:22:00.000-07:00It sounds suspiciously like the "Toronto Terror Pl...It sounds suspiciously like the "Toronto Terror Plot" ( http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/<BR/>news/story.html?id=de3f8e90-982a-47af<BR/>-8e5e-a1366fd5d6cc&k=46849 ) that surfaced out of nowhere just after the country elected a minority Conservative government, whose Prime Minister is extremely cozy with Bush. Check it out, and see if you don't notice similarities. I predict another one will be the absolute silence that clamps down over the judicial proceedings, just like here. There hasn't been a squeak about it in the mainstream press for the last month. We are told the secrecy is necessary because there is an "ongoing investigation"; a phrase that is becoming as familiar as "national security" is in the U.S.<BR/><BR/>The paper that contains the link I sent is the same one that first broke the phony story about the Iranian regime ruling that non-Iranians must wear a distinctive coloured patch to denote their nationality (conjuring up immediate and obvious flashbacks to the Jewish yellow star). The story was subsequently proven to have been fabricated and planted.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155487447923274482006-08-13T09:44:00.000-07:002006-08-13T09:44:00.000-07:00Len, Wayne Madsen has pegged Bojinka 2 as a full o...Len, Wayne Madsen has pegged Bojinka 2 as a full on conspiracy. The prima facie evidence doesn't support that. The terrorist threat was real enough, people <EM>were</EM> setting up these attacks from within the UK and the police were monitoring them. The curious features that might support a more nuanced assertion that it was an inside job are: (i) the Pakistan based support for the UK operatives, and (ii) the concept of a 'dummy run' (an aspect which appeared in the London 7/7 bombings). So, there are circumstances in which the exercise could have been run with the UK terrorists being used as patsies. But the picture is not clear.<BR/><BR/>Cannonfire discusses some of these ideas <A HREF="http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/08/terror-plot.html" REL="nofollow">here</A> and <A HREF="http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2006/08/update-on-terror-plot.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>. <BR/><BR/>The evidence, of course, is that the hurried UK arrests were precipitated specifically by the blabbing of Cheney and other Bush admin officials to the US media. True to form....Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155485935400142902006-08-13T09:18:00.000-07:002006-08-13T09:18:00.000-07:00Vierotchka, some time ago I came across two articl...Vierotchka, some time ago I came across two articles about the 120 Israeli "art students" that I found helpful. I've posted them <A HREF="http://damien911.blogspot.com/2006/04/israel-and-urban-moving-company.html" REL="nofollow">here</A> and <A HREF="http://damien911.blogspot.com/2006/08/israeli-spys.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155485442891163382006-08-13T09:10:00.000-07:002006-08-13T09:10:00.000-07:00Vierotchka, I don't think I can edit your post wit...Vierotchka, I don't think I can edit your post without deleting it, re-coding to include the link, and then rep-posting. But that would take out your name and link. <BR/><BR/>So...here's the next best thing —a clickable link to the original article and an excerpt: <B><A HREF="http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/" REL="nofollow">Wayne Madsen Report</A></B><BR/><BR/><I>According to knowledgeable sources in the UK and other countries, the Tony Blair government, under siege by a Labor Party revolt, cleverly cooked up a new "terror" scare to avert the public's eyes away from Blair's increasing political woes. British law enforcement; neo-con and intelligence operatives in the United States, Israel, and Britain; and Rupert Murdoch's global media empire cooked up the terrorist plot, liberally borrowing from the failed 1995 "Oplan Bojinka" plot by Pakistan- and Philippines-based terrorist Ramzi Ahmad Yousef to crash 11 trans-Pacific airliners bound from Asia to the United States. In the latest plot, it is reported that liquid bombs were to be detonated on 10 trans-Atlantic planes outbound from Britain to the United States.</I>Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04598093941551759917noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155484200344714952006-08-13T08:50:00.000-07:002006-08-13T08:50:00.000-07:00This story is entirely believable, Vera, although,...This story is entirely believable, Vera, although, the author would have boost his credibility by being more forthcoming with his sources, other than citing some vague "knowledgeable sources". Sorry, I am skeptical by nature.<BR/><BR/>The involvement of Schwarzenegger is even more puzzling to me, since the author is flatly wrong arguing that the Californian governor is having "a sagging popularity". True, a year ago, his popularity received quite a stone huddling from groups of social workers like public school teachers and most notably the nurses. But a lot of water has passed since the last California election, and Schwarzy had accomplished quite a good track since then by, among many other good deeds, spectacularly passing a huge $62 billion infrastrusture bill -badly needed- on a complete and highly surprising bi-partisan mode. (6 billions just for public schools!).<BR/><BR/>Two weeks ago, for instance, he bluntly acknowledged his lack of ideas for resolving the disastrous situation in which our prison system lays, and called for a month long bi-partisan committee to debate on this matter. <BR/><BR/>If the Terminator's polls have not reached the mercury hights like the last month's California heat wave, it is definately summer between our the "governorator" and his constituents; even more so since Schwartzy is known not to be fond of Bush, blaming the prez openly for the lack of federal fundings for the Homeland security and other Enron's externalities. He even purposely dodged Bush travelling Air Force one for California fund raising in Sacramento (!), six month ago, while leaving the california's capital for another fund raising of his own in California's wine country. We, Californians, know all too well that Schwarzy may yet be working for the rich, but he sure despised Neo-cons - which must be at least in his resume in order to survive in the liberals's den that is California.Sebastien Parmentierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14510809227926364827noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155481053782653082006-08-13T07:57:00.000-07:002006-08-13T07:57:00.000-07:00I forgot to include the link, so here it is - http...I forgot to include the link, so here it is - http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/ - Len, you can use your editing powers to place the link in my above post and delete this post. :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155480769655385262006-08-13T07:52:00.000-07:002006-08-13T07:52:00.000-07:00What actually happened and who the players are:Aug...What actually happened and who the players are:<BR/><BR/>Aug. 11, 2006 -- UPDATED. According to knowledgeable sources in the UK and other countries, the Tony Blair government, under siege by a Labor Party revolt, cleverly cooked up a new "terror" scare to avert the public's eyes away from Blair's increasing political woes. British law enforcement; neo-con and intelligence operatives in the United States, Israel, and Britain; and Rupert Murdoch's global media empire cooked up the terrorist plot, liberally borrowing from the failed 1995 "Oplan Bojinka" plot by Pakistan- and Philippines-based terrorist Ramzi Ahmad Yousef to crash 11 trans-Pacific airliners bound from Asia to the United States. In the latest plot, it is reported that liquid bombs were to be detonated on 10 trans-Atlantic planes outbound from Britain to the United States.<BR/><BR/>The London terror plan was "known" last Sunday by British and American authorities, according to the Indian press. American Airlines flight 109 from London Heathrow to Boston boarded a family of five, however, after the plane left Heathrow authorities determined that the father appeared on a British suspect list drawn up after the 7/7 London transit attacks. At first, the pilot was instructed to fly all the way to Boston where U.S. authorities could claim credit for apprehending the suspect. However, the pilot, fearing for the safety of his passengers and crew, refused and quickly returned to Heathrow without informing the passengers. Once on the ground, it was discovered that the male had in his carry-on baggage the type of combination liquid explosive and electronic device now being hyped by the British and American media.<BR/><BR/>British sources report that the reason for the delay in informing the airlines and traveling public about the liquid bomb on the American flight was to maximize the beneficial political impact for Blair and George W. Bush, both plummeting in the polls from the situations in Iraq and Lebanon.<BR/><BR/>Earlier this week, two employees of Murdoch's London tabloid, News of the World, were charged with hacking into the voice and text cell phone messages of three members of the staff of Clarence House, the residence of Princes Charles, William, and Harry. One of those charged with the wiretapping was Clive Goodman, the Royals editor of the News of the World. The same paper earlier tried to politically damage two anti-Iraq war British politicians -- Scottish Socialist Tommy Sheridan and Respect Party MP George Galloway. The paper charges that Sheridan was unfaithful to his wife by going to swinger's clubs. He won a quarter million dollar lawsuit against the paper. Galloway was confronted by Mazher Mahmood, an individual who uses the moniker "Fake Sheik," who posed as a wealthy Arab businessman and tried unsuccessfully to get Galloway to accept cash and make anti-Semitic remarks. In fact, Mahmood was and continues to be a reporter for News of the World, his continued employment approved by Murdoch. Goodman has merely been suspended by Murdoch but he has not been fired.<BR/><BR/>However, what prompted Murdoch and Blair to hype a new global "terror" threat was what Murdoch learned from eavesdropping on the phone calls of Prince Charles' staff at the future king's office, home, and limousine. The eavesdropping revealed that Charles was working with Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, who is to the left of Blair, to conduct the same type of political maneuver that John Major used to oust Margaret Thatcher from office. London's left-wing Mayor, Ken Livingston, was also in on the Charles-Brown plan and it was expected that in return for his support, Livingston would get a senior position in a Brown cabinet -- a development that sent shock waves through the neo-con circles in London, Washington, and Jerusalem, including British Home Secretary John Reid and Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff. The Charles-Brown plan was briefed by Blair to Bush during the former's recent visit to Washington. However, because the phony terror plot was known to both leaders -- they decided to be away on vacation when the terror plot was "uncovered." Bush is vacationing at his Crawford, Texas "ranch," while Blair is on vacation in Barbados, staying at Sir Cliff Richard's luxurious villa.<BR/><BR/>After Blair met with Bush in Washington, he flew to California where on July 30 he attended Murdoch's News Corporation private corporate executive conference at the posh Inn at Spanish Bay golf resort in Pebble Beach. Blair met with Murdoch, Israeli former Prime Minister Shimon Peres, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Newt Gingrich, and various Fox, Star, and Sky News executives. The final touches were agreed to by Blair and Murdoch on how the fake terror plot would play out in Murdoch's media empire.<BR/><BR/>Blair told Bush that a Brown government would move to withdraw British troops from Iraq, break the "special relationship" with the Bush White House, and move closer to the European Union and the United Nations.<BR/><BR/>The Israeli attack on Lebanon created a rift within Blair's Cabinet with some former Blair loyalists signaling their support for the political coup against Blair. As a result, a suspect passenger was permitted to board an American aircraft at Heathrow with a liquid bomb to lay the groundwork for the media and travel hysteria five days later.<BR/><BR/>The wiretapping of Charles' messages also indicated that he has weighed in with various European royal families to discourage them from inviting Bush on state visits to their nations. This, reportedly upset the Bush and Blair regimes, who were working together to improve Bush's image in Europe. The White House's displeasure with the monarchies in Spain, Belgium, Sweden, Luxembourg, and Norway are a direct result of the Murdoch eavesdropping on Charles' staff.<BR/><BR/>Not surprisingly, after Galloway tore into a Sky News reporter on a recent televised interview, The Sun, a Murdoch paper, is now reporting that one of the 24 British aircraft liquid bomber suspects now under arrest, Waheed Zaman, met with Galloway "many times." The paper quotes the sister of the suspect. A Galloway spokesman denies that Galloway knows the suspect. What is suspect is the Murdoch media empire that makes up news and commits illegal acts to provide cover for the false flag operations being conducted by Britain, the U.S., and Israel.<BR/><BR/>Pakistan's Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) agency has helped provide the cover story for the alleged liquid bombers. Working with British and U.S. intelligence, the ISI says it broke up the plot after arresting terrorist suspects in Lahore and Karachi. However, the ISI claims that the men were affiliated with the Kashmiri terrorist group Lashkar-e-Toiba, a group that is run and funded by the ISI itself.<BR/><BR/>The disclosure of the Charles-Brown plot has already created a backlash from the neo-cons. The Murdoch media is already floating the rumor that Home Secretary Reid is now Blair's chosen successor, while there will be an effort to scandalize Charles in an effort to convince the British public that it would be best to skip over him and have Prince William assume the throne upon Queen Elizabeth's death or abdication.<BR/><BR/>British commentators are noting that it is Reid, a noted neo-con, who is chairing national security "Cobra" meetings in Blair's absence. Blair bypassed Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott and many political observers believe that Prescott was passed over because of evidence that he was involved in supporting the Charles-Brown coup. Prescott chaired Cobra meetings in the wake of the July 7, 2005 (7/7) London transit bombings.<BR/><BR/>Meanwhile, Republican governors Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mitt Romney used the occasion to boost their sagging popularity by placing their states' National Guardsmen at major airports in their states.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19580203.post-1155477502638255742006-08-13T06:58:00.000-07:002006-08-13T06:58:00.000-07:00In order to bring solid peace between two countrie...In order to bring solid peace between two countries, two factions, or between two civilizations - such as the US versus “the Muslim world” -, the problem is not to be found into what the term “peace” really means or brings to each of the belligerents. Rather, it is in the meaning of “victory” itself: the soil in which peace always sprang, like new plants grow strong into the ashes of a chalked forest. The true reason why there is never going to be a peace in the Middle-East is that each faction has, before even finding a common ground for peace, alas, a completely different understanding of the term “victory”.<BR/><BR/>If today’s Western Europe has become such a cradle of peace, it is because WWII had ended with France and England, aided by the United States and others, earning a decisive, palpable and complete victory over Germany. But more so, because on both sides of the war, each country, used to have the same “goals”, the same interpretation and understanding of “victory” - which translated as the complete destruction of the opponent. It was the times of total wars between countries which armies fought on a relatively same technological scale, whose leaders trained, got molded and have grown within the same evolutionary path of the art of war. The example of the US versus Japan, two military giants despite enormous cultural differences illustrates even more this theory.<BR/><BR/>The war in Iraq, but even more so the conflict in Lebanon, departs dramatically from these times when foes fought in the same spirits, between civilizations that shared the same intellectual and religious history; waging wars that some call today “symmetric warfare”.<BR/><BR/>This was so last century. Today, the definition of the word victory for Hezbollah is to be found in their hubris axioms of “honor” - as to kill a certain amount of Jews per day or week. Meanwhile the Israel notion of victory is even foggier. If Israel claims that her victory will come by achieving a solid peace with her neighbor, she would encourage the economic development of the folks living just outside her frontiers. But the economic squeeze operated by Israel on Gaza, and the destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructures demonstrate that this country still staunchly assume that “her” peace can only be achieve by crushing the opponents into the utmost poverty and under-development. A tenet purely sprang from the mind of Netanyahu.<BR/><BR/>To make these matters worst, from the other hemisphere, the Bush administration, molded in the neo-con ideology, emphasized the military option to deter terrorism: a recipe that has proven itself absolutely disastrous from Islamabad to Ramallah; as terrorist groups have grown technologically stronger, ideologically justified in the eyes of millions in the Arab world, where thousand are now eager to join the fight against the “west”.<BR/><BR/>While the British intelligence, if we believe the press, has just, this week, brilliantly foiled a terrorist act by the sole tools of police and intelligence, without having destroyed a single city or a country or having killed a single human being, the United States and Israel have not yet understood, (or still refuse to acknowledge) that despite all their “intelligence”, a victory over terrorism can only be achieved in working at the source of the problem: the economic root. Rather, for the last eight years, the United States and Israel act like gardeners trimming relentlessly the branches of a three, without understanding that this treatment can only obtain only juicier and bigger fruits, or, in the case of a rose bush, better flowers with thicker, sharper thorns.<BR/><BR/>The only aggressiveness from the west must be in promoting the economical development of Arab countries, instead of showering their corrupt leaders with billions in order to keep them selling nothing but oil, or by bombing those who refuse our bribes.<BR/><BR/>By giving a chance to the everyday Arab to build western cars, computers components or video games, instead of outsourcing these goods exclusively in Asia, perhaps, through this dependence on real western investments, the Muslim world will come out of their religious and economic dark ages, come up finally with new technologies and exiting products of their own, and get a chance to participate fully in the global market as they should. Why don’t the west look closer at the economic miracle brewing in Muslim Indonesia is beyond me…<BR/><BR/>As exemplified by the Roman Empire, as demonstrated by the United States within its border, the only recipe for peace has been and always will be inclusion. As the common Arabs from the street of the Middle-east will finally be welcomed and encouraged to participate as members of the global village, their values will most surely level with ours; their notion of pride will surprisingly resemble our own; their definition of the word “victory” will finally translate exactly in our dictionaries.<BR/><BR/>But this is only for the United States and Israel to spark this change of mind into the head of the Arab of the street of Ramallah, Baghdad, Gaza or East-Jerusalem. Buy shedding their greed away and their hawkish approach, this the West who has to crank the peace process. Jesus was right in one thing: you can defeat your enemy by opening your arms to them. This is simply pure bewilderment from a staunchly Christian country such as the United States to have forgotten this helpful and powerful creed – and even more from her self-anointed “Christian” president!<BR/><BR/>When it comes to solid and lasting peace in the Middle-East, the ball is the hands of the United States and Israel; as the hands of Arabs are for now only filled with an economic void, a profound and justified anger, and a chronic hopelessness.<BR/><BR/>DL<BR/><BR/>Note for Len: My apologies for the deleted post due to a never-ending editing!Sebastien Parmentierhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14510809227926364827noreply@blogger.com