Monday, August 05, 2002

Bush and Sharon Embrace Disaster Like Drowning Men The danger approaching a drowning man, all lifeguards know, is that he grabs onto his rescuer in a panic, leading both to disaster in his fearful clench.  With George Bush and Ariel Sharon, we have two leaders who exhibit this destructive behavior-clinging to ideology above all else as the lives of their people crumble around them. In the same way that California often is the harbinger of trends that sweep across the U.S., I fear that Israel may be a terrible harbinger of what is in store for the U.S. as Bush clings to the ideology of the "war on terror."  We too may face suicide terrorists who cannot be attacked with all the might of conventional weapons and military hardware.  This is a strong claim, but in many ways Sharon is responsible for Israel's terrible predicament today. Most Israelis would accept peace with the Palestinians if they could feel secure, with an Israeli state and a Palestinian state side by side.  However, there is a minority of Israelis, many of them settlers, and many actually from America, who are ideologically committed to a greater Israel.  They demand "lebensraum" in the same way that Germany demanded land for its population in Hitler's war.  Settlers feel they have a god given right to Judea and Samaria, and they will fight any Israeli government that opposes them.  This is the heart of Sharon's dilemma. The security solution for Israel is obvious-- it is to create a border along the green line, with Israelis on one side, and Palestinians on the other. Once Palestine was separate, an international force like in Bosnia or Kosovo could enforce a peace.  For years, various governments have proposed building a fence or strong security zone to establish a border.  Why has this not happened?  Because the settlers will not tolerate being outside the fence.  Sharon is the leader of this movement--clinging to the ideology of greater Judea and Samaria, while ordinary Israelis and even Americans now die in suicide bombings.  In this way, Sharon is like a drowning man, dragging his  people down in a deadly embrace. Could George Bush do the same to us?  Bush's problem is thinking a simple military solution will destroy evil.  After the latest suicide bombings in Israel, here is the description from the Washington Post.   Bush, wearing khakis and a knit shirt, sprang from his golf cart at 6:15 a.m. and said he was "distressed to hear about the latest suicide bombers in Israel."  However incongruous the setting, the president plunged ahead. "There are a few killers who want to stop the peace process that we have started, and we must not let them," he said. "I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers."  His business out of the way, Bush barely paused for breath before saying, "Thank you. Now watch this drive." Bush, like Sharon, believes if he kills the terrorists, he solves the problem.  That is also what he believes about Saddam Hussein.  He never stops to think that his actions create more terrorists. Or that there are other ways of isolating and defeating terrorism.  Unwilling to accept that he may be dealing with a Hydra, or that when one head was cut off two more would appear, the limit of Bush's thinking is more military power.  In Israel this thinking has led to over 600 Israeli deaths in two years.  Israel has about 2% of the population of the U.S.  Equivalent losses for the U.S. would be over 28,000, or about half the number of U.S. servicemen killed during the ten years of the Vietnam war.  The worst case for us is that Bush leads us into an inconclusive war and false peace in Iraq, with American troops bogged down, seething arab populations supporting Islamic fundamentalism, and the final realization that if they cannot confront the U.S. with armies, they can do it with their bodies and cunning.  This turns Americans into targets, it turns the U.S. into Israel, and it leads us to suffer the deadly embrace of a drowning man. 10:17:33 PM   comment []

© Copyright 2002 Toby Sackton. Last update: 12/26/2002; 9:29:41 PM.