BUSH’S COMMENTS BEFORE THE ISRAELI KNESSET (PARLIAMENT) WERE AS FALSE AS THEY WERE INAPPROPRIATE
THE U. S. AND ISRAEL ARE EQUALLY GUILTY OF ATTEMPTING TO FIND PEACE WITHOUT DIRECT CONTACT WITH THEIR ENEMIES.
Some of you will recall that Osama bin Laden created al Qaeda as an instrument of “guerilla warfare” designed to drive the United States military off of the land of his native Saudi Arabia.
The U. S. has been close allies of the Saudi throne for decades. Providing protection for the Kingdom, our bases also sheltered the Saudis massive oil fields that provide America with approximately 11% of its imported petroleum. Placing our military power in close proximity to Saudi Arabia has the advantage of also being close to several other hot spots on the international scene.
It is embedded deeply in the history of Islam that all infidels (in this case the U. S., Europe, parts of Asia and Israel) should not be permitted to permanently occupy the sacred land of any Muslim nation.
While the U. S. had the permission of the Saudi Arabian government and it’s King, the reactionary members of Islam saw our air bases as a “corrupting” intrusion on their sacred soil.
Therefore, the reactionary bin Laden, using his own impressive fortune to fund the operation, gathered together a number of followers who believed as he believed and were willing to fight to the death to drive the impure infidels off the soil of their Islamic countries which was being held by the King in sacred trust for Allah.
When Bush speaks of 9/11 he sees it as an event which was planned and carried out by a small group of reactionaries who wish to destroy or at the very least, harm the most powerful nation on earth.
What the Bush Administration and most Westerners do not comprehend is that this small, dedicated collection of Islamists have a very limited goal—to drive the U. S. from their home lands and stop what they perceive to be an effort on the part of the Christian West from obliterating Islam while simultaneously taking control of their land. That is why the U. S., which is the “Christian beast” in their mind’s eye, has bases all over the world. That is why the U. S. gives billion of dollars in support to the Jewish state. That is why the Bush Administration elected to launch an unprovoked, preemptive strike against Iraq for no apparent reason except to wipe out the leader of an Islamic nation and replace it with a democratic form of government which would give “this Western monster” a larger presence right in the heart of Islam’s most populace region.
Bin Laden wants to destroy Israel, drive the U. S. out of the Middle East and force it to abandon all of its bases on the soil of Islamic nations.
When one takes a look at the number of soldiers stationed all over the world you can readily see why nations that are not friendly to the U. S. are suspicious of what appears on the surface to be our global intent to rule the world, or at least to control it.
Not counting Iraq and Afghanistan, there are 2500 U. S. military personnel in the Middle East:
Afghanistan and Iraq 157,000
Qatar 158
Bahrain 2,333
Kuwait 10
Oman 1
United Arab Emirates 37
The U. S. has 90,000 troops in 14 countries in Europe.
There are 1,161,195 more troops in the United States and its territories.
It is obvious on the surface and from reading books written by those who were in on the planning of the preemptive invasion of Iraq that no one took into account the cultural dimensions of the war we were about to start.
While Bush was quick to identify Iran, Iraq and North Korea as part of what he branded as the “axis of evil,” the Islamists consider America, the country and even democracy, our form of government, to be contrary to their obedience to the word of Allah.
Not only that, but few if any in the planning up to the war understood the deep divide that has existed between the Sunni and the Shiites for 1400 years. The war planners were so ethnocentric that they believed democracy and freedom were two of their most treasured goals in life for people all over the world. Once the people of Iraq saw the liberation forces of the United States marching gallantly down the main street of Baghdad, they would begin to throw roses at the feet of our soldiers and fall on their knees in gratitude for freeing them from the brutal rule of their long time dictator.
Therefore, while Bush is prescribing democracy as the answer to the problem challenging the Middle East, the Muslim world sees nothing but a host of infidels endeavoring to force democracy and Christianity down their throats.
The believers of Allah have no rights to challenge the authorities who reign over them so long as the authorities are believers of the Shia and strict observers of its laws.
However, the case for democracy in this part of the world has fallen on deaf ears. Democratic elections have been held in Egypt and Jihadists groups increased the number of seats in the Egyptian Parliament dramatically. The people of Egypt voted for Islam and against democracy, for religion and against freedom.
The Foreign Relations Newsletter described the Egyptian terrorist situation this way. “Jamaat al-Islamiyya and Egyptian Islamic Jihad, both of which have important ties to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network are offshoots of the much older and more grassroots-oriented Muslim Brotherhood. These two groups have been active since the 1970s.”
Iraq held elections and the Shia won 67% of the vote which most people believe is directly tied to their Shiite bretheran in Iran.
When Palestine held its democratic elections, they chose Hamas to lead their yet to be born state.
And Bush and Israel had the nerve to turn their backs on Hamas, the winners of the democractically held elections we were promoting to bring freedom and liberty to the region.
In other words, in all three incidences where countries attempted “free and Open” elections prescribed by democracy, the terrorists, or the terrorists first cousins won the election.
Let us take a sidebar for a moment and review the accusations Bush indirectly made against Barack Obama and other Democrats who prior to the preemptive invasion lobbied hard for negotiations and even today believe that one way to alleviate the elevated tensions in the Middle East is for the United States to offer to talk to those Bush has labeled members of the Axis of Evil. In other words, Obama said openly that he would be willing to talk to any enemy or friends who wished to talk seriously about peace, i. e. he would launch negotiations with the enemies of the U. S. such as Iran, Syria and I would add Hamas.
This is not to say that Obama would jump on a plane hours after his inauguration and drop into Tehran, or Damascus, walk up to the office of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the volatile president of Iran or Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria who has made gestures recently indicating his desire to sit down for talks with the U. S. -- have a cup of coffee and start talking about nuclear armaments or attacks by Iranian troops against Iraqi outposts.
It is important to say that Obama is speaking of meetings that come after the State Department Officials have met with Iranian peers, establishing the groundwork and ascertaining the agenda prior to consideration of any meeting between the leaders of the two nations.
Bush apparently has forgotten that State Department officials, solely through diplomatic efforts, negotiated a treaty with Libya an unidentified member of the “axis of evil” and the proud possessors of nuclear weapons.
Has he become a victim of short term memory loss or has his arteries hardened to the point that he can no longer comprehend the incalculable good that comes from building trust through negotiation and out of that trust the ability to bring peace with former enemies.
In the face of these three examples alone, why did President Bush in 2001 refuse all diplomatic efforts with what he labeled “enemies of the United States?”
More importantly, why in a speech before the Israelis Knesset -would he even consider addressing issues peculiar to the United States’ on-going political campaign? He condemned the response of the Democratic candidates, particularly the response of Barack Obama, to the question if he would meet with enemies of America during his first year in office.
Obama said that with the proper preparation, he would, indeed, meet with the leaders of Iran, Syria and any other nation if the appropriate preparation indicted the talks would be productive.
Bush, before the legislative body of a foreign nation had the audacity to call Obama’s response “appeasement,” and to give it the same weight given to the comments of the Prime Minister of Great Britain, Neville Chamberlain, after his negotiations with Adolph Hitler when Chamberlain naively conceded Czechoslovakia to Germany as a price for “peace in our times.”
Bush missed Obama’s point entirely. First of all, to say that he would be guilty of appeasement is absurd. Appeasement requires that one side surrenders something valuable (i.e. Czechoslovakia) in exchange for something valuable to the other side (peace).
Obama is simply offering to sit down and talk with those perceived as our enemies, even as Reagan initiated talks with Khrushchev, or as Nixon did with Mao in China, or Bush’s people did with Colonel Moammar al-Ghadafi of Libya.
Although three presidents including Bush himself has had success with diplomatic efforts with enemies of our country, for the past eight years, Bush has refused to talk to any nation he or his administration branded as an enemy of our country, and in particular, those he has identified as members of the “axis of evil.”
When Obama promised a change in our foreign policy which since Bush took office has been the most obvious disaster of any in recent times. America went from one of the most admired nations in the world, to one of the most hated. Our president has a lower approval rating around the world than Osama bin Laden.
We are in trouble. While Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates have both recently called for talks with Iran and John McCain himself admitted shortly after Hamas won the democratic election in Palestine, that we should at some point begin to talk to Hamas, the president is calling Obama’s plan to talk to our enemies and to regain some respect in the world community, as appeasement. Bush can be a jerk at times and his speech in Israel certainly earned him that title in spades.
We have lost eight years of potential progress in our relations with the terrorists simply because we would not talk.
It will take years, but with the Obama’s approach we will better understand the mind set of those who are so vehemently opposed to the U. S.
Iraq does not represent America’s best face and our foreign policy over the past eight years represents America at its worse. Obama represents the best our country has to offer and Bush and Cheney represent the dark side of a basically good people that have been poorly and wrongly presented to the world.
9:26:33 PM 
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