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Delivered-To: •••@••.•••
Date: Tue, 10 Sep 2002 17:01:29 -0400
Subject: SFP Weekly Commentary: Fisk on Bush and The Axis of Evil
From: Paul Hamel <•••@••.•••>
To: SfP International <•••@••.•••>,
SfP Canada <•••@••.•••>,
SfP Ontario <•••@••.•••>,
SfP Toronto <•••@••.•••>
Greetings. The Science for Peace Commentary has been away for the summer but
has started up again. Tomorrow marks that infamous day in which the
democratically elected government of Salvador Allende was overthrown by General
Pinochet in 1973. It marks, too, the beginning of the horrific three days in
1982 when General Sharon approved orders to allow an armed militia to enter the
Palestinian refugee camps Sabra and Shatila in southern Lebanon in order to
murder several thousand refugees. In 2001, close to 3000 people were murdered
in New York, Washington D.C. and in Pennsylvania due to terrorist attacks.
These latter events precipitated the events which resulted in the murder of
between 3000 and 5000 civilians in Afghanistan. Indeed, the horrible acts of
September 11 have been shamefully exploited to increase the U.S. military budget
to more than one billion dollars pay day and to violently expand U.S.
"interests" in all regions of the world. Finally, given the likely collapse of
any serious Iraqi military response to U.S. bombing, one might ask what is the
real purpose of this campaign. Presumably that other "axis of evil" member,
Iran, is the actual target here, given its ballistic capabilities and
antagonistic past with the U.S.
More on this theme is presented by Robert Fisk in his article in the Independent
and is presented below.
Finally, if you receive these commentaries, I encourage you to consider joining
Science for Peace this year. We are about to launch a new version of our web
site which will be interactive and allow coordination of projects and campaigns
across Canada and around the world. A number of new educational materials will
be available for use in schools, universities and other meeting places. We plan
further that our forums and meetings will be broadcast live over the internet.
Indeed, your contributions to these efforts would be greatly appreciated and are
need more than ever. More details in a Science for Peace update will be sent
out next week.
Bush is intent on painting allies and enemies in the Middle East as evil
By Robert Fisk
10 September 2002
Just as Americans are recovering from the harrowing television re-runs of the 11
September attacks, their President is going to launch the biggest reshaping of
the Middle East since the British and French parcelled out the Arab lands after
the 1914-18 war. When he addresses the United Nations on Thursday, George Bush
will be threatening not only Iraq - which had absolutely nothing to do with the
crimes against humanity in New York and Washington - but Syria, Iran and, by
extension, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
The Syrian Accountability Act, which accuses Damascus of supporting "terrorism",
will come into force as President Bush is speaking and will follow only days
after the State Department branded the Lebanese Hizbollah as the "A-team of
terrorism", more dangerous even than Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida. Like Iraq, the
Hizbollah had nothing to do with the 11 September attacks - indeed, they were
among the first to condemn them - but the White House now seems set on painting
allies and enemies alike in the Middle East as a focus of evil.
Only The Nation among all of America's newspapers and magazines has dared to
point out that a large number of former Israeli lobbyists are now working within
the American administration and the Bush plans for the Middle East - which could
cause a massive political upheaval in the Arab world - fit perfectly into
Israel's own dreams for the region. The magazine listed Vice-President Dick
Cheney - the arch-hawk in the US administration - and John Bolton, now
under-secretary of state for Arms Control, with Douglas Feith, the third most
senior executive at the Pentagon, as members of the advisory board of the
pro-Israeli Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (Jinsa) before
joining the Bush government. Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defence
Policy Board, is still an adviser on the institute, as is the former CIA
director James Woolsey.
Michael Ledeen, described by The Nation as "one of the most influential
'Jinsans' in Washington" has been calling for "total war" against "terror" -
with "regime change" for Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the Palestinian
Authority. Mr Perle advises the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld - who refers
to the West Bank and Gaza as "the so-called occupied territories" - and arranged
the anti-Saudi "kernel of evil" briefing by Laurent Murawiec that so outraged
the Saudi royal family last month. The Saudi regime may itself be in great
danger as the princes of the House of Saud attempt to seize more power for
themselves in advance of the departure of the dying King Fahd.
Jinsa's website says it exists to "inform the American defence and foreign
affairs community about the important role Israel can and does play in
bolstering democratic interests in the Mediterranean and the Middle East". Next
month, Michael Rubin of the right-wing and pro-Israeli American Enterprise
Institute - who referred to the outgoing UN human rights commissioner Mary
Robinson as an abettor of "terrorism" - joins the US Defence Department as an
Iran-Iraq "expert".
According to The Nation, Irving Moskovitz, the California bingo magnate who has
funded settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories, is a donor as well as a
director of Jinsa.
President Bush, of course, will not be talking about the influence of these
pro-Israeli lobbyists when he presents his vision of the Middle East at the
United Nations on Thursday.
Nor will he give the slightest indication that the region is, in the words of
its own kings and dictators, a powder keg of resentment and anger. The tectonic
plates of the Arab world are now grinding with increasing violence. Into this
political earthquake zone, Mr Bush now seems intent on leading his country, with
his loyal British ally.
Most of today's Arab nations were fashioned out of the ruins of the Ottoman
Empire by Britain and France in the aftermath of the First World War - and
Palestinians still blame Britain today for supporting the formation of a Jewish
homeland in Palestine.
Both European nations stationed tens of thousands of troops across the region,
suppressing Arab revolts in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon - itself created by the
French at the request of its Christian Maronite community. The whole colonial
framework led to the loss of tens of thousands of lives before both the British
and French retreated from the Middle East.
Now President Bush seems set on following the colonial powers into the region
for another military and political adventure - ostensibly to spread "democracy"
among those nations it most despises (Iraq, Palestine and Iran) but in fact more
likely to increase American control of an increasingly anti-Western Arab world.
The Arabs themselves warn that this will lead to massive instability and
widespread violence. The Israelis - and their allies in the US administration -
are hell bent on the whole shebang.
Paul A. Hamel
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
416-978-8741 (phone) / 416-978-5959 (fax)
•••@••.••• (e-mail)
http://128.100.207.16 (web page)
Not until the creation and maintenance of decent conditions of life for all
people are recognized and accepted as a common obligation of all people and all
countries - not until then shall we, with a certain degree of justification, be
able to speak of humankind as civilized. --Albert Einstein, 1945.
"Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men, for the
nastiest of reasons, will somehow work for the benefit of us all." -- Economist
John Maynard Keynes
"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
__George Orwell
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