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In this link, there's talk of Bush pressuring Isreal to withdraw their troops from areas dominated by Palestinians.
Recently, an Isreali cabinet member (A fundementalist at that, who supported nearly genocidal policies towards the Palestinians) was assassinated. It looks like the state of Isreal is convinced it was by Palestinian doing.
I'm not sure what Yassar Arafat's response is, but from the look of things, the Palestinians don't even want to look for the perpretator unless they're given good reason to believe the individual is of Palestinian origin.
As a result, Isreal has cut off all negotiation and talks with Palestine. This is a bad, bad thing, if you ask me. Peace between those two groups is critical to peace in the world at large. Despite what we'd all like to think, what goes on in Isreal goes in Saudi Arabia, and so on and so on and so on, until as of 9/11, it's going on in the U.S.
More recently, Isreal has indicated that they would be willing to withdraw troops if Palestine would detain a suspect.
Naturally, this whole thing smacks of the reasoning Bush tells the world backs the military action is Afghanistnan.
I've also heard the point made that Isreal may very well try and use this "War on Terrorism" bit as an excuse to turn up the heat on their anti-Palestinian policies. Is that happening? I don't know.
It's a big piece of this whole mess, if you want to talk about the political motivations for terrorism. That, and U.S. military presence in the holy land (Saudi Arabia).
Furthermore, Iraq is accusing the U.S. of fabricating the Anthrax scare in order to provide ready justification for a wider war.
Taliban officials say the U.S. is using CWF agents against them.
This is also a bad thing.
So, what I'm getting at is, where is all this going, guys? Lots of tensions are getting worked up.
Last time I checked, 81% of U.S. citizens beleived we should not halt the bombing during an Islamic holy month (Ramadan?).
One of the problems I see here, is that reguardless of whether or not it's a strategic/tactical decision, it doesn't matter -- it's going to fulfill so many fears about the U.S.
The risk is run of giving the entire world the very public impression that this is a war on Islam.
It depends, of course, on how expertly the propaganda is handled. And lest we forget: None of us really know what the fuck is going on.
But, nonetheless, I know I feel the need to speculate, and so I'd like to do so with some critical help.
Where could all this be going? It's looking awfully messy...
[ 24-10-2001: Message edited by: Frances ] |
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