-Caveat Lector- Arab News SAUDI ARABIA'S FIRST ENGLISH LANGUAGE DAILY http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=22884
The Clique Pushing US to Confrontation Abdullah Hassan, Special to Arab News Published on 18 February 2003 A popular Arab saying goes like this: "Your true friend is the one who tells you the truth, not the one who believes you." Many friends of the US are reluctant to tell the US the truth since it will only accept the half truths imposed upon it by a Cold War clique manipulating the post Sept. 11 American psyche though their views and agenda were developed well before Sept. 11. Of course this generalization does not include US administration figures who are not part of this clique, but they can only play a limited moderating influence on American policy since the clouded legitimacy of the present US administration was given a life of its own by the reaction of the administration and the public to the events of Sept. 11, and no one was willing to take action that might affect this new legitimacy. There is nothing like a sense of despair and national catastrophe to rally the people around the flag, and the administration exploited this fact to the hilt regardless of the possible long-term negative consequenc-es to the American people and the world. This manifested itself in the institution of policies that diminish the very prerogatives enjoyed constitutionally by the American people yet promoted internationally by the US administration. In other words, the US is promoting ideals abroad that it is negat-ing at home. This shows how fragile these American ideals are. This will was brutally exploited by a deliberate policy advocating policies of fear and hatred supported by truths, half-truths, outright fabrications of fact and fiction that left many Americans bewildered and look-ing under their bed every night. Without these politics of fear, the administration and specifically the Justice Department could not have rolled over Congress and the courts to go along with its constitutional transgressions. Very few people in the world did not feel anger at what the US suffered, and very few did not applaud the American response to the terrorists that committed their senseless act. Yet many in the world watched sadly, as the war on terrorism got sidetracked from its original purpose, to include the dictates of the Cold War warriors and the neocon-servatives allied with Zionist Christians, who control the policy-making functions of the US administration. This clique and their supporters like Thomas Friedman, George Will, William Safire, and others, convinced America that it is not important to know why the US was unpopular, subjected to an attack of unheard of proportions, and that what was important was to respond to the ter-rorist attack. However flawed this argument is, it does make sense coming from a group that does not want to advertise the fact that their push through the years of American support for Israel’s brutal suppression of the Palestine people in particular, and Arabs in general, is a main cause of the events of 9/11. Exposing and publicizing this fact might have led to a popular demand that the US re-examine its Middle East policy, which can only reflect negatively on this clique, and its ideological approach to politics. In spite of all American protestations, this clique pushed the US into a confronta-tion with the Arab and Islamic nations not because it is a confrontation between two cultures or civilizations, however different that may naturally be, but because there is a real divide between a minority in the two camps, and in the US it is strongly represented by the clique governing the policy making functions in the administra-tion. Their strength and influence is not a secret and is known to every respectable political journalist or observer, and refer-ences to the clique and the subjecting of America’s policies and interests to Israel’s is an open secret, however much they deny it in spite of the glaring facts. The interest of this clique is to maneuver the president and the US, into so-called gradual positions that would make it impossible for the US or for the president to backtrack from the clique’s ultimate goal. A clear example of this is the Iraqi question. President Bush and his lieutenants declare again and again that military action against Iraq is not inevitable. If so, will the president be able politically to bring back all the American military assets sent to the Middle East, at a cost of billions of dollars to the American taxpayer, without a war to justify the billions spent on a war that never was. The answer is a resounding NO since it will lead not only to a one-term Bush presidency, but also to the routing of the Republican Party, and the ideological clique leading the country from one confrontation to another. Of course the latest confronta-tion is with America’s allies in Europe, where the absolute majority in the European nations if not their governments, are against the war for many reasons, among them the fact that they simply do not see the need for an unjust and destabilizing war because the US and its governing clique say so, and nothing presented by the US as evidence can be considered reliable or acceptable. On the other hand, it would be foolish to con-sider a European anti-war stance as being pro-Iraqi as it is really a position against American hegemony and arrogance that has exceeded all acceptable parameters. America does not need enemies around every corner to survive; nor does it need wars to prove its supremacy. Courtesy: Al-Hayat Opinion 18 February 2003 Copyright © 2003 ArabNews All Rights Reserved. Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. 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