Robert Fisk: Could it be al-Qa'ida is missing Bush?
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Independent Minds
President Barack Obama was received in the Middle East with the usual grovelling Saudi plea for help in taming the Israelis and an incendiary threat from Osama bin Laden that America will pay the price for his role in displacing a million Muslim refugees in Pakistan. It wasn't difficult to see why Obama warned the world not to expect too much from his attempt to "create a better dialogue" with Muslims.
Bin Laden was probably 1,300 miles to the north of Obama when the US President landed in Riyadh yesterday for his meeting with King Abdullah but, as usual, Bin Laden's words were a good deal more direct than those of the fawning Saudis. By his support for the Pakistani army's assault on the Taliban in Waziristan, Obama had "sown new seeds of hatred against America" and was "laying the foundation for long wars ahead". With his normal flourish, Bin Laden added that he "warned the American people... that they will suffer the consequences of his actions".
Could it be, perhaps, that Bin Laden is beginning to miss old George Bush and his "war on terror", that the ever smiling Barack Obama is beginning to stick in Bin Laden's craw, that the fractional improvement in US-Arab relations is beginning to be a little irksome – or that, by some awful mischance – Obama actually might tame the colonial ambitions of Israel? Ironically it was Madeleine Albright – writing with the usual pomposity but with almost bin Laden-like directness in the New York Times – who also spotted that no Obama speech, "however eloquent, can disentangle US-Muslim relations from the treacherous terrain of current events such as Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan..."
The Saudis, of course, wanted to talk about the Iranian – i.e. Shiite – threat to the Sunni world as well as the refusal of Bibi Netanyahu to bow to Obama's demand for an end to the Israeli colonisation of Arab land. Indeed, there are times when the Saudis speak of Iran with almost the same hatred as Bibi. They really should meet some time, although success for the 2002 Saudi peace plan – total Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 border in return for full Arab recognition of Israel – would probably guarantee that just such a meeting took place.
Obama's speech writers will have tightened up the US President's Egyptian address for today once they discover whether King Abdullah is still as keen on the Saudis' own 2002 plan. It will no doubt be neatly slotted into the "better understanding" speech which we are going to have to listen to in Cairo today when Obama addresses that famous entity, the "Muslim world". The trouble is that the Shiite-Sunni void – to be played out again this weekend in the theatricals of the Lebanese elections – is almost as important for the Arabs as resolving the tragedy of the Palestinians.
And, of course, everyone wants to be seen hugging the new American President. Grinning over his cardamom tea with the king in Riyadh yesterday, poor Obama is going to have to endure the embrace of Hosni Mubarak in Cairo today where the government press – almost as fawning as the Saudis – have been proclaiming that Obama's reference to the Egyptian president as a "stalwart ally" of peace proves that Egypt has yet again won its place at the centre of the Arab world.
Yes, Obama did actually call the old dictator a "stalwart ally", much to the disgust of the opposition in Egypt, but that is what you have to do in this part of the world if you want to get invited back. Waiting for the President's speech is almost exquisitely painful because, like the Arabs, Washington's policies still appear hopelessly divided. While infuriating the Israelis – much to the Arabs' delight – Obama continues to send his men into the graveyard of empires to beat the Taliban, shrugging off any responsibility for those one million Pakistani Muslim refugees whom Bin Laden so shrewdly spotted on the horizon. The only real question, perhaps, is whether Obama has asked himself the most important question: does the "Muslim world" actually exist?
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Comments
Hamas vs. Israel. How laughable. It's like comparing the French partisans of WWII to the big Nazi empire with its aircraft, tanks and artillery. "Oh that evil Hamas. It's going to destroy Israel with fireworks and a couple of guns".
I suggest next time, ceo_exec (I doubt you are) you go read a Spiderman comic book, the forces of good vs. evil should give you the rush you so desperately seek. You'll find that comics will also agree with your intellectual level.
P.S.: For those interested in substance and truth, Hamas has already recognized the 1967 border as their goal (i.e. an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza to the Green Line will satisfy them).
Even the New York Times said so in an interview with Khaled Mishal less than a month ago. In other words, the old talking point that the almighty Hamas is hell bent on destroying Israel is not only laughable, ridiculous, but is absolutely FALSE.
Meanwhile, Israel has yet to recognize the Palestinian people as a national group with rights. Ask any settler in the dozens of colonies in the West Bank and he'll tell you the Palestinians never existed as a nation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwrskVXp
QUESTION TO FISK: Doesn't the Saudi "peace" plan ALSO include hundreds of thousands, or millions, of Israeli Jew-hating Palestinian Arabs into Israel, which would make Israeli Jews a minority in Israel, which would result in Israel not being a Jewish homeland anymore, which would make put Arab Muslims via majority in charge of Israel, which would result in Israel probably being remained to some Arab world, which would basically mean Israel just ceased to exist?
There's already a Palestinian Arab state - Jordan.
Israel is the Palestinian Jew state.
There can be a third Palestinian state (the west bank and gaza) but it seems unfair to demand that Israel ethnically cleanse hundreds of thousands of Jews out of hte west bank. Though, every arab country already did that to their Jews, so I guess you figure Israel should do it to the ones in the west bank, too
What's the point of this line of editorial, really?
No matter what Israel does, as long as the radical islamic fundamentalist viewpoint (of hamas, and the millions of palestinians who voted for them) is to destroy Israel, instead of peace alongside Israel, none of this even matters.
Lots of silly fools just like to obsess on some Jews building a new 2 bedroom house on an empty hill somewhere in the west bank and pretending that's some big problem, when none of that stuff matters. Arabs in the West bank are living better lives than most arabs in arab countries are.
Hamas vs. Israel. How laughable. It's like comparing the French partisans of WWII to the big Nazi empire with its aircraft, tanks and artillery. "Oh that evil Hamas. It's going to destroy Israel with fireworks and a couple of guns".
I suggest next time, ceo_exec (I doubt you are) you go read a Spiderman comic book, the forces of good vs. evil should give you the rush you so desperately seek. You'll find that comics will also agree with your intellectual level.
P.S.: For those interested in substance and truth, Hamas has already recognized the 1967 border as their goal (i.e. an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and Gaza to the Green Line will satisfy them).
Even the New York Times said so in an interview with Khaled Mishal less than a month ago. In other words, the old talking point that the almighty Hamas is hell bent on destroying Israel is not only laughable, ridiculous, but is absolutely FALSE.
Meanwhile, Israel has yet to recognize the Palestinian people as a national group with rights. Ask any settler in the dozens of colonies in the West Bank and he'll tell you the Palestinians never existed as a nation.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EwrskVXp
This isn't about religion....all those who make it about "god", whom might as well be another scientific "theory" religions have so many problems with, are completely ignoring the most important part of it all....
THIS IS ABOUT HUMANS WRONGING HUMANS. god aside, or whatever, HUMANS SHOULD WORRY ABOUT THE OTHERS OF THEIR KIND...
OF COURSE the Palestinians have turned into crazy religious fanatics that go to the extremes for their "god"... they have been left no other choice. these are people who got everything taken away from them 50+ years ago, and their children and children's children have been born into violence and despair; of course they are angry, and if you were one of them, I'm pretty sure you'd feel the exact same way..they MUST believe there is a higher power, and are willing to take it to extremes, because fact of the matter is NO ONE IN THE WORLD COMMUNITY HAS HELPED THEM, and the only way they can garner international attention for their plight is by way of violence.
I in no way agree with this, but I feel in some sick way that they are justified, as sad as it is. I am completely terrified by extremist muslims, and think they have it all completely wrong, but i also believe they got this bad because they have been pushed into a corner for so long.
Then on the other side we have the israelis, who have NO RESPECT for any other human, muslim or not. If you're not a jew, they barely see you, the fact that you have two arms, legs, a beating heart... they choose to ignore the fact that you are JUST LIKE THEM... i wish i could shake them, tell them WE ARE ALL PEOPLE, but that'd do no good... because they KNOW what they are doing. educated israelis KNOW they are wrong, and they justify themselves with the dumbest excuses and a big old smile on their faces... makes me sick. for a people who cry so much about the holocaust, seems VERY HYPOCRITICAL that they are committing even BIGGER ATROCITIES on another group.
and I am Israeli. born, raised...as soon as I was old enough to recognize what a crock everything was, I packed up and left.
Now I'm in China, where, well, human rights aren't at it's finest and free speech isn't exactly encouraged... but its better than the consuming hatred.
I feel terribly for the state that this has gotten to. my biggest qualm is that it might never stop, just because its been going on for so long, and both sides are too consumed by their anger to reach a solution, not to mention blinded by their respective faiths... ugh dont even get me STARTED on religion.... its just a thin veil that drives masses. before thinking and putting some mythical person as your "leader", consider those in your immediate surroundings, take care of THEM, respect THEM, because they are here, "GOD" is not. What's so difficult to see about that is just.... I don't know. People should believe in themselves, and have the faith to believe in each other....
this is highly unlikely, I know, and the wars will continue until there's no one left.
But Robert, thanks for your work. Seriously.
There are 1-2 billion poor people in the world, most of whom are more poor than the palestinians, and most of them manage to not be insane radical religious extremist nutcases.
Furthermore, there are crazed islamic radicals causing problems in many countries around the world. It's their own fault, not anyone else's.
Anti-semites like making excuses for the crazy, irrational behavior of the nutty palestinians.
tools like that ignorant idiot who spends too much time on the interwebs and calls himself a CEO is a classic case of jewish denial... i should know, my brother suffers the same condition.
As long as the palestinian powers that be are crazy, irrational nutjobs, Israel will find it hard to make peace with them.
If the Palestinian powers that be, supported by the palestinian majority, are ever sane, rational, reasonable people, Israel will find it easy to make peace with them.
Whether that takes 20 more years or 350 is up to the nutty palestinians and the radical islamic fundaamenalist nutjobs.
Everything else is just a side note.
He is ignorant.
The palestinians have received massive amounts of aid in all directions.
But they just want to keep making war with Israel.
They are stupid.
If they are ever smart, they'll declare a permanent peace with Israel, recognize Israel for what Israel is, swear terrorism off forever, and act on it. And then Israel will give peace back, a permanent negotiation will take place, and this nonsense will end.
You ultra-leftist loonies are as irrational as those on the far-right. You pretend to hate crazy islamic terrorists, except when they try to murder Israeli Jews. Then you just make excuses for them.
>The palestinians have received massive amounts of aid in all directions.
Well, how much aid has Israel received over its showmanship as a victim?
It clear as daylight, the day the conflict with Palestinians end, that billions of $$$ will stop coming in, and you can't grab more land or make new settlements on others property anymore. All the reason to keep this going on endlessly. The world is not stupid, but the world became powerless in front of Israeli showmanship.
Negotiations to start after recognitions for Israel? What nonsense. The thieves dont have a right to say this. After creating all this hatred, its the duty of Israel to win back trust and recognition, by offering a just compensation for the land and sufferings. That's what justice calls for. Without that show of clean intentions on part of Israel, Arab heart will be difficult to move, especially after all this destruction and killing and suffering at the hands of Israel. You have simply got to wake up from the illusion of building a safe home by military power alone.
just because Fisk got the sh*t kicked out of him when he went to Afghanistan...
Since AIPAC and pro Israel US lawmakers control the US foreign policy, nothing will be achieved because it is in their best interest to prolong the tension in the Middle East.
In order to initiate a real peace in the Middle East, Obama must first put an end to the AIPAC and pro Israel lawmakers' choke hold on the US foreign policy, otherwise, all his efforts will be wasted.
Can't someone switch him to the House and Home desk?? He's such a predictable bore.
Could it be that, as the US policy is broadly the same but with a spoonful of sugar and a promise to not ask you to account for your behaviour, it was the racist ignorant reaction to Bush led by people like Fisk that is the "problem"?
Plus the fact that Bush was the first US pres to make a two state solution formal US policy, and the first to actually oppose and eliminate religeous lunatic terrorists who were brutalising Afghans, and worst of all to emancipate (make politically free) Iraqi's (has to invent loads of oil theft and imperialism lies to explain that one didnt you)?
Resolving the Palestinians suffering is of little real concern to Arab states. Its just their witch, and they love it. All bankrupt people/political movements/societies through history define themselves as in opposition to a witch of some kind. For Arab states Palestinians suffering is their security. Iraq's state may be different, as it alone is beholden to its people, who like ordinary people everywhere do care about Palestinians
Its why Mr Fisk your trade is so filthy, IMHO. You promote these one sided narratives of victimhood.
Still, you seem to be trying to change (or I may just be being fooled) so I should encourage you.
How about telling us about the political freedom in Iraq and the huge volume of unreported news on the internals of Iraqi politics. This would seem to be somewhat of an omission for a journalist puporting to report Arab politics dont you think? What does Iraqi politics say about the Palestinian problem? Are there many views, or just one?
Or can you not, like most of the media, bring yourself to report Iraqi politics, for to do so would be to recognise it and the emancipation of 27 million Iraqis that you opposed and then fuelled an insurgency against that cost so many lives with the same stories and lies of puppet govts, resource theft, imperialism.
How many of the Iraqi refugees have returned now?
Bob. I think you ought to be here, honest if you ask me, but you do not.
Does the "Muslim world" actually exist?
Muslims are from 2000 years and before that too on the earth and for your knowledge in every corner. To you the Middle East is the end of the line for the Muslims drawn albeit by your little knowledge. See this in your paper and may be you will learn more.
They may be missing Bush but they are trapping more British who are not the part of Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
British holidaymaker is 'beheaded by al-Qa'ida'
Author: By Daniel Howden, Africa Correspondent
Al-Qa'ida in the Maghreb claimed it had carried out its threat to kill Edwin Dyer ? who was kidnapped in January in the border area between Mali and Niger ? on Sunday after Britain failed to meet its demand to release a Jordanian militant reputed to be the European envoy of Osama bin Laden. Abu Qatada is being held in Britain pending extradition to his homeland.
But the killing appears to have followed a refusal by Britain to pay a ransom for Mr Dyer, who was taken with three other European tourists after attending a nomadic cultural festival on 22 January. Two of the four hostages were released in April, along with two Canadian diplomats taken in a separate incident, after a ?5m (£4.3m) ransom was paid.
The long-haul captain, speaking on condition of anonymity, dismissed the theory the doomed jet suffered catastrophic electrical failure.
"There are five electricity supplies on the plane. And to cause it to break down completely they would all have to fail. Even then, a type of wind turbine takes over to generate power.
"We cannot know if it crashed after being struck by lightning. But we know this is very rare."
French defence minister Herve Morin said a terror attack could not be ruled out.
You see Osama is here, there, everywhere. Not Muslims, Osama. Muslims will not do this.
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla
What a load of rubbish.
Probably recorded in a studio in California.
Wake up people.
Why do we accept the authenticity of this tape from the boogeyman Bin Laden?
Where is the proof?
All a propoganda exercise, especially the visit of Obama to Saudi, probably layingthe next foundations for next satge of the orchestrated financial collapse, and the erosion of more civil liberties.
Of course he could be a closet Hamas sympathizer, doing what he does as a smokescreen with just that intention ... But that would assume that Hamas did black propaganda ...
Now he comments on a - most probably fake - Osama tape about the 3.4 million (at last count) Pakistani refugees created by the Yank puppet Zardari's brutal war on his own Pashtun tribes. Millions of Pakistanis are being butchered and driven out of their lands and into total misery as Pakistan's sacrifice on the altar of Obomber's AfPak policy and not only does Fisk not feel the need to go and find out what's really happening in Swat but he even knocks down the number of refugees to 1 million.
Fisk doesn't just play fast & loose with millions of war refugees. The network that broadcast the tape - aljazeera - didn't provide a full transcript. Neither Fisk nor anyone else even asks for a transcript, nobody asks for independent expert confirmation that the voice is really Osama's, nobody asks how it is that aljazeera gets all these Osama tapes while the Yanks, who have not hesitated to bomb aljazeera several times when they didn't like what it was reporting, just sit idly by, not even attempting to trace the tape deliveries back to their most wanted terrorist (or so they say he is).
The whole thing stinks to the high heavens of psyops, especially considering that it comes on the tail of a rather blatant psyops release by Intel Center, a "private" intelligence agency full of Pentagon and Mossad alumni, whose productions are broadcast without question by the West's bought-and-paid-for Wurlitzer media:
Fisk's wholesale forfeiture of his former scepticism and honesty is particularly bizarre when the Yanks have just started a third major war on Muslims - the one in Pakistan that the "Osama tape" refers to - as part and parcel of Obomber's rebranding of the neocon Afghanistan war as the "AfPak" war. How can Fisk say with a straight face that Bush's "war on terror" was worse than Obomber's "new improved" GWOT, now rechristened with Obomber's trademark euphemistic/elliptical lawyerspeak:
At this point one has to ask: Is Robert Fisk turning into another Christopher Hitchens? Is he being "rhinocerized" by Obomber just as Hitchens was "rhinocerized" by Bush?
See how he claims 1 million "butchered". This level of extreme bigotry and disconnect makes fin-de-sanity a very dangerous person as these cretinous narratives are the very basis of Islamic extremism.
Pakistan is acting as any state would when its territory and 1 million of its citizens have the protection of the state of the removed and an extremist authority replacing it by force.
Fin-de-empire, your arguments are like watching a retarded person hammering square pegs onto round holes. You have your conclusion, you have always had it, and the facts must be battered into the "proof" you need to enjoy your righteous indignation
You, fin-de-sanity, are a case study in Rhinocerization. You are, are you not, simply unable to ctitique or even recognise the actions of the taliban in SWAT. Such is the sad state of mental dysfunction that your righteous bigotry has brought you to eh?
Watch Mr Fisk make the journey he finally appears to have embarked upon. Balance.
Still, I expect the fires of hell will make anything the US does to this vermin look like childs play dont you?
How much support does OBL have on the Arab Street these days? We used to hear of his support all the time from our media sewer, yet for perhaps 4 years now the Arab Street seems to have been quiet (saying the "wrong" thing to support the media hate narratives against the US and freedom)
Listen to the Arab Street as and after Obama talks today. He is about to wake them up. No wonder the Arab state rulers are finally beginning to shift. Because EVERYONE wants and will demand to be free, as is their right.
First the nasty tough teacher comes in and quiets the class and whacks the trouble makers
All hate them for it
Then the "nice" teacher replaces them and all the things the nasty tough teacher did can now be rebranded and applauded as the work of the new soft teacher. It's a price thing as you know, for otherwise you would have to acknowledge you were wrong.
27 million Iraqis are free. They can be ignored no longer, as can the lies about resource theft, colonialism and all the other lies for which Iraqis and coalition forces paid such a terrible price
So today these same liars are busy weaving their hate narratives of lies about the Palestinian problem.
Read them here under the article by their (old?) hero
Have you noticed that irrespective of the point made by any contributor, you have the sane ready-made answer! (D0 not answer this question, please otherwise we would be subjected to the old boring diet of: "the land was gained from Jordan and Egypt" ... "fanatical Muslems" ... "little poor [nuclear] Israel threatened by Hamas mobs" ... "Jordan is Palestine" ... "anti-semites" etc).
I really think, for your own credibility, that you attempt to field the diverse legitimate concerns of some co-contributors with respect, and don't constantly exhibit your narrow-minded approach to what is obviously a humane matter with cross-cultural concerns the world over.
May I suggest that you check again with your communications chief and ask him/her for more talking points that reflect the change in world public perception of the Palestinian-Israeli issue.
I am still waiting with abated breath to a question posed above pertaining to the legality in international law of a land acquired by occupation and then annexed. If a land is 'won over' from USA, UK, Jordan Egypt etc. by an act of war, does this make the land in question legally the property of the occupier to deal with its original inhabitants (Americans, British, Jordanians, Egyptians etc.) as the occupier wishes?
Regards
Apparently there are no such things as property rights - you can take anything you like, as long as you are related to someone who owned it at some point previously.
CNN VIDEO MESSAGE CONFIRMED AUTHENTIC BY CIA:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/1
Bin Laden Quote from video: "But after the injustice was so much and we saw transgressions and the coalition between Americans and the Israelis against our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it occurred to my mind that we deal with the towers. And these special events that directly and personally affected me go back to 1982 and what happened when America gave permission for Israel to invade Lebanon. And assistance was given by the American sixth fleet.
During those crucial moments, my mind was thinking about many things that are hard to describe. But they produced a feeling to refuse and reject injustice, and I had determination to punish the transgressors.
And as I was looking at those towers that were destroyed in Lebanon, it occurred to me that we have to punish the transgressor with the same -- and that we had to destroy the towers in America so that they taste what we tasted, and they stop killing our women and children."
Bin Laden is long dead, probably in frozen 'storage' somewhere in Virginia; to be thawed out and dumped once "The War Against Terra(*)" is declared to have been "won".
Such 'war(s)', often 'declared against abstract nouns, such as: drugs, terror, poverty, illiteracy, crime and imbibing etc is THE fool's game - but it works every time.
Give up the narratives of victimhood and hate from all sides, for it is these narratives, narratives that perhaps dear reader YOU have been promoting for years, that must end to end the suffering.
There never were any witches, just hysterical people hunting them and hurting so many in their righteous fury to end the injustice.
STOP
Recognise the evil of expanding settlements and of distorting Islam so that it justifies such extreme inhumanity in the name of God.
just STOP
As Obama said, everyone KNOWS the solution. We all have all along.
(maybe Robert you should do your bit and announce publicly your retirement?)
www.counterpunch.org/kiblawi01172004.htm
I thank you
Firozali A Mulla