Sometimes I am baffled by the naive stupidity of our government when it comes to recognizing who are our enemies and who are our friends. Like all nations, we have our heroes and we have our corrupters, who make common cause with our enemies for money. Our politicians, bureaucrats and so-called diplomats are often ready to betray our friends and our own nation on the theory - a mere theory - that terrorists can be weaned away from that which they love most. So, I say: "Curse the terrorists and pity the politicians, who, like terrorists, kill our friends and who will lead the way to killing our nation."
For some time, the US has nurtured the formation of another Arab Palestinian entity, in deference to the Arab and Muslim nations of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria - hoping to please them. Our American government, in pursuing profits and trade opportunities, has cultivated many dictators and nations who are inherently corrupt and define the word "evil". These practices are driven mostly by corporations, who influence successive Presidential administrations through their political contributions, and by the US State Department, who act as enablers. In terms of International Relations, trade and commerce, it?s not always all bad - except when it is.
The exception is when we nurture infant wannabe dictators, who, when they reach their full growth, can turn on their makers, like out-of-control Frankenstein monsters. Recall how Iran went from being America?s friend and ally under the Shah to being a deadly enemy under the Ayatollah Khomeini. America armed Egypt with (at least) $48 billion of American tax-payers? dollars and now we see this creature we nurtured into a military Goliath beginning to turn on America. America nurtured South Korea with arms, finances and American soldiers, and now they are beginning to turn on us. America rebuilt Europe with the Marshall Plan, created the backbone of NATO, and earned nothing but resentment and, often, open hostility. America, under President George Bush, Sr. and James Baker, secretly armed Iraq with Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), convinced they would stop Iran in American "best interests", and now we must fight them, possibly suffering attacks with chemical and biological missiles. Much of the technology of WMD we have taught and transferred to Arab nations (whom we presume to be our friends), which is then transferred to rogue Arab/Muslim nations (who are definitely not our friends).
When George Tenet, head of the CIA, educated Yasser Arafat?s PLO in intercepting communications, presumably to help them defeat terrorists, that technology was transferred to al-Qaeda, Iraq and Iran, which allowed them to either intercept US communications or by-pass America?s ability to intercept their communications, particularly those of al-Qaeda.
Therefore, we must recognize that defeating terrorism will not be done by offering the illusion that the nations in the "Quartet" and the Bush Road Map are attempts to ?save? Israel. The Jews are still the Fourth Estate insofar as treating them as part of the world body in the United Nations and according them equal treatment under the law. The necessary defeat of global terrorism will be achieved because each threatened country has a prejudicial interest in remaining whole and free of intimidation from Islamic-driven global terrorism. While there are other movements of terrorism, none remotely reaches the size and threat of radical Islam on a global scale.
The entities operating under the banner of the "Quartet" - namely, the US State Department, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia - have made themselves into a deciding body. Each has reason to fear what I shall call "Super Terror", meaning those who can develop, or already have, WMD. Despite what should be a self-serving interest in depriving terrorist nations of WMD, all of the Quartet states have, to some lesser or greater degree, provided the weapons to terrorist states.
The proposed neo-state of Palestine will be a conglomerate of terrorist groups, who will assemble under the contrived state of Palestine. As a practical matter, they already are a functioning "state" of terrorism. Denials notwithstanding, the Palestinian territories, gifted to them by the Oslo Accords, have already become a staging area for most of the serious and well-funded terrorist groups. That includes Yasser Arafat?s various terrorist divisions of the PLO, Tanzim, al-Aksa Brigades, 12 secret services, and then a few unnamed groups that interlock with other terrorist groups - Hezballah, al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and various European terrorist groups.
All of the aforementioned are wired into Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi intelligence organizations, which provide funding and assign missions that they need accomplished. All of the above exchange intelligence, technology, safe houses, munitions, etc. This is what the Bush administration, whose State Department drives the "Quartet", is putting together. One must ignore the concept of a disarmed Palestinian state, because it is simply not possible. Another state of Arab Palestinians will be a reflection of the worst capabilities of the terrorist nations of Syria, Iran, Iraq, etc.
So, what does this mean to America in the short term? In the long term?
It means that we are putting together a quality killing machine that, in the short term, will have a devastating effect in the region. That translates into putting a terrorist killing machine into the heart of oil country - Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States - which, of course, affects American and European interests. Every government in the region will be vulnerable to subversion, blackmail, and, eventually, submission to what the "Quartet" put together.
Let us move out a few more years. We have another rogue Arab Palestinian state assembled and ready for ?outreach? - with the best weapons and terrorist techniques available. Now they will have pooled their talents and acquired the weapons, technical abilities and have had the time to plant sleeper cells in our cities and near our bases - with our assistance. They?re going to be good, because we will have taught them and placed them in position from which to kick the stuffing out of us, or, at least, cause us unexpectedly and unacceptably high casualties.
In the past, when we supported dictators like Noriega and Pinochet, their reach when they turned on us was very short. Now, in the age of WMD, these primitives, driven by radical Islamic fundamentalism, using the weapons we developed, are going to hit us in our cities from bases we gave them.
This, then, will be the legacy that the Bush administration will leave for America and the world for a long time to come. Should this abortive creation, ?Palestine?, come into existence, managing to draw together all the terrorist networks, it will most certainly want to ?honor? its surrogate fathers - the "Quartet".
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Emanuel A. Winston is a Middle East analyst and commentator with the Gamla and Freeman organizations.
For some time, the US has nurtured the formation of another Arab Palestinian entity, in deference to the Arab and Muslim nations of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria - hoping to please them. Our American government, in pursuing profits and trade opportunities, has cultivated many dictators and nations who are inherently corrupt and define the word "evil". These practices are driven mostly by corporations, who influence successive Presidential administrations through their political contributions, and by the US State Department, who act as enablers. In terms of International Relations, trade and commerce, it?s not always all bad - except when it is.
The exception is when we nurture infant wannabe dictators, who, when they reach their full growth, can turn on their makers, like out-of-control Frankenstein monsters. Recall how Iran went from being America?s friend and ally under the Shah to being a deadly enemy under the Ayatollah Khomeini. America armed Egypt with (at least) $48 billion of American tax-payers? dollars and now we see this creature we nurtured into a military Goliath beginning to turn on America. America nurtured South Korea with arms, finances and American soldiers, and now they are beginning to turn on us. America rebuilt Europe with the Marshall Plan, created the backbone of NATO, and earned nothing but resentment and, often, open hostility. America, under President George Bush, Sr. and James Baker, secretly armed Iraq with Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), convinced they would stop Iran in American "best interests", and now we must fight them, possibly suffering attacks with chemical and biological missiles. Much of the technology of WMD we have taught and transferred to Arab nations (whom we presume to be our friends), which is then transferred to rogue Arab/Muslim nations (who are definitely not our friends).
When George Tenet, head of the CIA, educated Yasser Arafat?s PLO in intercepting communications, presumably to help them defeat terrorists, that technology was transferred to al-Qaeda, Iraq and Iran, which allowed them to either intercept US communications or by-pass America?s ability to intercept their communications, particularly those of al-Qaeda.
Therefore, we must recognize that defeating terrorism will not be done by offering the illusion that the nations in the "Quartet" and the Bush Road Map are attempts to ?save? Israel. The Jews are still the Fourth Estate insofar as treating them as part of the world body in the United Nations and according them equal treatment under the law. The necessary defeat of global terrorism will be achieved because each threatened country has a prejudicial interest in remaining whole and free of intimidation from Islamic-driven global terrorism. While there are other movements of terrorism, none remotely reaches the size and threat of radical Islam on a global scale.
The entities operating under the banner of the "Quartet" - namely, the US State Department, the European Union, the United Nations and Russia - have made themselves into a deciding body. Each has reason to fear what I shall call "Super Terror", meaning those who can develop, or already have, WMD. Despite what should be a self-serving interest in depriving terrorist nations of WMD, all of the Quartet states have, to some lesser or greater degree, provided the weapons to terrorist states.
The proposed neo-state of Palestine will be a conglomerate of terrorist groups, who will assemble under the contrived state of Palestine. As a practical matter, they already are a functioning "state" of terrorism. Denials notwithstanding, the Palestinian territories, gifted to them by the Oslo Accords, have already become a staging area for most of the serious and well-funded terrorist groups. That includes Yasser Arafat?s various terrorist divisions of the PLO, Tanzim, al-Aksa Brigades, 12 secret services, and then a few unnamed groups that interlock with other terrorist groups - Hezballah, al-Qaeda, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and various European terrorist groups.
All of the aforementioned are wired into Iranian, Syrian and Iraqi intelligence organizations, which provide funding and assign missions that they need accomplished. All of the above exchange intelligence, technology, safe houses, munitions, etc. This is what the Bush administration, whose State Department drives the "Quartet", is putting together. One must ignore the concept of a disarmed Palestinian state, because it is simply not possible. Another state of Arab Palestinians will be a reflection of the worst capabilities of the terrorist nations of Syria, Iran, Iraq, etc.
So, what does this mean to America in the short term? In the long term?
It means that we are putting together a quality killing machine that, in the short term, will have a devastating effect in the region. That translates into putting a terrorist killing machine into the heart of oil country - Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf States - which, of course, affects American and European interests. Every government in the region will be vulnerable to subversion, blackmail, and, eventually, submission to what the "Quartet" put together.
Let us move out a few more years. We have another rogue Arab Palestinian state assembled and ready for ?outreach? - with the best weapons and terrorist techniques available. Now they will have pooled their talents and acquired the weapons, technical abilities and have had the time to plant sleeper cells in our cities and near our bases - with our assistance. They?re going to be good, because we will have taught them and placed them in position from which to kick the stuffing out of us, or, at least, cause us unexpectedly and unacceptably high casualties.
In the past, when we supported dictators like Noriega and Pinochet, their reach when they turned on us was very short. Now, in the age of WMD, these primitives, driven by radical Islamic fundamentalism, using the weapons we developed, are going to hit us in our cities from bases we gave them.
This, then, will be the legacy that the Bush administration will leave for America and the world for a long time to come. Should this abortive creation, ?Palestine?, come into existence, managing to draw together all the terrorist networks, it will most certainly want to ?honor? its surrogate fathers - the "Quartet".
--------------------------------------------------------
Emanuel A. Winston is a Middle East analyst and commentator with the Gamla and Freeman organizations.