George W. Bush has, as far as I can tell, a 100% record of supporting policies that I oppose. I suspect that there may be things upon which we both agree (e.g. dogshit often smells bad), but pretty much everything he does annoys me intensely.
With that totally lame disclaimer, I am motivated to briefly mention that the anti-intellectual President of the United States decided to support Ariel Sharon's "facts on the ground" in the Occupied Territories in Palestine. Aside from annoying me personally, I have no idea what motivation might have driven Bush to such a decision.
Some have speculated that his motivation may be millenial; which would not surprise me. Others suggest that he is engaging in Nixon's "I'll make them think I'm so crazy that they'll never try to fuck with me" policy. Unfortunately, this tends to have Mother Night-style* repercussions. In Bush's case, his support of Israeli land confiscation policies, which some part of me thinks is an attempt to support Israel as an ally in the war against terrorism (not to mention domestic political gain), will probably have the effect of immensely exacerbating an already aggravated situation in US/Muslim relations.
The US voting public has consistently supported the Israeli government regardless of how they have dealt with the Palestinians. I would not be surprised if the US government would veto a censure motion against Israel even if the Israeli's were to drop multiple nuclear weapons in Gaza. There is simply very little support for Palestine in the US.
This decision by Bush, will quite possibly be the most significant decision in terms of lives destroyed, that he will ever make. This is not going to be popular in the Muslim world. Expect quiet, determined rage. There may be demonstrations in the streets, but I fear that revenge will be more the order of the days, weeks, months and years that will follow this phenomenally stupid and cruel decision on Bush's part.
The above makes me very angry. What's even more odd, is that somone will probably accuse me of being anti-Semitic for having written the above.
*Mother Night, as you may or may not know, is a book by Kurt Vonnegut where an American agent has insinuated himself into the Nazi propaganda industry. The book ends with one of the Nazis telling the agent that whatever damage he may have caused to the Axis by being an agent of the enemy was more than offset by the moral support he gave to the Nazis through his radio broadcasts.
Posted by Alan at 15.04.04 14:32