Algore lost get over it
"Hawkeye" <posse19@no-spam> wrote in message
news:7j6ta.619$vS4.5865@no-spam
> Real American agenda now becoming clear
>
>
> HAROON SIDDIQUI
>
> A superpower like the United States does not invade a pipsqueak power like
> Iraq - outside the framework of international law and against worldwide
> opposition - only for its publicly stated reasons, in this case, fighting
> terrorism, liberating Iraq and triggering a domino effect for the
> democratization of the Middle East.
>
> The real American agenda is only now becoming clearer.
>
> The conquest of Iraq is enabling a new Pax Americana that goes well beyond
> the much-discussed control of oil, as central as that is to the
enterprise.
>
> America is redrawing the military map of the region with amazing alacrity.
> It has pulled its bases out of Saudi Arabia and Turkey in favour of
> less-demanding hosts.
>
> Its relations with Egypt have been placed on the back burner.
>
> It is no accident that those three nations are the region's more populous.
> And that America's newest partners - Qatar, Bahrain, Oman and the United
> Arab Emirates - are thinly populated and tightly controlled monarchies.
>
> People are a problem for America in the Arab and Muslim world. They are
> bristling with anti-Americanism, principally over the Israeli-Palestinian
> dispute.
>
> The pullout of 10,000 U.S. troops from a Saudi air base was long overdue,
> not just because it was a favourite target of Osama bin Laden. It so
> embarrassed the ruling House of Saud that the Americans had to be kept in
> purdah, away from the public at a remote base in the desert.
>
> The base is obviously no longer needed since Saddam Hussein is gone. But
its
> closure, in fact, is America's answer to Saudi resistance to the war and
the
> fact that 15 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11 were bin Laden Saudis.
>
> As the two nations begin a new chapter in their 50-year relationship,
> America will be less dependant on, though not free of the need for, Saudi
> oil.
>
> The kingdom with the world's largest oil reserves and the highest output
> will lose clout as America controls the second-largest reserves in Iraq.
>
> Turkey, too, has to renegotiate its relations with Washington.
>
> America now has a vise grip on the region, with 14 new post-9/11 bases,
from
> eastern Europe through Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Pakistan and Afghanistan to
> the two Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
>
> The singular feature of all those new allies is that they are weak states.
> Most are undemocratic, if not repressive.
>
> So, America is replicating its failed model of using unrepresentative
> regimes to suppress the people, but doing it on new turf.
>
> This short-term gain, therefore, may come at the expense of long-term
pain.
> And even that will depend on how well America does with its "road map" for
> peace in the Middle East, so inextricably linked are Muslims to the plight
> of Palestinians.
>
> Within Iraq itself, the dawn of a democratic era is not unfolding as
> advertised.
>
> In the name of stopping the emergence of an Iranian-style theocracy in
> favour of what the White House has called an "Islamic democracy" (whatever
> that means), America seems determined to install its own puppet regime in
> Baghdad.
>
> The majority Shiites are being shunted aside.
>
> Those protesting the American presence, including the minority Sunnis in
the
> cities of Falluja and Mosul, are being shot and killed by American troops.
>
> The distance between American words and deeds is nowhere more evident than
> in George W. Bush's triumphalist declaration that he has licked terrorism
in
> Iraq.
>
> It turns out that he has a very selective dislike for terrorism.
>
> Appallingly, he has quietly cozied up to a most notorious terrorist group,
> the leftist Mujahideen-e-Khalq in Iraq.
>
> Prior to the 1979 revolution in Iran, the Khalq was accused of killing
> Americans there. Post-revolution, it reportedly supported the student
> takeover of the U.S. embassy in Tehran. But frozen out of the spoils of
> power, the group turned against the Islamic regime, killing scores of
> civilians.
>
> Routed out of Iran, it set up guerrilla bases in Iraq from where to harass
> and attack Iran.
>
> On the diplomatic front, the Khalq took full advantage of America's
> antipathy to Iran and convinced 150 members of Congress to blindly sign
> petitions in its favour. But the U.S. and the European Union eventually
> caught up and branded it the terrorist organization that it has long been.
>
> In the early days of the war on Iraq, American planes started bombing its
> bases. But the Khalq PR machines swung into action in Washington to get
the
> guerrillas spared.
>
> In a secret ceasefire deal, signed April 15 but not released until
> Wednesday, the Bush boys agreed to let the Khalq be. The group even gets
to
> keep all its weapons.
>
> So the Khalq moves from Saddam's patronage to Bush's.
>
> So much for wiping out terrorism and terrorists.
>
> Taken together, these American moves do not reflect the high principles of
> Bush's rhetoric. Rather, they bear an uncanny resemblance to the British
> colonial enterprise of nearly a century ago, the price of which is still
> being paid by the people there.
>
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
> ----
>
>