If we keep up the neocon/Likud policies we will be just like Israel.

Likudization of the World: The True Legacy of September 11
by Naomi Klein

Russian President Vladamir Putin is so fed up with being grilled over his handling of the Beslan catastrophe that he lashed out at foreign journalists on Monday. “Why don't you meet Osama bin Laden, invite him to Brussels or to the White House and engage in talks,” he demanded, adding that, “No one has a moral right to tell us to talk to child-killers.”

Mr. Putin is not a man who likes to be second guessed. Fortunately for him, there is still at least one place where he is shielded from all the critics: Israel. On Monday, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon warmly welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergie Lavrov for a meeting about strengthening ties in the fight against terror. “Terror has no justification, and it is time for the free, decent, humanistic world to unite and fight this terrible epidemic,” Mr. Sharon said.

There is little to argue with there. The essence of terrorism is the deliberate targeting of innocents to further political goals. Any claims its perpetrators make to fighting for justice are morally bankrupt and lead directly to the barbarity of Beslan: a carefully laid plan to slaughter hundreds of children on their first day of school.
...
The underlying message is unequivocal: Russia and Israel are engaged in the very same war, one not against Palestinians demanding their right to statehood, or against Chechens demanding their independence, but against “the global Islamic terror threat.” ... This goes beyond states’ standard refusal to negotiate with terrorists — it is a conviction rooted in an insistent pathologising, not just of extremists, but of the entire “Arab mind”.

... Three years ago, on September 12, 2001, Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked how the previous day’s terror attacks in New York and Washington would affect relations between Israel and the United States. “It's very good,” he said. “Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.” The attack, Mr. Netanyahu explained, would “strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we've experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive haemorrhaging of terror.”

... by Likudization, I do not mean that key members of the Bush Administration are working for the interests of Israel at the expense of U.S. interests — the increasingly popular “dual loyalty” argument. What I mean is that on September 11, George W Bush went looking for a political philosophy to guide him in his new role as “War President,” a job for which he was uniquely unqualified.

He found that philosophy in the Likud Doctrine, conveniently handed to him ready-made by the ardent Likudniks already ensconced in the White House. No thinking required. In the three years since, the Bush White House has applied this imported logic with chilling consistency to its global “war on terror” — complete with the pathologising and medicalising of the “Muslim mind”. It was the guiding philosophy in Afghanistan and Iraq, and may well extend to Iran and Syria.

It’s not simply that Bush sees America’s role as protecting Israel from a hostile Arab world. It’s that he has cast the United States in the very same role in which Israel casts itself, facing the very same threat. In this narrative, the U.S. is fighting a never ending battle for its very survival against utterly irrational forces that seek nothing less than its total extermination.

And now the Likudization narrative has spread to Russia. In that same meeting with foreign journalists on Monday, The Guardian reports that President Putin “made it clear he sees the drive for Chechen independence as the spearhead of a strategy by Chechen Islamists, helped by foreign fundamentalists, to undermine the whole of southern Russia ...This is all about Russia's territorial integrity,’ he said.” It used to be just Israel that was worried about being pushed into the sea.

There has indeed been a dramatic and dangerous rise in religious fundamentalism in the Muslim world. The problem is that under the Likud Doctrine, there is no space to ask why this is happening. We are not allowed to point out that fundamentalism breeds in failed states, where warfare has systematically targeted civilian infrastructure, allowing the mosques start taking responsibility for everything from education to garbage collection.

It has happened in Gaza, in Grozny, in Sadr City. Mr. Sharon says terrorism is an epidemic that “has no borders, no fences” but this is not the case. Everywhere in the world, terrorism thrives within the illegitimate borders of occupation and dictatorship; it festers behind “security walls” put up by imperial powers; it crosses those borders and climbs over those fences to explode inside the countries responsible for, or complicit in, occupation and domination.

Ariel Sharon is not the commander in chief of the war on terror; that dubious honour stays with George Bush. But on the third year anniversary of September 11, he deserves to be recognized as this disastrous campaign’s spiritual/intellectual guru, a kind of trigger-happy Yoda for all the wannabe Luke Skywalkers out there, training for their epic battles in good vs. evil.

If we want to see the future of where the Likud Doctrine leads, we need only follow the guru home, to Israel — a country paralyzed by fear, embracing pariah policies of extrajudicial assassination and illegal settlement, and in furious denial about the brutality it commits daily. It is a nation surrounded by enemies and desperate for friends, a category it narrowly defines as those who ask no questions, while generously offering the same moral amnesty in return. That glimpse at our collective future is the only lesson the world needs to learn from Ariel Sharon.

 

Don't be so anti-semitic, Hayes. Not all Jews are followers of the Likud.

 

Hayes, I know you like to pull my chain by doing such things as arguing that we should have attacked Iraq when you backed the murderous sanctions. However, is it possible for Jews to be anti-semitic?

Doesn't the Likud crowd usually refer to Jews who oppose their militaristic ways as "self-hating" not "anti-semitic" if they disagree with the Likud mindset? Anyone else who opposes their policies is labeled "anti-semtic".

 

Uh, well correct me if I'm wrong but Afghanistan was ruled by the Taliban which can fairly be called pathological and certainly irrational. It doesn't seem incorrect to say the same about Saddam Hussein, unless I missed something. And considering the Bush Administration repeatedly claimed Saddam was merely using Islam for power purposes, and not because he was a 'real' Muslim, I don't see a blanket pathologizing of 'Arabs' (even though Afghanis aren't arabs) either.

You and Dick Cheney. Bin Laden is the Taliban is Sadam is terroism .Sorry Iraq was an imperialistic ill thought out war. Only in the neocon cosmos iis the Iraq war one against terrorism.

And how SHOULD we characterize Osama and Al Queda, lol? Really cool dudes who just want a little love? Dick Cheny again. Again, those who oppose the Iraq War love terrorism and hate America. You are better than that, Hayes. I have said that your misguided policies that actually increase terrorism are not because you love terrorism, but rather like the misguided drug war negative effect on combating drug abuse your policies are so stupid they make things worse.


How is this incorrect? It does appear that Chechen rebels have joined forces with non Chechen Islamic radicals Well actually the DNA remains of the first six school hostage takers identified them all as Chechens. If the Chechens who have a reasonable claim for freedom from Russian who brutally conquered them in 1850 are seeking Al Qaeda help does that make them all terrorists. In your haste to back the Iraq War are you now going soft on Russian imperialism?

So true. I forgot that we occupied Afghanistan and oppressed their population! Oh wait....as I recall we were responsible for providing the aid that enabled the Afghanis to THROW OUT the country responsible for, or complicit in, their occupation and domination. Got to go back a step, Hayes. Russia invades Afghanistan. This leads to a civil war. We back an army of Muslim extremists to fight the Russians. We create Bin Laden's network. So the Russsians and the US are the midwives of Al Qaeda. A good example of why mere militarism isn't effective in fighting terrorism. got to use your head when fighting

Well, I certainly think there is a better way to handle the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and I really wouldn't even be against stronger action against Israel. But as I pointed out to FB, if you think you can play 'let's make a deal' with Osama and his ilk, you are living in fantasyland. I agree with your point on Israel, however, you are being inconsitent. Some Palestinians commit terrorist acts, now you seem to say the Palestinians might have some sort of legitimacy for their claims, "Israeli/Palestinian conflict". .Careful your thinking is showing some "nuance".

I agree it is very unlikely you can negotiate with Bin Laden. If you want to catch OBL and neutralize him and his movement you got to be a little smarter. Pursuing policies that inflame all Muslims, such as helping the Likud grab more land, or the US conquer Iraq enable Al Qaeda to hide in a sea of 1 billion Muslims who feel they have to either back him or US and Israeli imperialism is not the way to go.

 

Link to original article.
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Roxran, can't you go stroke your gun for awhile? Maybe go fire it somewhere?

Alternatively there must be a site where people only talk about guns.