Playing Cowboy—and Falling off the Horse
By Leon Hadar
U.S. President George W. Bush has fancied himself playing Gary Cooper's role in High Noon . Yep, Sheriff W. and his loyal deputy Tony B. ride into Mideastville, where they confront a revenge-seeking killer by the name of Saddam and his Islamofascist gang, while cowardly lawmen Jacques C. and Gerhard S. hide in the Old Europe Café. W. vanquishes the enemy and spares the town from frontier justice brought on by a deadly group of outlaws. In the final scene, our cowboy rides into the sunset, leaving behind a once-dishonorable town that has now been transformed into the civilized and prosperous Greater Middle East. But that screenplay is old, and now it seems that some unhappy “producers” in Washington, DC are hoping to change the script. After all, it's now “The End of Cowboy Diplomacy.” Read full article.
Crisis Point?
By Jim Lobe
By the end of the 35-day conflict in southern Lebanon, the atmosphere in Washington had become stifling as political alarm bells clanged with ever increasing intensity. Sharpened by the terrorist threat in London, there was a growing sense that the many crises in the “new Middle East,” proudly midwifed by the administration of President George W. Bush, was rapidly spinning out of control, with potentially catastrophic consequences for the entire region and beyond. Read full article.
Letters & Comments
Re: Profile of Michael Chertoff
In a recent Yahoo! News article called “Muslims Bristle at Bush Term ‘Islamic Fascists',” Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff made a statement in reference to President Bush's comment that we are fighting “Islamic Fascists:” “It might may [sic] not be classic fascism as you had with Mussolini or Hitler. But it is a totalitarian, intolerant imperialism that has a vision that is totally at odds with Western society and our rules of law.”
How can we make sure Chertoff and the rest of the Bush administration hear clearly that concerned citizens want them to cease and desist from purposely using inflammatory remarks? How is it that our Homeland Security secretary, one of the brightest minds in government, can use the word “imperialism” to describe the group of extremists involved in the plot that was just foiled to blow up several airliners from Britain to the United States? It makes no sense whatsoever to tie this radical group to imperialism, to say they are imperialists.
The White House Cabinet should read the book Good Muslim, Bad Muslim written by Mahmood Mamdani. Mamdani makes a fair appraisal of the political reasons that helped develop the forces of radical Islam, and which ultimately led to 9/11. Mamdani makes an appeal to the United States to understand that it was U.S. policy (at the very highest levels in the White House and in the CIA) that must be included in the broader explanation of the events that led to 9/11 and other terrorist plots. That imperialism, stemming from the U.S. actions, was a factor in the historic equation that leads, still to this day, these extremists to attack us. U.S. government officials, including the president, should be more cautious in how they word responses to attacks or foiled plots of terrorism. The country needs to own up to how its actions have influenced world history and leverage its great strength to reach out to the Islamic community, to act toward peace, not to preach war.
—Peter Rehl
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