Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

Publius · 04-03-2004, 08:43 PM

As I prepare to leave for New York tomorrow where I will be spending the next week at the UN dealing with this and other such topics, it occurs to me that most of you have no clue wtf is going on in the world. The UN is condemning the attack as a means of playing damage control. Let me make an analogy if I can to give you an idea about how the Arab world views the killing of Yassin. Yassin was not only a “terrorist” leader, he was also a spiritual and political leader. He was to the Arab world, (and here come the analogy) a mix between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. I use these examples because Dr. King was a great spiritual leader as well as political figurehead in the civil right movement, while Malcolm X adds the militaristic portion of Yassin’s character (“By any means necessary!”) lacking in Dr. King. In addition to being the head of the terrorist organization Hamas, Yassin was viewed as a great spiritual leader fighting for the basic human rights of the Palestinian people (under Israeli law, Palestinians have very little if any rights) and his involvement with Hamas was seen as the “By any means necessary!” fight against the Zionists in Israel (for the purpose of this analogy, think of the Zionist as members of the KKK, as this is how they are viewed by most of the Palestinians that I have talked with). Now, while I will be the first to admit that this is by far not a perfect analogy, it should be good enough to give you some sense of Yassin’s importance to the Palestinian and Arab peoples.

Now I am in no way attempting to defend Yassin here, only give you a clue as the politics going on in this situation. What you also seem to fail to recognize is that Yassin’s killing was simply a political move by Sharon in an effort to take the spotlight off of his (Sharon’s) corrupt government which has come under heavy fire (from the Zionists, I might add, because he is working to pull out of Palestine) in the past few weeks. The UN’s reaction to this killing is one in which they are condemning Sharon’s action here, both because it was wrong (wrong because of the reasons for why he did it, not necessarily because it was wrong to whack Yassin) and because this killing will escalate hostilities in the Mid-East both against Israel and against the US for our involvement in Iraq. Had our administration been a little smarter, we would have signed onto the bill or at least have abstained from the vote, because in so doing we would have shown the Arab world that we are not merely puppets if Israel for one, and secondly this would have helped to reduce the resentment felt towards the US, which in turn would help with our situation in Iraq. To put this more bluntly and dumb it down for you all, by vetoing this resolution we have condemned more of our boys in Iraq to die at the hands of fanatical Muslim extremist. This is just the latest in a string of missed opportunities by our administration to patch up relations with other mid-eastern countries and the arab world. Like a good gambler, a good politician has to know when to hold’em and know when to fold’em. Unfortunately when it comes to foreign diplomatic relations our administration does not seem to be able to tell the difference between an Ace and a Joker.

04-03-2004, 08:43 PM	#19 (permalink)
Publius Crazy Location: Never Never Land	As I prepare to leave for New York tomorrow where I will be spending the next week at the UN dealing with this and other such topics, it occurs to me that most of you have no clue wtf is going on in the world. The UN is condemning the attack as a means of playing damage control. Let me make an analogy if I can to give you an idea about how the Arab world views the killing of Yassin. Yassin was not only a “terrorist” leader, he was also a spiritual and political leader. He was to the Arab world, (and here come the analogy) a mix between Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. I use these examples because Dr. King was a great spiritual leader as well as political figurehead in the civil right movement, while Malcolm X adds the militaristic portion of Yassin’s character (“By any means necessary!”) lacking in Dr. King. In addition to being the head of the terrorist organization Hamas, Yassin was viewed as a great spiritual leader fighting for the basic human rights of the Palestinian people (under Israeli law, Palestinians have very little if any rights) and his involvement with Hamas was seen as the “By any means necessary!” fight against the Zionists in Israel (for the purpose of this analogy, think of the Zionist as members of the KKK, as this is how they are viewed by most of the Palestinians that I have talked with). Now, while I will be the first to admit that this is by far not a perfect analogy, it should be good enough to give you some sense of Yassin’s importance to the Palestinian and Arab peoples. Now I am in no way attempting to defend Yassin here, only give you a clue as the politics going on in this situation. What you also seem to fail to recognize is that Yassin’s killing was simply a political move by Sharon in an effort to take the spotlight off of his (Sharon’s) corrupt government which has come under heavy fire (from the Zionists, I might add, because he is working to pull out of Palestine) in the past few weeks. The UN’s reaction to this killing is one in which they are condemning Sharon’s action here, both because it was wrong (wrong because of the reasons for why he did it, not necessarily because it was wrong to whack Yassin) and because this killing will escalate hostilities in the Mid-East both against Israel and against the US for our involvement in Iraq. Had our administration been a little smarter, we would have signed onto the bill or at least have abstained from the vote, because in so doing we would have shown the Arab world that we are not merely puppets if Israel for one, and secondly this would have helped to reduce the resentment felt towards the US, which in turn would help with our situation in Iraq. To put this more bluntly and dumb it down for you all, by vetoing this resolution we have condemned more of our boys in Iraq to die at the hands of fanatical Muslim extremist. This is just the latest in a string of missed opportunities by our administration to patch up relations with other mid-eastern countries and the arab world. Like a good gambler, a good politician has to know when to hold’em and know when to fold’em. Unfortunately when it comes to foreign diplomatic relations our administration does not seem to be able to tell the difference between an Ace and a Joker.