Quote:
Originally posted by Undertoad
Surprised you did not find one of the obvious conclusions from the Frontline report on the terrorism buildup - that when we retaliate with direct violent force, they get all quiet and go back to their hidey-holes.
I'm typically an extreme dove, but after watching that Frontline report, I'm convinced. It's really Reagan's fault.
|
I assume Undertoad refers to the excellent Frontline documentary on bin Laden?
Reagan's response to the Middle East was very much what Reagan also said we should be doing in VietNam. IOW just apply force while ignoring the reasons for conflict - and they will concede. No wonder Reagan criticized the NY Times and Washington Post for only publishing the truth - Pentagon Papers.
Reagan's actions converted US citizens from people safe to walk among the Shites, Druze, and Maronites into people that make good hostages. An American could visit any combatant army in Lebanon before one event - the New Jersey shelling of Lebanon. At that point, Arab countries no long could trust Americans.
However something converted all opinions - 1 Aug 1990 - the Day the World Changed. With a new respect and appreciation of America, the US government infiltrated the Oslo Accords - and could have created a Middle East peace. US newly discovered influence was destroying terrorist recruitment campaigns throughout the world. The only problem is that we failed to properly deal with Saddam - and therefore stayed in Saudia Arabia. Oh, we told the American public that we left, but we did not leave. That one problem became a recruiting poster for Middle East muslim extremists.
Now this would not have been a problem except that when Rabin was assassinated by the right wing extremist parties, we did nothing to stop or discourage the slow destruction of the Oslo Accords. It has been a slow dismantlement that could have been stopped cold if we had only demanded all elimination of West Bank settlements. But the general American public reads the Daily News or watches Action News - and therefore did not understand that deterioration. As a result, extremists could also recruit from the moderate Arab world.
Since most Americans do not even know of UN Resolution 242 (see "Man vs Tank" in Image of the Day for examples), then right wing extremist and mass murderer, Sharon, only kept dismantling the Oslo Accords. He could eliminate the entire Oslo Accords if he did so slowly - because Americans would not even question the massacre of Palestinians in a Lebanon refugee camp let alone the theft and occupation of the West Bank.
Therein lies a real problem. We had undone Reagan's (and Oliver North's) mess by doing the Gulf War. We had the framework and the willingness on all sides to create a Palestinian / Israeli settlement . But we let extremists sabatoge it. We said nothing when right wing Jewish extremists undermined the entire peace process. Instead America supported a mass murder - Ariel Sharon. That chain of events, since the outright assassination of Rabin by the Likud party, is why intelligent, Muslim and Arab moderates can be recruited into extremist organizations - into actions that violate their own religion and upbringings.
We had Middle East peace in our grasp, but because we, the American people, did not even understand UN Resolution 242 (and don't notice how opponents of 242 constantly avoid having 242 discussed), then the American people let racist, right wing, extremist Israelis even steal the land from Israeli citizens of Arab dissent - and America says nothing.
At what point does the birthplace of Martin Luther King say, "No" to racists - the petty theif Netanyahu, the mass murderer Prime Minister of Israel, Ariel Sharon, and the party of racists - Likud? So far, I only read "No" in my own posts.
It was not Reagan. We un-did Reagan's mess in 1991. But then we let right wing extremist Israelis (Ariel Sharon) even help Al Qaeda recruit terrorist extremists. We encouraged instablity by not stomping on the mass murder Sharon and his petty theif side-kick, Netanyahu. Sharon loves this instability. It is how he repeatedly advanced himself to Prime Minister ever since the 1968 Arab Isreali wars.
Osam bin Laden and Ariel Sharon are equally evil men. It is just that the world's legal systems define a mass murder 'bin Laden' differently from another who also murdered thousands of Palestinian women and children - Ariel Sharon.