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| "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." - Samuel P. Huntington |
Bush thinks 'they' hate us because of our fabulous democracy. Given Bush's track record as a thinker, the probability of this being right is zero, even if we don't bring in the fact that our democracy went south with the Patriot Act and Bush's Hitler fantasies.
A more plausible explanation follows directly from the cheekiness superimposed on the hypocrisy of our wholly owned and paid for subsidiary in the Middle East that you can read about in the appended Reuters article that appeared on Sunday, February 5, 2006.
It also inspired an Ironical Chronicle cartoon which is embedded in the Reuters text.
A couple of weeks ago, the recently elected President of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, suggested that Israel should have been located in Europe, because that's where the Holocaust had been perpetrated, rather than stealing the land from the Palestinians, who had nothing to do with it. It may be of some interest to note that the Nazis had a solution before the infamous "Final Solution" that was arrived at at the Wannsee Conference on January 20, 1942.
This "Final Solution less one" involved the proposed deportation of Europe's Jews to a place outside of Europe. The preferred location was Madagascar, a large island about twice the size of Arizona, off the east coast of Africa. The reason this solution failed is not known to me, but since Madagascar was a colony of France at the time, France might have objected.
The interesting thing is that the Capitalist "Final Solution + 1" (Palestine) is a modification of the Nazi "Final Solution - 1" (Madagascar) with the difference being that it cost none of the Great Powers any territory. So much for the altruism of states.
My own preference would have been to locate Israel in Texas. If even a small part of the wonderful synergism that existed between Jews and Germans in Germany could have been transferred to Texas, it would have been well worth it.
The "Final Solution + 1" we actually wound up with was probably devised by the oil companies and the grief it entailed probably is on a par with the Nazi "Final Solution." But it also enabled an enormous amount of wealth to be transferred to the oil companies and the banks which control them. From their perspective, this is as it should be, since one of the basic maxims of capitalism is: Privatize the profits and socialize the costs.
OTTO
Ironical Chronicle |
Olmert, in broadcast remarks at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting, said Israel had played an important role in what he described as an intensive and stormy diplomatic effort leading to Iran's referral to the U.N. body.
"At the end of the day, it shows that Iran will pay a very heavy price if it continues with its plans to try and enrich its fuel in order to be able to use it as an option to make non-conventional weapons," the interim prime minister said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency voted on Saturday to report Iran to the Security Council. But the top U.N. body will take no action, including possibly imposing sanctions, until an IAEA report on Iran is delivered in March.
Iran said in response it had ended voluntary implementation of a protocol allowing snap U.N. inspections of its nuclear sites and halted its suspension of uranium enrichment.
Iran, the world's fourth biggest oil producer, says it needs nuclear power for electricity, not for weapons.
Israel has been calling for months for Iran to be referred to the Security Council, saying the Islamic Republic was close to obtaining the technological know-how to build an atomic bomb.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for Israel's destruction.
Widely believed to have more than 200 atomic bombs, Israel maintains a policy of "strategic ambiguity" on the issue, neither confirming nor denying it is a nuclear power.