June
2007
Thinking Clearly in Real Time: Something We Can’t Seem To Do Any More
Here’s a popular multiple choice question. Our rulers, by which I mean the gang still clinging to power in the 1600 block of Pennsylvania Avenue, are: (a) incompetent, (b) venal, (c) both. The third answer comes closest, in my view, but I also think that those who focus mainly on the venality quotient in this regime too readily slight the significant role played by sheer stupidity, incompetence, and ineptitude. The Bushies cannot think to save their lives–or our lives–or the lives of millions around the world who suffer daily the consequences of ill-informed, rash decisions. And it’s not just the President. His advisers, his cabinet, the top national security people: they all seem unable to take a single, calm, measured decision about anything.
My immediate case in point is the decision to go for broke with Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah movement in Palestine, while seeking to cut off Hamas at the knees (literally) in the Gaza Strip. Sure, Hamas gave them their opportunity by making a go-for-broke move of its own. But today I heard Bush (during a photo op with Ehud Olmert) describe Hamas as an ideological anti-democratic movement, yet again equating our cause and our sudden enthusiastic backing of Abbas with the struggle for worldwide democracy. The democracy frame struck me as a bit rich, as Bush is ignoring the fact that, barely more than a year ago, the Palestinians indisputably elected Hamas to run their government. Hamas may not have done much with its mandate to govern, but then I guess the same can be said of certain other democratically elected governments as well.
Although the Bushies used to disparage him for his weakness and expressed public doubts about his leadership, now that Abbas is “our” guy they describe him in terms befitting George Washington or Simon Bolivar. We’re totally invested in him–as are the Israelis–under the principle that the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
But we are invested in other ways as well. According to the Washington Post (May 18), U.S.-trained Fatah troops trained in Egypt under a “U.S. coordinated program to counter Hamas” were allowed by Israel to use the Rafah border crossing into Gaza under the command of one Mohammed Dahlan, a Gaza warlord described by Tony Karon, a senior editor at Time.com, as “Washington’s anointed favorite to play the role of a Palestinian Pinochet.”
Well before this week’s turn of events, Karon spotted a link between Dahlan’s ambitions and the plans laid by America’s Middle East point man, Elliott Abrams (yes, that Elliott Abrams, of Iran-Contra fame), to “arm and train Fatah loyalists to prepare them to topple the Hamas government.” Karon was referring to Abrams’ “Action Plan for the Palestinian Presidency,” a secret document described in Asia Times by Mark Perry and Paul Woodward to whom the document was leaked, after the Jordanian newspaper Al-Majd was blocked by Jordanian officials from publishing the full document, which explicitly called for replacing the national-unity Palestinian government with a government run exclusively by Fatah–precisely what has now taken place.
There were other hints, all ignored by the corporate media, of the coming U.S.-engineered coup in support of Abbas, Dahlan, and Fatah. The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz on May 20 quoted Major General Keith Dayton, the U.S. security coordinator in the region, as having urged Israel to “strengthen Abbas loyalists” in Gaza and “improve the security situation” there.
OK, so all of this treachery will eventually come to light. (And my thanks to Christian Century writer James Wall for staying on top of things here.) We–and Israel–just engineered a putsch: hooray for democracy!! It’s not the venality but the stupidity that should matter most, however. Because ultimately what we just did will blow right back against us, which brings us back to the dumb and dumber issue.
Hamas won’t be killed off by any of this. It will only be strengthened. And strengthened immeasurably by the heavyhandedness and cruelty (as Gaza’s unspeakable asphyxiation proceeds) of our operation.
People still like to say that the lesson of 9/11 is to tighten security procedures and (as per Bush & Co.) take the fight to “them.” Some even say the lesson is to throw away the Constitution. Morally and strategically, however, we still haven’t grasped the basic lesson that we will always reap what we sow. We’re still sowing barbarism, and sooner or later, we will be reaping again–and weeping again–as well.
- Peter Laarman