While we focus on the crimes and depredations of the neo-cons, we must remember the depredations of the incredibly slimy Bill Clinton who in a sense paved the way for all that is happening today.
CLINTON URGES MASKING OF OCCUPATION
"What we need [in Iraq] is for the U.N. to nominally supervise
the security situation and NATO to be used as an instrument.
This will enable us to spread both the responsibility and the
risks and make it look less like an occupation."
Former Pres. Bill Clinton,
American University of Dubai - 21 Sept 2003
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 22 September 2003: Now we all know this is one of those subjects former Pres Bill Clinton has a great mastery of. After all Clinton helped the Israelis super mask what was when he arrived in Washignton a terrible occupation but by the time he left had been transformed into a far worse neo-apartheid quasi-concentration camp situation complete with battle tanks on the ground and helicopter gunships overhead. Bill Clinton indeed knows how to coverup and mask military occupations, even if he doesn't quite understand how he and his kind have been seeding the future with such hatred and revenge -- and all in the name of "peace process".
CLINTON OLD AND NEW
Bill Clinton and Shimon Peres were made for each other -- two masterfully crafty and shifty politicians of great talent and egos, if not of principles. Indeed, each of them enjoys much more support abroad than at home and each of them is most despised by those who know them best, by those who remember what they have actully done, and not done, as opposed to what they have said.
The former Pres who promised and delivered a 'Kosher Kitchen' in the White House is visiting Israel at the moment. There he has named after him an international affairs Institute at Tel Aviv University, much as Peres has a 'Peace Center' bearing his name.
Just a few years ago Pres Bill's most frequent guest at his Washington White House was non other than, you guested it, Yasser Arafat. Urged on by the Israelis of that time Clinton toyed mightily with Arafat, playing big time to his vanity, all in a historic bid carefully coordinated with the Israelis to one way or another get Arafat's signature on the dotted line of a disingenuous 'peace agreement' that would do Clinton proud and Arafat in.
In some ways, true to the approach of the Democratic party to matters involving Israel, Clinton was modeling himself after Jimmy Carter, the man who managed to
promise all to Egyptian President Anwar Sadat of Egypt at Camp David in 1978 -- an agreement immediately poisoned by the Israelis which then quickly led to Sadat's ostracism and assassination at the hands of his own army. The rest, as they say, is history...including an explosion of new Israeli settlements, 'by-pass roads', and 'good fences' throughout the 'occupied territories' coupled with war eruptions throughout the entire region ever since.
"What we need [in Iraq] is for the U.N. to nominally supervise the security situation and NATO to be used as an instrument. This will enable us to spread both the responsibility and the risks and make it look less like an occupation... We should play a role and spend a lot of money there, but we shouldn't dominate."
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Coaxing Arafat in his final months as Pres Clinton quite clearly promised his most frequent house guest that he would definitely not be blamed for failure if he would only come to Camp David and negotiate with Ehud Barak.
Against his better judgement, as well as against the advice of most of those around him, Arafat quite reluctantly came. Then Clinton tried every trick in the book -- he cajoled, pressed, promised the moon. But in the end there was no clear map to examine, no clearly spelled out agreement to agree to -- just a lot of promises and reassurances from a Pres few could seriously belief and a country that has already sold out so many so often in times past.
And so, in the end, Arafat did not sign -- largely it bears repeating based on severe mistrust of both the Israelis and the Americans for very good historical reasons. True enough, having pushed Arafat to Camp David both the US and Israel expected he would have to continue playing ball -- after all he and his corrupt entourage of cronies had already been the recipients of huge sums of money and all kinds of special VIP 'priviledges' and under-the-table 'deals'.
And then our man Clinton made a compete about turn, totally and repeatedly blamed Arafat most personally and profusely, just as he had promised not to do. Soon Clinton got his namesake Institute at Tel Aviv U.; and oh yes, the former Pres has subsequently refused to even call his most frequent foreign house guest -- simply abandoning him to his own fate for failing to do completely as he had been told he must in return for all they had done for him.
In recent days Clinton has made a little visit back to the Middle East. He made a stop in Dubai, where he made the above statement while lecturing students at the local branch of American University (now that's a story in itself).
Then on to Israel where the 'liberal' Israelis haven't forgotten Bill's 'Kosher Kitchen'nor his dalliance with Jewish Monica (they have the secret sex tapes to prove it), and where he just couldn't help himself from joining Shimon Peres on his 80th.
But, alas....no visit, not even a little call, to nearby Yasser Arafat, his most frequent foreign guest during his eight grand years in the big White House. Arafat, now aging faster and essentially under Israeli house arrest is of no use any more to Bill....nor is Monica of course...or good law school friend Loni...or the special intimate White House counsel who committed suicide...or that close personal Assistant Attorney General chum who went to the lockup...nor Marc Rich of big-money Mossad fame. The public list of death, destruction and treachery is quite extensive indeed; the private one no doubt even far more so.
But take heart now, the Clintons are after all far too busy these days craftily campaigning anew for a return to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. They don't have time, or desire for that matter, to remember all the grief and hardship they caused during their last stay in the big house...or to remember all those people, and all those causes, they once professed of such importance just a few very long years ago now...before selling out nearly everyone and everything that is.
And on yes...as their biggest legacy so far... they brought on the Bush/Cheney/Ashcroft take-over of America, along with the US occupation of Iraq, already with so much irreparable harm no matter what now happens in November 2004..
Mark Bruzonsky*
* Mark Bruzonsky is Publisher of MER. His bio and publication information is at middleeast.org |
