Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (89949)	11/26/2006 2:44:11 PM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361658

YOu may never find it. Lots of times that kind of news gets quieted. ABC reported it early this morning on the radio.

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (89949)	11/26/2006 2:44:31 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 361658

Bush, making a worse mess out of a mess, creating chaos where peace ruled: The gangland-style slaying of Lebanese cabinet minister Pierre Gemayel this week is an echo of Lebanon's tragic past. It may also be a glimpse into a future Middle East that looks increasingly troubled. In Beirut in the early '80s, I watched as the Reagan administration threw its weight behind two other Gemayels, Pierre's uncle, Bashir, and father, Amin, in a radical project to re-make Lebanon as a bastion of pro-Western liberalism, aligned with Israel and free from Syrian domination and Iranian influence. That effort failed: Bashir wound up dead; Amin went into temporary exile; U.S. credibility evaporated and Americans remaining in Beirut became kidnap targets; and Israel got mired in an 18-year military occupation. By contrast, Syrian and Iranian influence in Lebanon swelled. History appears to be repeating itself, and not only in Lebanon. Syria and Iran have been fighting U.S. plans to re-make Iraq and the wider Arab world, and as America struggles, they are emerging as the winners. And once again, the casualties include pro-U.S. Arabs like the Gemayels. Yes, the regimes in Syria and Iran are bent on undermining U.S. policies, including support for Lebanese Prime Minister Fuoad Siniora, who came to office in last year's pro-democracy Cedar Revolution. But a key reason for the U.S.'s setbacks in the Middle East is it's chronic refusal to wholeheartedly address the root causes of conflict, such as the lack of a negotiated end to Israel's occupation of Arab lands, the failure to establish a Palestinian state and Western support for repressive Arab regimes. Instead, Washington labors under the fantasy that its political and military strength alone can win the day. With that approach fanning an unprecedented number of crises in the region, amid the largest long-term deployment of U.S. military forces in Middle East history, it is past time for Washington to learn from its mistakes. Early-'80s Lebanon ought to have served as a cautionary tale heading off the U.S.'s more recent adventure in Iraq. In 1982, the U.S. backed an Israeli plan to invade Lebanon and destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization, kick out Syrian troops and install a pro-Western, Israel-friendly government led by Lebanese Maronite Christian leader Bashir Gemayel. Israel drove out the PLO, only to start negotiating with Yasser Arafat after a Palestinian uprising in the West Bank and Gaza trip a few years later. Suspected Syrian agents assassinated Bashir Gemayel days before his presidential inauguration. His supporters retaliated by slaughtering hundreds of Palestinians in the Sabra and Chatila refugee camps in Beirut. The U.S. dispatched troops to quell the unrest, while Reagan's envoys negotiated a peace accord between Israel and Amin Gemayel who had taken his brother's place. But, after militants with suspected ties to Iran and Syria bombed the U.S. embassy and the Marine base in Beirut, Reagan abruptly withdrew the soldiers and abandoned Gemayel. Syria forced Gemayel to abrogate his deal with Israel, and Hizballah, the Lebanese Shiite Muslim group founded by Iran, began a guerrilla war that eventually forced out the Israelis in 2000. That triumph that made Hizballah the most powerful faction in Lebanese politics, enabling it to trigger this summer's war with a cross-border raid into Israel and more recently threaten to topple Siniora's government. So, what could the U.S. do differently? There's no simple answer to the challenge of political Islam, terrorism and authoritarianism. But by using its considerable capacity to decisively address the root causes of conflict, the U.S. would bolster moderate forces like Siniora and isolate governments and groups that exploit unresolved grievances to justify violence. Otherwise, existing trends will continue and the region will see further polarization, extremism and war-and perhaps the deployment of U.S. troops to additional trouble spots. Lip-service aside, the Bush Administration has largely ignored the 58-year-old Arab-Israeli conflict, which provides pretexts for wars, feeds political extremism and bolsters authoritarian regimes. Syria's price for good behavior in Lebanon and Iraq is the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel for nearly 40 years. Labor governments negotiated towards that end with Syria, but the current Israeli government insists that the Golan is part of the Jewish State. time.com