Colin Powell, speaking to the international press from Spain, refused to classify the latest Palestinian attacks on Israel as “terrorism.”
Which means the Haifu bus bombing was a martyrdom operation, I suppose.
Thank you, Colin. And while you’ve got your tongue up the asses of our moderate Arab allies, you may as well be a sport and give ’em each a reach around.
Who knows? Could be they’ll leave you a nice tip…
[Related: LGF’s Charles Johnson was right. To wit: “But I will make a prediction now. The bus bombing in Haifa today will not change Powell
Here’s my thing: Arafat remains the democratically elected leader of the Palestinians. Since they are unarguably involved in the conflict anybody trying to broker a peace needs to address their leader. Admittedly, Arafat is unpleasant at best, bloodthirsty and savage at worst (and to be fair, my opinions of Sharon are similar), but he remains the chosen leader of a group that must be dealt with. Nixon and Nikita were hardly in a torid love affair, but they realized that to move forward you sometimes have to deal with unspeakable people.
My question on the matter is this: why exactly is Colin Powell traipsing around the moderate Arab world on some kind of grand tour? Does it not seem urgent to anyone else that he get down to brass tacks and start trying to force people to play nice? Or is the plan for him to chill in Egypt until the violence wanes on it’s own, then make a triumphant entrance into Jerusalem and take credit? I’m highly confused on what’s being accomplished currently.
C’mon, Jamese. You’re informed enough to know that the Palestinian Authority’s “leadership” is hardly democratically elected in any important way (or rather, in any way that is recognizably democratic). Arafat has his opponents rubbed out. And when his term is about to expire, he extends it by a sudden presidential decree. <i>Voila</i>! He’s “elected” for life!
It’s a sham.
As for Powell, well…
It’s a sham.
Come on, Jeff, don’t blame the messanger. Powell is still the good soldier following orders.
A quick aside: have you ever noticed the resemblance between Arafat and Ringo Starr? It’s creeeeepy.
Ummm, if I remember correctly Arafat was “elected” – if you want to call it that – and then they decided they didn’t need to hold elections anymore. The PA is about as interested in true democracy as your average militia group is in supporting gun control measures.
As for Secretary Powell taking the long way (*way* long way) there rather than the first non-stop SR-71 flight they could manage, I should think that would be obvious. Bush is playing the Arab game – say one thing, do another. Hey, Israel, get out of the West Bank or we’ll send Powell to glare at you really hard! Of course he won’t get there for a while, so you don’t need to rush… Realistically what’s Powell going to do when he gets there? You, Arafat, stop the suicide murderers, you Israelis go home and be nice. And that would solve what exactly? They’ve tried diplomacy, they’ve tried making deals, they’ve tried land for peace, none of it has worked and there’s nothing Powell can do in a few days that’s going to change that.
I do think Powell takes some grief that perhaps isn’t deserved. They pay him the big bucks to play the diplomatic semantic masturbation games – he is the Secretary of State, after all, that’s pretty much his job.
It’s a dirty job, but somebody’s gotta’ do it… I guess.
Myria
Yeah, I’ve heard that argument before (and in fact, I think I’ve <i>made</i> that argument before), but in this case, I think Powell was wrong—that you need to be unequivocal about identifying terrorism at this stage of the game.
I think Bush, et al. ARE stringing the Saudis along—playing the same Janus game the Arabs have played with us for years—but still: there should be no semantic dodges when it comes to suicide bombings.
(Of course, judging by Sharon’s decisions this last week, I believe he thinks he has America’s blessing, regardless of what’s being said publically. Where does that idea come from, I wonder?)
You’re right, of course, it’s disgusting to see the “Bush Doctrine” turned into mush by mealy mouthed diplomatic regurgitation. To a certain extent I guess I’m desperately trying to keep my belief in a “rope-a-dope” (something I never even would have heard of if not for “Broken Arrow”) strategy alive.
Myria