OPEN BOUQUET (July

OPEN BOUQUET (July - August)

By William Markiewicz

(As other short items may follow, I've decided to group them together.)

Impending Apocalypse (8/23)

“Iran-Watchers Predict an Apocalyptic Day” 
“Cabinet Minister Says Israel Must Be Ready for Iranian Attack”
(from Antiwar.com)

Well, it didn't happen, as yesterday was supposed to be the day, but the risk of an impending apocalypse persists. The danger is not so much in the USA-Iran friction as in the Damocles’ Sword of an Iranian surprise attack hanging over Israel. Even if Israel could retaliate, it would be a Pyrrhic victory. Israel’s main weakness is its size. America will not intervene; Bush is afraid of Iran and of its hypothetical 40,000 kamikaze. Iran's nuclear capacity also remains an unknown factor. Up to now, Bush hasn’t attacked a serious adversary; in this he avoided Hitler's mistake. He will continue to hunt the terror, the ghostly enemy which he helped create. Israel cannot count on the perpetual David-Goliath miracle. Even David didn't have to face hundreds of millions of enemies. The only act Israel can surprise the world with is to launch an act of peace by giving away the West Bank, the Old City of Jerusalem and Golan Heights. Israel cannot live in security and, simultaneously, keep the spoils of war; it's against the Oslo agreement that Israel signed. Will Israel ever be ready for this kind of "miracle”?

Just Astonishing (8/20)

"Israel Prepares for 'Next Round' of War"
"Israel Committed to Block Arms and Kill Nasrallah"
(from Antiwar.com)

-- "to block arms?..." They should know better. I am not an expert in the matter, but it seems to me a practically impossible ambition. In a country of hills and countless tunnels, smuggling small dismantled pieces of arms would seem to be easy even for boyscouts. Years ago the Chinese smuggled tanks in pieces through the Himalayas. Israel can never prove what, nor in what quantities, anything was smuggled. If rumours were a reason to attack and destroy, its a promise of neverending war. Killing Nasrallah? They should know that people are replaceable, and in Nasrallah's place will come hundreds without his political skills, but as dedicated to the fight as those on both sides of the border. Previously they were ready to kill Arafat, and he showed later that he was the most oriented to peace, an ideal partner for Rabin. If a new Rabin showed up, chances are that this kind of partnership would revive. Nothing but fighting exists for Israel now; mini-Bushes rule there, but Israel cannot afford the constant mistakes of the 'enlightened' rulers in the USA.

Not in the Canadian Tradition (8/19)

Canada, like Switzerland, was a do-gooder among nations. Came Harper, and anything with a military flavour now has priority in Canada. Was the danger to Canadian sovereignty in the Arctic so imminent that it eclipsed the International Conference on AIDS? It seems obvious that Harper looked for a pretext to avoid participating himself. All humanitarian initiatives have in common that they are idealistic, with a utopian component of collective good will. Maybe Harper doesn't like this; maybe it's not macho enough for him. Bush and his team plus Blair and now Harper -- who is missing to complete the Seven Riders of the Apocalypse?

Lebanon a victim – of whom? (8/13)

-- Of the Israeli-Hezbollah confrontation? US intransigience? First of all, Lebanon is the victim of its own weakness. Among raging brutes and those who are behind them, Lebanon traditionally cultivated an image of a ‘Middle East Switzerland.’ Switzerland is indeed mountainous, safe, prosperous -- and well armed. Lebanon is more like Luxembourg than Switzerland and we see clearly that there is no place for a Luxembourg in one of the most ‘Darwinian’ spots in the universe. Lebanon needs more than to rebuild its country; it needs a powerful modern army in order not to be a playground for opposing forces. Beside the Israeli Arab conflict, Lebanon has its own chronic trouble: the more or less latent Muslim Christian conflict which makes it vulnerable to foreign intervention from, for instance, Syria. There are only two ways to keep hostile interior groups at peace: Dictatorship like Saddam Hussein’s who kept kept everybody in discipline or to create conditions in which each group has the potential to protect itself from local aggression without disrupting the country’s unity. Is this possible? I’m not sure but it seems to me the only viable solution.

Who, What and for Whom? (8/09)

In the parking lot I overheard some interview on NPR radio. What stayed in my memory were the words: “This is a global war … not a matter of giving a little more water to the Palestinian farmers."

Who has to give what and for whom? As if the world were somebody’s colonial property to distribute or give away, water, blood, air, life, death … Who was this ghoul from the eighteenth century who woke up just now, and uses lingo from another epoch?

The Pashtun Warriors Admired by Kipling Advance toward Their Date with Death (8/05)

Like Wagner’s Siegfried, the Pashtun didn’t know fear. Courage and physical power are put on a pedestal in Pashtun culture. From a tender age, the children are submitted to the hardest ordeals emphasizing power, endurance and courage. In the early stages of the NWO’s invasion of Afghanistan, mega bombs fell on tiny mountain villages in regions where even planes didn’t fly. It wasn’t a war between powers but between the 21st century and a remote tribal society. The hekatomb was total and Pashtun civilians who came under the soldiers’ hand were brutally intimidated. One British general on TV, I don’t remember his name, matter-of-factly remarked, “They fear us more than they hate us.” I was puzzled, and thought, “This guy didn’t read Kipling; he and his troops don’t know what they have accomplished ” Inducing fear in a Pashtun can be compared to submitting the polar bear to sudden tropical heat, to immersing a camel in Arctic water; in a word, something that isn’t in their realm. In this way, for the Pashtun, experiencing fear would seem like an invasion of demons; one UNESCO survey ranked Afghanistan first in countries with neurosis problems. With the passage of time, a ferocious hatred has grown. Shame for being soiled with fear pushed the Pashtun warrior toward liberating death. Suicide bombers? Suicide fighters? Wait for what is still to come.

Jerusalem and Holy Places (8/02)

Last night, Jon Stewart interviewed the author of “The Rise of the Shia” (?). Mea culpa, I didn’t think I'd forget the author’s name and exact title of the book and I couldn’t find it through Google. Host and guest agreed that, as Jerusalem is a Holy City for everybody, it should be internationalised. I disagree; Jerusalem’s Old City is inhabited by Arabs, the modern city by Jews. The population ratio counts, not the religions. Jerusalem should be divided between Israel and Palestine. Nobody will abuse their sovereignty over Holy Places; it would be against their basic interests.

Israel Should Follow Russia's Example (7/25)

After the fall of Communism, Russia gave freedom to the Baltic and Central Asian Republics, and did it spontaneously and unilaterally, without gnawing at parts of anyone's territory. Gorbachev had the right vision and Israel must follow his example. Here the analogy between Russia and Israel ends; Russia went toward catastrophe when Gorbachev overlooked the fact that the West is no longer the West of Macarthur and the Marshall Plan. In today’s West, ideals are dead; it's a universe of neocolonialism and imperialism. With no basic precautions Gorbachev threw himself and his Russia, like a bride, into the arms of "democratic friends" and unexpectedly found himself in free fall. What followed was years of misery and ruin. The mafias sucked Russia's blood and the world, just as the great white shark does, watched and waited for the victim to lose blood before consuming it. In the meantime politicians and the media repeated the leitmotif that "Russia is too big." Probably the war in Afghanistan saved Russia from invasion (see “War in Afghanistan & Russia").
Coming back to Israel, it's playing for time and losing time by holding on to the Golan Heights and the West Bank. Lacking political traditions and vision, Israel indulges wrong appetites.

The Da Vinci Code (7/16)

I recently saw the movie; I haven’t read the book. Regarding the subject, I am not interested in theological speculations; I am concerned only with the merits of the movie itself. The atmosphere is good, action fast and holds the viewer’s attention, but there is one mistake I can’t pardon whether in movies or literature. When the director or author simplifies his task by replacing action with long-winded eggheads it abuses the audience’s time and patience. Long instructive monologues are acceptable in documentaries, filmed or written, surely not in an action movie or in literary fiction. The creators can make the excuse that the topic is too long for a movie or literary fiction but this is their problem. If they cannot offer an acceptably distilled product then they should wait for the next inspiration. I don’t need exposes if I wasn’t looking for them. That’s all folks.

Toward an Enigmatic Outcome (7/16)

I cannot discuss from the position of a scholar of history but I don’t know many cases of a regular army defeating irregulars, especially those attacking from foreign lands. The Romans defeated many but they never defeated the Parts and other fighters abroad. French, German, Italian peasants defeated their nobles and created Switzerland. The French "Sans-culottes" defeated the Austrian army. Hitler never defeated Cetniks and Partisans in Yugoslavia. The irregulars, Irgun and Haganah, defeated the English in Palestine. The irregulars in Magreb, in Viet Nam won against the French. For the Israelis fighting Hezbollah and Hamas, the Americans fighting Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the war game may be very long because all sides have power and patience. Israel has power and less patience, Hezbollah and Hamas have patience and corrosive power. The wicks igniting those wars can only be snuffed out when the Americans forget colonial nostalgias, stop arming Shiites against Sunni in Iraq and "Northern Coalition" against Pashtun in Afghanistan, and let the mess they created settle by itself. As for the Israelis, they have to return to Rabin’s spirit and quit the occupied West Bank. They have nothing to lose by doing this but can win an almost instant peace.

Myth of Total Superiority (7/13)

The selfish settlers watch while Israeli soldiers are being kidnapped and their comrades die in the vain effort to find them. Israel promises swift and painful punishment and can’t avoid exposing their own population to punishment. Obsessively living in the past of swift victories, Israel constantly refuses negotiations. There is only one solution remaining: Settlers must stop ignoring treaties signed by their government and stop squatting on conquered territories.

The Humbug of WMD (7/04)

The old legend talks about the monster called basilic, hatched from an egg laid by a rooster. Though the size of a rooster it had terrific power to kill with a glance. Only a mirror could kill it if it saw its own reflection. A small, deadly monster belongs to legend because it would be annihilated after its first blow. Only a big body can carry big enough power to defend itself. Therefore the fairytale about dangerous North Korea, dangerous Saddam Hussein, etc. is a comfortable excuse to attack and annihilate the weaker. If Iran attacked Israel, it would be, as far as I know, the first purely religious war in history. Even if it won, Iran would gain nothing other than prestige among ayatollahs. All the religious wars were interwoven with other considerations; political, economic … The conflict between Israel and Palestinians is political, with religion as one of the passionate ingredients.

In conclusion, US control over nuclear development in small countries is a symptom of imperial control over the world. Nuclear North Korea, Iran, will not be more dangerous but less than all the giants who have it already. You need not only power, but motivation to use your power. North Korea or Iran certainly don’t have any. “Madman megalomania?” -- more a subject for literature than realpolitik.

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William Markiewicz