By William Markiewicz
(As other short items may follow, I've decided to group them together.)
Easy Entrance –- So What? (6/28)
Israel can enter Gaza like a hot knife into butter, to achieve – what? Only respecting the Oslo Accord can bring peace. The Palestinian population is wise enough to stop supporting terrorists once the Israelis stay in the respectable self-defence position. Israelis know they will not find the soldier they are apparently looking for; it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack – unless the kidnappers tacitly want to give him back. This step into Gaza will be one more Israeli show of superiority, drawing countless suicide bombers back into action.
Uniformed and Arrogant Bureaucrats (6/23)
"Like all but a handful of the detainees, he was not charged with anything. He was not, therefore, a proven criminal. But nor was he a prisoner-of-war. . . . Mr Zahrani himself had never been a soldier, wearing insignia or a uniform and carrying weapons openly; the label "unlawful enemy combatant" therefore seemed right, in American eyes." (From 'The Economist' June 17th-23rd 2006)
I don't know if the Serbian Chetniks or Yugoslav Communists wore uniforms. All the other Resistances, from Western to Eastern Europe, certainly didn't wear uniforms. They were known as guerillas or Partisans; the Nazis called them 'bandits' and either killed them or sent them to concentration camps. Guantanamo and similar places are certainly concentration camps and there is no reason for anybody to be tolerant toward the 'democrats' who apply Nazi methods on their adversaries using the uniform issue as an excuse.
Africa Boils over With Emigrants (6/07)
"So many bodies have been found that some locals say they are afraid to eat the fish." (from IHT: "Malta Fears Sinking under Migrants", June 7, 2006).
There are only two solutions. Either Europe and the rest of the world absorb those migrants, or send enough organized help to make it possible for those people to stay home. Strong decisions and strong measures have to be applied, and fast. Drowned corpses multiply, repeating what happened before WWII when the world watched as Jews escaping Nazi Germany on 'ghost ships' jumped into the ocean because nobody wanted to accept them. The West, that spends money to kill in Iraq and Afghanistan for oil could find some spare change to make Africa acceptable to its natives.
Antichrist Bush Has Opened the Gates of Hell in formerly Modern Iraq (6/01)
An Iraqi tennis coach and two of his players were shot to death in Baghdad last week because they were
wearing shorts.
What Next, America? (5/27)
Massacre of civilians committed by regular army, attempts to cover up, financial scandals -- all signs of a society falling into demoralization. Catastrophic foreign policy is mainly to blame.
In Iraq, the Americans implicitly support the Shiites, believing them to be less formidable opponents than the Sunnis. When Saddam Hussein, protector of minorities and women was gone and Americans took power, everything changed drastically for the worse. Saddam Iraq was like Mussolini’s pre-war Italy. Nobody praises Saddam, as nobody would praise Mussolini's regime, but of all dictatorships, religious fundamentalism is among the worst. By the way, the American invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan is not without parallels to Mussolini's invasion of Abyssinia.
"To defend democracy?" Why not in Sudan and all over the world where bloody dictatorships flourish?
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William Markiewicz