Aquarian Weekly 2/8/06
REALITY CHECK

HOORAY FOR HAMAS!
The Gory Truth About Arab Politics

Democracy does not guarantee equality of conditions - it only guarantees equality of opportunity.
- Irving Kristol

Democracy is only a dream: it should be put in the same category as Arcadia, Santa Claus, and Heaven.
- H.L. Mencken

The misguided dream of democracy's positive influence in the Middle East has been severely wounded, at least a positive influence that favors the United States. It turns out to be gangbusters for the Evil Doers, however. This is the problem with democracy, you can't always control it - something the Bush Administration doesn't know anything about. Just ask the poor suckers who voted for Franklin Pierce in the ill-fated 1852 election, which speed-tracked the Civil War or the duped architects of the doomed Richard Nixon experiment, which ended in mass corruption and disgrace.

We used to be good at fixing elections around here - bloodless coups and handy assassinations. Now we wait for the other guy to decide. Not a good idea. Hey, too bad Jeb Bush wasn't running the West Bank. But, alas, sing all the songs of freedom and power to the people you like, a democratically decided election for power in Palestine has been handed over to terrorists. And anyone not seeing this as a reflection of the coming hordes to run Iraq is either not paying attention or still digests the gooey swill being pumped from the White House as something other than fiction.

The people have spoken. The system works. It just doesn't work out well for us, and it is a bad sign of things to come. But it is a good sign for those who have America's true interests at heart; not this obsessively dangerous need to have revisionist history pass for a foreign policy, as it has for these past few years. The nonsense had to end eventually, as all nonsenses do. And Hamas may have ended it.

Hamas, effective and deadly Arab mayhem marauders long before it became chic to pay attention to terrorists, having gained governing power in Palestine is the worst possible result for anything the United States has been trying to accomplish in the Middle East since 9/11. Period. This is not debatable. Don't try. It is so bad it defies a viable discussion of details or the obligatory postulating of silver-lined clouds, as in, "Hey, at least the dinner china was fancy on the Titanic."

Believe me, I have mulled over the idea that once in charge Hamas will be forced to act responsibly and spend its time caring for its citizenry and concentrating on its country's infrastructure, and not so much on wiping out Israel or being the home office of anti-American hoo-ha. This is what our president, the draftsman of this doomed war-addled audible in Iraq would like you to believe. Yeah, and when Saddam Hussein was in charge he was soooo distracted by human rights and economic issues he couldn't possibly be a threat.

There is gullible, and then there is being a slobbering dumb fuck. The above reasoning is aimed at the latter.

The reason Hamas defeated the restructured skeleton of the late Yasser Arafat's flaccid Fatah Party is that it is not interested in peace processes or posturing negotiations to get invited to fancy White House soirees. It espouses a deep-seated hatred for Jews, a Jewish homeland, and the big money that non-theocracies like America sends to them without faking all the nice-nice. This election seals it. Hamas, and the 70% of Palestinians it now represents, has little use in negotiating any kind of peace with Israel, and worse still, harbors an infinite jones to wipe it, and all of the Jewish populace, off the map.

One of Hamas' giddy victors, Mushir al-Masri recently announced, "Negotiations with Israel are not on our agenda." Followed by the heartwarmingly diplomatic, "Recognizing Israel is not on the agenda either now."

Things have already gotten wacky over there since the election. And one thing the United States does not want to see is increased wackiness in Israel now. Not with Ariel Sharon in a coma and the IDF chomping at the bit to rape and pillage. And they will rape and pillage, Jack. And you know what would be the wet dream of every member of al Qaeda? Israeli soldiers mass-murdering Palestinians. Then the whole Arab world is in.

Holy shit. What a disaster. This is the political equivilant of showing up at a Christian Brothers retreat and being molested by Hell's Angels.

It's the flipside of this hippy dream our government whipped up when it turned out Hussein was lying about being the big shot on the block to keep the Iranians from invading him. America was going to spread love and cheer throughout the Middle East! Freedom and liberty, choices for the people! Thomas Jefferson lives!

So now that the bad guys get all the votes, our governement decides not to recognize Hamas' victory as legitimate. That's a funny way of defining freedom. It's kind of like how things are going over here, narrow definitions of freedom. Freedom this and freedom that. Then we wiretap the citizens. Lip service. The only freedom this government of ours is interested in is the kind of freedom that keeps it running smoothly in the global monoply game its created.

When you couple this with the political landscape of Iran right now, you get the feeling the whole free elections thing is a bust with Irab nations fueled by an entrenched loathing for the western world. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, president of the Islamic theocracy in Iran, is the greatest enemy to sanity this side of Allah. These crazy motherfukcers are gearing up the nuclear arsenal. This is what the majority of Iranians want. This is democracy. This is freedom.

It just isn't what the United States or its government or its boy president wants.

You better watch what you push for, bub. Sometimes the lady is a tramp.

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