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// M I D - E A S T R E
A L I T I E S
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Making Sense of the Middle East
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www.MiddleEast.Org
FLASHBACK to 30 June 1997
News, Information, & Analysis That Governments, Interest Groups,
and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know!
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MER - IF YOU DON'T GET IT, YOU JUST DON'T GET IT!
www.MiddleEast.Org/subscribe
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BRITISH DEPARTED PALESTINE, LEAVING CIVIL WAR
NEED FOR "ARAB COMMUNITY" MORE URGENT THAN EVER
"Until the Arabs undue the negative legacies the
British left them, and which the Americans have
continued to play upon and manipulate ever
since, the Arab world will continue to be
hopelessly subjugated and backward,
divided and dominated."
"Contrary to contemporary assertions, the
British and the Americans have done far
more to prevent democracy in the Middle
East, and to inhibit independent economic
development as well, then they will ever admit."
"Only if the Arabs finally bring an end to
their legacy of British and Western colonialist
past and establish a real 'Arab Community'
can they hope to have real independence and a
serious role in the modern world."
MER Editorial - www.MiddleEast.Org - 6/30/1997:
The British leave Hong Kong today, in 1997, a glittering financial
empire. But one shouldn't forget the British left Palestine, just
50 years ago, a political, financial, and psychological mess.
After fracturing the Arab world with artificial boundaries and "client-
regimes" -- most of which continue to this day -- the British ran from
Palestine leaving a civil war to explode between Jewish immigrants they
had encouraged and indigenous "natives" they had repressed. That
conflict too continues to this day.
In other senses, though, the West doesn't completely leave. Even with
Hong Kong, deeply embedded financial and cultural structures remain in
place. For the Palestinians, and indeed for all the Arabs,
Western imperialism has continued to control the political as well as
financial destiny of the Arabs to this day.
CIA penetration of the Middle East has expanded decade by decade since
the British departure. American manipulation of Arab "client-regimes"
has become something of a political art-form -- controlling the region
through local agents, a limited number of American military forces, and
considerable CIA and covert penetration.
Another considerable difference looms large as well. Hong Kong lacked
natural resources; and so the British were forced to build up the human
and service resources of the small area on the Asian coast.
In the Middle East, the natural resources -- petroleum, "black gold",
and then the huge amount of petrodollars that ensured -- were well
understood to be the main prize of the huge region. And the West has
proceeded to relentlessly exploit these resources for their own
benefit; caring little about the human and service resources of the
area. Indeed wanting to continually drain the petrol resources has
required the West to seriously inhibit indigenous Arab institutions and
democracy -- lest the Arabs seek to end the neo-colonial bondage they
have been subjected to for so long.
"ARAB COMMUNITY" URGENTLY NEEDED
Until the Arabs undo the negative legacies the British left them, and
which the Americans have continued to play upon and manipulate ever
since, the Arab world will continue to be hopelessly subjugated and
backward, divided and dominated.
Lastly it should be said clearly, contrary to contemporary assertions,
the British and the Americans have done far more to prevent democracy
in the Middle East, and to inhibit independent economic development as
well, then they will ever admit.
The Europeans have come together in recent years to form the "European
Community" with largely open borders, unrestricted trade, easy travel,
and unrestricted press. Only if the Arabs finally bring an end to their
legacy of British and Western colonialist past and establish a real
"Arab Community" can they hope to have real independence and a serious
role in the modern world.
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June 2004
About the new MiddleEast.Org
(June 30, 2004)
U.S. Ordered Brits to Attack Iran - Brits Balked
(June 30, 2004)
The order was given in secret by the U.S. commander in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, who was already scheduled to be replaced, quite likely because of his involvement in the horrendous Iraqi torture scandal. But anyone who thinks General Sanchez gave the order without checking first with his neocon bosses back at the Pentagon -- Wolfowitz and Feith, who then of course check with Rumsfeld who then tells the President, Condi, and Colin -- just doesn't understand even at this late date how the invasion/occupation of Iraq came about nor how the Pentagon planning has been progressing for Iran, Syria, North Korea, just as soon as the excuses can be managed.
Bush and U.S. Exposed - book by book by book
(June 30, 2004)
This list of books exposing the Bush presidency for what it really is all about is an essential corrective to all the propaganda and TV clips constantly bombarding the American people... In many ways though some of these books are more significant, however in a TV/Movie age even collectively they will not have the same impact though they do help set a climate for skepticism and anxiety. This particular list was compiled a few months ago by USA Today so it's hardly complete at this point. But it is a good starting place for those wanting to choose a little holiday reading, however depressive, sometimes shocking, surely politically and historically depressing.
America's Baghdad - Corruption, Barricades, Boozing, Fear and Incompetence
(June 29, 2004)
Baghdad is awash with stories of the corruption, cronyism and incompetence of the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority, which was dissolved this week.
Brits Departed Palestine Leaving Civil War - MER FlashBack
(June 29, 2004)
"Contrary to contemporary assertions, the British and the Americans have done far more to prevent democracy in the Middle East, and to inhibit independent economic development as well, then they will ever admit."
Bremer Slinks Away; CIA Slinks Forward
(June 28, 2004)
Thus now Bremer hastily and rather shamefully
slinks away without much fanfare, a few days
early so they say, even as Iraq continues to
seeth in hatred and a slow-simmer civil war.
Baghdad Shuffle
(June 28, 2004)
It's historic alright. A huge historic bungle that is quite literally exploding in their faces as they try to appear to go but actually stay with their carefully chosen Iraqi faces now out front. Over the weekend on ABC News one of the neocon political commentators made a little mistake and clearly called the American-appointed 'interim Iraqi Prime Minister' a "CIA agent" -- it was a rare moment of candor in public in today's confused, uptight, and secretive Washington.
Kurds on 'the return' - Palestinians into ghettos
(June 27, 2004)
Substitute "Palestinians" for Kurds, and "Israelis" for Arabs, and there is a whole different twist to 'the return' of the Kurds featured in this front-page New York Times article last Sunday. Another great irony of our times is that even as the Americans and the Israelis help facilitate what the Kurds are doing in Iraq they demand the Palestinians give up their 'right of return' even though it is enshrined in many U.N. Security Council resolutions going back to 1947...
Worst Crisis Since WWII?
(June 26, 2004)
"the most foolhardy civilian leadership in the
modern history of the United States." (Newsweek) "A vacuum has opened up at the heart of world politics where US leadership ought to be found." (Financial Times) "The unpalatable truth is that the Bush administration has failed in almost everything it has touched."
The Historical Moment - MER Flashback Four Years
(June 25, 2004)
MER FLASHBACK to 25 June 2001: Months before what is now known as "9/11" MER published these articles indicating that a major strike by Osama
Bin-Laden against the U.S. was imminent and that the Israelis were more determined than ever to subjugate the Palestinians. We wrote at the time: "In these conditions any spark can ignite the blaze; and sometimes such giant fires consume more than was originally anticipated, sometimes even those who start them."
BBC Hired by British Government to Broadcast TV to Middle East
(June 24, 2004)
More Readers' Comments from Around the World
(June 24, 2004)
Just some of the many Readers's Comments continually pouring in to MER from around the world.
Thank you for previewing the new MiddleEast.Org
(June 23, 2004)
Cheney and Rumseld "linked to murder" of CIA scientist in cold war years
(June 23, 2004)
Secret documents have revealed US Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld are "linked to the murder" of a senior CIA scientist.
It's Now the Second Half of 1948
(June 23, 2004)
As always Professor Tanya Reinhart from Tel Aviv University writes with extraordinary insight.
"...the Israeli military and political leadership are aiming, eventually, at a total destruction of the Palestinian authority, and, with it, the process of Oslo, which is now dominantly considered by them a 'historical mistake'."
Information Warfare - Israel Wins Big
(June 22, 2004)
For 10 years Tim Llewellyn was the BBC's Middle East correspondent. In this passionately argued polemic he accuses British broadcasters, including his former employer, of systematic bias in covering the Arab-Israeli conflict, giving undue prominence to the views of the Israelis while all but disregarding the roots of the crisis and what is being done to the Palestinians.
Gearing Up for IRAN and North Korea
(June 21, 2004)
"...waiting to confront Iraq would have allowed the
United States to confront more immediate dangers....
Because our military is stretched so thin in Iraq, we cannot threaten military action in Iran or North Korea." Martin Peretz and The New Republic
REVOLT in WASHINGTON
(June 20, 2004)
Nader Speaks to Buchanon
(June 15, 2004)
He's going after the real conservative vote, so he says.
Crusade II - Reagan first brought the neocons to power
(June 09, 2004)
Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle, Abrams, Bush...and the list goes on. Those who have recently led the crusade to invade Iraq, subjugate the Palestinians, and fight Islam, were brought to power in Washington for the first time some 23 years ago when Ronald Reagan of the once far-right was victorious over Jimmy Carter of the once mid-left in American politics. And some now forget that the man who greatly helped bring Ronald Reagan to power was none other than George Herbert Walker Bush, former head of the CIA, who now became Vice-President for the next eight years and then himself succeeded Reagan as President in 1989.
Realities of the "Reagan Plan" for the Middle East
(June 06, 2004)
The seeds for the Intifada and for Israel's increasingly aggressive escalating occupation of and dispossession of the Palestinian people were sown in the years of the Reagan Presidency. Indeed it was Ronald Reagan who first brought what we today call the "neocons" to power in Washington, and the right-wing Republicans who forged such a close alliance with the Israeli Likud of Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, and Ariel Sharon which had come to power in Israel in 1977 for the first time.
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