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August 29, 2003
How about a worldwide roadmap to peace?Did it come to anyone's surprise the latest peace effort between Israel and the Palestinians was shredded by a suicide bomber's blast? Excuse me while I yawn. I'm much more interested lately in the news coming out of Africa. Perhaps the Associated Press should station a few more reporters and photographers there. Consider recent news articles that began something like this: Four hundred people slaughtered in tribal fighting in the northeastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In another story out of the Congo, 100 people were sucked out of a cargo plane - I didn't know people rode in the back of cargo planes! The war in Liberia has brought to the world's attention boy soldiers as young as 10 wielding AK-47s. It was reported Liberian rebel fighters were wearing women's wigs and dressing in women's clothing in the belief it would make them invincible to bullets. Amazing! Up until now, television viewers could occasionally catch news on Africa on the Black Entertainment Television (BET) network, or on the Christian networks reporting on the war between Christians and Moslems in the Sudan. Did you ever wonder how a swath of countries from Pakistan in the east to Israel in the west lately dominates the international news? A friend of mine in the news business remarked, there's more news out of Israel because many Americans emigrated there, not many Americans moved to the Congo. True, but if they're such dedicated Zionists they'll risk their lives to live in a place like Kiryat Shemona, on the border of Lebanon, where bomb shelters are a way of life, that's their prerogative, not mine. I hate to say it, but I've really lost interest in the whole Middle East peace struggle, the photographs of angry Palestinians marching at funerals, the gory pictures of Israelis killed in bomb blasts. Pick up a copy of a newspaper 30 years ago and you'll read the same accounts. Just as both sides have a glimmer of hope for peace, it's shattered. The latest Palestinian uprising began just because Ariel Sharon dared to walk through the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem, one of the holiest sites to Moslems. It seems like a waste of time for American politicians to try to broker peace between two parties that have been fighting since the days of Abraham and Isaac. The only thing that's changed recently is the advent of the suicide bomber - a desperate person willing to blow themselves and a bunch of Israelis up in the belief they'll go to heaven - and the increasingly sophisticated Israeli reprisals, in which the military can fire a rocket from a helicopter and hit a Palestinian leader driving across a speed bump. Other than that it's just terrorist attacks and military reprisals, followed by more attacks and reprisals. The war in Iraq is slowing down to a monotonous grind. Every day an American soldier or two is killed, like targets in a shooting gallery. The names of the dead soldiers are now relegated to brief mentions in the AP stories, however the names suddenly become relevant if they belong to a relative of yours. Just ask former Nye County Sheriff Wade Lieseke, who, after his foster son Lt. Frederick Pokorney became one of the first casualties in Iraq, questioned what his foster son died for. I started to sympathize with the war on Iraq somewhat, after all Saddam is a dangerous man who invaded Kuwait, gassed the Kurds and paid $25,000 to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers. Of course Iraq also has the second largest proven oil reserves in the world. The Iraqis were supposed to welcome us with open arms, but some of them have a funny way of showing their gratitude. We never did find those weapons of mass destruction, or Saddam Hussein himself, just like we never tracked down Osama bin Laden or Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar in Afghanistan. They're supposed to hold elections in Afghanistan next year, a long three years after we invaded. But at least that war was a direct attempt to shut down the Taliban terrorist machine that resulted in the 9/11 bombings. However according to news reports coalition forces only control the capital city of Kabul. I saw the TV flash the face of an American soldier killed in Afghanistan recently and got worried for a second. My nephew, Chris Waite, from Humble, Texas, is currently on duty in Afghanistan; his father, my brother Pat, only could say he's somewhere in the north of the country. But I felt relieved when they mentioned the dead soldier's name, I guess with my failing eyesight all the soldiers look the same, with their boyish looks and military crew cuts. I say we've already kicked butt in the Middle East. Let's bring the troops home and use the $1 billion per week we'd spend on the war on Iraq building mass transit or invest in alternative energy like wind or solar power so we don't need all their oil. Write to Mark Waite at mwaite@pvtimes.com. |
