I know that geographically the USA sits densely in a large continent, more or less physically isolated from the rest of the world. But I do wonder. Do the Americans really know of all that is going on beyond their borders? A world that is increasingly becoming closer all around!
Did they hear about the latest missile attack by the Israelis in Gaza? Did they know that it was targeted against a heavily civilian populated area, and that it left 16 people dead, most of whom were children? Children who, while they slept, never had a chance against the freely US supplied aircraft firing its weaponry of death. Children who will never grow up anymore, robbed of their lives in the midst of their innocent dreams?
Just a few days ago, the Palestinians and the Israelis had begun talking of peace, and now this? A glimmer of hope that in rage today has been brutally thrust into uncertainty. Do Americans really believe Sharon is a man of peace? A man who contrives to savage butchery whenever there is a chance for real and tangible solutions? Time and again, he has not failed to demonstrate his murderous intent, and all this while Mr. Bush, the president of the USA, praises him over and over as "a man of peace". And why is the US government so opposed to a proposed Security Council resolution condemning this latest of a series of unwarranted slaughters?
And whatever happened to the peace terms offered by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia to the Israelis some time back? Buried under the dust of IDF tanks and armaments moving into occupied territories that intensified in a barbaric blood bath right after the terms were publicly announced, I suppose. And yet even then, America failed to leash in its errant protégé, this growing aberration among nations, to reach for the peace offering and seek closure to this madness.
When the Israelis vigorously opposed the UN commission to investigate possible war crimes against the innocent in Jenin and refused them entry into those areas, why I wonder did the Americans concur with them? If there was no butchery, then what did Israel have to fear? And when the Red Cross and other international humanitarian agencies were barred from areas where Israel was committing its carnage, why didn’t the US government exercise its muscle and force an inquiry? And when those who among the foreign media attempted to gain entry to report firsthand of actual events, why did Israel bar them and confiscate their cameras? Where was America and Amendment 1 of the Bill of Rights (freedom of the press) then?
The US government speaks highly and vocally of human rights. But when it comes to actually exercising these principles, I suspect they appear to be very selective. A holocaust is being committed against a people today, and yet they choose to mutely look the other way. Yes, a holocaust! One that is being relentlessly engineered by Mr. Sharon and aided by the reticence of the US government! Mr. Sharon’s daily provoking incursions into the occupied territories have likened his ethnic cleansing policies to none other than Adolf Hitler! While Israel has drawn loud condemnation from Europe and the rest of the world on its recent activities.
A suicide bomber will invariably make the headlines on all the networks and print media in the USA, drawing loud cries of indignation from all in the US government. But has a shred of indignation or remorse been heard from them in this murder by intent? I can boldly envisage that this recent massacre possibly warranted just a small column on Page 6 of some of the leading papers, and if at all had it been broadcast on the domestic networks of the US, it may have been televised to be the work of rogue elements within Iraq or the Al-Qaeda.
Just exactly who is directing US foreign policy today? Because what seems to transpire within the policy-making departments of the US government certainly does not appear to be in their national interests. The world at large has slowly come to be wary of their motives, be it in the Middle East or in other areas of the globe. This is not the America we thought we once knew.
And far beyond the time it takes most of us to move on and forget this latest carnage, wishful for a just and permanent peace some day, those haunting images of robbed young souls will forever remain embedded in the psyche of the parents and relatives of those poor defenseless children. Do the Americans really know? And if they did, do they really care? Or would it just be some distant dot in the map for them?
