Linda Grant on sorry recruitment
Over at Norm's Blog, Linda Grant captures a perspective it took me a while when younger to grasp.Kuntar fits no model of the impoverished refugee driven to despair by occupation. Nor can he be seen within the context of Iranian-backed Islamism. When he emerged from prison last week it was as a relic of a bygone age: of that era of self-appointed middle-class revolutionaries, like the Weather Underground and Baader-Meinhof Gang.
...
Drawn to political organizations of the far left and far right, they are people who have the passion and the excitement for violence, the glamour of violence. Those who are motivated by a desire for the alleviation of poverty or the redressing of injustice, lack the thirst for blood.
This remains the great problem in the Middle East - the prominence of the cult of death ("Viva la Muerte!") among the Palestinians (including Fatah) and in Lebanon. It is the Bonnie and Clyde approach to 'rebellion'.
There is no chance for civil society where Kuntar is lionized as a a hero.
And while the Weather Underground may be relics of a bygone era, you can expect some of those relics to play a visible role, and rightly, I think, in the upcoming US Presidential Campaign. (Well, at least until slick Barry tosses Dohrn and Ayers under the train too - I think he has tried but not in convincing enough ways yet.)
(Disclosure: I continue to be most likely to cast my foreigner's virtual meaningless vote to Obama, but the currency is sinking fast. Lucky for Obama the competition is not so great at the moment.)
Labels: death cult, Lebanon, murder, palestine
posted by Alan Adamson @ 5:04 PM
2 Comments:
Your votes
virtual and otherwise
are
to put it mildly
bizarre.
Leaving aside the fact
that in my opinion
anyone would vote NDP
ever
for any reason
has 'issues'
to contend with,
in this upcoming presidential election
I think it can be said
that much as in the Johnson-Goldwater contest
the electors ended up with Goldwater's foreign policy
without Goldwater's integrity,
so with McCain-Obama-
if they elect Obamba
they will get the worst of McCain's economic policies
without McCain's integrity.
My gamble it is hard for Obama to end without far better economic policy than McCain - but it is a gamble.
As for foreign policy, this is indeed where McCain wins (and I actually think, on character), but there is NO way Obama's current campaign foreign policy can survive much time in office. And the backpedalling is on big-time already.
I am not claiming I like this guy more than McCain - that is too tough a call - they both seem pretty sleazy to me, but for heaven's sake they are in politics!
(And PS yes McCain actually has some positive past achievements to show, and I especially like resetting Bud Day's arm - maybe Obama will show something vaguely similar in due course.)
Post a Comment
<< Home