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11/12/2004: "Arafat, Bush and Radicalism and the Middle East" music: Slayermood: Drunk
Arafat has died. He was a man of uncompromising principle, and of steadfast resolve. If he were running for President in the US, he would most likely have used the same arguments that Bush has used to win. There are rather uncanny similarities that exist here: neither think peace is a good reason not to take what one wants, both believe in preemptive war, and both have been roundly criticized as creating more problems by their own constituents. And, of course, both believe that they know what the Middle East would be a better place if their plan was law.
The U.S. is sending the Undersecretary of State to his funeral. I guess Bush is too afraid to stop playing politics in the region.
Love him or hate him, today I mourn a great revolutionary. Of all disenfranchised classes, Arafat pissed off his Imperial lords perhaps more than anyone. He taught us how to fight for the cause without selling one's soul. He just wanted the right of return: a basic premise to democratic rule over the region. If Bush was so fixated with democracy, he picked the wrong allies and the wrong enemies.