How would you feel if "over a million cluster bombs" had been fired into your city? http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/761781.html
Since the end of June, more than 37 children in Gaza have been killed in operations mounted by Israel. http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article1619227.ece
In short, the wild reaction to the Pope's theological musings was not just about the Pope.
Meanwhile, the neo-cons backtrack though history to prove that "Islamic terror" long pre-dated September 11, 2001, so you're not allowed to blame the pre-emptive strike on Iraq for destabilising the world. Muslim mayhem actually "began in Iran 1979 with the revolution of Ayatollah Khomeini", according to an editorial in The Australian, slyly stoking the fire for a future invasion, and implying that the populist cleric had leapt out of Aladdin's lamp, scimitar between his teeth.
In fact, the "revolution" was pre-ordained in 1953, after the CIA ousted the elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, for his un-American aspiration to nationalise oil. Washington installed a puppet dictator, the Shah of Iran, who founded the feared secret police, SAVAK, while his wife hosted lavish international film festivals, flying in Hollywood celebrities to speak well of tyranny. By imposing the shah on the Persians for all those years, the West must surely accept some responsibility for the rebirth of radical Islam and all that's followed.
"Both the right and the left cultivate a politics of fear," writes, Kevin Clements, a Brisbane-based professor of peace and conflict studies, "where citizens are infantilised and we have become both politically and socially paralysed." Today's TV politics is unable to provide perspective, history, meaning or foresight. For that, you need a statesman.
BRASS BANDS, TALL STORIES, SHOW TRIALS
The world is heating up, both climactically and militarily, and yet those leaders who are most responsible for underplaying global warming and overplaying the response to 9/11 are the least likely to look in the mirror and tell the truth - either to the voters or themselves.
While some pro-war enthusiasts have admitted their blunder, those politicians who led the charge seem incapable of candour. To do so would be to accept that their actions have multiplied the instances of worldwide terror and so contributed to many thousands of civilian deaths and maimings.
Perhaps this country's mad, authoritarian lurch to the right is an unconscious attempt by those at the top to suppress their inner shame. To distract themselves with propaganda, brass bands, tall stories of war-zone reconstruction, terror laws, show trials, fear-mongering and boasting. Having lit the match, they are surrounded by fire, and are desperately seeking scapegoats. Is it beyond their capacity to accept that they might be the arsonists?
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