Pushing for Peace

So Bush, with his anti-Midas touch of bringing war, death and misery to everything he touches, is off on a Mideast tour. Inskeep tells us Tuesday morning that "This is the day that President Bush travels to Jerusalem...The President will also be trying to make peace...NPR's Jackie Northam reports on the President's efforts to make progress before he runs out of time." Bush making peace and progress! Seriously, one has to be a liar or a fool to repeat such nonsense. Of course this complete acceptance of the Bushists as "peacemakers" is nothing new on NPR, where Sec. of State Rice is a "peace pusher" and Bush has "big goals" for the region.

NPR's coverage of Israel's expansionism has a brutal Groundhog Day repetition to it. As in the past the range of opinion stretches from what the State Department thinks to what the State Department thinks. Jackie Northam produces the report and here's the diverse range of expert opinions she offers us:

• Stephen Hadley, Bush's National Security Adviser who talks about the US commitment to Israel, to which Northam adds that "as part of that commitment President Bush will continue to push for peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians...."

• Jon Alterman who as his bio mentions "served as a member of the Policy Planning Staff at the U.S. Department of State and as a special assistant to the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs." This genius actually wrote the following this January: "Bush’s dedication to the theme of freedom in the Middle East is genuine. In his formulation, appreciation for the rights of the individual in the Middle East would expand liberty, undermine extremism, and enhance the security of Americans, Arabs, and others." Now that is some hard hitting scholarship, eh?

• Aaron David Miller (again) who informs us that "the US has to keep pushing both sides...Because if they (the Bushists) don't hand something off, the next President will walk away from this issue as quickly as George W. Bush walked away initially" (once again the same junk about Bush "walking away" from the Israel/Palestine conflict.)

I wish the misery and sadistic violence that the US and Israel keep heaping on the Palestinians didn't exist. Then there might be some humor to this repetitious charade of Bush and Rice pushing for peace in the Middle East, but I have to say it really just makes me sick at heart. Honestly, how much longer will NPR keep up this myth of a "peace process" or even the mirage of a two state solution, when everything that the US and Israel have been doing over the past 15 years has been to destroy any such solution?

(graphic is from the Bush's talk with the BBC where he says, regarding Iran and Syria, "So what's there to negotiate. They know my position.")