Camp David: Clinton-Barak-Arafat

I just finished watching a fascinating documentary on the ABC, Israel & The Arabs: Elusive Peace, Part 1: Clinton.

Of course, I would never miss a program that contains "Clinton" in the title, but I've always felt ignorant when it comes to issues concerning the Middle East. Hence, I wanted to take the opportunity to learn.

I'd known that President Clinton had come very close to guiding Ehud Barak and Yasser Arafat towards a peace agreement for Israel and Palestine. Indeed, Clinton spent some time discussing the subject when I saw him speak during his brief visit to Brisbane in 2002. But this documentary, helped by first-hand accounts from prominent players including the former president and Madeleine Albright (who I love listening to), provided an excellently detailed insight.

The leaders came excruciatingly close to a resolution. Held all over the place, the meetings could last for either a few minutes or for hours on end, with foreign ministers, ambassadors, speechwriters and interpreters never far away. Several proposals were drawn up, with the leaders agreeing one day, and refusing to talk the next. There is literature available everywhere for anyone who wants to know more, suffice to say that Arafat rejected Clinton's final proposed plan, presented to the leaders in the last month of the presidency.

A couple of days before leaving office, Clinton received a phone call from Yasser Arafat. According to Clinton himself, Arafat said "You are a great man", to which the outgoing president replied "The hell I am. I am a colossal failure, and you made me one."

Credit needs to be given to Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright for their dedication over those months during both 1999 and 2000, right up until the final days of the presidency. They weren't exactly dealing with the two most co-operative people on the planet, and they had certainly been under no obligation to invite the pair to Camp David. I realise that not all of you are Clinton fans, but perhaps it is the incompetence of the current US administration that makes me appreciate his efforts so much more.

It was, frankly, very sad to discover how close peace appeared to be, particularly when you see the hell that breaks loose there on a daily basis today.

Ten Years

It will soon be exactly ten years since the beginning of John Winston Howard's prime ministership. Yes, an entire decade. Today's Weekend Australian is full of articles and columns about the Howard years. And so I thought that I too would acknowledge this achievement.

I recall being very happy when John Howard defeated Paul Keating in 1996. I was only nine years old at the time, with really no clue about the differences between Liberal and Labor policy. But I do remember linking the Labor Party to the image of the builder with the beer can and blue singlet, whilst connecting the Liberals with the image of the businessman with his briefcase. I knew most of my family members and our friends were Coalition voters at that time, and I naturally developed the same preference. This remained the case for years. I wanted a Howard win in 1998, which I got. And, though perhaps not as passionately so, I wanted a Howard win in 2001. Which I got. I can remember laughing watching Kim Beazley's concession speech, joking about his efforts to force a smile.

Just over four years later, here I am. Once proudly politically conservative (but, admittedly, without firm reason), I now carry a strong disdain for our government and other right-wing parties around the world. The prospect of me siding with Labor, Democrats and Greens over the Libs and Nats was so recently unimaginable. I think I first began to seriously turn against this Prime Minister in 2002, when I could begin to see the nauseatingly close relationship he had built with a certain Texan named George. The 'Honest John' nickname had also worn deservedly thin, and I began to resent the deceitful approach he'd adopted. Of course, today, there is very little I agree with him on.

Ten years of leadership is, nonetheless, a considerable achievement, and one to be admired by any ambitious future politician. A lot of changes have occurred during that time. Those changes created national debate and sparked some hardfelt opposition to the PM and his everchanging cabinet. Gun laws, GST, the referendum, wars, IR changes and so on. Each and very one brought about division, and each and every one went Howard's way.

I remain disillusioned over the way the Prime Minister has been able to get away with so many lies, and so much betrayal of the trust that we might have assumed was held in him by the Australian people. I am also disgusted by the transformation of Australia into a lapdog, just as we were on the way to becoming a nation with our own brain and our own spine.

What we have is an arrogant, mendacious prime minister, leading a lazy society that, nowadays, accepts arrogance and mendaciousness as inevitable traits in elected representatives.

But ten years it has been. Congratulations.

Demoralised

Meryl with Lindsay Lohan (Image from www.simplystreep.com)


As people know, I worship the woman above on the left. And her political views are quintessentially Hollywood. Here's her latest, while reflecting both on the appointment of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court, and her nephew's deployment to Iraq...

"I'm so demoralised. I want a candidate to come out of nowhere and have no conflicts. I want major campaign reform. I want Jesus to come back and throw the moneylenders out. Everybody in the administration should have a kid in that conflict. Then they'll know how they feel about it."

Idealistic comments, certainly. But it's always reassuring to know that there are indeed some Americans who are as dissatisfied as I am, and as others are, with the behaviour of that government and others too. Her comments on the moneylenders reminded me of comments she made in 2004, which I highlighted in a previous post (http://anthonyjs.blogspot.com/2005/06/interview-on-nbc-today-manchurian.html).

Alec Baldwin linked the approved nomination of Alito to "chicken-shit Democrats in the Senate. We have a bunch of budding Zell Millers (Georgia senator) down there. I loathe and despise him on a daily basis."

I had to do a bit of research on who exactly Zell Millers is. I was astounded to find that he is a Bush-supporting Democrat, who actually addressed the Republican National Convention in 2004 to back Bush and denounce Kerry. Bizarre.

Scarlett & Kiera

Hayden was kind enough to let me know about the cover of Vanity Fair's latest edition. I should think it would have been better without that guy there, sniffing Kiera Knightley's ear. But the mesmerising presence of Scarlett saves the day.
(Image from www.theage.com.au)

RU-486

The debate over the "abortion pill" is an interesting spectacle, to say the least. Despite myself being male, I agree with the point of view that the high level of critical involvement from men in this issue is far from necessary. Does it seem right that decisions and laws concerning abortion are almost always made by men?

Senator Allison of the Democrats, who herself has had an abortion, said "women are fully human, we will act on our own set of values and can be trusted to make reproductive health decisions for ourselves or to share that decision with those we trust" (08/02/06).

Our gracious prime minister has said that "important decisions affecting the community should be made by people who are directly accountable to the community". Well, my first question is, are politicians actually accountable to the community? Oh, wait a minute, I think he means that an election is held every three years. As "DietFist" stated on The Chaser's political forum, "if every politician was actually held accountable for their actions, we'd be having by-elections on a daily basis."

Though I am a male who will never need to contemplate abortion, I do have an opinion on the matter. I am in favour of abortion. I am in favour of the option being available. And to quote Chelsea Clinton's pro-choice father, abortion should be "safe, legal and rare".

If the cautious medical professionals are right, then perhaps RU-486 requires further research so that people can be more confident of its safety. I tend to think, however, that if the abortion pill poses as many dangers as its opponents would have us believe, then the issue would not even be on the agenda, and would not have already reached the point of a Senate vote.

Phillip Adams

Today's opinion article from Phillip Adams hits the nail on the head, and carries the same underlying frustration evident in my last post. Please read.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18058591%255E12272,00.html

What's happened to the Democrats?

President-in-exile, Al Gore


Does anyone know where they went? I was always under the impression that the American Democrats were the opposing political party to the American Republicans. I never knew they were simply a group of quiet, polite people lurking in the corridors of Washington's Capitol Building.

Michael Moore was right when he said that "the French have become the new Democrats". Indeed, the population of France provides harder opposition to the Bush Administration than the Democrats seem to. But even more concerning is that Republican Senator John McCain frequently sounds more critical of the current US government than the Democrats do. What happened to them?

Though they lacked control of the Senate and House of Reps during most of the 1990s (as they do now), the Democrats at least held possession of the White House and a cabinet containing such formidable figures as Madeleine Albright. Clinton was a popular leader, who left office in 2000 with the highest approval rating of any American president. The Gore campaign was a strong and successful one. In what way successful? Well, Al Gore won the most votes... But he lost the election after the Supreme Court, not the voters (yes, the Supreme Court, not the voters), decided the outcome of the election. It will, as we all know, be remembered as the beginning of the end for America's credibility and international image. It will also go down in history as one of the most open and unashamed riggings of an election in a so-called democratic nation. It was nothing short of a fiasco.

Since 2001, we have witnessed the most incompetent, stubborn, suppressive and brutal government the United States has had. George & friends have brought us:

- manipulation/invention of "evidence" to justify war
- the illegal tapping of private phone calls made by law-abiding citizens
- the destroying of civil liberties upon which America was founded
- the killing of countless people in Afghanistan and Iraq (and other places too, I'm sure)
- the breach of the nuclear reduction treaty with Russia
- the torture of men in Guantanamo Bay and other US-run prisons worldwide
- the Abu Ghraib incident and all the other prison incidents that didn't have photo-snapping idiots present
- the unashamed destruction of the environment
- the worsening of global warming
- the worst public speaker and most unintelligent creature in history

The list goes on... I don't need to tell you of the shit that's occurred in America and around the world on George's watch. We know it and the media were always happy to let us know in entertaining, friendly ways.

Bill Clinton was impeached for misleading his country over the Lewinsky affair. Yes, we were all wildly shocked when it turned out that Bill had indeed engaged in oral sex with Monica, had used a cigar as a sex toy, had come on her blue dress and had later flatly denied the affair. I mean, come on Bill. When you're the US President and the world's cameras are on you, we want you to tell us how you do it and with whom.
OK, so in all seriousness, it was wrong of Clinton to lie as he did. Lying is not usually a good thing. But the subject was SEX. It affected Bill, Monica, Hillary and Chelsea. It did not place any lives at risk. It did not create a trillion-dollar defecit. It did not turn the world against America. Nevertheless, Clinton became the second US president to be impeached. He was later acquitted by the Senate.

Bush's lies have involved WAR. Unlike the Lewinsky saga, people have been killed, a massive defecit has been created, and the world has turned against America.

In 2004, John Kerry and the Democrats were presented with an utterly dismal 4-year Republican record to play with. In 2005, Bush enjoyed his second inauguration.

What have the Democrat-led Senate inquiries achieved? They remind me of Australia's Royal Commissions. Designed to bring the baddies to justice, ultimately resulting in a slap over the wrists, while at the end of the day Australia remains a place where you can clean up and piss off. But drawing even closer parallels are the Democrats and the ALP.

The administration's ignorance in the period leading up to September 11, during which many pages of evidence (real evidence this time) were available for scrutiny and might have enabled better preparation for an attack, has passed as merely a regretful lack of alertness on the part of George and his cabinet, all of whom were probably too busy holidaying on their redneck ranches.

From the day Clinton announced his run for office, the Republicans were onto him. When he became president, the digging for dirt only intensified. Soon enough, the Republicans had organised an entire "independent" counsel to bring him down. They had to wait until 1998 before they could find anything with which to damage the Clintons, and it came in the form of a stained dress. In other words, the Republicans were on the front foot to find stuff that didn't exist. The Democrats have been the opposite: laying low, staying quiet, whilst out there awaits a paradise of stinking, corrupt Republican shit that is sure to be infinitely more damaging than cum on a garment.