The Godfathers Three and Their New Year’s Resolutions

Edna Yaghi’s Column

Ring out the old and ring in the new. Looking back over the past year, our Godfathers three have much to be proud of. Deck the halls with boughs of holly and may our old acquaintances be not forgotten.

Looking back over the past year or so, we can well remember how our greatest American president since our American forefathers broke free from British colonialism, rigged the elections in Florida and that’s how he became our esteemed leader. As if his becoming president were not impressive enough, he then went on to wage a war on terror and called his campaign, “Enduring Freedom.” How B-52 bombers can bring freedom to dead people is a mystery and how can destruction bring liberty is another one. The whole Afghan country looks like an epidemic of smallpox from the air and the funniest thing about the whole sordid affair is that Osama Ben Laden is still unavailable. Perhaps he flew away on his magic carpet to a more peaceful place. Did our super genius really think that Ben Laden was going to surrender himself?

Now our super intelligent Godfather George W. Bush with an IQ of 50 is plotting new lands to blow up and more people to massacre. Perhaps he considers such maneuvers ethnic cleansing. He will convince our gullible American public that such slaughter is necessary for the safety and freedom of the American people but this is not it at all. The desecration of Afghanistan was not to free the Afghans or really to capture dead or alive Ben Laden or even to ensure the freedom of anyone. The war against the Afghans was so that Americans can lay a pipeline from Afghanistan’s oil rich neighbors through Afghanistan, to give America et al access to the Caspian Sea and so that the American coalition can be closer to the Chinese in order to contain them.

Bush Jr., a clone of Bush Sr., has been fortunate to receive the blessings of Reverend Billy Graham and sons who preach that God’s name is spoken only in English and of course Hebrew, but not to be acknowledged in any other language, especially Arabic. Also the Grahams, strange as it might seem, endorse the slaughter of Iraqis and Afghans. Nuking them is a grand way to celebrate Christmas and at the same time, demonstrate in action the tenet of forgiveness.

After Christmas is over and after our Born Again Georgie takes a swig or two of his favorite liquor, he will then plan how to expand his war against terror with the help of his scriptwriters and our great Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Of course Bush staunchly denounces violence except when his old buddy Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wages it on a daily basis in the occupied Palestinian territories or when Bush himself orders the mass slaughter of many.

Rumsfeld plays the role of Godfather two. He looks very Mafia in his pinstriped suits and glued down hair. He proudly boasts success of wiping out the Taleban fighters and also for exterminating several thousand other Afghans along with them. He threatens any country even considering hiding Ben Laden and points his finger to the bombed craters dotting the Afghan barren landscape as a way of saying, “beware, this could happen to you too.”

Rumsfled’s New Year’s Resolutions seem to be centered on killing more people outside the Afghan arena. The more dead Arabs and Muslims the better Godfather two will feel and the more he will please Godfather three, Sharon. The new definition for “terrorist” includes anyone who fights for the freedom of his people and defends himself with the exception of the Israelis who have the right to kill as many Palestinians as they see fit. This means of course that our valiant forefathers who died on blood soaked battlefields to rid America of the yoke of British tyranny were also terrorists. If George Washington were alive today, Rumsfeld would have him executed for treason. But then, history is always written by those who hang heroes.

Burly Sharon is Godfather Three. Every day he makes New Year’s Resolutions. Every day these resolutions include killing more Palestinians. He claims he is waging his own war against terrorism, but instead he wages a war of terror against the defenseless Palestinian population. He has declared Palestinian President Yasser Arafat as irrelevant because he has proven that he cannot be trusted but Sharon has outdone Al Capone a million times over and the blood of more than 20,000 Arabs already indelibly stains his hands. How can anyone trust a man who is a proven murderer and who collectively punishes an entire population?

Poor trembling Arafat, in a desperate attempt to please Sharon, has taken over the killing and arresting of Palestinian freedom fighters. This noble gesture has pleased Sharon greatly. The more Palestinians killed the better. BUT, this is not enough and Sharon and his Mafia clan have promised to continue the extra judicial killings anyway. The bottom line in all of this is to push the Palestinians over the brink so that Sharon and his army of killers can either finish off the rest of the Palestinian population or drive them completely out of the country.

The Godfathers three might plunge the world into further disaster and despair but bringing about peace and prosperity for their people as well as for the less fortunate does not seem to be on their list of resolutions.