If I Didn't Know Better, I'd Think This Gigantic Grey Creature With The Tusks Here In The Room With Us Is An Elephant

It's well worth reading this post by Tony Karon at Rootless Cosmopolitan: "Palestinian Pinochet Making His Move?" Be sure to check out all the links as well.

Few Americans are even aware of the Palestinian mini-civil war going on now in Gaza. Fewer still know this civil war is to a large degree the conscious creation of the Bush administration—and specifically of America's old friend Elliot Abrams. Here's an article with some details:

Deputy National Security Advisor, Elliott Abrams — who Newsweek recently described as “the last neocon standing” — has had it about for some months now that the U.S. is not only not interested in dealing with Hamas, it is working to ensure its failure. In the immediate aftermath of the Hamas elections, last January, Abrams greeted a group of Palestinian businessmen in his White House office with talk of a “hard coup” against the newly-elected Hamas government — the violent overthrow of their leadership with arms supplied by the United States... Over the last twelve months, the United States has supplied guns, ammunition and training to Palestinian Fatah activists to take on Hamas in the streets of Gaza and the West Bank.

Interesting.

You know, when prominent neoconservatives talk about "hard coups" to overturn Palestinian elections, or hint at their regret the military didn't stage a coup in Turkey, it almost makes me think their purported concern for democracy is complete bullshit.

Fortunately, we know that's not that case, because no one ever broaches this possibility in the US media.

STAY TUNED: For endless debate in the Washington Post about whether the neoconservative worldview is flawed because they naively luv democracy too much.