Bush Has Another BAD Day!

Published on August 8, 2006 By COL Gene In Politics

Yesterday the two new democracies Bush helped create in the Moslem World broke with his policies. Prime Minister Saniora rejected the U.S/ French UN resolution to stop the fighting in Lebanon because it does not demand Israel leave Lebanon and the Arab League appears to agree that the Bush proposal is unacceptable.

Prime Minister Maliki in Iraq sharply rejected the U.S. attack on a Shiite strong hold in Sadr City and said, “This won’t happen again” It is hard to believe how inept Bush and the members of our government are in dealing with the conflicts taking place in the Moslem world. To be at odds with these two Moslem leaders as well as the Arab League demonstrates just how inept Bush and Rice are in dealing with this part of the World!

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COL Gene

on Aug 09, 2006

THIS IS MORE PROOF OF WHAT I HAVE BEEN SAYING:

James Hill for The New York Times
The Hezbollah station was on at a restaurant in Damascus, Syria. Moderate voices are being drowned out by a rising tide of anti-American sentiment.

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By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
Published: August 9, 2006
DAMASCUS, Syria, Aug. 8 — Moderate reformers across the Arab world say American support for Israel’s battle with Hezbollah has put them on the defensive, tarring them by association and boosting Islamist parties.

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James Hill for The New York Times
A soldier cleaned portraits of Syria’s leaders, past and present, in Damascus. War news has trumped worries over the recent jailing of activists.
The very people whom the United States wanted to encourage to promote democracy from Bahrain to Casablanca instead feel trapped by a policy that they now ridicule more or less as “destroying the region in order to save it.”

Indeed, many of those reformers who have been working for change in their own societies — often isolated, harassed by state security, or marginalized to begin with — say American policy either strangles nascent reform movements or props up repressive governments that remain Washington’s best allies in the region.

“We are really afraid of this ‘new Middle East,’ ” said Ali Abdulemam, a 28-year-old computer engineer who founded the most popular political Web site in Bahrain. He was referring to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s statement last month that the situation in Lebanon represented the birth pangs of a “new Middle East.”

“They talk about how they will reorganize the region in a different way, but they never talk about the people,” Mr. Abdulemam said. “They never mention what the people want. They are just giving more power to the systems that exist already.”

His plight is shared by reformers across the Arab world.

Fawaziah al-Bakr, who promotes educational change and women’s rights in Saudi Arabia, helped organize women to protest the Israeli attacks. “Nobody is talking about reform in Saudi Arabia,” she said. “All we talk about is the war, what to do about the war. There is no question that the U.S. has lost morally because of the war. Even if you like the people and the culture of the United States, you can’t defend it.”

The statement by Ms. Rice — during a fleeting stopover in Beirut last month — is being juxtaposed with the mounting carnage to rally popular opposition against all things American.

In Lebanon, Israel continues bombing despite the fact that the violence could destabilize the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, elected last year in a vote that the United States hailed as a democratic example for the Middle East. Iraq was the previous such example, reformers note bitterly.

In Bahrain, Mr. Abdulemam fears that a proposed new anti-terrorism law could severely curb the freewheeling discussions on BahrainOnline.org, his Web site, perhaps even shutting it down, because among other things the law bans attacking the Constitution. Recently, the government cut off access to Google Earth, he said, probably because too many citizens were zeroing in on royal palaces.

Members of Islamist political organizations, in particular, consider American actions a godsend, putting their own repressive governments under pressure and distancing their capitals from Washington, reformers say.

The Americans “wanted to tarnish the Islamic resistance and opposition movements, but in reality they only served them,” said Sobhe Salih, a 53-year-old lawyer in the Muslim Brotherhood, which was swept into the Egyptian Parliament in an election last fall after capturing an unprecedented 20 percent of the seats. “They made them more appealing to the public, made them a beacon of hope for everyone who hates American policies.”

Glance at any television screen — they are everywhere — and chances are that the screen will be showing mayhem in Lebanon, Baghdad or Gaza. It usually takes a minute or so to decipher which Arab city is burning. Popular satellite news channels like Al Jazeera say repeatedly that the carnage arrives via American policy and American weapons.

Before 2003, the hardest step for any Islamist movement was recruitment, noted Mohamed Salah, an expert on Islamic extremist movements who writes for the pan-Arab daily Al Hayat from Cairo. Moving someone from being merely devout to being an extremist took a long time. No longer, he said. Moderate Arab governments, which have pursued peace with Israel for nearly 30 years, have seen that policy undermined among their publics by Hezbollah’s ability to strike at Israel.

“Recruitment has become the easiest stage because the people have already been psychologically predisposed against the Americans, the West and against Israel,” Mr. Salah said.

Moderate reformers say they are driven to despair by what they see as inconsistencies in Washington’s Middle East policy. For example, in Lebanon lives a black-turbaned Shiite cleric who runs a secretive militia close to Iran. His name is Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and Washington approves of Israel’s bombing campaign to stamp out his organization, Hezbollah.

There is another black-turbaned Shiite cleric who runs a different secretive militia close to Iran. His name is Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, and he lives in Iraq. He is an American friend.

“In Iraq the same kind of group is an ally of the United States, while in Lebanon they are an enemy whom they are fighting,” said Samir al-Qudah, a Jordanian civil engineer. “It has nothing to do with reform, but where America’s interests lie.”

The overwhelming conclusion drawn by Arabs is that Washington’s interests lie with Israel, no matter what the cost.

“Those calling for democratic reform in Egypt have discovered that once Israeli interests are in conflict with political reform in the Middle East, then the United States will immediately favor Israel’s interests,” said Ibrahim Issa, the editor of the weekly Al Dustour, who faces a jail sentence on charges of insulting President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.

Reformers invariably add that a credible effort to solve the issue of Arab land occupied by Israel, which they believe is the taproot of extremism, does not even seem to be on Washington’s radar.

Sheik Nasrallah is particularly adept at exploiting public anger at civilian deaths in Lebanon by talking about how fickle the United States can be as a friend.

Daiwa

on Aug 09, 2006

You are a propagandist's dream, Gene. You'll bite on absolutely anything.

COL Gene

on Aug 09, 2006

This has NOTHING to do with propaganda. This is a story by the largest news paper in the world about a MAJOR war that was started over the abduction of three soldiers. Bush as usual is at odds with almost EVERY other world leader and is adding to those that would attack us. As we approach 5 years after 9/11 we have MORE enemies due to our foreign policy then in 2001!

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