Yankee Go Home - If You Still Have One
by pessimist
One has to wonder about the wisdom in sending the American Torquemada on a diplomatic tour to 'strengthen America's alliance with countries on the front lines in the fight against terrorism':
The vice president planned to attend the opening session on Monday of Afghanistan's parliament, review U.S. efforts to help earthquake victims in Pakistan and meet with Egyptian and Saudi leaders.
I don't know about this, Kingfish! This is why such a trip may provide the latest blowback to Bu$hCo policies:
Even though the governments of all four countries on Cheney's itinerary are U.S. allies, anti-American sentiment is high among their people.
It's not like they 'didn't know' like they claim about Al Qaeda's plans in 2001:
Just last Monday, the president acknowledged that the United States has an "image issue" in the Muslim world.
Southwest Asia isn't the only place that Bu$hCo has serious 'image issues'.
For instance, South Koreans have issues with Bu$hCo:
On Dec. 16, 50 Korean unionists sprayed 'No Bush!' and 'Down WTO' in red and black paint and pulled letters away from the front wall of the U.S. Consulate in the business district of the Chinese city. "We oppose the U.S. demanding we open our rice market," said Sun Aejin, a female activists supporting the South Korean farmers outside the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center. "Smash the WTO." South Korean farmers are angry after the country's parliament passed a law on Nov. 23 allowing more imports of rice, the nation's biggest cash crop, after a year's delay and protests by farmers and opposition lawmakers.
The demonstrators' anger has been stirred up by reports that negotiators are moving closer to a compromise package that does not include the key demand of many NGOs: an end to European and American agriculture subsidies that are destroying the livelihood of farmers in poor countries.Despite the conservative and peace-loving reputation of Hong Kong, many local people who saw the clashes sympathised with the demonstrators.
A rather infamous Frenchman is also in Hong Kong expressing his anti-Americanism:
Those fighting included militant French farmer Jose Bove, best known for ransacking a McDonald's restaurant under construction near his home in 1999. Bove was briefly detained at the airport when he arrived this week, but he was allowed to enter Hong Kong after the French consul general intervened.
On another continent, US plans aren't playing well in the local version of Peoria:
Colombian President to U.S.: Stop Meddling
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe, one of Washington's best friends in South America, told the United States to stop "meddling" in his country's affairs after the U.S. ambassador urged him to take steps against corruption in regional elections. "The Colombian government does not accept the meddling of foreign governments, even if it is the United States," he said, adding that it is already clear that paramilitary leaders lose benefits if they break the law.Uribe, a conservative who took office in 2002, is viewed as Washington's main ally in Latin America. He was one of just a few leaders in the region who supported the Iraq war, and earlier this year he visited President Bush at his Texas ranch, where the two talked about their shared battle against terrorists and drug lords.
Uribe said Washington should not try to use Plan Colombia, an anti-drug program funded mostly by a $4 billion aid package from Washington, "to put pressure on our country." Plan Colombia has not produced the results hoped for by either nation. Colombian rebels involved in drug trafficking remain a threat and the price of cocaine is cheaper on American streets than when the program began in 2000.
On Saturday, Uribe met with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, a fierce critic of the United States, but the Colombian leader declined to comment on his uncharacteristic criticism of Washington.
Maybe he's just trying to protect a home-grown product from 'competition' from Coca-Cola?
Such a closed-mouth attitude isn't evident in another South American nation:
Bolivia's hero vows to break US shackles
[Evo] Morales is on the verge of becoming the first wholly Indian leader in Latin America. According to most polls, Morales's advantage over his closest rival, the former conservative President Jorge Quiroga, is at least five points. Despite having little chance of an absolute majority, forcing the newly elected rightist congress to choose the new President in January, congress is expected to nominate Morales if he wins the popular vote, due to fears of civil unrest, which has toppled two centre-right Presidents in two years.Morales is riding a wave of anger from Bolivia's impoverished Indian majority who have not seen any benefits from years of free-market policies and the sale of the country's natural resources by a mostly white elite to huge multinationals.
'We're determined to wrest control over our resources and our lives after the efforts to eliminate the Indians from the period of the Spanish colony. We will bury American imperialism!' declares Morales amid shouts of 'El pueblo unido jamás será vencido!' (The people united will never be defeated!)
'We're desperate. He's the only one who can change this terrible economic model,' says miner Juan Mamani, 45.
'On 18 December we'll crush the traitors who have sold our resources and lied to the people. Morales is our brother and we trust him, but he should beware of not delivering on his promises,' says another miner, dynamite strapped to his helmet.
Morales wants to nationalise Bolivia's huge gas reserves, the continent's second largest after Venezuela, currently in the hands of multinational companies. 'We will renegotiate all contracts - they are illegal, since congress has never ratified them,' he says. 'The state will recover the property of its natural resources, but we are open to foreign investment in exchange for a share of the business.'
US hostility toward Bolivia is already evident:
Evo Morales, a former president of Bolivia's coca-growers' union and the leader of the Movement Toward Socialism party, is the current front-runner, according to the latest polls. If he wins the election, Mr. Morales will be the latest head of state to join the ranks of the region's burgeoning New Left, already comprised of Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay, and Chile. For the Bush administration and conservative pundits, this would qualify as an unmitigated catastrophe.
[I]f spreading democracy is truly the goal of US foreign policy, the United States should welcome such new approaches rather than demanding that other nations elect officials subservient to the views that currently prevail in the White House. In Bolivia, democracy is now set to collide with the economic policies Washington prefers.
The Bush administration's consistent mistake in dealing with Latin America has been to equate freedom with the pursuit of a rigid program of its preferredeconomic policies. It has valued "free" markets over democratic independence. This stance, not a novel one for US administrations, has repeatedly generated tensions with such progressive leaders as Argentina's Néstor Kirchner, Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, and Uruguay's Tabaré Vázquez. The administration's most prominent antagonist in the region, Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, needs only to point to the White House's early celebration - if not active support - of an antidemocratic coup against him in 2002 to illustrate the thinness of Bush's prodemocracy rhetoric.
Up in Norte America, things aren't going too well either:
US House votes to wall up Mexico border
"Fencing has been designated in sectors that have the highest number of immigrant deaths, instances of drug smuggling and illegal border crossings," because of the large number of would-be immigrants who die in the desert attempting to cross the US border.
And hasn't there been some kind of a recent TV show illustrating the sort of effort necessary to defeat such barriers?
But I digress.
We also have to watch those sneaky Canucks from the Great White North:
The US border with Canada was not forgotten. The bill "includes a requirement for the Secretary of Homeland Security to conduct a study on the use of physical barriers along the Northern border."
Is that the aroma of fresh Boone's Dog Ale I smell?
[That's boondoggle for those who wouldn't get the pun.]
In another slap at Halliburton - er, Bu$hCo, India and Pakistan are going ahead with their planned pipeline from Iran. The US opposes this project, but India said 'Back off, George!'. China is standing by to lend support.
Gee - I wonder why Cheney's really going to the region!
Over in Ye Olde Europe, German politicians are investigation allegations that the US illegally renditioned a German citizen to Afghanistan for a little vacation at a CIA resort. Said citizen is suing the CIA for wrongful imprisonment and torture, which prompted Bu$hCo to attempt a little 'persuasion' of the ca$h variety. Khaled el-Masri's lawyer says that his client received no money and that the story is an attempt at character assassination.
Maybe they could send Karen Hughes along with Condi next time she goes shoe shopping in Paris! That way, maybe anything Bu$hCo says will be believed without question!
On a more serious note, in King George's War on Terrah, there still aren't enough armored Humvees for our soldiers in Iraq, ...
... Iraqis aren't very thankful for their shiny new American-made freedom and liberty ...
[H]ow quickly the resentment of the coalition crept in. And no wonder. It took weeks before a single public service worker was paid. Doctors and nurses turned to their savings to pay for taxi rides to work. Garbage festered in the streets.The civilian administrators, who had followed the soldiers in, were ill-equipped. One senior coalition official admitted to me: "We can't even organise ourselves let alone a country."
As the people of Baghdad tried to make do with little power, and in some areas no water, coalition officials were settling into Saddam Hussein's marble-floored palaces, complete with their chandeliers, and gold-tapped bathrooms. But on the streets outside, American soldiers were increasingly being targeted and when they hit back, Iraqi civilians were often killed.
They still are.
I remember in May last year standing in the rubble of a house in Falluja, where I was told 36 members of one family - including five children - had been killed during an air bombardment. They had been crushed to death and you could still smell the decomposing bodies as a neighbour shouted: "Is this George Bush's freedom?"
Plenty of well-off Iraqis have been quietly leaving. Imagine what it is all doing to the collective nerves of Iraqis who cannot get out of the country. The parting words to me from an Iraqi friend were: "Pray for us."
Almost sounds like New Orleans! NOLAns aren't the only Americans being negatively affected by King George's Oil Rustle. The Nevada National Guard lost one of their helicopters to ground fire in this supposed republic freshly supplied with American freedom and liberty through a recent election. These copters are normally used to fight summer wildfires. If Nevada burns down this coming summer because their helicopters are still in Afghanistan, I'm sure that Nevadans will understand that they just have to make certain sacrifices (like of their homes) so that Bu$hCo can rid the world of Islamic fundamentalism.
Isn't that why he's spying on Americans to save Americans?
Copyrighted [©] source material contained in this article is presented under the provisions of Fair Use.
FAIR USE NOTICE
This article contains copyrighted material, the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material available in my efforts to advance understanding of democracy, economic, environmental, human rights, political, scientific, and social justice issues, among others. I believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material in this article is distributed without profit for research and educational purposes.