I know that mine is but one voice among many in the blogosphere snarling "What a dickhead!" after watching W's performance at the joint Bush/Blair press conference today, but...really...what a dickhead!
The White House has not radiated such sheer stupidity since the Spanish-American war, when President William McKinley declared that he had to invade the Philippines to bring "Christianity" to that nation -- despite the fact that Christianity had been in place for centuries.
In an exactly similar vein, W defends the Israeli invasion of Lebanon as a measure to bring "democracy." Here's a newsflash, dummy: Lebanon is, or was, a democracy. An imperfect one, to be sure, but that cultured land was nevertheless well on its way toward re-establishing itself as "the Paris of Orient."
Before this bloody attack -- which began only after the capture of Israeli soldiers within Lebanon -- only 18% of the Lebanese populace (less than half the Shi'ites in the country) supported Hezbollah. Now nearly all Lebanese support Hezbollah, and for understandable reasons: Nobody else has the guts to fight the Israelis.
The Palestinian Authority is democratic. Bush and Israel pretend otherwise because the Palestinians dared to vote for someone Israel does not like.
Iran, the next target of American aggression, is at least partially democratic -- although once again, we cannot allow that fact to appear within our media, because the Iranians dared to vote for someone Israel does not like.
Speaking of "partially democratic": Can we use any better description for Israel itself? Of course, Dubya will never ask the Israeli government to allow all non-Jews in that land access to the ballot box.
As for Iraq: The vast majority of the Iraqis want us to go -- and they want to regain control of their own natural resources, which is the one thing this administration cannot allow.
By contrast, W never criticizes Saudi Arabia or Egypt, two distinctly non-democratic countries. If a true representative of the people ever attained elected office in Saudi Arabia -- well, in the first place, the land would no longer be "Saudi." Without a friendly monarch on that throne, gas prices in the United States would shoot up to ten dollars a gallon and the Arabs would use the profits to construct nuclear weaponry.
Neither does W criticize Pakistan, which once was a democracy but is now a military dictatorship. Pakistan harbors Osama Bin Laden, the man W pretends to have hunted all these years.
Democracy? Our president loves democracy the way Godzilla loved Tokyo.
13 comments:
Oh, come on, those soldiers were not captured in Lebanon. They were captured in disputed territory that Israel has occupied for DECADES. The territory belonged to Lebanon in the mid 20th century, SYRIA stole it, and Lebanon has NEVER asked for it back. They have had plenty of opportunity to do it, too, but they never have said diddly to Syria. The UN says the land is captured Syrian territory. You are making your point a bit disingenuously with that tosser of a line, and that ruins the factual bits of your piece.
There can be no excuse for cross-border incursions, murder of soldiers, capture of soldiers, and then rockets a-go-go toward Haifa.
That doesn't mean that Duncey isn't a nitwit.
Anon 12:14, please support your background info. According to Forbes.com:
(snip)
"The militant group Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers during clashes Wednesday across the border in southern Lebanon, prompting a swift reaction from Israel, which sent ground forces into its neighbor to look for them."
(snip)
I'm not saying that you are wrong, but from where do you derive this assertion that the area where the Israeli soldiers were captured is not Lebanon's? What do you mean, it is "disputed territory?" By whom is it disputed? How did Syria "steal" it, and does the fact that Lebanon "NEVER asked for it back" mean, ipso facto, that it no longer belongs to Lebanon, but now belongs to Syria?
But wait! Didn't you also say that "Israel has occupied it for decades?" If Syria stole it, why has Israel been occupying it?
And isn't it possible that Lebanon considers the area part of Lebanon (which you seem to acknowledge it is)?
Again, maybe your argument has some legitimacy, but clarify if you can.
Needs more cowbell, Joseph.
Oh, and Anon 12:14 and all other anons--as has been requested of you before, could you please sack up and use some kind of a name for yourselves when you post? That simple act would make it so much easier for us to have a constructive dialogue in the comments section.
Joseph, here's a link to some very interesting information on the origins of the current crisis in the ME. Seems Israel put the kibosh on a peace agreement. A couple of excerpts:
Institute for Policy Research for Development (IPRD), has learned from Israeli and Palestinian sources that just prior to the current crisis, senior Hamas leaders were in active dialogue with Israeli religious leaders in a round of bilateral peace negotiations.
****
The meeting was to announce a joint Israeli-Palestinian call for the release of Corporal Gilad Shalit who had been abducted by Hamas in Gaza, along with proposals for the beginning of the release of all Palestinian prisoners.
****
Just hours before the meeting was due to start, the Israeli Shin Bet internal Security Service arrested Abu Tir and Abu Arafa and warned them not to attend the meeting, under threats of detention. The meeting, which offered a major opportunity to obtain Shalit’s release and launch a new framework for peace, was thrown into disarray. The next day, the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) invaded Gaza, and the day after both Abu Tir and Abu Arafa were abducted by Israeli forces, along with a third of the Palestinian Cabinet, provoking a predictable escalation of violence.
Israel simultaneously began conducting covert incursions on to Lebanese territory, provoking Hizbollah’s capture of two IDF soldiers. Credible sources confirm that the soldiers were not abducted on Israeli territory, but inside Lebanon.
I need a bumpersticker that reads:
"Let's see...What can Bush break today?"
Miss P.
Joseph,
Zogby has some intersting poll numbers regarding Lebanon from 2005. The link is on THP.
40% of Lebanese are Shi'a.
Only 6% of Lebanese agreed with disarming Hezballah.
3/4 of Lebanese gave a favorable rating to Hezballa.
37% of Lebanese favor Syria over 30% that favor US and no one like Israel.
Zogby thinks that Lebanese, if left alone will fix their own political process by mutual agreement.
But, who cares about what people really want, in Lebanon or Palestine or Iraq, not to mention in the good ol US of A.
Congress has decided that the price of raising the minimum wage is giving the rich a free pass on inheretance tax. Is'nt that blackmail?
anon @12.14
it is generally accepted the troops were in Lebanon so we have to go with that for now, regardless the Israelis Overreacted and are now on thier way to destroying a countries livability.
We will see when/if they give up the Springs in south Lebanon what the true motives were.
The truth is countries need excuses to carry out thier agendas and will sometimes manufacture oppurtunities.
I just hope the phrase "partially democratic" doesn't soon apply to America.
Sunny,
There is a good article by Oren Ben-Dor called "Who Are the Real Terrorists" originally in the Independent but also a link on commondreams.org that explains why these talks were undermined.
Joe, I agree with what you are saying about democracy. But just to be accurate, I want to make one correction. Non-Jews, including Arabs, in Israel can vote, if they are citizens (granted there is much discrimination). Where they can't vote in an Israel election, however, is in the West Bank--even though they are part of the "greater Israel" in the view of those in the imperialist wing of their government.
Speaking of Osama in Pakistan, does
everybody know that Osama checked
into a military hospital in
Rawalpindi, Pakistan the night
before 9/11?
Rawalpindi is a city of three
million, six miles from the capital
Isalamabad, the site of the Int'l
airport, and the location of the HQ
of the Pakistani military. His
appearance there must be considered
of the nature of submitting to being
a hostage.
Two months before 9/11 Osama had,
according to the French newspaper Le
Figaro, checked into the American
Hospital in Dubai for ten days where
he was treated by Dr. Terry
Callaway.
While there he was visited by a
local CIA agent named Larry
Mitchell, and also by the head of
Saudi Security, Prince Turki al
Faisal. Prince Turki is the Saudi
ambassador to the USA, and attended
the most recent State of the Union
address.
"What a Dickhead" link didn't work for me.
Gary, try it now. It goes to this page...
http://thinkprogress.org/2006/07/28/manage-calm/
If that does not work, you can get the same transcript of the Bush/Blair conference via Josh Marshall. Just go to TPM and scroll down.
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