Cheney family try a new peace tack: daughter Elizabeth

[emad]

From the UK's Sudnay Times:


THE most intriguing sign that America is getting serious about Middle East reform came last year with an improbable appointment to an obscure office buried in the US State Department. The new deputy assistant secretary of state in charge of a little-known development project turned out to be Elizabeth Cheney, daughter of Vice-President Dick Cheney. If the appointment smacked of nepotism, doubt soon gave way to praise, as Cheney began to establish herself as a pivotal figure in a radical shift of American foreign policy. The programme she runs, the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), is a crucial component of the policy revolution outlined last week by President George W Bush. Bush’s condemnation of “60 years of western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East” not only signalled a new drive for regional democracy, it also confirmed the Cheney family’s unusual role as both catalysts and collaborators in a daring attempt to transform the social and economic conditions that have proved so fertile for Middle Eastern terrorism. As one of the most right-wing members of a conservative Republican administration, Dick Cheney is best known for his advocacy of war in Iraq and his belligerent warnings to other rogue states. Yet he was profoundly affected by the September 11 terrorist attacks and the realisation that Islamic militants were no longer confined to assaults in the Middle East. Bush’s speech in Washington on Thursday was widely seen as reflecting Cheney’s conviction that America’s interests are no longer best served by pandering to autocratic regimes that fuel festering militancy. In a bold critique of his predecessors as president, among them his own father, Bush said past US policy in the Middle East had done “nothing to make us safe”. Instead, the president added with rare rhetorical passion: “Communism and militarism and rule by the capricious and corrupt are the relics of a passing era . . . As long as the Middle East remains a place where freedom does not flourish, it will remain a place of economic stagnation, resentment and violence ready for export.”

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,176-886716,00.html

[cliss]

1. good article, thanks emad.

Of course, they themselves diagnose the problem: "when you don't trust the salesman, you don't trust the product, even if it's a good one". Why would anyone in their right mind trust someone who's accused of lying & cheating on a daily basis.

And why would she use the word 'salesman'. That implies a voluntary exchange of goods & services for money. The way the US is acting, it's more like 'dictator'. 3rd point, about the product: why is it a good one (here, she's referring to 'democracy'). Do we have a democracy here? Or is it giving way to a dictatorship?

[tom_paine]

2. Giving way to dictatorship

That much is quite obvious...