Blumenthal: Swaggering to Nowhere

[kskiska]

As the Mideast burns and North Korea threatens, the once-boastful president has no policy and is reduced to pathetic bleats.

By Sidney Blumenthal

Jul. 13, 2006 | President Bush was against diplomacy before he was for it. But with the collapse of U.S. foreign policy across the board, he has discarded talk of preemptive strikes and reluctantly claimed to have become a born-again realist. "And it's, kind of -- you know, it's kind of painful in a way for some to watch, because it takes a while to get people on the same page," he said at his July 7 press conference, adding, in an astonished tone, "Not everybody thinks the exact same way we think. Different words mean different things to different people."

Just two years ago, he appeared before the Republican Convention boasting of his "swagger, which in Texas is called walking." But in the face of the consequences of his failures, he has not adopted a new doctrine so much as swaggered into a corner. The cowboy's White House has become Fort Apache.

His policy is paralyzed toward North Korea, reduced to kowtowing to China in the forlorn hope it would implore the hermit kingdom to forswear developing nuclear weapons and firing test missiles. The Chinese, however, have declared they will veto any U.S.-initiated sanctions in the United Nations Security Council.

(snip)

What the president doesn't know and when he didn't know it remain pertinent. In January 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, Bush met with three prominent Iraqi dissidents, who, in discussing scenarios of post-Saddam Hussein Iraq, "talked about Sunnis and Shiites. It became apparent to them that the president was unfamiliar with these terms." Peter Galbraith, the former U.S. ambassador to Croatia and involved in Iraqi diplomacy as a Senate aide for decades, carefully sources this anecdote in his new book, "The End of Iraq: How American Incompetence Created a War Without End," in order to illustrate the "culture of arrogance" that imagined Iraq "was a blank slate on which the United States could impose its vision of a pluralistic democratic society."

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http://salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2006/07/13/bush_foreign_policy/

[Wwagsthedog]

1. Texas post turtle. nt

[The_Casual_Observer]

2. If even half of these criticisms are correct (and they are)

we are in really bad shape. The hangover from 7+ years of jr will need more than a few aspirins to get rid of.

[MadMaddie]

3. I think a trial at the Hague....maybe the beginning to curing

the 7 year hangover.....

[Betsy Ross]

4. Would we get to watch the trial on C-Span?

I'll make popcorn.

[AndyTiedye]

5. That Would Be Just What the Doctor Ordered

The Peace Palace. The Hague. Netherlands


Home of the International Criminal Court


The UN prison at the Peace Palace


Home of convicted war criminals

[Old and In the Way]

6. When the closing chapter of American History is written-

It will start with George Bush's lies to create an elective war based solely on personal political and economic interests. His actions killed our economy, our military, and our international reputation. And 1/2 of America were his accomplices.

[Demeter]

7. Insight At 60--Lessons He SHOULD Have Learned by 16

"Not everybody thinks the exact same way we think. Different words mean different things to different people."


As far as anybody can tell, the president didn't know anything, and never will.