In looking at the worldwide support for Bush's policies, I notice that

[KlatooBNikto]

two countries stand out: India and Israel. There is overwhelming support for Bush's Mideast policies in both countries. I assume it is because both these countries are not Islamic and like it when the Muslims are the targets of American war power.

[MrModerate]

1. It's because the governments of Israel and India FEAR Islam

. . . that they're in Bush's camp.

The inconvenient fact that Bush's policies actually make a country's "Muslim Question" much more difficult is one of those unanticipated consequences that come up in geopolitics all the time.

[RazzleCat]

2. Or maybe Israel wants the weapons and India likes the jobs

We ship our jobs to India (including mine), and give Israel a ton of money for weapons.

[JohnyCanuck]

3. It goes deeper than that where Israel is concerned.

Israelis from Ariel Sharon's office played an active role in providing the bogus evidence and propaganda used by the neocons to push the US into a war on Iraq. Naturally Israel is all for this war, they actively engaged in assisting the neocons efforts to get it going in the first place.

The Spies Who Pushed for War

The OSP was an open and largely unfiltered conduit to the White House not only for the Iraqi opposition. It also forged close ties to a parallel, ad hoc intelligence operation inside Ariel Sharon's office in Israel specifically to bypass Mossad and provide the Bush administration with more alarmist reports on Saddam's Iraq than Mossad was prepared to authorise.

"None of the Israelis who came were cleared into the Pentagon through normal channels," said one source familiar with the visits. Instead, they were waved in on Mr Feith's authority without having to fill in the usual forms.

The exchange of information continued a long-standing relationship Mr Feith and other Washington neo-conservatives had with Israel's Likud party.

In 1996, he and Richard Perle - now an influential Pentagon figure - served as advisers to the then Likud leader, Binyamin Netanyahu. In a policy paper they wrote, entitled A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm, the two advisers said that Saddam would have to be destroyed, and Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran would have to be overthrown or destabilised, for Israel to be truly safe.

www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

4. India has a large Muslim population

I believe it is the largest minority in India, in fact. Right now, I believe, Hindu Nationalists are in power, but that doesn't mean that Muslims don't have a voice in government. And Bush is also nice to Mubarek, the President of Pakistan, India's arch rival, so I wonder about India's commitment of support for the US.

[nine23]

5. Minor note: Mubarek is President of Egypt...

I think you mean Pervez Musharraf, prez of Pakistan.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. Yeah, you are right!

Must turn my brain on sometime this morning! Thanks for the correction! :)

[Sara Beverley]

6. One of the most discriminatory nations on earth-India-joined at the hip

to one of the most terrorist nations on earth. They will lie, cheat, steal, deceive, and kill without thinking anything of it. It's a really sick alliance that will end up kicking the US right in the butt and the US will have deserved it.

[Calvinist Basset]

7. There really is an "axis of evil."

And we are part of it.

:puke:

[HysteryDiagnosis]

9. How did we become a member?? n/t

[DemocratSinceBirth]

10. you forgot the phillipines

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