Humiliating spectacle of a world leader caught without a policy

[ProSense]

Humiliating spectacle of a world leader caught without a policy

Michael Gawenda Herald Correspondent in Washington
July 15, 2006

IT WAS a stark admission of helplessness from the leader of the world's only super power.

With Israeli jets bombing Beirut airport and Hezbollah rockets landing in Haifa, Israel's third-largest city, the US President was asked what he could do to stop the fighting escalating.

Standing beside the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, at a press conference in Rostock before he left for the G8 summit in St Petersburg, George Bush said: "We were headed towards the road map, things looked positive, and the terrorists stepped up. It's really sad where people are prepared to take innocent life to stop that process … in fact it's pathetic."

Israel had a right to defend itself, he said, but he was concerned about the "fragile democracy" in Lebanon.

That response was an admission his administration does not have a policy on the conflict. In fact it has not had a policy since the surprise election victory in January of Hamas in a poll that Washington had encouraged.

Snip...

At home, the Bush Administration is under scrutiny by Congress for its handling of the "war on terrorism" and prickly issues such as Guantanamo Bay, the secret CIA prisons where al-Qaeda suspects are taken to be interrogated, and the wire-tapping of Americans without court warrants.

more...

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/07/14/1152637872424.html

Bush on Middle East:

My attitude is this: There are a group of terrorists who want to stop the advance of peace. And those of -- who are peace-loving must work together to help the agents of peace -- Israel, President Abbas, and others -- to achieve their objective. You got to understand when peace advances, it's in the terrorists' interests in some cases to stop it. And that's what's happening."

We were headed toward the road map, things looked positive, and terrorists stepped up and kidnaped a soldier, fired rockets into Israel. Now we've got two more kidnapings up north. Hezbollah doesn't want there to be peace. The militant arm of Hamas doesn't want there to be peace. And those of us who do want peace will continue to work together to encourage peace.


http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/07/20060713-4.html

Bush on Hamas:

Analysis: Hamas victory a message for Bush

By Anne Gearan, AP Diplomatic Writer | January 26, 2006

WASHINGTON --After making democracy a defining marker for American foreign policy, President Bush got a jolting message from Palestinian voters: Be careful what you wish for.

The United States promoted the democratic Palestinian election that now has produced an upset victory for the militant Islamic group Hamas. The election could install an organization the United States considers terrorist in place of a Palestinian leadership that, while weak, was pledged to work with Israel and with Washington.

The administration is caught between Bush's clarion rhetoric about spreading liberty even in unlikely places and the reality that self-determination can yield results that appear counter to U.S. interests. That's a challenge the United States may have to confront someday in other places as well, including Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Central Asia, the Balkans and -- closer to home -- South America.

snip...

Bush seemed mindful of that, even as he could not disguise his irritation.

"It was an interesting day yesterday ... as we're watching liberty begin to spread across the Middle East," he said.

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/washington/articles/2006/01/26/analysis_hamas_victory_a_message_for_bush/?page=2

Bush administration on Syria:

FOXNEWS.COM HOME > POLITICSBush Calls for Syria to Leave LebanonThursday, March 03, 2005

WASHINGTON — U.S. officials are cautiously suggesting that the international community could provide peacekeepers in Lebanon (search) if they're needed to insure stability after a Syrian withdrawal, sources familiar with the debate said Wednesday.

The United States has taken the hard position that Syria (search) must withdraw its troops and security forces from Lebanon and permit the neighboring Arab nation to run its own political affairs for the first time in decades.

Snip...

Syria's ambassador warned that a quick withdrawal of his country's soldiers, could leave a power vacuum and rekindle the sectarian violence the Syrians surpressed.

U.S. officials don't trust Assad's promises and are anxious to see him comply with a longstanding U.N. resolution calling for Syria to withdraw from its neighbor's territory.

"We've seen words. What we want to see is action that moves in that direction. Syria needs to quit interfering in Lebanon. The Lebanese people are standing up, in the streets of Lebanon and saying we want to reclaim our sovereignty and independence, free from outside interference." said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. He added that not only must troops withdraw, the secret police must go as well and the nation must be permitted to run its own political affairs.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,149173,00.html

Sovereignty...hmmmm!

[whistle]

1. Why don't the other seven leaders just walk out on Bush

...what a total putz!

[gatorboy]

2. Bush keeps "My Pet Goat" handy for these types of situations... n/t

[Ian David]

3. THE Pet Goat... not MY Pet Goat. n/t

[Kagemusha]

4. I thought a pig was his escape hatch this time.

The Daily Show showed him saying something about a pig. Not that I know what it referred to.

[thereismore]

6. referred to his wild boar roast in Germany. All he could think about that

day, and the next, and the next. What a waste of food, air and water for a turd like him.

[gatorboy]

5. Such a stickler!

:P

[ProSense]

7. Letting Gaza Burn

Letting Gaza Burn

Chris Toensing
July 13, 2006

Snip...

This tiptoeing around the facts, while it sounds unusually absurd on this occasion, is in line with Bush (and Clinton) administration practice of long standing: Blame the Palestinians for starting the fight, exonerate Israel of any culpability, place the onus on the Palestinian leadership for Palestinian suffering at Israeli hands and hint at behind-the-scenes pressure on Israel to stand down. These last hints have grown steadily more delicate in the post-9/11 years. When the Bush administration decided that they, too, wanted to order missile strikes against Islamist militants on foreign soil, they stopped complaining about Israel’s extrajudicial executions in Gaza and the West Bank. When President George W. Bush called for Israel’s “immediate” withdrawal from reinvaded West Bank towns in April 2002, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice clarified that “now” did not mean “right away.” The withdrawal, she said, should be “orderly,” and not “helter-skelter.”

Still, decorum required the White House to insist that Israel not “remove” Yasser Arafat and, eventually, to prevail upon Israel to provisionally accept Bush’s “road map” to peace. In the name of that document, the State Department objected when Israel wanted to withdraw from Gaza without any coordination with the Palestinians, and Rice set about polishing her diplomatic rock-star image with an arduous parlay to open a Gazan border crossing that Israel kept closing even after withdrawing.

In the wake of the Hamas victory in January’s Palestinian elections, however, the daylight between U.S. and Israeli positions disappeared. That border crossing has been closed for nearly half of 2006, to the predictable detriment of Gazan exports and incomes. The U.S. discontinued financial aid to the Palestinian Authority, and stayed quiet as Israel withheld millions in customs revenue that belong to the Palestinians by treaty. So it seems superfluous to ask “Where is the U.S.?” as Gaza feels the squeeze.

Rather, the questions ought to be: Will the U.S. demand that Israel not unleash similar collective punishment on Lebanon? Meanwhile, how can Bush believe that the U.S. can help resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by unequivocally backing one side? And when will Americans demand that their presidents act as truly honest brokers?

more...

http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/07/13/letting_gaza_burn.php