If Osama Bin Ladin said after 9/11 "The Trumpet of resistance has sounded and it never sounds defeat." wouldn't that piss you off coming from a sworn enemy at a time they've made a huge strike against us even though you might recognize that many in the world think the US interfere's too much?
You won't defend Chavez and Aristide? They were both democraticially elected leaders and the policy of the Bush Administration is to spread democracy. Right. When some of us say we support democratic reform we really mean it. It's not just cynical posturing to support the foriegn policy initiative currently in play.
i was referring to how the protest was characterized in the article. in any case, i only see one woman in that shot, compared to the plethora of pulchritude on display in the anti-syria protests.
looks like an average chick in a tight shirt to me.... also, there are a dozen guys in the picture that appear to be checking out that azz
I'd hit that.... Arab satellite TV is spreading the message of democracy with the examples provided by Palestine and Iraq. I guess it could be likened to the civil rights movement or Vietnam coverage. It's nice to know that TV is still good for something other than rotting the mind...
even the NYTimes is beginning to see the light, and they particularly note GWB's restraint. seems Sishir Chang, glynch, and Osama are the only ones who feel Bush has been triumphalist. http://nytimes.com/2005/03/09/inter...&en=e7de1b857c9d8e80&ei=5094&partner=homepage -- By TODD S. PURDUM March 9, 2005 WASHINGTON, March 8 - He has gone out of his way not to crow, or even to take direct credit. But not quite two years after he began the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and not quite two months after a second Inaugural Address in which he spoke of "ending tyranny," President Bush seems entitled to claim as he did on Tuesday that a "thaw has begun" in the broader Middle East. At the very least, Mr. Bush is feeling the glow of the recent flurry of impulses toward democracy in Iraq, the Palestinian territories, Lebanon and even Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where events have put him on a bit of a roll and some of his sharpest critics on the defensive. It now seems just possible that Mr. Bush and aides like Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz were not wrong to argue that the "status quo of despotism cannot be ignored or appeased, kept in a box or cut off," as the president put it in a speech at the National Defense University here. The failure to find unconventional weapons in Iraq, his administration's shifting rationales for the war, the lingering insurgency and steady American casualties there were a drag on Mr. Bush's political fortunes for most of last year. But a wave of developments since the better-than-expected Iraqi elections in January - some perhaps related and others probably not - have brought Mr. Bush a measure of vindication, which may or may not be sustained by events and his own actions in the months to come. "By now it should be clear that decades of excusing and accommodating tyranny in the pursuit of stability have only led to injustice and instability and tragedy," Mr. Bush said on Tuesday. "It should be clear that the advance of democracy leads to peace, because governments that respect the rights of their people also respect the rights of their neighbors." His two predecessors in the Oval Office, his father and Bill Clinton, both spoke of the latest signs of progress in an appearance at the White House. The first President Bush was restrained, pronouncing himself "very pleased," but cautioning that much work remained to be done. Mr. Clinton was more ebullient, noting that the Iraqi elections "went better than anyone could have imagined." In Lebanon, he said, "the Syrians are going to have to get out of there and give the Lebanese their country back, and I think the fact that the Lebanese are in the street demanding it is wonderful." Asked about huge demonstrations on Tuesday, sponsored by Hezbollah, that demanded just the opposite, Mr. Clinton said: "I find it inconceivable that most Lebanese wouldn't like it if they had their country back. You know, they want their country back and they ought to get it." For his part, Mr. Bush himself again acknowledged that building democracy in the Middle East will require a "generational commitment." One senior White House aide, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to overshadow his boss, acknowledged as much. "Obviously, the acts of courage we've seen in Iraq, Afghanistan, the demonstrations that happened in the Ukraine and now in Lebanon, these are very inspiring developments that have obviously caught the notice of the president," he said. "But this is very complicated stuff, and there are a lot of turns left on this journey, and the president at every step of the way has always cautioned it's going to be a difficult road." Still, even as sharp and consistent a critic of Mr. Bush's foreign policy as Senator Edward M. Kennedy, the Massachusetts Democrat, gives Mr. Bush some credit for the latest stirrings of liberty along the eastern Mediterranean. "What's taken place in a number of those countries is enormously constructive," Mr. Kennedy said on Sunday on the ABC News program "This Week." "It's a reflection the president has been involved." Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, Democrat of Connecticut and a frequent ally of Mr. Bush on national security affairs, was in the audience for his speech on Tuesday and was more effusive. "Look, this moment in the Middle East has the feel of Central and Eastern Europe around the collapse of the Berlin Wall," he said in a telephone interview. "It's a very different historical and political context, and we all understand that democracy in the Middle East is in its infancy. But something is happening." Mr. Lieberman said Mr. Bush deserved credit for at least two things: the overthrow of Saddam Hussein and the continued American military presence in Iraq, which he said showed "the proven willingness of the United States to put its power behind its principles." Indeed, Mr. Bush cast the United States' current posture in a long, bipartisan tradition of American foreign policy, from Woodrow Wilson's Fourteen Points to Franklin D. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, Harry S. Truman's Marshall Plan and Ronald Reagan's unwillingness to accept Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe. Mr. Bush's sharp demand on Tuesday that "all Syrian military forces and intelligence personnel must withdraw" from Lebanon before the scheduled elections there in May, if the elections themselves are to be viewed as fair, was a sign that he has every intention of pressing what he sees as his advantage in the region and in the court of world opinion - whether he describes it that way in public or not. Still, there are real and practical dangers in the passions recently unleashed in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia's recent limited municipal elections and President Hosni Mubarak's announcement that he will permit multiparty presidential elections in Egypt this fall are indisputably encouraging to would-be reformers here and there. But full and genuine democratic elections in either country might well result in strongly anti-American governments.
Yes I've noticed how many post Osama's been making on the BBS lately and I'm really getting sick of his Francis bashing.
an even le monde offers grudging respect to monsieur boosh... http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3208,36-400795,0.html -- Mais ce "printemps arabe", selon l'expression des médias américains, doit être encouragé et au besoin défendu par tous ceux qui voient dans le respect des droits de l'homme une valeur universelle. Le mérite de George W. Bush est d'avoir tenu ce discours dès le lendemain des attentats du 11-Septembre - mis à part quelques écarts de langage sur "la nouvelle croisade". Il a développé l'idée que les peuples musulmans avaient le droit à la liberté, à la démocratie, à la prospérité. Il ne l'a pas fait seulement par altruisme mais parce qu'il est convaincu qu'une telle évolution correspond aux intérêts de sécurité des Etats-Unis. But this "Arab Spring", per the expression of the American media, must be encouraged and if needed defended by all those who see respect for human rights as a universal value. The merit of George Bush is to have held firm to his discourse from the day after 9/11--apart from some unfortunate language about "the new crusade." He developed the idea that the Muslim peoples have the right to freedom, to democracy, to prosperity. He didn't do this only out of altruism but because he is convinced that such evolution corresponds to the security interests of the United States.
Basso; I do find it interesting that you and other posters went out of the way to discredit many of the sources you are citing now when they disagreed with you yet are parading them now. I will give GW Bush and his speech writers credit for carefully parsing their speeches. This has been a mark of excellent speech writing and oratory which GW Bush has previously not done. My warnings have been more precautionary but I do think we're towing a very delicate line.
uhm, that's kinda the point of the whole thread. even bush's critics are starting to give him some credit.
I think it is a little too early to be giving out credit unless we are giving out credit for partial trends. The crisis in Lebanon isn't over yet. Nothing accept for some psoitive words have come out of Egypt. And in Saudi Arabia some cosmetic gestures towards democracy are the sum total of the effort. Those are all positives, and Bush deserves some credit in that trend for seeing the elections in Iraq through. But premature victory celebrations shouldn't become a habit for this administration. I remember what happened the last time they proclaimed 'mission accomplished.'
How much Mr Bush is responsible for these development is debatable. The peaceful uprising in Lebanon was provoked by outrage at the assassination of the former prime minister Rafik Hariri, in which a Syrian hand is suspected, although not proven. Then the man who insisted on elections in Iraq when the US wanted to postpone or dilute them was Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani, leader of Iraq's majority Shia community. And the death from old age of Yasser Arafat, not machinations in Washington, led to the election that might break the Israeli-Palestinian deadlock. If Bush ordered the deaths of Arafat and Rafik Hariri, he deserves credit for the democratic movements that those deaths spawned. That would also toss a few more international war crimes onto his growing heap, but wtf.
You are truly naive. The WH message is that GWB is crowing-while-not-really-crowing. In Lebanon, GWB had strong words for Syria only after Syria committed to removing/reducing troups. The WH then waits a couple of days and takes indirect credit for the deomcratic movement in Lebanon. Political grandstanding happens.
