Saturday, March 06, 2004
So, George Is a Leader, Now, Huh? Go Figure...
AP: Peacekeeping Efforts Forge Ahead in Haiti0 comments
AP: Hans Blix: Tony Blair Lacked 'Critical Thinking'
AP: U.S. Says al-Qaida May Be Looking to Africa
These stories go to the heart of the problem George W. Bush's campaign faces by rooting itself in his "leadership" abilities in a troubled world.
Blix told The Guardian newspaper that he was not accusing Blair of acting in bad faith, but said that the prime minister relied heavily on intelligence reports about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.
"What I am saying is that there was a lack of critical thinking,'' Blix told the newspaper from his home in Stockholm, Sweden.
Blair, the closest ally of President Bush in the Iraq conflict, cited Saddam's pursuit of banned weapons as the main justification for taking Britain to war. No such weapons have been found so far.
Blix said U.N. inspectors ought to have been allowed to continue their work for suspected weapons programs, which could have led to a more accurate analysis of the intelligence being received by Britain and the United States.
"Gradually (the British and U.S. governments) ought to have realized there was nothing,'' he said. "Gradually they would have found that the defectors' information was not reliable.''
Hans Blix is a very kind man. He could have come right out and stated flatly that Tony Blair was a lightweight and a moron. He even holds out hope (fruitless, I feel) that the Bush administration would have listened to any proof that contradicted their closely held aims.
What Blix is actually saying here is that while the Bushies happily used the deceptions of Iraqi defectors for their own advantage—which may well be evil at its core—at least there is a purity of purpose about that. They knew it was rot, but it was getting them what they wanted. It was their strory and they were sticking to it. Blix ends up saying that the Blairs at 10 Downing St., however, ACTUALLY BELIEVED that rot, which is inutterably sad. "A lack of critical thinking,'' indeed.
About 3,000 [Haitian] protesters marched in front of the American and French embassies Friday, shouting insults at U.S. Marines in the first massive protest since Aristide fled to Africa on Sunday.
"Up with Aristide! Down with Bush!'' the protesters shouted as U.S. troops watched impassively.
Some promised to mimic the violence that has plagued the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq.
"If it comes to that, we will confront the U.S. Marines,'' 35-year-old demonstrator Pierre Paul said.
Rebel leader Guy Philippe said later Friday he was gathering signatures for a petition to re-establish the country's army, blamed for much of the country's past brutality before being disbanded by Aristide in 1995.
In an earlier post, I alluded to our incipient need for a Paul Bremmer-type to oversee the madness we have unleashed in Haiti. This is because the U.S. is slowly being forced to explain to the world why it didn't support a newly emerging democracy right on its doorstep. Why would the Bush administration not help a small, brutally poor neighbor—with a long history of using mass murder to solve political questions—struggle through its rites of passage to democracy, with a population wholely unknowledgeable about how democracy works.
If you go back through all of the news accounts since the beginning of the Haitian uprising of the last few weeks, you will find no accounting of the administration's case against Jean Claude-Aristide. The last time the American people heard about Haiti and/or Jean Claude-Aristide, U.S. troops were reinstating him to his rightfully elected seat of office after the island army's thugs and murderers overthrew him in the early 1990s.
Since there have been no press reports here about Haiti for years, what has the problem been? When did it become a problem? For how long has it been a problem? What was the United States, through the Bush administration, doing to help alleviate the causes of the problem or to solve the problem itself? What changed (besides U.S. administrations and ideologies) to cause the power of the United States to suddenly back convicted felons who called themselves rebels against a democratically elected foreign leader?
There were no attempts on the part of this administration to come to the world community to say there is a problem that needs addressing. So far, the full breadth of response that the administration has attempted to date is Scott McClellan's chirpy, "He brought it on himself."
What exactly does that mean?
Go ahead, then, Mr. President. Make your case for your actions (or more to the point, inactions) in Haiti.
Or were you just too pre-occupied with your re-election and your plummenting poll numbers to pay any attention to what your advisors for this hemisphere [Read: Roger F. Noriega, the assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, and a long-time Aristide hater] were cooking up for you while you were out raising millions of dollars for ads saying what a great leader you are.
Meanwhile, on the terrorist front, you've got the U.S. Army's European Command and its states-centered Central Command in a turf squabble over who should be calling the shots in the African theater, with the right-wing loonies in the Heritage Foundation riding the Central horse hard. Everyone wants to run things and be able to puff his/her chest out, but no one seems too clear on what actually is needed to make the world a safer place.
[Air Force Gen. Charles] Wald said [from Stuttgart that] some terrorists had been sent to Iraq from North Africa, and there were indications that al-Qaida has established a presence and tried to recruit in North Africa over the past two years.
Mauritania and Nigeria are among West African nations alleged by some Western think tanks [i.e., the Heritage Foundation] to have al-Qaida cells and top al-Qaida figures came from Mauritania. The country's government has cracked down on Muslim extremism and tried to stop recruiting of fighters for Saddam Hussein's cause in Iraq.
"They're there for a purpose, whether it's looking for real-estate, or recruiting or looking for arms, whatever it is, we know there's a presence,'' Wald said. "It may be small but it's a bad indicator.''
Africa is an ideal location, with its remote deserts and jungles and centuries-old Arab-African Saharan trade route. Governments are weak and poorly paid authorities are easily bribed. Communications are slow and in some places don't exist.
It's comforting to know that these military folks are on this case. But, I dearly wish someone in the State or Defense Depts. would rein these guys in just a tad. Bush's ham-handed speeches have caused enough trouble for the U.S.'s reputation around the world. We really didn't need this:
"Some people compare it to draining a swamp,'' Wald told The Associated Press, eyeing a map of Africa in his office in Stuttgart. "We need to drain the swamp.''
In the world of international relations, subtle nuance in wording is paramount. That the approach of this administration is indelicate would be the kindest assessment possible of its feeble attempts at diplomacy. That its bent for imprecise language has spread to the spokespeople for Pax Americana around the world is truly disturbing.
That ol' rugged, straight-talking, individualist approach to world affairs is what this administration likes best. We've become the Jeremiah Johnson of the world stage—the rugged individualist who needs no one else, but who can clean up all the troubles if dragged forcibly off of the mountain.
However, just like others who have removed themselves to remote positions, away from the rest of society, often far away from forms of personal hygiene, their whole position is starting to smell to high heaven.
posted by Gotham 5:45 PM
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