Pot To Kettle: You're Black!

President Bush is in the Middle East to press Arab leaders to moderate their cultures: create economic reforms, increase opportunities for women, and embrace democracy.

Yea. Um. Hullo?:

SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — After a showy celebration of America’s close ties with Israel, President Bush was expected to present Arab leaders with a lengthy to-do list on Sunday, telling them that if Middle East peace is to become a reality, they must expand their economies, offer equal opportunity to women and embrace democracy.

Mr. Bush’s three-day stay in Jerusalem last week has drawn criticism from Arab leaders, including the foreign minister of Saudi Arabia, who say he has been insensitive to the plight of Palestinians. He came to this Red Sea resort city to try to soften that impression and reassure regional leaders he is committed to their cause.

But in prepared remarks released ahead of a Sunday afternoon appearance at the World Economic Forum on the Middle East, a gathering of world leaders, diplomats and business executives, Mr. Bush seemed to chide as much as reassure.

“Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail,” Mr. Bush said in the address, adding, “The time has come for nations across the Middle East to abandon these practices, and treat their people with the dignity and respect they deserve.”

Now, granted, neither Barack Obama nor Hillary Clinton is in any danger of being thrown in the hoosegow...altho the Rezko trial ain't over yet...but to say others must embrace democracy as we erode it away is a little like starting a land war in South Asia: idiotic.

The liberties we've given up, quietly, with little fanfare, are astounding. You can't travel anyplace out of the country without first being vetted. You can't open a bank account without proving every detail about your life, right down to your utility bill. You can't rent a movie or borrow a book from a library without some flunky at the DHS glancing at your activity.

You can't make a telephone call, cell or landline, without popping up on a list and god help you if that call is to a Muslim nation!

This is a democracy only in form and even there, with the imminent threat of stolen elections dangling over our heads, perhaps "name only" is a better way of putting it!

Similarly, "economic reforms" for Arab countries is code for "share the wealth". Emirs and sheiks control the lion's share of revenues flowing into nations from Saudi Arabia to Qatar.

For America, which now sees the largest single inequity in personal income since at least the Great Depression, to chide any other nation about its income structure is absurd, particularly as we worked hard these past seven years to institute a formal recognition that, indeed, the rich really DO get richer, off the backs of the working classes in this nation who create that wealth.

You know... Clinton voters.

A true acknowledgment of this terrible situation would see Hillary Clinton as the Democratic nominee, sweeping to election in November. Clearly, the middle classes are terrified of this. After all, the middle class relies deeply on the rich to create the cushy middle management jobs upon which they rely on to work without getting their hands calloused and dirty. We survive and subsist on the scraps of the rich, but those scraps are just big enough to keep us complacent.

Nevermind that job security and company loyalty no longer work both ways.

And yes, let's focus on Bush's other point for a second: women.

It's great to see a woman actually contend for the highest office in the land and arguably the most powerful job in the world.

It's highly symbolic, at the same breath. Look at how many Obombers and McCainistas claim she got there by dint of her husband.

Neither Obama nor McCain has exactly made it on their own either. Cindy McCain was independently wealthy, freeing John to be a politico, and Michelle Obama appears to have a fair amount of money in her own right, seeing as all these shady real estate deals were done in her name only.

That would be an interesting sidelight to an Obama administration: can the First Lady be imprisoned?

And it is this perception, that a woman somehow need a magical "leg up" while men do not, despite the fact that the old boy's network has been up and running for hundreds of years in America, must change. It is this segregated thinking that marginalizes women...and yes, minorities, too. And while it's not as pervasive as blatant discrimination can be, it is nonetheless insidious and affective.

So, Dumbya? Clean your own house first before you go around talking about the trash in other people's kitchens.

It's Sad To See What Our Government Has Been Reduced To...

How does a President deal with sky high oil prices?

A leader might bully a little the people who are holding back, if he felt they were doing it to pump up their profits. He might threaten or cajole them to pump out a bit more to help ease the strain.

A leader might recognize that this is a permanent, serious problem, and begin (even if a bit late) to try to correct our dependency on that oil.

A leader might make demands that both producers AND consumers work together to bring the price down until we can manage to absorb the increases.

A leader would never beg:

"I would hope, as OPEC considers different production levels, that they understand that if ... one of their biggest consumers' economy suffers, it will mean less purchases, less gas and oil sold," Bush said.

"Please sir, may I have some...more?"

That's our energy policy? Sheesh!

Why You Need To Give A Shi'ite

Two stories, seemingly only tangentially related, share something in common:

GAZA (Reuters) - Hamas Islamist gunmen pressed on with their Gaza offensive on Wednesday, killing eight fighters loyal to Western-backed President Mahmoud Abbas in a Palestinian supremacy struggle escalating steadily into civil war.

"What is happening in Gaza is madness," Abbas, the Fatah leader, told reporters in the occupied West Bank after meeting a foreign diplomat.

...and...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Suspected al Qaeda militants blew up two minarets of a revered Shi'ite mosque in the Iraqi city of Samarra on Wednesday, targeting a shrine bombed last year in an attack that unleashed a wave of sectarian killing.

Fearing renewed bloodshed, Iraq's government imposed an indefinite curfew in Baghdad as Shi'ite and Sunni political and religious leaders called on their followers to remain calm.

A grim mood descended on the capital as people hurried home before the start of the curfew. Police said gunmen set fire to a Sunni mosque in Baghdad's southwestern Bayaa district.

The internal struggle in Gaza (Palestinian) and the internal conflict in Iraq are both pitting Sunni versus Shia. Hamas is Sunni. Abbas, and by extension, Fatah (which despite being led by terrorists in its own right, is considered moderate) is also Sunni, but is more tolerant of Shi'a, having been educated mostly in Syria and Egypt with large Shi'a and Sufi populations.

And of course, the Iraqi attacks yesterday hearken back to a year ago, when another mosque in Samarra, the Al Askari mosque, was devastated by Sunni attackers, setting off the sectarian violence of the past year.

We here in America have long been focused on the internal conflict between Sunni and Shi'a in Iraq (the Kurds have been fortunately content to sit and wait it all out), but the trouble in Gaza, as well as last year's siege by Israel of Lebanon, speak of a broadening of this internal religious struggle into a full-blown regional war.

Good for the US? Maybe, but probably not. Remember, we still have Israel to protect for its strategic value as a toehold in the Middle East (especially now that Iraq is disintegrating before our eyes), Saudi Arabia would undoubtedly be called upon to reinforce the Sunni side, being very strict Sunni Wahabists. Iran would then be forced to shore up the Shi'a forces, putting Iran in conflict with Saudi Arabia, effectively cutting off Middle Eastern oil to the west by closing down the Persian Gulf.

Hm. Not good. We would at the very least be called into to keep the combatants apart, and more likely, take on Iran directly as proxy for the Sauds.

Really not good.

A year ago, I might have suggested that cooler heads will prevail, but with the cracked and broken US Army in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the failure of the Army to meet already pretty liberal recruiting goals even before Gates implements his increase in the size of the army, we're pretty fresh out of manpower to fight Iran, and Iran knows this. We might still be able to stem the tide diplomatically.

If we actually had an administration that had a diplomat available.

The Problem With Crowing About Something...

...is sometimes, you have to eat yourself:

RIYADH (Reuters) - The death toll in a militant attack on French tourists in Saudi Arabia rose to four on Tuesday after a French teenager died from bullet wounds, a hospital doctor said on Tuesday.

The boy's father was among three French expatriates working in Saudi Arabia, the world's biggest oil exporter, who were shot dead during a desert trip on Monday in what appeared to be the first attack by suspected al Qaeda militants on foreigners in three years.

An acquaintance who did not want to be named said the men were machine gunned down in front of the women and children, confirming a report from a security source[...]

They were part of a group of nine French nationals living in Riyadh who had been visiting historic sites and camping in the desert in the scenic western region of the vast desert country.

Islamic militants swearing allegiance to al Qaeda launched a violent campaign to topple the U.S.-allied Saudi monarchy in 2003, with suicide bomb attacks on foreigners and government installations, including the oil industry.

So, Al Qaeda pops its ugly head up in Saudi Arabia after all these drinks. Where else?

KABUL (Reuters) - A Taliban suicide bomber killed up to 12 people at the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday in an attack the rebels said was aimed at Dick Cheney, but the visiting U.S. vice president was not hurt.

An American and South Korea soldier were killed, as well as a U.S. government contractor whose nationality was unknown, NATO and Korean officials said. NATO said 27 people were wounded.

A Reuters photographer at the scene at Bagram Airbase, 60 km (40 miles) north of Kabul, saw eight bodies in addition to NATO's tally of four dead, putting the toll at 12.

Oops! OK, not Al Qaeda, but an incredible facsimile! These were the guys we were supposed to be getting six years ago, right?

Eh....not so much...

ISLAMABAD, Feb 27 (Reuters) - Britain does not foresee any chance of dialogue with Taliban leaders running an insurgency in Afghanistan, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett said in Pakistan on Tuesday.

Beckett said she had no inclination to talk to Taliban commanders whose expressed goals were to kill British troops stationed in Afghanistan.

But, she added that talks with former Taliban or sympathisers who were no longer active might be a possibility in the future.

Because, you know, there's been this "spring offensive" in the works since November...

Six years after the declaration of victory in Afghanistan the British government announced the dispatch of 1,400 extra troops yesterday in readiness for an escalation of the violence sweeping the country.

The sending of the troops, along with aircraft, armoured vehicles and artillery, will raise the total force there to 7,700 making it bigger than the one now deployed in Iraq.

...which, if you only watched US network news, you would only have heard about either this weekend, when Dick Cheney finally raised his helmeted head out of his playpen secure bunker to announce with grave alarm:

US Vice President Dick Cheney today sought Pakistan’s help in countering al-Qaida’s efforts to regroup in its remote border region.

He warned that Taliban militants are planning a “spring offensive” in neighbouring Afghanistan, the Pakistani president’s office said.

Now, if you really wanted to flush out the Taliban AND Al Qaeda, wouldn't you go to where the money came from?

No, not Saudi Arabia: Pakistan:

experts say that Pakistan’s military and Interservices Intelligence (ISI) both include personnel who sympathize with—or even assist—Islamist militants. ISI has provided covert but well-documented support to terrorist groups active in Kashmir, including the al-Qaeda affiliate Jaish-e-Mohammed, which investigators linked to the December 2001 attack on the Indian parliament and the February 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.

*Ahem* But we've made our bed and now must sleep in it. I swear, Musharraf has done such a bang up job of misleading the Bush administration, I'm surprised he hasn't tried to sell them on the idea of a pipeline through his country to the India! For natural gas!

Um. Oops.

So we have terror attacks against Westerners in Saudi Arabia resuming, a Taliban offensive in Afghanistan, assisted by Pakistan's ISI, forming up, and possible Al Qaeda cyberattacks on our banking and other financial institutions.

In effect, they've taken six years to regroup, reform and re-energize the network. Add to that the growing threat of non-Al Qaeda terrorism, and the fact that every year since we've attacked Iraq has seen more deaths from more terrorist attacks in more countries than the previous year.

All while Al Qaeda lay dormant. While some of our *koffkoff* finest minds have said Al Qaeda is on the run...

And Bush thought 2006 was a bad year for him! I expect he'll be crying for his mommy by September.

snarkasm, snarcasm, snarky

Bush
Iraq
Afghanistan
Pakistan
Al Qaeda
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