Interesting dilemma for Bush, Rice and Bolton

[Ocotillo]

Christian Science Monitor (http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0803/dailyUpdate.html)

It seems while the leader of the northwestern African nation of Mauritania was attending King Fahd's funeral, there was a coup-de-etat in his nation.

The Mauritanian President was generally considered pro-American. He was considered in his nation a totalitarian. Perhaps his undoing came with his normalizing relations with Israel and his imprisoning a number of Islamic leaders in his country.

Here's the catch. The army has declared they will run the country for two years to give time to set up a democracy. At that time elections would be held and yada yada yada.

Mauritania is an Islamic nation. Many of the so called political prisoners may have connections to al-qaeda and may be released under a "pro-Islamic" democracy. The deposed president was considered and ally in the war on terror and likely figured into U.S. plans to train African militaries to combat terrorism. Finally, Mauritania sits on significant oil and gas reserves.

What does the Bush administration do? Applaud the new regimes claims of instilling democracy? Try to get Taya back in power some way? Nothing?

If you think nothing, might this inspire other countries ruled by pro-American despots (Pakistan, Egypt) to rise up and demand democracy that cedes to the will of the people even if the will of the people is decidedly anti-American.
I guess Karen Hughes is on this though.

[Vashner]

And what did Clinton do in Somalia? ran .. that's where Osama is anyway.
Relax we will get to them.. put them on the list. You can only run a Crusade against a couple countries at a time.

[Procrastinator]

This will blow over.

[exstatic]

Democracy is only good when it puts a Bush puppet into power. :rolleyes

[boutons]

Pakistan is one of our "allies" that is just as sucky as a "democracy" but much more critical to US interests than Mauratania. As bad a Mushareff is, who would be better? After he goes, Pakistan will probably go theocratic.

====================

washingtonpost.com

Gen. Musharraf 's Lies

Saturday, October 1, 2005; A16

PAKISTANI President Pervez Musharraf complains that his country is unfairly portrayed as a place where rape and other violence against women are rampant and frequently condoned. In fact, it deserves such a reputation. According to Pakistani human rights groups, thousands of attacks are reported every year, including gang rapes and "honor killings" of women who are accused of having affairs or who refuse an arranged marriage. Most of these attacks go unpunished. So retrograde are Pakistan's laws that there are more than 1,500 women in prison as a result of rapes -- they were prosecuted for adultery -- while arrests of men occur in only about 15 percent of reported cases.

Gen. Musharraf, too, deserves the reputation he is earning as a ruler who cares more about how he is perceived in the West than in implementing the policies he claims to espouse, or even in speaking the truth. The general, who seized power in a coup six years ago, has reneged on promises to retire from the army or restore democracy. He has not carried out the reform of Islamic religious schools that he promised in 2001. He has allowed the extremist Afghan Taliban movement to base itself in Pakistan's western provinces with virtual impunity. He has repeatedly insisted, almost certainly falsely, that Osama bin Laden is not in Pakistan. All the while he has gone on collecting hundreds of millions of dollars in aid each year from the Bush administration, which accepts his words and ignores most of his actions.

Gen. Musharraf claims to champion a "moderate Islam" that respects the rights of women. But when Mukhtar Mai, a victim of a gang rape whose attackers have not been punished, tried to visit the United States earlier this year, the president barred her from leaving the country. In an interview with The Post last month, he claimed that he had relented. But then he said this: "You must understand the environment in Pakistan. This has become a money-making concern. A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped." This statement was, as Pakistani activists and the Canadian government soon pointed out, an outrageous lie. There is only one known case of a rape victim moving to Canada, a doctor who was assaulted by a military officer. A far more common outcome for rape victims is to be ostracized by their communities or jailed.

When Gen. Musharraf's statement provoked an uproar, he responded with another lie: He claimed that he had never made it. In fact, a recording of him speaking is available on The Post's Web site, washingtonpost.com. His words are quite clear. "These are not my words, and I would go to the extent of saying I am not so silly and stupid to make comments of this sort," the general said. Well, yes, he is.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

============================================

The entire Wolfowitz/Perle/Whott crap fantasy that the USA can "transform" these Muslim countries into "Repub" "democracy" is an extremely low percentage play in the short term, and not much better in the long-term. The Iraq war has radicalized potentially moderate/on-the-fence Muslims the world over.

And the carnage continues today in Bali, with multiple, simultaneous bombs.

Wolfowitz has abandoned the war he started. We ought to be able to put a "stop loss" order all the bogus-war-starting motherfuckers to make clean up the mess they started, and then get tatooed with responsibility for the mess. fuckers.


October 1, 2005


A Wolfie in Sheep's Clothing

By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

Paul Wolfowitz is having fun.

"It's fun to have the chance to be a retail politician again," he told Andrew Balls of The Financial Times on a recent trip to India. It was an economic odyssey designed to warm up his image by tipping off the press to record his shirt-sleeve visit to a slum and his street dancing with children in Andhra Pradesh.

When the reporter noted that Mr. Wolfowitz's role as No. 2 at the Pentagon must seem distant, he agreed, saying, "Yes, it does seem like a long time ago."

A lot has changed for this architect of the Iraq war since he left the scene of the accident. Following the lead of that other wooly-headed war theoretician, Robert McNamara, Wolfie scuttled to the World Bank, where he changed the subject from bollixing up Iraq to fixing up Africa.

Unlike the Powell maxim "If you break it, you own it," the Wolfowitz philosophy is "If you break it, walk away from it."

Where on earth are those who egged on the Iraq civil war? The neoconservatives have moved on to debates about China and Iran. Richard Perle has dropped out of sight, except to pop up, as he did at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's annual meeting in May, to urge a military raid on Iran if it's "on the verge of a nuclear weapon."

The president and his generals are still offering gauzy assessments of our fight against an insurgency that grows ever more vicious, and dishing out loopy justifications for the war.

Before Mr. Bush was dragged out of Crawford this summer, he was making the case that we had to keep killing in Iraq to honor troops killed there. This week, Gen. Richard Myers offered more circular logic, warning that a U.S. defeat would invite another 9/11. The Bush administration used 9/11 as a pretext for invading Iraq and now says it can't leave for fear of spurring another 9/11.

Wolfie and fellow hawks turned Iraq into a harbor for Al Qaeda with an invasion they justified by falsely calling Iraq a harbor for Al Qaeda. General Myers said that America couldn't leave and allow Al Qaeda to dominate Iraq because "then in my view we would have lost, and the next 9/11 would be right around the corner, absolutely."

Here's the weirdest perversion: First Rummy, as President Reagan's Mideast envoy, was photographed with Saddam, supporting him in the war against Iran. Then Rummy and other hawks rushed the U.S. into war against Saddam and ended up turning Iraq over to Shiites intertwined with Iran. And now Richard Perle thinks we might have to bomb Iran.

The president spent years saying that Al Qaeda was on the run, and Rummy spent years saying we just had to finish off a few Saddam "dead enders." But four years after Mr. Bush promised to get "the people who knocked these buildings down," they are finally talking about Al Qaeda as a threat again.

Perhaps they have no choice, now that Al Qaeda has supposedly started its own weekly newscast on the Internet, "The Voice of the Caliphate," with an anchorman wearing a ski mask and an ammunition belt, and props like a Koran and a rifle pointed at the camera. Its top story was joy over Katrina damage.

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Thursday, Gen. John Abizaid called Al Qaeda "the main threat we face" in Iraq, citing its 400 suicide bombers deployed worldwide. So, when W. says if we fight them there we won't have to fight them here, that's just nutty.

Though the Bushie gang has maintained that it would be hard for Al Qaeda to operate on the run, General Abizaid noted that the group is "empowered by modern communications, expertly using the virtual world for planning, recruiting, fund-raising, indoctrination and exploiting the mass media" to break the U.S. will and try to form a haven in Iraq.

Al Qaeda is exploiting tribal tensions intensified by the bungled U.S. occupation. Mr. Wolfowitz's assumption that America could conquer Baghdad and install the Shiites at the expense of the Sunnis, with bouquets thrown, in a religious war that has been going on for centuries, was naïve and dangerous.

The rest of us may be glued to the gruesome pileup of bodies in Iraq, but Wolfie has moved on. He told The Financial Times that he still thought the U.S. and the British did "the right thing" for "the right reasons," and "hopefully, it's going to turn out the right way."

He said that wherever he travels, from Burkina Faso to Bosnia, Iraq rarely comes up. How fortunate for him.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Hook Dem]

Democracy is only good when it puts a Bush puppet into power. :rolleyes
Your comment was predictable!

[exstatic]

Pakistan is Iraq from 20 years ago: a despot eager for our goodwill surrounded by Islamic extremists. There will be pics taken of some new "Rumsfeld" shaking Musharreff's hand, and they'll be publicized when we invade because he's suddenly turned into a "bad guy": translate - he's no longer co-operating.

[Hook Dem]

Pakistan is Iraq from 20 years ago: a despot eager for our goodwill surrounded by Islamic extremists. There will be pics taken of some new Rumsfled shaking Musharrref's hand, and they'll be publicized when we invade because he's suddenly turned into a "bad guy": translate - he's no longer co-operating.
you have a crystal ball Ex?

[boutons]

"Your comment was predictable!"

your non-comment was predictable

[exstatic]

you have a crystal ball Ex?

Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

[Hook Dem]

"Your comment was predictable!"

your non-comment was predictable
:lol