The counterproductive Nancy Pelosi.
President Bush has attacked Nancy Pelosi's visit to Syria by saying, "Sending delegations doesn't work. It's simply been counterproductive."
Counterproductive to what? What has Bush been constructing during his period of non-dialogue with vast swathes of the planet? His philosophy was the same one that saw lovely North Korea acquire a nuclear bomb.
Of course, dialogue with Syria and Iran was exactly what the Baker Report suggested that Bush should be doing. But, buoyed by the success of his Iraq strategy, Bush decided to ignore this bipartisan panel and continue with his policy of ignoring everyone which has resulted in.... Well, actually, so far, it's only resulted in North Korea acquiring a nuclear bomb, but he's only being pursuing it for six years, so I suppose it has to be given time to work.
The Syrians have welcomed Pelosi's intervention, which will obviously be seen as further proof on the right that Bush is correct and Pelosi wrong. This is no doubt some kind of appeasement on the part of Pelosi in their eyes. After all what could one hope to obtain through dialogue?
I mean, it's not as if Reagan ran off to Reykjavik to meet with Gorbachev is it? No, he was a true Republican, he understood that evil couldn't be reasoned with.
Dialogue? Pfft. Next you'll be saying that a Republican hero like Nixon went to China.
What do these weak, weak Democrats hope to gain by simply talking?Syria's Foreign Minister, Walid al-Moallem, said: "These people in the United States who are opposing dialogue I tell them one thing: Dialogue is... the only method to close the gap existing between two countries. Everyone knows there are different points of view between Syria and the US. We are happy Mrs Pelosi and her delegation had the courage and determination to bridge these differences."
No, no, it's not the only method. In fact according to some Republicans it's not even the best method. The best method by far is bombing and invasion. That produces a closeness that's second to none. Listen to Mike Pence describe the heartfelt thanks Iraqi's showed as he and Senator McCain enjoyed their leisurely stroll through Baghdad earlier this week accompanied, as one always likes to be in friendly open markets, by 100 soldiers in armoured Humvees whilst attack helicopters circled overhead.Rep. Mike Pence was so impressed by the visit, though, he compared Shorja to a summer market in his home state of Indiaina: "One gentleman tried to refuse our money when we were purchasing rugs - he kept touching his heart - said thank you, no, no - I was deeply moved."
Don't you see? Such voluntary acts of generosity could only come from a nation that one had bombed and invaded, one could never hope for such a "Can You Feel The Love Tonight?" moment to become possible through mere dialogue.
Of course the minute Pence's back was turned the Iraqi changed his tune:
Ahmed al Krudi: "I didn't accept the money. I said to myself, they must be guests, so I must give them a good impression of Iraqis. After all, we are occupied by these Americans, and they are accompanied by a lot of U.S. security."Of course, that's probably just another example of how Liberal the American media is, twisting the poor man's language. There are probably lots of different ways to translate, "We are not against the resistance. We are with them."Al Krudi says he is angry at the insurgents who bombed the market in February, killing dozens, but he doesn't like the American presence here either:
We are not against the resistance. We are with them. However, the resistance must fight the occupiers, not the Iraqi people. A huge number of U.S. forces came yesterday. Why didn't they shoot at them, instead of harming us?
The long, tall and short of it is President Bush has stated that Nancy Pelosi is being "counterproductive", trying to talk to people that we should be bombing if we really want to start being productive instead of counterproductive.
I mean, Gaddafi didn't give up his weapons programmes just because we offered him dialogue, did he?
Did he?
2 comments:
I am curious to know about the rug. Did he pay the rug finally ? There is definitely a deep cultural misunderstanding here. These merchants might be eager to sell these days. We can't say that business is booming in Baghdad markets. The gesture of the merchant means simpply procedural politness, that there is much more to the transaction than money, but does not mean that he didn't want the money. And I am schocked by the fact that the US congressman was moved, he didn,t try to understand that the man selling him the rug might need this money. These US lawmakers are really idiots...
I read in the NYT over the week end also that Baghdad is hinting at tourism. I am not kidding, there was a whole article. In fact US newspapers and the NYT is number one in that excercice, tune themsleves to whatever is in the head of their Politicians...
I think he gave him something like $5 for three rugs, but don't hold me to that, I'm doing that from memory.
He certainly didn't understand that the fact that he was surrounded by an astonishing amount of security had exerted any pressure on the guy.
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