Bart,
I would imagine that when Bush heard the news
report about Russia having bombed Georgia, he immediately
sent his homeland security forces to Atlanta.
Ha ha. But it isn’t funny anymore. Ari Fleischer told the Russians:
"The United States regrets this loss of life
and deplores the [Russian] violation of Georgia's sovereignty." Ha ha.
The Russians made a pre-emptive strike against
Georgia.
How is that different from us bombing Iraq?
How can we criticize India for doing a pre-emptive
against Pakistan?
How can we criticize Palestine for doing a pre-emptive
against Israel?
I voted for the smart one, but we got the imbecile
instead. The problem is that the rest of the world knows
that our emperor has no clothes. And they know
that we cannot fight a war against Iraq on our own.
We cannot fight in Afghanistan and the Philippines
and Iraq at the same time. Our enemies know this.
Our friends, who Bush is thumbing his nose at,
all know this. It is in their best interest to join forces
with each other as Russia is doing with Iraq
and North Korea.
Prior to September 11 Bush did the following:
1) he pushed for a sky-shield for the USA (against the wishes of our allies/friends)
2) he decided he was going to "unsign" parts of our ABM treaty (a treaty used to be a "Promise")
3) he boycotted the Kyoto conference on Global Warming (after 150 other countries signed it)
4) he withdrew from the conference on Racism in Africa (because someone at the conference called Israel a racist country)
5) he sent a spy plane full of classified information
and training manuals to an airport in China. That classified information
should have never been on that plane (one of
my republican friends tells me that the people on board those planes are
trained to shred any classified material during
such an incident). Ha ha. I am sure our people did that while the plane
was temporarily upside down and while a 600-mph
wind was blowing through the plane due to the damaged hull.
So when a friend of mine phoned me at a Motel
6 in Idaho early on September 11 to ask if I had heard about the
two planes hitting the WTC, I told him "I
am not surprised" (my exact words) and I told him a few of the items
from the above list of 5 events. Then, as I was
pulling into a car wash about 15 minutes later the lady working there
asked me if I had heard the news. I told her
"It is because of what Bush is doing to our country."
She, of course, thought I was a crackpot. I can
only HOPE that I am a crackpot.
I wish I could write coherently when I am furious.
So the rest of the world sees what Bush is doing
and NONE of them want to be associated with our policies.
He signed a regulation that put heavy tariffs
on imported steel (because of a campaign promise that he had made
to buy votes in Ohio and Pennsylvania). That
action alienated MORE of our "friends" so they told the USA
"we will not buy products from North Carolina
or Georgia in retaliation" (two states where Bush needs support).
So what does Bush do? He makes about 300 "exceptions"
that essentially gutted the stupid tariffs. It was very stupid
to impose the tariffs in the first place just
to get votes, but the worse part is that now our "friends" are calling
our bluff.
And by making Bush think that they can cost him
a senator in North Carolina or Georgia by closing their markets to
tobacco and peaches, they forced him to back
down by making the 300 "exceptions" to the tariff. Our friends are
blackmailing our pResident because they know
that he will sell his soul for another vote. Ari and Rove will lie to us
and tell us that everything is OK.
Bart, I don’t know how you keep your sanity. You,
more than any of us, know and understand what is happening
in the world. When I realized that we have no
say in whether Russia bombs Georgia (or Azerbijian, or Armenia)
because it is THEIR pre-emptive action (and because
Bush "took the measure of Putin and determined him to be
an honest christian") -- when I realized that
Russia is gathering nations, one by one, into their area of influence
(Iraq, North Korea most recently) -- it occurs
to me that this is no longer just a simple game of who can make
the most money in the stock market -- just like
the stock market began falling when Bush began campaigning,
the rest of the world has lost confidence in
the American People to do the right thing (they rightly hold us all
responsible for condoning a bully as president).
How can we be mad at Russia for bombing Georgia
when the entire world knows that Bush wants to bomb Iraq?
How can he condemn Israel for fighting terrorism
when we bomb wedding parties in Afghanistan (or not -- it makes
no difference if it was a wedding party or not
because most of the rest of the world believe it was).
Another news story that destroys trust in the
USA was when several hundred of the Taliban surrendered to the
USA forces in Afghanistan. We turned them over
to the Afghanistan government who put them all in trucks with
no ventilation (telling the USA troops that "we
are taking them to prison") but then the Afghanistan army left the
Taliban forces in the trucks to die. Apparently
it is a common thing that they (our Afghanistan "allies") do, but we
were not aware of it. They call it "death by
container." Or maybe our government WAS aware of what would
happen to them in the containers. If Reagan could
get away with telling Iraq where to send in the poison gas
against Iran, then Bush can also easily look
the other way and support "death by container."
We have fewer and fewer enthusiastic allies now. George has bullied all of them away.
What a moron.
We cannot bomb Afghanistan and Iraq and also counter
the Russians. The Saudi’s cannot support us anymore.
The "elected" leader of Afghanistan now needs
USA troops to protect him from assassination. We executed a
Mexican citizen in Texas after Vincente Fox (Bush’s
"good friend") made personal phone calls to Bush begging
for mercy. Can we consider Mexico to be our friend
after we snubbed our nose at their honestly elected president?
(but Bush’s staff try to tell us that it will
not sour relationships with Mexico). Ha ha. What a joke.
Unfortunately, it is not funny any more.
I am not against the Russians -- at all -- but
they ARE doing a smart thing by going to the people we call "evil"
and telling them "we don’t think you are bad
-- let’s be friends." Ha ha. And it should surprise NO ONE,
that North Korea and Iraq are putting their arms
around Russia.
Short of using "nuculer bombs," we will soon have
little influence all over the world.
As you said, Bart, if we bomb Iraq, Iraq will
destroy Israel (making everyone else in the Middle east very happy).
Saddam will extradite himself to Russia and then
what do we do? Do we bomb Russia? That asshole in the
White House has no understanding of anything
except that he has these nuclear toys at his disposal and he thinks
that he can bully the rest of the world. Unfortunately,
there are so many people who hate us that a nuclear bomb
may be sitting a block or two from the White
House at this very moment. And another may be sitting near the
Sears Tower. And the group that put them there
can SAY that they have dozens more bombs hidden all over
the USA (even if they don’t). Then, all that
they have to do is follow our example with Japan -- set off one
atom bomb and call for our surrender. We will
not surrender, so they set off another atom bomb. We, of course
will not surrender, we will send nuclear bombs
to .... hmmm where do we send bombs? The Philippines? Afghanistan?
Do we nuke a cave somewhere? Which cave? Who
do we retaliate against for the two atom bombs that they just
set off in the USA? This is not a
joke any more.
The Taliban know the power of destroying national
Icons. Remember, before September 11, they destroyed two
or three huge religious statues carved into a
mountainside by some religion (I forget -- Buddhists? -- they were
10 stories tall and had been there for centuries?).
What did we do then? Not a damn thing! I remember that very well.
Bart -- I know that none of this is coherent.
I am so furious. I can see why your monkey mail often makes no sense
and why they cannot write coherently when they
are furious. But how can they be furious against a blow job but
ACCEPT the things I listed above? I am sure that
many of the freepers actually believe what they are saying.
I am personally losing friends and relatives
(many of them intelligent people) because I tell them what I truly think
of our imbecile. My friends don’t want to hear
it. My relatives do not want to hear it. They are so insanely warped
by the fact that someone had sex in "My House"
(as my sister calls the White House) that they are blinded to
what is going on in the world.
One of the saddest things about all of this is
that, as a Baby Boomer, millions of us who were raised in the ‘50s
felt that we could change the world. We thought
that, together, we could help the world evolve toward peace.
We thought that our Goodness would, together,
be such a strong force that the world would be greatly improved
because of our existence here on earth for 70
years or so. And then we allowed an idiot with NONE of those goals
to be selected president.
It is almost 2:00 in the morning here in OKC and I will be worthless for days if I don’t stop now.
What am I missing?
If *I* really believe what I have said above,
how come our senators and representatives
don’t also see it and believe it?
Where are Clinton and Gore? Where is McCain?
Why are THEY not sounding the alarm?
Am I wrong? Is the world actually on a good track?
Bush is quickly pushing us toward World War III
but we sit here on our butts and argue about whether Bush
let his cronies sleep in that one special bedroom
or if they had to sleep in other bedrooms instead. We argue
about cutting down trees (maybe Bush did that
just to divert our attention from other things -- that would be
smart of him actually, to make a law to cut down
every tree in every national forest just so we would all go
berserk and forget that WW3 is just beyond our
headlights).
Why did Bush buy an unknown ranch in the middle
of nowhere? I believe that he bought it because it was the
one place where he had never lived and he knew
it was probably not bugged -- I believe that he sees the ranch
as a place where he can get together with the
Saudi Princes and make secret deals about sharing the wealth
of the world without anyone being able to monitor
them. Remember, Bush may have a lot of "insider information / dirt"
on many leaders of the world because Poppy was
head of the CIA.
Yes, I know that the more I "speculate," the more
easily it is for assholes like Limbaugh to pick a sentence or two
(or maybe a whole page) and make me sound like
a wacko -- like he made fun of the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy" -- unfortunately,
we have found out in Blinded by the Right, that there was, in fact, such
a conspiracy and Rush knew it --
and Newt knew it -- and Bush knew it -- but they
didn’t care. They didn’t give a damn about anything except their millions.
One more thing. Do you remember the last speech
that Clinton gave in January before Dubywa took over?
He asked for "Seven minutes on national TV."
I don’t have a tv so I was frantically trying to find one that evening
(in a city where I know no one). I remembered
that the laundromat where I do my clothes has a tv and they were still
open.
I went in and asked if I could watch their tv
for 7 minutes. I am sure that they thought I was a wacko as I sat glued
to
the tv while Clinton gave Three Final Thoughts
For the Future. Unfortunately I only remember two:
1) Don’t squander our economic recovery and don’t waste the budget surplus.
2) Don’t pretend that we are the only nation in the world. We are part of a global community.
Aside: As Begala or Carville said about
the economy: "Bush inherited a Lamborghini from Clinton.
He immediately puts it in reverse and is surprised
when it goes backward."
Clinton was SO strongly convinced of the importance
of these 2 (plus one other) concepts that he almost
had to BEG for time on national TV. They would
not give him the time until he promised "Only 7 Minutes!"
Do you remember that, Bart?
Note: I might be wrong about a lot of details
above -- perhaps it was only 183 "exceptions" to the tariff.
Perhaps it was the hotel across from Motel6 where
I was staying. Perhaps Bush is only giving permission
to cut down 95% of the trees.
I am going to bed or I will be wasted for the rest of the week.
Bob in Oklahoma.