US government issues

[smokingun]

Henrik,
i've been reading about the american boycott as well and it makes me sick. here is the worlds most powerfull democracy punishing those that dare to have an opinion. well i suppose this is all tony blair's fault. having a pet poodle like him around seems to make dubya expect that everyone would suck up.

i never could have imagined myself saying this, but thank god somepeople in europe still have the ability to think for themselves rather than being led on a leash.

the efforts of dubya, powell and their pet poodle blair to link up osama and saddam have left a bad taste in my mouth. and makes one question if they have been lying all along. somehow i got this feeling that privately powell at least will regret trying to make that connection between saddam and osama. if anything it has only drawn attention to the idea that they may be lying now.

smokingun

[Topcontender]

The boycott is from only 1 senator Bush, Powell, and Rumsfeld have nothing to do with it.

However, the wors tthing the guy said you didnt mention. When asked if we needed France he said "why do we need France all they can do it teach the Iraqis on how to surrender," OUCH!!!!

[Henrik]

Actually, the boycott I was referring to was Americans in general, guys in the street and other sales people etc.

Just a growing general attitude, but I would hope nothing condoned by the government.

[Topcontender]

i think it was started with this Senator, He mentioned it and people are running with it.

[Henrik]

I was thinking just yesterday how we don't hear much of what is going on in the Palestine/Israel conflict these days, given that Iraq is taking up all the headlines.

In surfing around for some updates and other news, I came across an interesting article in the Washington Post, written by Robert Kaiser and printed on February 9th. Here is an extract, with a piece of info that I had totally missed:

Since then, U.S. policy has been in step with Sharon's. The peace process is "quiescent," said retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, Bush's special envoy to the region. "I've kind of gone dormant," he added. In December Bush appointed an articulate, hard-line critic of the traditional peace process, Elliott Abrams, director of Mideast affairs for the National Security Council.

"The Likudniks are really in charge now," said a senior government official, using a Yiddish term for supporters of Sharon's political party. Neumann agreed that Abrams's appointment was symbolically important, not least because Abrams's views were shared by his boss, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, by Vice President Cheney and by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. "It's a strong lineup," he said.

Abrams is a former assistant secretary of state in the Reagan administration who was convicted on two counts of lying to Congress in the Iran-contra scandal, then pardoned by President George H.W. Bush. In October 2000, Abrams wrote: "The Palestinian leadership does not want peace with Israel, and there will be no peace."

One of Abrams's mentors, Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, led a study group that proposed to Binyamin Netanyahu, a Likud prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999, that he abandon the Oslo peace accords negotiated in 1993 and reject the basis for them -- the idea of trading "land for peace." Israel should insist on Arab recognition of its claim to the biblical land of Israel, the 1996 report suggested, and should "focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq."

Ooops! Well I can only assume that Elliott Abrams is a very good representative for the current US regime and how they view the conflict in that area.

Oh, and another nice extract that I thought fits nicely in line with the quote I posted the other day from Khadafi, how Sharon is the president of the US....:

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Sharon began immediately to argue that Israel and the United States were fighting the same enemy, international terrorism. Over the months that followed -- months marked by escalating violence in Israel and the West Bank -- Bush and Sharon grew closer, personally and politically. By the end of last year the two had met seven times and talked on many more occasions by telephone (with Sharon doing nearly all the talking, Israeli officials said). Said a senior official of the first Bush administration who is critical of this one: "Sharon played the president like a violin: 'I'm fighting your war, terrorism is terrorism,' and so on. Sharon did a masterful job."

Anyway, if you are interested in reading the whole articel, here is a link:

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45652-2003Feb8.html

[Henrik]

Here's another member of the Bush administration that the president nominated just recently:

Dr. W. David Hager, nominated as head of an advisory committee on reproductive health issues for the Food and Drug Administration. Quoting from Newsweek:

Hager, who describes himself as pro-life, refuses to prescribe contraceptives to unmarried women and has written that women should treat premenstrual syndrome by reading the bible and praying.

[greg99]

I won't comment on this- I'm afraid I could be arrested.

I once considered the US as a destination to move to - regret to say that there is no way I would go to a country that has such people in their government. I feel for you, American fellows Croakers.

If Saddam is such a pain, may I suggest Mr. Dubya and his messed up government read the bible and pray? SH may, sorry, he WILL go away just like that.....there, that's the solution to the Iraq situation and a cheap one too!!

[daSilva]

Yikes!!

LOL@Greg. ;D