Bush Helps Islamic Terrorism

[michaeledward]

Personally I think that Annan's son getting busted in Oil for food looks pretty bad for the leader of the UN, but whatever. I suppose that Oil for food doesn't in any way show that there is corruption in the UN.

Two Words ...

NEIL BUSH

 

[Ray]

Two Words ...NEIL BUSH

Are you implying that Neil Bush's behavior makes Annan's boy's behavior acceptable?

 

[michaeledward]

Not at all ...

I am pointing out that:

Neil Bush's behavior is to the Bush Administration as Kojo Annan's behavior is to United Nations.

 

[ginshun]

Two Words ...

NEIL BUSH

so let me see if I can follow your logic here...

Since our presidents younger brother was involved in the savings and load scandle in the 80's, that means that Kofi Annan's son's involvement in the oil for food scandle should be ignored...

By the gods, why didn't you say so sooner?!?! Thank you Michael for your brilliant analysis of the situation. You have totally cahnged my mind, now I love the UN.

 

[michaeledward]

Actually, I was discussing 'Relevance'.

I believe Neil Bush's behavior in the 80's, 90's and current decade is irrelevant to the current administration (although its nice knowing the Presidents' Brother accepts the payola of prostitution, when in Rome - and that wasn't the 80's).

And whether Kojo was on the payroll of a company involved in the Oil for Food program after he said he wasn't is just about as relevent to the statement "The United Nations is Corrupt".

 

[Makalakumu]

Again, if you know nothing about the Project for the New American Century and Neoconservatism you will not be able to see past all of the lies being reported about the UN by the new media.

Please see the below...

Boldface Emphasis Mine

June 3, 1997

American foreign and defense policy is adrift. Conservatives have criticized the incoherent policies of the Clinton Administration. They have also resisted isolationist impulses from within their own ranks. But conservatives have not confidently advanced a strategic vision of America's role in the world. They have not set forth guiding principles for American foreign policy. They have allowed differences over tactics to obscure potential agreement on strategic objectives. And they have not fought for a defense budget that would maintain American security and advance American interests in the new century.

We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership.

As the 20th century draws to a close, the United States stands as the world's preeminent power. Having led the West to victory in the Cold War, America faces an opportunity and a challenge: Does the United States have the vision to build upon the achievements of past decades? Does the United States have the resolve to shape a new century favorable to American principles and interests?

We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital -- both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements -- built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation's ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead.

We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.

Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.

Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

• we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future;


• we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values;


• we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad;


• we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.

Elliott Abrams Gary Bauer William J. Bennett Jeb Bush

Dick Cheney Eliot A. Cohen Midge Decter Paula Dobriansky Steve Forbes

Aaron Friedberg Francis Fukuyama Frank Gaffney Fred C. Ikle

Donald Kagan Zalmay Khalilzad I. Lewis Libby Norman Podhoretz

Dan Quayle Peter W. Rodman Stephen P. Rosen Henry S. Rowen

Donald Rumsfeld Vin Weber George Weigel Paul Wolfowitz

This was taken from...

http://www.newamericancentury.org/statementofprinciples.htm

Get it? You are looking that real power players in the current administration. They formed this group in 1997 and formulated EVERYTHING about our current foriegn policy at that time...including our actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the sabre rattling towards Iran. The War on Terror be damned! It's nothing but smoke and mirrors and lies to promote this agenda.

You don't believe me...fine. Go and read "Rebuilding Americas Defenses" Paul Wolfowitz. Then go and read "World War Four, Why We've Got to Win" by Normal Podhoretz. They lay out the entire strategy for the War on Terror pre-911. It's all there, right in front of you. This is no conspiracy.

The bottom line is that the administration is lying. They gave us a bunch of BS reasons for the things that they want to do, but the real reasons are stated above clearly. Nobody had a chance to vote on this plan. Hardly anybody knows anything about it...except people in other countries who actually pay attention to this stuff...and people in the UN.

I hope that now you can see why the administration and the neocons are so anti-UN. The principles of PNAC are in direct conflict with everything the UN stands for. The "reforms" that people like John Bolton call for would turn the UN into a puppet that the Neocons would control.

upnorthkyosa

PS - the nomination of Paul Wolfowitz as head of the World Bank comes as no surprise once you see the world the lense of PNAC. The plan specifically calls for the advancement of our national interests by force if necessary. We've got that down with the War on Terror. Now our interests need money. Specifically in Afghanistan, where former Unocal Spokesperson Hamid Karzai signed a deal to build a pipeline through his country in order to access Uzbekistani gas. Our military has begun the process of stabilizing the region, which is why Unocal pulled out of the deal in 1998. (We now have 10 military bases in Afghanistan that just happen to fall along the planned route of the Unocal pipeline) The bank that they are going to for loans is the IBN which is a subset of the World Bank. The same thing is going to happen in Iraq and the same thing is going to happen where ever else PNAC touches. The US is attempting to turn the World Bank into a puppet. A puppet that will serve our interests...which means the few billionaires that back this wretched administration.

 

[ginshun]

And whether Kojo was on the payroll of a company involved in the Oil for Food program after he said he wasn't is just about as relevent to the statement "The United Nations is Corrupt".

I personally think some degree of corruption is pretty much inevitable when an organization gets as big, and is as diverse and widesperead as the UN is. Like I said before that isn't really my issue with it. Moreso that it is just ineffective as an organization. What are the actual goals of the UN? Lets see:

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,





AND FOR THESE ENDS

to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and

to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and

to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,


Who here thinks that they are doing a good job right now?

 

[Makalakumu]

I personally think some degree of corruption is pretty much inevitable when an organization gets as big, and is as diverse and widesperead as the UN is. Like I said before that isn't really my issue with it. Moreso that it is just ineffective as an organization. What are the actual goals of the UN? Lets see:

to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind, and

to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small, and

to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and

to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,





AND FOR THESE ENDS

to practice tolerance and live together in peace with one another as good neighbours, and

to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and

to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest, and

to employ international machinery for the promotion of the economic and social advancement of all peoples,


Who here thinks that they are doing a good job right now?

Okay, Ginshun, great post.

Please take a moment to read this post and then compare it with the Statement of Principles for PNAC. It is entirely obvious that these ideals conflict and the real reason behind the administration's stance regarding the UN will become apparent.

 

[rmcrobertson]

Shall I recite the Bill of Rights and ask the same question? I mean, we have more people in jail than any other country, most of them are minorities, we have several hundred people held incommunicado in foreign countries where they have been put specifically to circumvent our Constitution, we have several million abused kids and several million more abused women, real wages have been dropping for ten years, we're up to our necks in Iraq because of a pack of lies and remarkable intelligence mistakes, and THEN we can discuss corporate corruption and Washington politics...

I believe the point was that if we're going to announce we're the moral leaders of the world, it might be nice if we actually acted like it.

Oh, and incidentally--I don't suppose you'd care to provide a smidgen of proof for the ridiculous claims about UNICEF? Or explain why it's offensive for them to provide family planning services in Muslim countries, but it's NOT offensive in aany way for our government to send right-wing fundamentalist missionaries over there?

 

[Ray]

Get it? You are looking that real power players in the current administration. They formed this group in 1997 and formulated EVERYTHING about our current foriegn policy at that time...including our actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the sabre rattling towards Iran. The War on Terror be damned! It's nothing but smoke and mirrors and lies to promote this agenda.

You're reading an awful lot into the statement you referenced. Are you sure that in 1997 they planned to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, etc? It doesn't quite come across that way in the citation when I read it.

 

[ghostdog2]

First of all, I've heard enough about Bill Clinton. It's been 5 years since he was president, and it sounds completely infantile when somebody attempts to "rebut" a comment about the Bush Administration with "Oh, yeah? Well Clinton did this!" The thread is about Bush

.

Really? Please allow me to borrow from an old column on Enron, Bush and the Clinton legacy:
"It’s a little late for liberals to pretend they care about ethics. These are the people who angrily defended a president who perjured himself, hid evidence, suborned perjury, was held in contempt by a federal court, was disbarred by the Supreme Court, and lied to his party, his staff, his wife, and the nation. The ethics of that president included having staff perform oral sex on him in the Oval Office as he chatted on the phone with a congressman about sending American troops into battle. The secular saints of liberalism indignantly defended all this on the grounds that it’s fine to lie and commit crimes if it’s ‘just about sex.’



Well, evidently some corporate chieftains took that lesson to heart and concluded that it’s also fine to commit crimes if it’s ‘just about money.’ Just as Ronald Reagan gave American culture a renewed patriotism and self-confidence that outlasted his presidency, Clinton has bequeathed America a culture of criminality and rationalization by the powerful. But still, somehow, Republicans are said to be more vulnerable whenever a businessman becomes a crook on the basis of their general support of capitalism. Bit if criminality and not capitalism is to blame, then Democrats are to blame for the general support of crooks. As part of the Left’s long-standing fanatical defense of their favorite criminal, Bill Clinton, it will be screeched that conservatives want to blame everything on Clinton, including the wacky idea that a direct assault on honor and honesty led some people to behave dishonorably and dishonestly.



Not everything. But some of us called this ball and this pocket years ago:



‘If Congress doesn’t have the will to throw him out, Clinton will have set a new standard for the entire country. The new standard will be a total absence of standards....If you get caught and don’t have a good enough legal team to escape, you might have to pay a fine or go to prison. But there’s no shame in it. The country doesn’t really condemn this. We adore a lovable rogue....It is fine to lie and cheat and manipulate because honor is just a word, just hot air and the country doesn’t believe in it’ (High Crimes and Misdemeanors: The Case Against Bill Clinton, 1998).



It took a bear market to inexorably repeal the Clintonian national motto of ‘Just Do It!’ "

I couldn't have said it better, thanks Ann.

 

[ginshun]

I believe the point was that if we're going to announce we're the moral leaders of the world, it might be nice if we actually acted like it.

Agreed. Problem is that "moral clarity" as some would like to refer to is, is pretty much entirely dependent on your point of view.

Oh, and incidentally--I don't suppose you'd care to provide a smidgen of proof for the ridiculous claims about UNICEF? Or explain why it's offensive for them to provide family planning services in Muslim countries, but it's NOT offensive in aany way for our government to send right-wing fundamentalist missionaries over there?

I don't know that I can prove any of the things I mentioned, I just did a yahoo search for "UNICEF scandal" or "UNICEF corruption" and took some exerpts from the articles that came up. Its not like I was a first hand witness to any of them. Believe them or not, I don't really care either way.

And I guess I wasn't aware that the US government was sponsering Christain missionaries in Muslim countries. If that is the case, then... well actaully I could care less, Christianity and Islam (and Judiasm too)are virtually the same religion as far as I am conserned. At the very most, the differences are very superficial. And the point of the statement wasn't that UNICEF is corrupting Muslims, as you seem to have twisted it into. If I recall, I mentioned Christians in the very same sentance.

 

[Makalakumu]

You're reading an awful lot into the statement you referenced. Are you sure that in 1997 they planned to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, etc? It doesn't quite come across that way in the citation when I read it.

In 1997, Unocal began to have some serious problems in Afghanistan regarding their proposed pipeline deal. Enron and Halliburton (I kid you not!) were involved in joint discussions and eventually all parties pulled out interest because of instability. By 1998, a plan surfaced that would stabilize the country. These people pressured President Clinton to send in troops. He fired the missiles at Al-Qaeda instead. Now, the neocons use this decision as a bludgeon against the Clinton Administration. "If he only would have listened to us, 911 would have never happened," William Kristol says. What they are not telling you is that the neocons were not even thinking about Al-Qaeda when they were talking invasion...It was (and still is) all about the oil and gas.

There is more too it then just the statement of principles. I gave two more sources that one can look into for more information that will flesh out the picture. "Rebuilding America's Defenses" is espeically important to read if one really wants to understand what is going on. There you can read about screwy stuff like orbiting military bases and Storm Troopers that would be space based among other things...including global tracking systems for sub-epidermal chips.

WTF!

The Statement of Principles provides the real lense that our administration is viewing things. If you look at our current foriegn policy, it is clear that these are the real principles that are guiding it. And these principles are pretty much diametrically opposed to the things that the UN stands for. No wonder it needs "reform". No wonder they chose Bolton.

upnorthkyosa

 

[Tgace]

Here we go....

 

[Makalakumu]

Here we go....

If one would bother to read anything suggested, one would see beyond the tin-hatter defense that gets thrown out whenever anyone brings this up. This insinuation is common and it characterizes laziness...and a repugnant willful ignorance born of a fat attitude of indulgence. Somehow this became the American way when we weren't McLooking. It's one's perogative, no matter how selfish and misguided, to look the other way while our national treasure is used to Mckill, McTorture, and McSteal to maintain the bottom lines for a few billionaires!

By the time it directly effects us all, it will be to late. Sub-epidermal chips anyone?

BTW - this rant isn't entirely directed at you, Tom, and it may be entirely possible that I'm taking an attempt at humor in a direction that you did not intend. I am very passionate about this, though. I've taken the time and done the research and this is really bad stuff. Not the kind of stuff to be taken lightly.

 

[Ray]

...while our national treasure is used to Mckill, McTorture, and McSteal to maintain the bottom lines for a few billionaires!

Does that mean you don't like Big Macs?

 

[PeachMonkey]

Does that mean you don't like Big Macs?

Ha, ha, ha! There you go again!

 

[Tgace]

McKill, McTorture and McSteal...we deserve a break today....

 

[shesulsa]

...we deserve a break today....

One break comin' up ...

 

[Angelusmortis]

Ok, I'm intrigued to know the American reasoning/understanding of why 9/11 happened, and if Bush helps Islamic fundamentalism. I'm assuming the average belief is because all Muslims are evil? That the US govt is totally innocent in the world? That it does what it wants with impunity to protect its business interests, and uses its fantastically equipped armed forces to back it up? I thought the days of Empire were over.

Oh, and who-ever asked me "did I put them right?" no. I didn't. As for wars, I would have had no problem going to the Falklands, or defeating the spread of Nazism in the Second World War, but the Gulf? An absolute total, and utter nonsense. I am ashamed of our PM for not having the moral courage and turning round to that chimp Bush, and telling him NO. The Americans on the board are getting offended that people are questioning the US's position in the world. Far from it. The current US administration however has earned my complete contempt for its existance. The only good thing to come from it, is that there will be no more Bush again.

I'm sure that Bammx2 won't mind me repeating him, he made a valid point about that he was raised to not trust any politician. A good point, well made.