"We’ve been plenty active on these issues, and we’ll continue to be active on these issues because they’re important issues for the U.S. security and for our interests," Bush said after landing in the tiny coastal country of Benin. He noted he will send Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Kenya on Monday. "The key is that the leaders hear from her firsthand the U.S. desires to see that there be no violence and that there be a power-sharing agreement that will help this nation resolve its difficulties." Bushie
——————————————————–
"Well, podner, we know how to deal with miscreants like you west of the Pecos, and if yeh didn’t hear me my little fren’ Condoleezia and her crowd will make it real clear…"
All right, he did not actually say that but the meaning was clear. In Bush’s "mind" and that of the Borgian collective that is his administration, the US is an imperial power that can dictate "solutions" to the internal problems of the formerly independent and supposedly sovereign countries of the world.
it is an old rule of army life that one should not issue orders that one knows will not be obeyed. Perhaps Bush does not know that such imperial directives will not be obeyed. In that case he is even more of a fool than I had thought.
What will be his next move when he is ignored? Will he cut off whatever money the "little people" might hope to receive? Will he send in the phantom legions that he does not possess.
How absurd. pl
…we’ll continue to be active on these issues because they’re important issues for the U.S. security…
I feel safer now.
Maybe he can tuck me in bed tonight, snug as a bug in a rug!
Bush’s “mind” LOL.
Col. Lang,
I’ve never been sure that Bush actually knows the difference between making a pronouncement and, you know, actually doing something. It’s as if he sees his job as voicing an official position that magically makes concrete policy come into being. A lifetime of never having to deal with the consequences of anything, I guess. It’s all one “heckuva job” to him.
Sending in the incomparably incompetent Condi assures that his orders will not be obeyed.
Bush’s concern for Kenya is just more dissembling from a fake compassionate conservative.
I thought that Bush was going to cancel this trip because the PAA (Protect America Act to the Republicans, Protect AT&T Act to those of us paying attention) didn’t pass the House.
According to his stern proclamations last week, the US is no longer safe, and the floodgates are open–even though the original FISA is still operational!
So, apparently, this grave danger is suddenly no big deal…in the face of some much needed ‘legacy material’ for the GW Bush Prezidenshul Liebrary.
I think everybody can read this fairly easily. a) Bush is under domestic pressure to do something. b)lame duck. c) Condi. Essentially, nobody cares.
If anybody remember Darfur, Condi throws tantrum all over the UN and half of africa. Nothing happens. She then flew in a pan african group and order them to fight. (Of course they get killed. no support, no diplomatic solution. On top of that they are now actually involved in the shoot out too.)
All in a days work. Condi the genius. Kenya is going to blow up the minute Condi start doing her magic. There is nothing more predictable than her incompetency.
Anybody following what’s happening in Somalia/Ethiopia? Another big mess there. That one will turn very nasty after we are bored playing with them. (budget crash in the next 3 yrs)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-10-07-darfur_N.htm
International aid workers and United Nations officials dismissed claims by some rebel chiefs that 100 people had died in the North Darfur town of Haskanita. The officials said the town emptied as the army moved in last Sunday, and troops started burning it on Wednesday.
A U.N. statement did not say who set fire to the ethnic African town but said Sudanese government forces took control after suspected Darfur rebels attacked the nearby base of African Union peacekeepers a week ago, killing 10 peacekeepers.
“the U.S. desires to see that there be no violence and that there be a power-sharing agreement that will help this nation resolve its difficulties.”
What a pity that what is good for the Kenyans isn’t good for the Palestinians and the Lebanese. All the opposition need to is prove to the White House that the President is anti-Israeli.
Oh what it is to be cursed with natural resources. It’s now Africa’s turn to be “befriended” by the United States, just like large chunks of South America, Iraq and Vietnam have been in the past.
I guess we will now see very large shipments of arms to a variety of African nations and the replacement of the ubiquitous AK47 with the M16 as the weapon of choice for tyrants and revolutionaries. We will also see some large and unaffordable “infrastructure” projects for Halliburton to chew on.
Divide, conquer and then extract oil, uranium, gold and whatever else America might like.
To put it another way, with friends like the Bush Administration, who needs enemies? “Africa Command” indeed! Haruumph!
“Borgian collective”? Never figured you for a Trek fan…
I figure that either your guess about the President’s motivations are correct, or he’s counting on our moral authority. Either way, I don’t see much good coming of Condi’s trip.
George Bush possesses a moronic level of intelligence and he is far too clumsy to be considered a sophist – even a low-grade one.
Since Roger Clemens was on the national scene before George Bush’s time, it must be that Bush studied and copied the Clemens style of self-deception.
My question: how can so many intelligent Republicans (most of them lawyers) support Bush’s positions that are just as preposterous as those uttered by Clemens last week.
“We spent a lot of time talking about Africa, as we should. Africa is a nation that suffers from incredible disease.”
President George W Bush
Gothenburg, Sweden, June 14, 2001
very good, but try to remember that if you live in these united states of america there’s about a 1 in 4 probability that your neighbor (or boss,broker,bus driver, whatever) is a believer, is convinced that all those pronouncements of the last 7 years have produced positive results that made america safer and that you are just another atheist whacko, liberal, bush hater.
and i’m a bit concerned about 1 of the remaining 3.
In a wonderful chapter called “Caliban’s Kingdoms” conservative and unorthodox historian Paul Johnson in his book “Modern Times-The World from the Twenties to the Nineties” discusses sub-Saharan Africa and its transiton from colonialism to independence and the postscript. Not a scholar of African affairs myself except for several British Empire history courses 45 years ago. Anyhow, it is clear that we may want to exploit African resources but are completely unwilling to do the hard work of diplomacy or whatever is necessary just to make sure that the sub-continent is NOT the 21st Century version of Hell for its citizenry. If Johnson is correct the US has often known exactly what was transpiring in various countries and yet despite that adopted the completely wrong policy. Also, the UN itself with its African membership has totally failed Africa in many ways. What looks like a long long term effort of China to “assist” in Africa’s future will be interesting to see. Oh, and by the way the Strategic Stockpile still exists, owned and operated by DOD and GSA and containing much from Africa. The increases in commodity prices, the lack of equity in disbursing the benefits of that increase to their people, means that Africa is definitely on the National Security and diplomatic agenda after three decades of handwashing by the US. What are the arms sales policies of DOD for that area of the world and who really understands the impact of those sales? Also where is a good description available of what the US gets from sub-Saharan Africa on an annual basis?