They Have “Cooties”
Update: Via Alice in comments, Think Progress reports: Republican Delegation Currently Visiting Syria, Spared From White House Attacks. There are currently two Republan Congresscritters in Syria, and another is accompanying Speaker Pelosi. IOKIYAR.
We are told that the White House criticizes Pelosi’s planned Syria visit:
“We do not encourage and, in fact, we discourage members of Congress to make such visits to Syria,” said White House deputy spokeswoman Dana Perino. “This is a country that is a state sponsor of terror, one that is trying to disrupt the (Prime Minister Fouad) Siniora government in Lebanon and one that is allowing foreign fighters to flow through its borders to Iraq.
“I don’t know what she is trying to accomplish, and I don’t know if anyone in the administration has spoken to her about it,” Perino said. “In general, we do discourage such trips.”
Responding to a follow-up question, Perino added, “We think that someone should take a step back and think about the message that it sends … to our allies.”
What allies? We still have allies?
It would appear that the message the Speaker is sending is that some portion of the American government is willing to talk to people, and more importantly – to listen.
The Siniora government is in trouble because the government is a parliamentary system and it has lost its majority support after the Israeli attacks. The Shi’ite parties want a new election in accordance with the laws of Lebanon.
Foreign fighters can move around the Syrian-Iraqi border because the American military killed several Syrian border guards in hot pursuit of sheep smugglers earlier, and the Syrians aren’t anxious to repeat the experience. Of course, there is no one to stop the infiltration on the Iraqi side because we don’t have enough troops to seal the border. It’s a feature of borders that they can be sealed from either side.
As for terrorists, I don’t suppose anyone checked the lists on the MEK, or, even the Dawa party of the current Iraqi prime minister, clients of the US. There isn’t a political party in the Middle East that didn’t start out as a terrorist group.
Just because the Shrubbery doesn’t have the courage to talk to people who don’t agree with him, doesn’t mean that no one is able to do it. Talk is cheap, wars are very expensive.
3 comments
It is increasingly clear that no one in the Bush administration… not a single one of them… has a clue how people’s minds really work, as opposed to how the minds of fantasy people in neocon fairy-tales work. Successful interactions with other peoples… whether through war or much-preferred diplomacy… require an understanding of adversaries’ motives, and actions based on that understanding.
DubCo, meanwhile, seems to think whole nations… allies and adversaries alike… can be bullied into compliance with his wishes. Military losses don’t seem to faze him in holding that opinion. As long as he is in charge, our international interactions will remain in utter chaos.
A rational government of a rational nation would recognize that Pelosi is second in line after Cheney for the presidency itself, and would support all efforts to assure that she is informed about, and included in, all major diplomatic undertakings. If she wants to go to Syria to further her understanding and forge some bonds with other leaders (again, allies and adversaries alike), no rational president would stand in her way. I emphasize… no rational president would object.
ThinkProgress reports that some Republicans are currently in Syria, and yet surprise, surprise: the White House didn’t make any announcement when Republican Reps. Aderholt and Wolf decided to visit Syria. And isn’t it odd that in their concern they failed to mention that Pelosi’s Syria visit is bipartisan (Republican Rep. Hobson is visiting Syria as well). As usual, the White House comments have nothing to do with governing or diplomacy and everything to do with trashing the Democrats. Which nicely sums up this administration — no actual governing, just juvenile tantrums when others start getting the headlines.
Well, y’know, it’s hard for them to keep up their bullying ways when people REFUSE TO BE BULLIED by these cocksuckers.
After 9/11, we had the whole world’s support. Nowadays, we can’t get an ally in Outer Muldavia, except for ol’Bitch Boy, Tony Blair, and his political fate is about as rosy as Dumbya’s.