Monday, November 28, 2005
Iraq After Saddam - What is the Difference ?
Abuse, Torture and Killing of Civilians*G.W. Bush,"Cowboy Khan"
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Saddam Hussein is no longer in power but abusive fiefdoms are being created by Iraqis with money and influence. In "Private Security Crews Add to Fear In Baghdad" Jackie Spinner, Washington Post, covered only part of the deplorable situation. It is not only private security forces under payroll of Iraqis in high positions in the new government but also the government forces that are feared by the people. According to recent reports they have good reason to be afraid of them. Abuse of power is rampant. No less a person than our handpicked former Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi was quoted by the BBC on November 27th" "Such abuses are as bad today as they were under Saddam Hussein", Mr Allawi told Britain's Observer newspaper two weeks after 170 detainees were found at an interior ministry centre, "some allegedly suffering from abuse and starvation". The Iraqi blogger Riverbend in her November 25th post wrote about random killing of civilians by government security forces.
*
Oh, to be Genghis Khan. Howard Fineman commented in Newsweek, All Quiet in DC, about the president's stop in Mongolia on his way back from Far East: "No wonder Bush loved Mongolia. My colleagues in the White House press corps reported that he seemed relieved to be able to spend a few hours there. Nothing like a 36 percent job-approval rating to make you feel fondly towards the vast, empty steppes of the Far East.
"Perhaps Bush was thinking jealously of Genghis Khan, who probably didn’t need to be concerned about the polls and pundits. He just conquered a lot of territory, and that was that.Would that it were that simple. It’s not. Voters are worried, perhaps more than ever, about what the president and Vice President Dick Cheney, and the rest of the Bush Administration now call “Islamo-fascism” or “radical Islamist fundamentalism.”
"But those same voters on this Thanksgiving seem to doubt that Bush’s Cowboy Khan approach is wise, at least in Iraq. They’re becoming more inclined to think that it was, is, folly."
Cowboy Khan, very appropriate.
*****
"Cowboy Khan", A New Moniker for President Bush
Oh, to be Genghis Khan. Howard Fineman commented in Newsweek, All Quiet in DC, about the president's stop in Mongolia on his way back from Far East: "No wonder Bush loved Mongolia. My colleagues in the White House press corps reported that he seemed relieved to be able to spend a few hours there. Nothing like a 36 percent job-approval rating to make you feel fondly towards the vast, empty steppes of the Far East.
"Perhaps Bush was thinking jealously of Genghis Khan, who probably didn’t need to be concerned about the polls and pundits. He just conquered a lot of territory, and that was that.Would that it were that simple. It’s not. Voters are worried, perhaps more than ever, about what the president and Vice President Dick Cheney, and the rest of the Bush Administration now call “Islamo-fascism” or “radical Islamist fundamentalism.”
"But those same voters on this Thanksgiving seem to doubt that Bush’s Cowboy Khan approach is wise, at least in Iraq. They’re becoming more inclined to think that it was, is, folly."
Cowboy Khan, very appropriate.
