Amazon.com Widgets

Thursday, January 6, 2005

Ah, there's nothing like taking cheap-shots at your country in foreign papers. Sidney Blumenthal in The Guardian:

Guardian Unlimited: The neocons have a hand in Aceh, too - US support for Indonesia's army is compromising its relief effort

Two days after the tsunami struck, President Bush, who had made no public statement, was vacationing at his ranch in Texas, and a junior spokesman was trotted out. The offer of US aid was $15m - $2m less than the star pitcher of the Boston Red Sox was paid that year...

The truest line in the piece: "The coastline of south Asia has been radically altered, but the political landscape in Washington remains familiar." - Best exemplified by this piece. Despite the sub-head, I don't see any connection made between US policy vis a vis the Indonesian Military and the relief effort. Just some shots at the President's response (ho-hum) and a bunch of tack-ons about not being tough enough on Indonesia's Rights record. Blumenthal of course, has no point. Be too tough and you're a cowboy not engaging constructively and angering a Muslim nation and risking their cooperation with us, don't be tough enough, and, well...this is what you get. Blumenthal disgracefully chastized the Administration for not playing diplomatic games with the relief effort - insisting we should have completely inappropriately used this time to push for a new cease-fire between the Indonesian military and the regional rebels. If we had...imagine the reacion. I have a real thing about Americans going abroad to trash their country. This one's full of lovely red-meat for the Guardian anti-Sem neo-con hating America bashers. Consistency and sober-sense aren't high on either their, or Blumenthal's, list of priorities.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Search


Archives
[an error occurred while processing this directive] [an error occurred while processing this directive]