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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kevin Rose who wrote (444412)	8/18/2003 12:52:41 AM
From: Raymond Duray	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Kevin, I really enjoy reading your commentary on domestic political and economic issues. You seem to have a natural grasp on the facts, and a reasonable idea about what policy ought to be. I commend you. That said, I find your naivete regarding foreign affairs to be bewildering. I have exactly this same reaction with a commentator named Matt Miller of KCRW's "Left, Right and Center". kcrw.com Let's go through your list of bogeymen and bad situations for some perspective: 1) . However, certain conflicts and issues need to be defused before we can even think of such a world. You are engaged in ridiculously circular logic here. Let me comment region by region: 2) Palestine/Israel. Israel is apparently in charge of U.S. foreign policy today. Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. military aid, and if you factor in all the foreign aid and forgiven and forgotten loans to Israel, we are the crucial crutch creating the creepiest occupation force in Middle East. This year alone, the U.S. taxpayer is going to either give outright or be on the hook for about $13 Billion in aid to Israel. The U.S. could do a vast service to the world by stopping this disasterous charity to a fascist state. The Israelis correctly view all funds from the U.S. to be fungible. In other words, the media won't report that our money is being used to run over humanitarians like Evergreen College's Rachel Corrie with Caterpillar bulldozers. But the rest of the world sure understands this. Our funds, and acquiescence is helping to build the apartheid wall that Sharon is using to create unlivable ghettos on the West Bank in an effort to make life intolerable for people who lived there peacefully for hundreds of years before the Israeli aggression attempted to genocidally remove them in a bout of ethnic cleansing. If we want to solve the Israel/Palestine situation the best place to start is to tell the Department of Death's Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Michael Ledeen et al to move to Tel Aviv where they are full citizens, and give American foreign policy back to America. Then we cut off Israel's funding. I'll guarantee you we will see much less aggression and revenge action out of the region. 2) India/Pakistan. Why in the world should we be involved? How is the U.S. national interest served by being involved? I don't get it. All I can see is things like the result of the Kunduz Airlift in November, 2001, when the U.S. CIA and the White House told the USAF to stand down as thousands of Al Qaeda operatives were allowed to escape from Afghanistan into Pakistan. Within a month, these fighters ended up in the Kashmir, as U.S. defense contractors flooded Islamabad and New Delhi with arms deals offers. Exactly how does this sort of statecraft benefit you, me and the rest of us taxpayers? I know how it is good for sales and profits for Lockheed, Raytheon, United Technologies et al. But what is in it for us? 3) Abject poverty in Asia and Africa. More honest trade rules wouldn't hurt the American taxpayer, and would help relieve the stress on economies in these regions who clearly are being cheated in systems like the WTO and are faced with brutal subsidy regimes for agricultural producers in OECD countries. The only losers in a fair trade game would be the multinational corporations who have rigged the current system for their benefit alone. 4) The threat of North Korea. What about the threat of George Bush? Before this bully came along, there was a "sunshine policy" which was re-uniting families across the DMZ, something that hadn't happened in 50 years. New roads, railroads and other communications channels were being put into place. The Agreed Framework had provided a means to control the North Korea nuclear program. Bush destroyed all this. It was Bush alone who is responsible for fomenting the current atmosphere of threat and crisis. He started this policy of bullying just as soon as he got into office. The reactions of Kim Jong Il are a rational response to the unprovoked and intentionally provocative aggression of the Bush admninistration. 5) Until those are resolved or contained, The Bush Administration already holds the key to each and every one of these situations. And in every instance has done all it can to raise rather than lower the level of threat and the hostility. This Administration is a disaster for those who want peace and prosperity. The only thing the Bushies want is to be the biggest bullies on the planet. This is unfortunately short-sighted, financially ruinous and ultimately impossible to maintain. No empire, especially one with the rotten and bankrupt financials of the U.S., has ever lasted for very long at all. George Bush's foreign policy has set us on a course to disaster.