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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (86379)	11/15/2004 10:31:25 PM
From: unclewest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793755

the Arab dictators will suffer having to be polite to her. They just hate to deal with a woman, and a black woman is even worse. She has caught more abuse in the Arab press for her race. Agree. And Condie will be much more effective than the other African-American woman we almost had near the top...Teresa.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (86379)	11/16/2004 12:01:01 AM
From: Ilaine	Respond to of 793755

I get warm fuzzies thinking of all the pains the Arab dictators will suffer having to be polite to her. Oh, I think it's not just Arabs who look down on blacks and women. Also lots of Latin Americans and Asians, for sure. But if they don't respect her as a person, they'll still have to respect her as a representative of the USA, and maybe it will stretch their minds a little, we can only hope.

To: Nadine Carroll who wrote (86379)	11/16/2004 9:46:13 AM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 793755

I get warm fuzzies thinking of all the pains the Arab dictators will suffer having to be polite to her. The Saudis, especially Prince Nayef, will go nuts. We are killing Sunnis left and right in Iraq trying to benefit the Shias. And Shias are worse than Jews or Christians in the eyes of the demented Wahabbis. We are making a black woman Sec. of State. A black man was an affront, but not as strong a one as a black woman. You'll recall that the Saudi religious police hindered efforts to assist students at a Saudi girls' school which was on fire--what can we expect they'll think about a woman Sec. of State? I hope Bush sends her on a visit. Soon. Our secular culture is truly anathema to them. Democracy is seen as a weapon of the "Zio-Crusaders" who are the sworn enemies of Wahabbism. And it's happening in Afghanistan and Iraq. A very astute observation from Doran's article on Saudi Arabia in an issue of last year's Foreign Affairs: All this might sound like the product of an addled brain, but it is not as detached from political reality as it seems. The Saudi clerics and al Qaeda base their political analysis of the Shi`ites on two assumptions: that Wahhabism is true Islam and that it must have a monopoly over state policy. From this perspective, the various forces promoting Taqarub [tolerance, getting along with other religions] both domestic and foreign, are indeed in cahoots to upend the status quo. The Shi`ites offer an alternative notion of Islamic community and history, they tend to cluster in strategically key regions, they share bonds with co-religionists beyond the borders of their country, and they have political interests that coincide with those of Sunni reformers. These attributes would allow the Shi`ites to form a powerful political bloc should a participatory political system ever emerge. And offering them even minor political concessions now would be dangerous, the clerics say, since other sects and other regional identities would clamor for political representation and soon overwhelm the system. Was it a surprise that the price of oil remained high during the election and is now falling precipitously? The special relationship between the Bush family and the Saudis that the loony Michael Moore thinks exists is kaput, if it ever existed at all. The current Bush Administration sees the issues clearly, in my opinion: Tawhid [classic Wahabbism, with jihad as its calling card] is prevailing in Saudi Arabia. The PR effort the Saudis spent a few million on last year, including glossy ads in Foreign Affairs, was a waste of money. The reformers are on the ropes for now. We'll know how things stand when Fahd dies, which should be soon. Bush is therefore putting enormous pressure on the Saudi nutjobs, parking a goodly contingent of our forces in a country that borders SA. This presence of US forces in Iraq has to be extremely difficult for them too take. I should think that Bandar is not quite as welcome in DC as he used to be. Robert Scott Doran has a great article in FA which bears re-reading. Too long to reproduce here: foreignaffairs.org The problem, of course, is that AQ benefits from the Saudi's munificence. I am very concerned by the recent OK given by one of the SA Waco clerics for use of nuclear weapons against us. The terrorists typically seek this kind of religious OK before doing something horrible.