If you have been aghast at seeing the US embrace torture, you are not alone. If you have been disheartened by the creeping fascism gripping America, you are not alone. If you have seen a deterioration of public discourse and more outrageous racism and bigotry even on once respected channels, you are not alone.
And you are not the only one pissed off.
This is not another diatribe about the Anna Nicole Channels. A worthless press is certainly one of the reasons why Americans are completely out of touch with the rest of the world as well as confused.
Here is what an Argentinian newspaper said about the US after Alberto Gonzalez was snubbed in a recent visit.
it's important to watch one's back with friends like these. It makes little sense to have them as friends when they show such little regard for those, such as the British, who so obediently struggle to maintain that friendship.
An Argentinian newspaper weighs in on a little reported story about the visit to Argentina by the Attorney General of the United States. Read it and you will see why it was not reported by a press that is run by corporations.
Gonzales is the name of the Attorney General of the United States, a Latino who has attained a high rank in the Bush Administration....Gonzales is one of those responsible for the irregular conditions under which prisoners accused of terrorism against the United States are held at Guantánamo. This situation has brought about widespread protest on the international level; the U.S. prison in a strange colonial enclave on the island of Cuba (situated in a place made unforgettable by the poetry of Jose Marti ) has served as a space where prisoners have been denied the most basic rights. In the name of the alleged war against terrorism, the U.S. administration has whittled away at the basic rights of its citizens, as well as those of other countries.
In another famous case, almost 20 CIA agents who participated in the kidnapping of a German citizen of Arabic origin [Khaled el-Masri ] are currently being charged in a German court for a crime committed on European soil.
In repudiation for what his presence signifies given the mistreatment meted out to the prisoners at Guantanamo, Alberto Gonzales was not received by any high-level Argentine official. This decision by our Foreign Ministry shows that we are a sovereign nation rather than a subservient republic begging for favors from the strongest. And it was also to let Gonzales know that our country honors the Geneva Conventions with respect to the treatment of prisoners of war.
Little has been said about this story, and it was a decision that few Argentine governments would have made in the past. But given the bellicose and unilateral behavior that the United States has subjected the world to over the past few years, it was a well-deserved decision.
...So, it's important to watch one's back with friends like these. It makes little sense to have them as friends when they show such little regard for those, such as the British, who so obediently struggle to maintain that friendship.
Link here:
http://www.jornadaonline.com/...
A Chinese pundit asks if Hillary can save the United states from the morass the Bushies have left us in. This is the Chinese we are talking about. The Chinese live under a worse dictatorship than we do. Even they feel pity for us.
Hillary also said that for the next two years, she'll make every effort to limit the potential harm that the incumbent President can do and restore the hope and optimism of the American people, as well as restore America's leading position in the world. But as to the highly-charged issue of troop withdrawal, neither Hillary nor the Democratic Party as a whole has yet come up with a convincing and feasible option.
Link here:
http://comment.thebeijingnews.com/...
A popular Egyptian newspaper notes the Islamophobia gripping the US and lets readers know that they themselves have certainly noticed it. The ill will created by the Bush Administration has caused a schism in the Arab world between the old kowtowers and the new diplomats that refuse to ignore the hell that the Bush Administration is creating. Read this clip and you will see more actual analysis of what the Bushies have done than you will see in American Press. They see that the neocons do not represent the rank and file Americans.
Gaping wounds in some of the most sensitive areas of the Arab world, most notably in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine, have begun to suppurate. The current American administration, headed by a clique of anti-Arab Islamophobes, will stop at nothing, out of deference to Israel and commitment to the Christian-Zionist preaching in which they believe so fervently. This same administration believes the fact that neither the president's nor the vice-president's running for re-election gives them greater freedom of movement, at least until the electoral campaigns officially kick-off in February a year from now. Until then they will steamroll through measures in an attempt to complete an enterprise refuse to admit they have failed. And such is the catatonic stupor into which Arab regimes have fallen that they are prepared to allow the same doctor who caused the disease to treat their wounds....
As important as the strategic relationship with the US might be, Arab leaders should realise that Bush and his gang of neo-conservatives are not synonymous with the United States. They are a band of thugs bent on steering the world to unmitigated disaster, a fact grasped by the majority of the American people upon whom it has dawned that this administration is no less fanatical and racist than Hitler and the Nazis. Nor can a strategic relationship be founded upon handing over the determination of the fates of our peoples to the White House, regardless of whether its incumbent is a Democrat or Republican, an extremist or moderate. The US is a mighty power and acts as mighty powers mostly do: it respects the strong and crushes the weak once it can dispense with their services. When will Arab rulers open their eyes to the reality that their current weakness and disarray is hastening the day when the US finds them too much of a burden and drops them? When will they realise that they will never be able to make the transition from a dependent to a partner or build a strategic relationship that is truly mutually beneficent until they demonstrate their ability to effectively play what few cards they have left to their advantage?
Link Here:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/...
Here is a British columnist writing from Hong Kong and trying to figure this out- if the US is so bent on spreading democracy, then why are we siding with horrible dictatorships.
US policy is to support the development of democracy in the Middle East, particularly in Iraq. So that should make these states US enemies and Iran, a Shiite-dominated semi-democracy helping the majority Iraqi Shiites fight anti-democratic Sunni insurgents, a US friend, right?
Not according to President George WBush. Dictatorial Syria is an enemy because it allegedly helps Sunni insurgents against the Iraqi government. Clear enough. But Iran is doing the opposite. Doesn't that make Iran the enemy of my enemy, and thus my friend?
But Bush considers Shiite-dominated Iran, a friend of the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government, an enemy.
Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia, on the other hand, has long been proclaimed a US ally. But 15 of 19 hijackers who attacked the United States on 9/11 were Saudis. Saudi Sunnis are assisting Iraqi Sunnis in attacking US troops and the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government.
So if the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but this is not so for Iran, how can the friend of my enemy who attacks me and my friend be my friend?
But Bush argues Saudi Arabia is.
Link here:
http://www.thestandard.com.hk/...
I added this is because it is just a symptom of how incompetent the current State Department is. The people representing us across the world with our closest allies cannot poor piss out of a boot with instructions on the heel. Why, because they do not have to be competent. They have to be loyal Republicans. Add to that the normal Bushie bellicosity and what do you get? Even a local Japanese governor has to tell us to shut the fuck up.
The Yomiuri Shimbun
Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma, left, talks to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe before a Diet session Thursday.
Defense Minister Fumio Kyuma criticized Saturday the United States over its unwillingness to accept changes in Japan's provisional plan for the relocation of the U.S. Marine Corps' Futenma Air Station in Okinawa Prefecture.
"The United States doesn't understand very well that in Japan, which is decentralized, we have things that we can't do if the governors don't say 'OK,'" Kyuma said in a speech in Isahaya. Governors have the authority to approve the reclamation of public waters. "We're in the process of telling the United States not to be so bossy and let us do what we should do."
Link here:
http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/...
Intelligent people around the world are aghast at what we are doing. They are worried. They are pissed off. They do not blame you and me for everything that has gone wrong. They know we have been taken over by madmen. hey have seen this happen before. They see the Democratic take over of Congress as a sign of hope.
But whether or not they forgive us...that is another matter entirely.