America Humiliated

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America Humiliated
President Bush this AM will be delivering a speech to the UN asking one could almost say pleading for help with Iraq. The UN an organization that for all practical purposes he deemed irrelevant. I have no doubt that behind the faces listening to the speech there are wide grins and even glee. He has managed to humiliate the US on the international scene with his, with us or against us bravado, cowboy antics and rhetoric. According to this AM 's news two of the democrats fighting for nomination, Kerry and Clark would defeat Bush if the election were held today. How the mighty have fallen. The American public does not vote for a loser and Mr. Bush has become just that a loser.

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Don't think so - he is arrogance personified...

Quote:

Bush unbending on Iraq

The UN debate comes as attacks continue in Iraq
President George W Bush has provided an uncompromising defence of United States policies in Iraq, ahead of a major speech to the United Nations on Tuesday.

Going to war with Iraq was "the right decision", he said in an interview broadcast by the Fox TV network on Monday.

Mr Bush also said he did not see the need for a greater UN role in Iraq - although he suggested the world body could help write a new constitution and oversee elections.

The White House has flatly rejected French proposals for the early handover of power to Iraqi politicians.

However, in his own speech on Tuesday, the UN's Secretary General Kofi Annan is expected to call for the body to play a "full part" in rebuilding Iraq.

No regrets

Mr Bush told Fox News the US might not need to give the UN more authority in Iraq.

"I'm not so sure we have to, for starters," the president said.

The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein

George W Bush

Rifts at the UN
Have your say: UN role in Iraq
"But secondly, I do think it would be helpful to get the United Nations in to help write a constitution. I mean, they're good at that.

"Or, perhaps when an election starts, they'll oversee the election. That would be deemed a larger role."

Mr Bush said he would tell the General Assembly he had no regrets about going to war.

"I will make it clear that I made the right decision and the others that joined us made the right decision," he said. "The world is a better place without Saddam Hussein."

Mr Bush is addressing the UN General Assembly amid mounting concerns that the US military is getting bogged down in a widening guerrilla war in Iraq.

Washington is seeking a Security Council resolution authorising a multinational force, and approving the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.

The resolution would also let Iraqis help set the timetable for creating democratic institutions.

No rush

On Monday, Mr Bush's National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, re-affirmed that transition towards Iraqi self-rule had to be "orderly" and said that French calls for an immediate handover were "not going to work".

Chirac does not agree with Washington, but will not use the veto
French President Jacques Chirac has proposed a two-stage plan, starting with a symbolic transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqi Governing Council.

This would be followed by the transfer of real power over six to nine months.

Ms Rice said Iraqi sovereignty could only be restored after a new constitution was written and elections held.

The US has not put its draft resolution on Iraq to a vote because of fears of a French veto.

However in an interview with the New York Times on Monday, Mr Chirac said France would not veto the resolution.

Suicide bomb

Mr Bush's speech will be the centre point of a two-day visit to New York by the US president.

He will hold private bilateral meetings with Mr Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

Mr Bush said he would tell the French president - whom he described as "a strong-willed soul" - that "America is a good nation".

"Hopefully he will over time understand more clearly why I had made the decisions I had made," he said.

Meanwhile the UN says it re-assessing its presence in Iraq, after a suicide attack left two people dead near the UN headquarters in Baghdad on Monday.

The blast followed a weekend of attacks in Iraq in which three US soldiers were killed and a member of the Iraqi Governing Council was wounded in an assassination attempt.

Mr Annan said: "We need a secure environment in which to operate. If it continues to deteriorate, our operations will be handicapped."

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Gautam
The bottom line is that despite all that rhetoric and bravado he is still going the UN with hat in hand. His motives are transparent.

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He is asking the UN to do only those things which do not have a potential commercial impact !!

He is cunning that man !

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The embarrasment of Britain in all of this is less, but still significant. At least Bush made his own policy (however misguided or wrong), rather than simply copying someone else's (like the idiot running my country).

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au - Interesting take you have on the speech. I imagine this difference has something to do with the news sources we each attend to, but I have heard the speech billed as a request for patience in seeking a transition to Iraqi self-rule, more than a request for assistance in that task. I think it likely that it will be a bit of both.

Personally, I don't see a request for help from other nations as being a change in the stance of the US. We asked the UN for help from day one. How is that a change?

America's primary source of humiliation these days is the vocal minority of anti-American liberals working night and day to portray our nation as a house divided unto itself, when the majority of Americans are united behind the common goal of ridding the world of terrorism and safeguarding America and her people throughout the world. Bush is going to the UN to speak for that goal, and to ask those who have eschewed it, to embrace it. If they do not, that is to their humiliation, not ours, and that Bush is willing again to ask is a sign not of weakness, but strength.

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He sold Tony Blair and now I believe Blair is having buyer's remorse -- I wonder if he actually believes he'd rather be right than Prime Minister? I don't believe Bush believes he'd rather be right than President.

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Scrat said "that Bush is willing again to ask is a sign not of weakness, but strength."

In which case, Scrat, how about lending me 1000 bucks for a cup of coffee?

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And I hate a weak cup of coffee.

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Lightwizard wrote:

I don't believe Bush believes he'd rather be right than President.

You know, LW, I'm inclined to agree with you on this one. Given some of the decisions Bush has made while in office--decisions to court the left rather than govern as a conservative--it seems to me that his primary motivation (as is sadly the case with most first-term politicians) is to ensure his reelection by doing what he believes is popular rather than what he thinks is right.

The exception is the war on Iraq and on terror. I believe Bush would be following this course of action whether popular or not. And that's one stance for which I can give him kudos. That's leadership. If only he would lead in more areas and let the political chips fall where they may.

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Trying to find a leader untainted by crass politics is like trying to find a diamond in a box of Crackerjacks.

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Scrat wrote:

America's primary source of humiliation these days is the vocal minority of anti-American liberals...

Talk about dreamers!!!

America's primary source of humiliation these days is the fact that its president is a guy with the intellectual abilities of a not-especially-bright adolescent. The sheep who, with their kneejerk reactions, consider anyone who disagrees with them to be "anti-American" -- also add to the humiliation of America these days.

BTW, have you noticed that "anti-American" is a phrase most commonly used by people who don't understand what being pro-American is all about.

Quote:

...(anti-American liberals) working night and day to portray our nation...

Can you conservatives ever rise above self-serving platitudes and hyperbole like this?

Quote:

...as a house divided unto itself, when the majority of Americans are united behind the common goal of ridding the world of terrorism and safeguarding America and her people throughout the world.

Yes, most Americans are united behind that goal. But some of us (and I am not a liberal) recognize that the ignorant twerp now in the Oval Office is more interested in raiding the treasury to settle an old family feud his father had with Saddam Hussein, than with spending the money actually fighting terrorism.

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Scrat
You are correct in listening to the speech it would seem he reiterated that we were correct in our war with Iraq and did not give an inch. Nice speech his speechwriters did a good job in reminding the UN of the support we give the UN in it's activities both physical and monetarily. Did the speech anyway change the status quo or was it the same old same old? It was indeed not what was expected.

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Lightwizard wrote:

Trying to find a leader untainted by crass politicis is like trying to find a diamond in a box of Crackerjacks.

Agreed.

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Right on Frank!

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But then I observe that the blindly patriotic conservative right have given Bush virtually a free ticket -- do what you will do, it can't be all that bad. They aren't willing to accept that Bush has personal agendas that in the end cannot be considered entirely nobel. Bill Kristol of The Weekly Standard does not give Bush a free ticket even though you will always find him disagreeing with ideology from the left.

But this is off the track of this thread which is, for me at least, should be an olive branch to continuing political debate but keeping the personal attacks that violate the TOS to as close to zero tolerance as possible. That will take all of us to check our tempers and the side effect is to quell the blood pressure -- I'd hate to see someone expire while flipping out over someone's political views on this forum. Honestly.

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Bush is relying upon incredible stupidity in others if, having already awarded all the juicy multi-billion dollar contracts in Iraq to his pocket-lining friends, he now hopes to convince the 'irrelevant' nations of the world to pour their own taxpayers' billions into Iraq and replace American body-bags with those of their own citizens, in order to help ensure his re-election in 2004.

Not confident many will buy the international equivalent of the Brooklyn Bridge?

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Bush courts the left? Do tell, Scrat. He can be accused of many things--and is no doubt guilty of most--but courting the left ain't one of them.

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D'artagnan wrote:

Bush courts the left? Do tell, Scrat. He can be accused of many things--and is no doubt guilty of most--but courting the left ain't one of them.

I never claimed that he courted anyone as far out on the left as you, but yes, on education, steel tarriffs and other important issues he has been far too willing to toss bones to liberals. Shame he doesn't realize that those liberals merely eat the bones and spit the shards back at him.

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In a response to D'Artagnan, Scrat wrote:

Scrat wrote:

Shame he (Bush) doesn't realize that those liberals merely eat the bones and spit the shards back at him.

Shame he doesn't realize a whole bunch of things.

But folks like D'Artagnan are not responsible for putting a moron like Bush into office, Scrat.

That travesty rests on the shoulders of people like you.

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America Humiliated

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