Israel Doesn't "Appease" Bush

How the monkey has fallen.

HuffPo: According to 29-year CIA veteran and former NSC official Bruce Riedel, Wednesday's announcement of joint peace negotiations between Israel and Syria revealed President Bush's diminished standing in Middle East affairs.

"Think of the irony," Riedel said. "George Bush goes to Jerusalem last week. He gives an impassioned speech about never dealing with nasty regimes [that sponsor terror]. He basically says 'don't make agreements that appease [them].' And less than a week later, the Israeli government announces it is engaged in peace negotiations with the Assad dictatorship in Syria. We're talking about a rather distasteful regime that likely had a hand in the murder of [former Lebanese Prime Minister] Rafik Hariri. I guess [Israeli Prime Minister] Ehud Olmert didn't think the speech was meant for him."

So Bushy had a rather sucessful trip, no? He makes some asinine comments for domestic political gain that are ignored by Israel, and then goes to Saudi Arabia to kiss ass and ask for an increase in the oil output, to which the Saudi prince chuckles and pats him on the head. "Don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out, Georgie." That's our powerful leader!

It's the Saudis, Stupid!

Since the beginning of the "war on terror", I have always wondered what the Saudis role has been in this shell game.

Osama bin Laden is Saudi Arabian. Fifteen of the alleged nineteen hijackers were Saudi Arabian. George W. Bush and Co. flew members of the bin Laden family out of the United States in the hours after the 9/11 attacks while the rest of the country was grounded. Reports that the rising insurgency in Iraq over these past four and a half years have been that approximately 45% of the violence stems from Sunni factions supported by Saudi Arabia and only 15% from al-Qaeda.

Well now the mainstream media have finally gotten on the bus:

NYTIMES: Bush administration officials are voicing increasing anger at what they say has been Saudi Arabia’s counterproductive role in the Iraq war. They say that beyond regarding Mr. Maliki as an Iranian agent, the Saudis have offered financial support to Sunni groups in Iraq. Of an estimated 60 to 80 foreign fighters who enter Iraq each month, American military and intelligence officials say that nearly half are coming from Saudi Arabia and that the Saudis have not done enough to stem the flow.

One senior administration official says he has seen evidence that Saudi Arabia is providing financial support to opponents of Mr. Maliki. He declined to say whether that support was going to Sunni insurgents because, he said, “That would get into disagreements over who is an insurgent and who is not.”

...Officials in Washington have long resisted blaming Saudi Arabia for the chaos and sectarian strife in Iraq, choosing instead to pin blame on Iran and Syria. Even now, military officials rarely talk publicly about the role of Saudi fighters among the insurgents in Iraq.

They don't have to talk publicly about it because anyone who hasn't lost their mind yet and still lives in the sane, real world knows that the Bush family have long been business partners with the bin Ladens and the Saudis. Someone in the Bush administration finally had the guts to point at Saudi Arabia and the news finally decides to report it. But I don't expect to see this on the fake FOX News. It's "blame Iran and Syria" all of the time.

The New York Time continues:

The accounts of American concerns came from interviews with several senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they believed that openly criticizing Saudi Arabia would further alienate the Saudi royal family at a time when the United States is still trying to enlist Saudi support for Mr. Maliki and the Iraqi government, and for other American foreign policy goals in the Middle East, including an Arab-Israeli peace plan.

...the Saudi government has hardly masked its intention to prop up Sunni groups in Iraq and has for the past two years explicitly told senior Bush administration officials of the need to counterbalance the influence Iran has there. Last fall, King Abdullah warned Vice President Dick Cheney that Saudi Arabia might provide financial backing to Iraqi Sunnis in any war against Iraq’s Shiites if the United States pulled its troops out of Iraq, American and Arab diplomats said.

Who the hell are we fighting for, us or the Saudis? And the fallacy that Saudi Arabia is one of our strongest allies is repeated over and over and over again by the criminals in the White House. Why isn't Saudi Arabia, or King Abdullah for that matter, on a terror watch list? Didn't Bush give a "for us or agin' us" speech a while back?

Bush, September 20, 2001: "...we will pursue nations that provide aid or safe haven to terrorism. Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists. From this day forward, any nation that continues to harbor or support terrorism will be regarded by the United States as a hostile regime."

Well, almost every nation. Stop Saudi Arabia and you will almost immediately quell the violence in Iraq by almost half. HALF! But I tend to forget... it's about oil, isn't it...?

Rice Plans Talks with Syria

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet Syria's foreign minister in the first high-level talks between the countries in years, a U.S. official said Thursday, and the chief American military spokesman in Iraq said Syria had moved to reduce ''the flow of foreign fighters'' across its border.

When Nancy Pelosi does it, it's called "emboldening the enemy" and "negotiating with terrorists". I guess when the Bushies do it, it's called "diplomacy".