 | Volume CCXXXVI, Number 162 March 16, 2007 |
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Bush
gratitude tour MERIDA, Mexico – George Bush has wrapped up his Latin American Magical Gratitude Tour to boffo reviews and big crowds, proving once again the enduring appeal of this American idol. During his week-long swing through South and Central America, Bush continually harped on the moving generosity of the United States and the need for foreigners to express an appropriate level of gratitude for such largesse. In Guatemala, Bush told the peasants herded at gunpoint that they should be grateful for U.S. involvement in their wretched banana republic, particularly the U.S.-sponsored coup that ousted democratically elected Jacobo Arbenz and replaced him with a series of corrupt, bloodthirsty military oligarchs who have left a legacy of misery, oppression and death. "Without U.S. assistance, Guatemalan children might have been denied the opportunity to participate in a free market economy as garbage pickers, farmworkers, servants or illegal aliens subject to the the same type of family destruction that we used to visit on our own slaves," Bush told the surprisingly quiet and attentive campesinos. Elsewhere on the streets of Guatemala City, thousands expressed their thanks to Bush and the United States with festive riots culminating in the traditional burning in effigy of a grotesque papier mache statue of the beloved U.S. President.  This Brazilian woman can barely find the words to express her gratitude to George Bush Earlier, in Brazil, the President commended the Brazilian sugar cane to ethanol program, saying that it offered the opportunity to replace billions of gallons of petroleum-based gasoline. He told Brazilians they should be grateful for the blatantly discriminatory 54 cent a gallon U.S. tariff on imported ethanol imposed and maintained by Congressional buffoons seeking a leg up in the Iowa presidential caucuses. "Without this tariff, Brazil might ship millions of gallons of ethanol to the United States. Instead, all that supply is available for domestic consumption, helping keep ethanol fuel prices low right here in Brazil City," Bush told a crowd of government officials and hand-picked local plutocrats. A few miles away, in downtown São Paolo (where, unbeknownst to him, Bush was staying), hundreds of thousands of Brazilians showed their gratitude by carrying signs with slogans like "Bush – Assassin!" and "Death to the War Criminal Bush." On his last stop, in Mexico, Bush told the Mexicans they should be grateful for the employment opportunities afforded to millions of Mexican illegal aliens and to remind them that Jeb's pool needed cleaning and shock treatment. He told his fellow oligarchs that they should be especially thankful for his planned 700-mile border fence, "because that will give you a larger pool of desperate workers for you to exploit right here at home." As a special treat for his audience, he announced that his Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales, would begin a six-month trip to Mexico to advise them on how to reduce corruption in their police forces, judiciary and prosecutorial system. "We're sending you our best mind on the subject, and he even speaks Mexican. How about a little gratitude for that?" he demanded. Joining the President on this leg of the tour was his mother Barbara, who said that "since most Mexicans lived in filth and squalor anyway, the low-wage service and sweatshop jobs in the U.S. were working out well for them." She reminded her audience that she had contributed $1,000 to the Neil Bush Foundation for the Relief of Teenaged Mexican Girls and told Mexicans to write her a nice thank you note in return. Previously, behind the bulletproof fences of a compound outside of Bogota, Colombia, Bush reminded Colombians of the massive U.S. aid program that has brought "state-of-the-art weaponry, including helicopter gunships and lethal biological agents, to even the remotest corners of your country." He added: "But you don't have to thank me. Heh-heh, just kidding. Yes you do." He also reminded Colombians that U.S. cocaine purchases had injected billions of dollars into the local economy and employed tens of thousands of Colombians as coca farmers, drug mules, machine gun toting bodyguards and corrupt policemen. Addressing a room full of American reporters and Secret Service agents (for security reasons, Colombians were allowed to watch the festivities from a conference room in Bogota less than 100 miles away), Bush asked, possibly rhetorically, "Where would this country be without the buying power of millions of American tweakers like me?"
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WHY WE FIGHT IRAQ WAR | FOURTH ANNIVERSARY Violence, fear pervade once-vibrant Baghdad BAGHDAD, Iraq - In the four years since U.S. troops marched into Iraq, Baghdad, once a city where Sunni and Shiite Muslims mixed and intermarried, has become a maze of concrete blast walls. Once-pleasant neighborhoods are now battle-weary front lines often empty of their original residents. And the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, marches on. . . . But interviews with residents throughout the capital and a review of police reports shows that while violence may be down overall, the Mahdi Army continues its thrust into western Baghdad in what appears to be a drive to cut off Sunni neighborhoods in the west of the capital from Sunni neighborhoods to the south and southwest. . . . [T]ens of thousands of Sunnis have fled to Sunni-dominated provinces outside the capital. Dr. Nuhad Abbas, a university professor who directs the Organization for the Care of the Displaced and Immigrant Affairs, places the number of Sunni families who've left Baghdad at more than 40,000. At the end of last year, the Mahdi Army solidified its control in what had been mixed districts in northwest Baghdad, forcing the last 200 Sunni residents - members of the Batta tribe - from the Hurriyah neighborhood in early December. Witnesses to that battle say the militiamen burned Sunni homes, sometimes with the men still inside. Video of the final push has played repeatedly on Zawraa TV, a banned Iraqi station affiliated with Sunni insurgents that broadcasts via an Egyptian satellite. . . . For Sunnis, the battle for Amil has been a series of failed efforts to defend the area's seven Sunni mosques. The sixth mosque - just west of the Janabat area, which is named for the Sunni tribe - fell Feb. 4, according to residents, 11 days before the security plan began. The mosque was bombed, and the building set ablaze. At least 25 homes around the mosque were burned as Sunnis fled. . . . Amil is now grim for Sunnis. The Janabi tribe holdouts have Mahdi militiamen on three sides and only one route out: the dangerous road to the airport. Sadr offices have opened throughout the neighborhood. Only women from displaced Sunni families are allowed in, to take their belongings and go. First they check in with the Sadr offices, residents said. . . . Life for Shiites who live in Amil is also rough. Rumors of a Sunni sniper strike fear in Shiites' hearts. "In spite of all the displacing, Amil is not safe yet," said Hussein al Mayahi, 37, a Shiite taxi driver who lost three cousins to a mortar attack two weeks ago. "We still have the Sunni Janabat area." In Jihad, which borders Amil to the west, sectarian killing continues, despite a stepped-up U.S. presence and a decline in violence, residents said. "Dead bodies are found in the streets every morning, and many families, both Sunni and Shiite, have fled for their lives," said Samir Saeed, 26, who's stopped going to college in central Baghdad because of the dangerous trip on the airport road. "You never know if it's good or bad, but by the afternoon everything is on fire," said Mustafa Mohammed, 27. "The main fear is assassins. Gunmen drive by killing us, and you never know who is killing who." Other neighborhoods already have fallen to the Mahdi Army push. Chebab, a once-mixed district in southwest Baghdad, is fully controlled by the Mahdi Army, whose members were manning checkpoints openly last week, carrying weapons and wearing their trademark black uniforms. Sunnis no longer can get to their mosque, which the Mahdi Army controls, residents reported. Shiite militias remain active in Risala, a mostly Shiite area south of Amil. On Tuesday, seven men were killed in a raid on a Sunni mosque that residents blamed on the Mahdi Army. . . . "I still see the insurgents carrying their weapons," said Adil al Qaisi, 28, who said Sunni insurgents had nearly killed him for pleading for the release of his Shiite neighbor. "Ghazaliyah is now a cemetery ... the streets are empty and we live in our house like dead people." Mansour, the main shopping district in central Baghdad, is plagued with gunmen and kidnappers, and while some stores remain open, shoppers prefer those on side streets away from traffic, which may contain a car bomb. Markets, often the target of Sunni insurgent bombings, now are largely walled off, and only pedestrians are admitted behind the towering concrete walls. Once, the Garden City Restaurant was jammed with patrons listening to Western music late into the night as they dined. Now it's usually empty. In Yarmouk, an upper-class Sunni neighborhood known for its wealth and beauty, garbage litters the sidewalks, a stark contrast to the flowers that bloom in the medians. A playground that U.S. troops built was dismantled about four months ago, the slide and swings now used as roadblocks. Residents have taken to blocking their own streets - with dirt hills, palm tree trunks and barrels - to protect themselves from Shiite militias and Sunni car bombs. Samir Saeed, 26, a Sunni resident of Jihad, expressed the frustration felt by many in Baghdad: "We used to live. Now we strive to exist. So what if we have freedom of speech. ... What use is it if no one listens?" – McClatchy News Service, March 16, 2007. |