WHY THEN DOES BUSH HOLD THEIR HANDS? AND KISS THEIR CHEEKS?

Aren't we often told that we have to support Israel above all else when it comes to foreign policy decisions regarding the Middle East? And aren't we also told that those who wish harm to Israel are our enemies simply because of their antipathy for Israel? And that states shouldn't sponsor terrorism? And that countries that treat women badly are backwards? And that theocratic, fundamentalist absolute monarchies are anathema to us?

If that's so, why does George Bush stroll hand-in-hand with representatives of Saudi Arabia? After all, we are reminded in an AP report today that:

"Olmert specifically called on Saudi Arabia on Sunday to take the lead in holding a regional conference, the first time Israel has made such a request of the Saudis, who maintain a state of war with Israel but are pushing for a peace deal."

A few facts about Saudi Arabia

Fifteen of the 19 supposed 9/11 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia.

Here's a description of the restrictions on women in Saudia Arabia from Human Rights Watch:

"In interviews with roughly 100 Saudi women academics, educators and medical professionals, Human Rights Watch documented how male guardianship of adult women denies women the right to employment, education, health, and freedom of movement. Government policy often explicitly requires male consent for a range of everyday activities. This system, premised on the idea that women have limited or no legal capacity to act on their own behalf, affects all Saudi women across economic or social divides. While guardianship is construed as a form of protection for women, in fact, it fails to protect some of their most basic rights."

Here's some info from Amnesty International on Saudi Arabia's medieval system of law enforcement:

"There are still scores of political prisoners and possible prisoners of conscience. Saudi Arabia continues to use flogging and amputations as punishments. Executions, beheadings with a sword, occur regularly and are disproportionately carried out against foreign nationals. Foreign workers are vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, particularly female domestic workers, who have virtually no protection at all."

And here's some info on Saudi Arabia's relationship with Israel:

"However, the fifth Arab nation contiguous to Israel, Saudi Arabia, now the dominant nation in the Arab League, remains in a formal state of war with Israel, having never agreed to any armistice or any semblance of a peace agreement with Israel. Instead, Saudi Arabia has consistently funded all terror groups at war with Israel, from Hamas to the 10 PLO terror factions based in Damascus.

Saudi Arabia has earned the distinction as the first nation since the Third Reich which is officially "Judenrein" - Jew free. By law, no Jew may visit or live in Saudi Arabia."

Let's Recap

Saudi Arabia is a known state sponsor of terror and yet is one of the U.S. defense industry's biggest clients.


Saudi Arabia has never made peace with Israel and forbids Jews to even enter their country.

Saudi Arabia calls for Israeli withdrawal from occupied Palestianian territories and a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as the capitol.

Saudi Arabia oppresses women and has a horrible human rights record. Saudi Arabia is not a democracy and makes no pretense of being one--they don't even have demonstration elections.

And according to the official 9/11 story, 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.

But the Bush admininstration considers Saudi Arabia to be a strong ally in the war on terror. What the fuck is wrong with this picture?



Many of the things we've established about Saudi Arabia were also true of Saddam Hussein. Many of the arguments neocons used to condemn Saddam Hussein (or Arabs and/or Muslims generally) are true of Saudi Arabia. So why was Saddam demonized while Bush holds hands with Prince Abdullah? I would sum up the difference in one word: Petrodollar.

HATE AND FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Reading Arthur Silber's take on the Newt Gingrich free speech fiasco...

Silber points out that we've been told that "they hate us because of our freedoms." Silber correctly points out that this is utter nonsense and that "they hate us because we kill them."

I have long argued that we need to bring the frightened sheep in this country to the realization of the true cause of terrorism, which is simply other nations' or peoples' grievances against us, whether real or perceived. The cause of terrorism is not jealousy or hatred of our "freedom."

But when the popular perception is that we must give up our freedoms so that terrorism will stop, we have people like Newt Gingrich and George Bush who will gladly sacrifice those freedoms. And they have done and will do so in vain, because their terrorizing of us won't stop until we stop our terrorizing of them.

Gingrich's remarks remind us that we have to make sure our fellow citizens understand why people would want to hurt us. Instead of trying to score political points with Christofascists and their sympathizers by expressing a desire to end free speech as we know it, Gingrich should be advocating the end of imperialistic impulses and our attempts to control the rest of the world to our benefit and the world's detriment.

If You Think About It

Because if you think about it, from the very beginning, the history of the United States is the history of oppression and overthrow, naked agression and plundering. All of which is cleverly done under the guise of being dedicated to freedom and equality.

Howard Zinn does a good rundown of this history in an interview with (shudder) Dennis Prager:

HZ: Well, probably more bad than good. We’ve done some good, of course; there’s no doubt about that. But we have done too many bad things in the world. You know, if you look at the way we have used our armed force throughout our history: first destroying the Indian communities of this continent and annihilating Indian tribes, then going into the Caribbean in the Spanish-American War, going to the Philippines, taking over other countries, not establishing democracy but in many cases establishing dictatorship, holding up dictatorships in Latin America and giving them arms, and you know, Vietnam, killing several million people for no good reason at all, certainly not for democracy or liberty, and continuing down to the present day with the War in Iraq—we’re not bringing democracy to Iraq, we’re not bringing security to Iraq, and we’re responsible for the deaths of very large numbers of people, I mean, 2500 Americans, tens of thousands of Iraqis....

Just sayin'...

WHY TERRORISM EXISTS

From Charley Reese, as good an explanation as any of why "terrorism" exists, whether the Christofascist superpatriots want to admit it or not:

"Terrorism is a product of politics and of injustice, real or perceived. Since human beings have no choice but to act on their perceptions, whether the injustice is real or perceived doesn't matter. An injustice will stick in a man's craw more painfully and longer than poverty or unemployment."

"They" don't hate us because of Islam.

"They" don't hate us because of freedom.

They hate us because we're imperialists and they're the latest people we've tried to subjugate. End of story. If we stop our imperialism and stop trying to subjugate people for the sake of exploiting their resources with little or no benefit to "them," terrorism will decline and end much sooner than later.

Just a thought...

MORE TERROR BEING CREATED? OF COURSE...

And that's what Bush and company want. Remember, they always say the opposite of what they mean. They say they are "fighting terror" and "protecting freedom," when in reality, as the newly declassifed NIE shows, they're encouraging terror so they can clamp down on our freedoms.

We are in at least the beginning stages of a police state (or perhaps way past that), reaffirmed just this past weekend when Republicans surrepitiously added language to the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that would broadly define who could be declared an enemy combatant. The Center for Constitutional Rights explains it thusly:

"The current version of the Military Commissions redefines an "unlawful enemy combatant" (UEC) so broadly that it could include anyone who organizes a march against the war in Iraq. The bill defines a UEC as "a person who has engaged in hostilities or who has purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" or anyone who "has been determined to be an unlawful enemy combatant by a Combatant Status Review Tribunal or another competent tribunal established under the authority of the President or the Secretary of Defense of the United States." The definition makes no reference to citizenship and therefore could be read to include any number of individuals, including:

* CCR attorneys and other habeas counsel, Federal Public Defenders and military defense counsel for detainees at Guantanamo Bay
* Any person who has given $5 to a charity working with orphans in Afghanistan that turns out to be associated in some fashion with someone who may be a member of the Taliban

The bill also currently includes provisions so sweeping that they strip U.S. courts of jurisdiction over habeas petitions by any non-citizen detained by the government anywhere. Because there is no geographic limitation in the bill's language, it would allow the President to detain any non-citizen without their ever having the chance to challenge their detention in court: "No court... shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider an application for a writ of habeas corpus filed by or on behalf of an alien detained by the United States who has been determined by the United States to have been properly detained as an enemy combatant or is awaiting such determination." Examples of people who could be detained indefinitely with no access to a court include:

* A foreign tourist wearing an anti-Bush t-shirt at the Statue of Liberty
* A protester at an immigration rally who has lived in the U.S. since she was six months old and is a lawful, permanent resident"

Yet Lindsey Graham has been widely quoted as saying in this AP story that this new wording will not affect American citizens. Remember, though, that Republicans always say the opposite of what they mean.

Please always remember and never forget that "conservatives" and right-wingers can only ever rule through fear and misanthropy, so the more turmoil they can create in the world, the more power they can try to grab for themselves. And we have and are allowing them to do that. We've got to stop this...