Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Elder Bush takes on son's Arab critics

ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates - Former President George H.W. Bush took on Arab critics of his son Tuesday during a testy exchange at a leadership conference in the capital of this U.S. ally.

"My son is an honest man," Bush told members of the audience harshly criticized the current U.S. leader's foreign policy.

The oil-rich Persian Gulf used to be safe territory for former President Bush, who brought Arab leaders together in a coalition that drove Saddam Hussein’s troops from Kuwait in 1991. But gratitude for the elder Bush, who served as president from 1989-93, was overshadowed at the conference by hostility toward his son, whose invasion of Iraq and support for Israel are deeply unpopular in the region.

"We do not respect your son. We do not respect what he's doing all over the world," a woman in the audience bluntly told Bush after his speech.

Bush, 82, appeared stunned as others in the audience whooped and whistled in approval.

LSB: That son you're so proud of is a fuck-up, old man. Sometimes the truth hurts, but thank heavens that woman in the audience told him exactly what the world is thinking.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"How come everybody wants to come to the United States if the United States is so bad?" If one dismisses the rhetorical aspect of the question, one could answer in the negative:

Not everyone is coming to the United States. In terms of the asylum seekers, the United States is third with Germany and United Kingdom taking more. Net migration for the United States is 71st out of 107 or 3.56 migrants/1,000 population. New citizenships (per capita) are 3.03651 thousand per 1 million population; that puts the US 8th on the list with Canada and Belgium at the top. The source for these statistics is the OECD.

It seems that the assumption that everyone is migrating to the US is unfounded. Perhaps American citizens should not use this assumption as a basis for wanting uncritical acceptance of the American foreign policy.