Blog Jones

16 Responses to “President Bush Scares Me”

1. tim watson Says:
   October 6th, 2005 at 7:11 pm

   Be careful what you write. I probably know in your heart you do not wish to call your authority a lunatic, but you did.

   We are to pray for those in leadership, whether they be David or Ahab.

   twatson

2. nativelunatic Says:
   October 6th, 2005 at 7:41 pm

   maybe George Bush is the antichrist…

3. Blog Jones Says:
   October 6th, 2005 at 9:30 pm

   If he’s commanding the country according to voices in his head, then he’s a lunatic, and we need to replace him.

   His position as an authority figure has no bearing on his sanity. I have no particular respect for a man (or, for that matter, a woman) just because he’s been elected to an office. He’s a man, just like I am, only older and better connected.

4. gordo Says:
   October 6th, 2005 at 9:52 pm

   I wonder which country the voices in his head will tell him to invade next?

   Iran.

   I supported the war with the understanding that the conduct of the war would be competent and ethical. As we know, its been neither.

   Who can now trust President Bush on anything?

   Tim Watson seems to confuse our republic with a theocracy.

5. Jay C. Says:
   October 6th, 2005 at 10:16 pm

   Here’s some background info on Dr. Shaath, courtesy of http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Shaath.html

   Dr. Shaath returned to Cairo from the United States in 1965. In 1969, he went to Lebanon to teach at the American University in Beirut. Salaam Fayyad and Muhammad Dahlan were at also at AUB during those years. Shaath worked as an industry consultant and management trainer (heading a company called TEAM) in Algeria, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Lebanon. He also taught at the American University in Beirut.

   He joined PLO in 1970 and served as an adviser to Fatah from 1971. Dr. Shaath became the head of the PLO Planning Centre 1971 - 1981. He is credited as being the founder of the Democratic State approach. In 1974, Dr. Shaath accompanied Arafat in the first PLO delegation to the United Nations and headed the first Palestinian delegation to the UN. He serves as chair of Palestinian National Council political committee.

   In March 1990, Shaath was appointed to Fatah-CC. Shaath was a member of the Madrid delegation and played a leading role in the Oslo process. He held a meeting with Yossi Sarid in July 1993 (the first meeting between a PLO leader and an authorized Israeli cabinet member) to agree on the Gaza-Jericho formula; Shaath wrote a Palestinian draft Declaration of Principles for the Oslo agreement. He served as the PLO’s chief negotiator at the Taba talks from October 1993. Shaath is a Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member for Khan Yunis.

   From 1994 until his appointment in the cabinet of Abu Mazen, Dr. Shaath has been the Palestinian Authority’s Minister of Planning and International Cooperation. He is a member of the Fatah Central Committee.

   Analysis
   Dr. Shaath is a highly educated, western-style Palestinian politician, with close ties to Arafat, Israel and the United States. He has been said to be “the real power behind (Arafat’s) thrown[sic]”. While Arafat has been sequestered in Ramallah for the last few years, Dr. Shaath has been free to travel and has done so on Arafat’s behalf.
   
   He is a frequent visitor to the United States’ State Department, and was the secret Palestinian representative to Prince Abdullah in Riyadh in 2002 for creation of the “Saudi Plan” for peace.

   Dr. Shaath is wealthy although the country that employs him is virtually bankrupt. Dr. Shaath has his own business enterprises around the Arab world, but his wealth and connections caused the Palestinian Legislative Assembly, in 1997, to publicly demand Dr. Shaath be removed from power, indicted for gross corruption, and penalized with imprisonment. In Aug. 1998, a commission found evidence of criminal corruption. Yet, Dr. Shaath remained in power and has been given another position in the newly formed Palestinian Authority.

   Dr. Shaath is a savvy politician who is at home in the western political sphere, and he remains a favorite of Washington’s. However, he is unpopular at home due to the perception of corruption and a lack of passion for two ideas held dear by many Palestinians: the right of return and the right of refugees in refugee camps. Dr. Shaath also has a reputation for arrogance.

   In a Lateline interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Dr. Shaath perpetuated the myth that there was a massacre at the Jenin refugee camp by using terms like “…absolutely horrifying…” and making comparisons to the devastation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Moreover, the interview provides a glimpse into Dr. Shaath’s seething hostility towards Ariel Sharon.

   Yup, Mr. Shaath sounds like a real trustworthy source of info to me. Trust me, if this allegation was true, we’d have heard about it via the MSM long before now. The BBC has been known to tilt left for many years now, and their ‘reporting’ has been decidedly Anti-US since Bush took office. Take anything they say with one half of a grain of salt.

6. Jay C. Says:
   October 6th, 2005 at 10:22 pm

   One last thing…here’s a link to some light reading on “Fatah”, courtesy of Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah

   Fatah (Arabic: ???); a reverse acronym from the Arabic name Harakat al-Tahrir al-Watani al-Filastini (literally: “Palestinian National Liberation Movement”) is a major Palestinian faction and the largest constituency of the PLO, a multi-party confederation.

   The reverse acronym “FATAH” means “conquest” or “victory through holy struggle” in Arabic. The meaning of this acronym spelled straight forward, as “HATAF”, is “death”.

   History
   Founded in 1959 by Yasser Arafat, in 1967–1968 Fatah joined the PLO and won the leadership role in 1969. According to the BBC, “Mr Arafat took over as chairman of the executive committee of the PLO in 1969, a year that Fatah is recorded to have carried out 2,432 guerrilla attacks on Israel.”

   Fatah’s commanders were expelled to Lebanon from Jordan following violent confrontations with Jordanian forces during the period 1970–1971, beginning with Black September in 1970.

   In the 1960s and the 1970s, Fatah provided training to a wide range of European, Middle Eastern, Asian, and African militant and insurgent groups, and carried out numerous attacks against Israeli targets in Western Europe and the Middle East during the 1970s. Some militant groups that affiliated themselves to Fatah, and some of the fedayeen within Fatah itself, carried out civilian plane hijackings and terrorist attacks, attributing them to Black September, Abu Nidal’s Fatah-Revolutionary Council, Abu Musa’s group, the PFLP, and the PFLP-GC.

   Fatah received weapons, explosives and training from the former USSR and the former Communist regimes of East European states. China have also provided some weapons.

   When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, the faction was dispersed to several Middle Eastern countries with the help of US and other Western governments: Tunisia, Yemen, Algeria, Iraq and others. In the period 1982-1993, Fatah’s leadership resided in Tunisia.

   Until his death, Arafat was the head of the Palestinian Authority. Farouk Kaddoumi is the current Fatah chairman, elected to the post soon after Arafat’s death in 2004.

   Fatah has “Observer Party” status at the Socialist International.
   
   Recently, Fatah has endorsed Mahmoud Abbas in the Palestinian presidential election, 2005.

   In 2005, Hamas won landslide victories in nearly all the municipalities it contested. Fatah is “widely seen as being in desperate need of reform”, as “the PA’s performance has been a story of corruption and incompetence - and Fatah has been tainted.” Political analyst Sallah Abdelshafi told BBC about the difficulties of Fatah leadership: “I think it’s very, very serious - it’s becoming obvious that they can’t agree on anything.”

7. Jeri Massi Says:
   October 7th, 2005 at 7:37 am

   Whether Bush is hearing voices or not is secondary to the nature of the current war. It is simply unjust. American young people enlisted because they believed they were sent to protect this country from WMD. In his state of the union address, Bush openly acknowledged they are actually fighting for the freedom of Iraqi nationals. Such a war is contrary to our doctrines of the limits of government and the theory of a just war. We should not be there, sacrificing American lives to liberate Iraqis; liberating other nations is not the job of the American government. And in view of the fact that a lot of Iraqis don’t want us there and kill us as well as each other to get us out, it’s pretty clear that the decision to go to war against a country that did NOT attack us (for Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11), was lunacy, whether or not George W Bush is a lunatic.

8. Barbara H. Says:
   October 7th, 2005 at 9:59 am

   I wouldn’t be so quick to call President Bush a lunatic based on hearsay, especially the hearsay of the type of person Jay. C. gave us more info. about. You have to be very careful about forming an opinion based on what you read someone said that someone said, not knowing what kind of spin they may be putting on it.

   Bush may have said he felt impressed that God wanted him to take a certain course of action without putting it in words like, “God told me…” OTOH, I have heard people who expressed it like that even though what they meant was just that the felt impressed to do a thing.

9. Jay C. Says:
   October 7th, 2005 at 6:34 pm

   The BBC has backpedaled on this story. Here’s the link.

   http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1587440,00.html

10. Blog Jones Says:
    October 7th, 2005 at 8:27 pm

    I wouldn’t be so quick to call President Bush a lunatic based on hearsay

    True. Hence the “if this is true” part of the post. And, based on the story Jay C. linked to, it looks like the BBC is less confident than they once were on the topic. Thanks to Jay C for the info.

11. mounty Says:
    October 9th, 2005 at 11:22 pm

    Besides, the first place I read this report was while it was being passed around a few Middle East news sites. What probably happened was, he got cornered on his faith, said he prayed about it, and felt it was God’s will that he make the decision he made. That’s a far cry from “God told me to do it.” It’s the difference between preaching about tithes and offerings and saying “God told me to tell you to give me money.”

    Though I have to say I’m getting tired of rushing to the aid of every benighted country in the world in the name of “freedom.” We have it. They don’t. It’s not our fault, so why should we get involved?

12. Blog Jones Says:
    October 10th, 2005 at 12:09 am

    Oh, no kidding. We simply cannot afford to spend the money it would cost to free everybody, even if we wanted to.

    We should use the military to defend our safety and our freedom. What business do we have interfering with foreign governments?

13. Mark Says:
    October 10th, 2005 at 10:29 am

    Very naive post… this is the BBC. What were you thinking?

    Just because you can blog doesn’t mean you should.

14. Blog Jones Says:
    October 10th, 2005 at 10:50 am

    The BBC has a reputation for being a fairly reliable news source.

    Don’t you have something better to do than to leave comments that do nothing to further the conversation?

15. Mark Says:
    October 10th, 2005 at 5:57 pm

    OK, so since the BBC is “fairly reliable” we should believe everything it says
    even when the story is as bogus-sounding as the cited article? More than that
    we should post the bogus-sounding story from the fairly reliable news source on our blog
    with headings like “Bush scares me?” I can’t see that you really believed that article but your heading sure makes it look like you did.

    I’m sorry for being so critical but this kind of naive blogging is what gives blogging in general a bad name.

16. Blog Jones Says:
    October 10th, 2005 at 9:57 pm

    See, the thing is, it’s entirely beleivable. I would not have been surprised to find out that Nasaf’s statements were entirely true. It sounds exactly like something Bush would say if the cameras weren’t rolling. It fits my model of Bush, how he acts and thinks based on what I know about him. He’s devoutly religious and prone to verbal screw ups. It’s entirely plausible that Bush would say something like that.

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