“President Bush stop him. Stop this visit. Stop the killing and torture.”
Those words were shouted by an unknown protester at President Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao this morning. I won’t go on long because this has been said a million times before and will be repeated a million times over by people better able to speak (write) certain fundamental truths than I am. Can one nation that practices torture and detains prisoners indefinitely, without trial, ask another to stop doing the same? Certainly it can, but the words are meaningless. Pure futility. Think about this for a second; if you didn’t know the context of the quote, would you know whether the woman who shouted those words was shouting them about China or the United States? I wouldn’t. Our nation has been defiled by a fool. He’ll be gone in 33 months, but the damage he’s done may never leave us.
The attitude of American exceptionalism, summed up in one nice little fill-in-the-blank statement:
It’s one of the fundamental divides between the right and the left.
Insert what you like : tortures prisoners, launches preemptive wars, considers the use of nuclear weapons, etc, etc.
We see it as hypocrisy. They see it as the right earned by might (or granted by God or both).
Yes yes yes!! I couldn’t sum it up any better!
I had some thoughts this morning.
who’s kidding Hu?
Well, on that note,
Can one nation threaten another with nuclear weapons and expect the threatened nation not to want to respond in kind?
I don’t understand why anyone outside the United States, the only country to have actually used nuclear weapons offensively, should not have the right to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent to our aggression.
THAT’S NOT TO SAY I WANT THAT TO HAPPEN. I DON’T.
I’m just saying, how can we say we can play with this but you can’t, and expect others to go away quietly?
You know? I kinda feel the same way, though that’s just my nature. I have always been one to go against authority. ;D
I have always wondered who the hell we think we are as a country. (Foreign and sometimes trade policy wise.)
From the articles that I have read about the “Iran Situation” it kinda seems to me that they should have some sort of nuclear power. I mean why not? Several other nations do.
warning booze involved with this comment 😀
I’m glad I’m not the only one who saw the irony in this outburst.
I was half-listening to the outburst on the radio, and missed her saying President Bush. It took me a minute or two to figure out which president her comments were directed to, since they applied to both. Surreal.
I don’t understand why anyone outside the United States, the only country to have actually used nuclear weapons offensively, should not have the right to develop nuclear weapons as a deterrent to our aggression.
Even if I were a country that is not yet on Bush’s shitlist, I’d have to seriously consider obtaining nukes so as to ensure that I never make it to that list.
Can you say ‘nuclear proliferation’???
You know, I think about that as well. But I have to say at times…sometimes I think that NO ONE will be truly safe until the whole world has nukes. I know that’s almost basphemy (feels that way to me anyway)…forgive the alcohol. 😉 But you know? Sometimes I think that’s the only solution. MAD.
Like I warned…booze involved. 😀
Honestly that was my first thought. “Which one does she mean really? One or both? This is killing me. I don’t really know how much more I can process.
sighs in exasperation
Honest to god, the incompetence of the Bush White House is astounding. You don’t have to be a China expert to know that the Epoch Times is Falun Gong’s newspaper and that this sort of demonstration was entirely predictable.
The Chinese undoubtedly think that Bush is an absolute freakin’ idiot. Or that he did this on purpose to embarrass them.
In-freakin’credible.
When george was allowed to take the presidency, I thought that it is so much a part of human nature to descend as low as possible before achieving any success.
We’ve been quite low since his selection, and he intends to continue our decline. However, hope for recovery is dawning. We’re all in the same boat and george is flopping around the bottom like a fish who grabbed the wrong bait.
I’m betting he’s gone before 33 months.