...I'm okay with being REALITY-based.




Monday, April 07, 2003
      ( 12:36 PM )
 
Where Do You Go When Nobody Likes You?

Bush has landed in Belfast. The one place where there was sure enough security forces to keep any anti-war protesters at bay. I'm sure Bush wishes he could do what Blair gets to do in Belfast all the time with those neat saracens and armored riot vehicles in the streets all the time, with militarized police and troops pointing loaded weapons at citizens walking by.

By the way, if you haven't been able to listen or watch BBC, you've missed all the wonderful stories on how well-trained the British forces are for urban combat in Basra because of their time in Northern Ireland. We always knew the British Gov't wanted to keep the Northern Six Counties for military training purposes, and now they're just coming right out and saying it. I'm sure having one of the leaders of Bloody Sunday as the head of British forces in Iraq is helpful as well.

And what really chaps my hide is that not ONLY is Bush a total hypocrite with regard to our country and Iraq, but he has to heap his hypocrisy onto Ireland in a meaningless "support" of the Irish Peace Process. ...which, by the way in case you weren't keeping tabs, doesn't EXIST anymore because the leadership of the Unionists, David Trimble, in a well-polished format, certainly borrowed from by Bush, took the ever-sucessful position of "show all your weapons and give them to me before I'll participate in a functioning democratic government." This worked to dissolve the Assembly because, as everyone knows, none of the parties IN the Assembly HAVE weapons. While there is no way to put the Troubles in a nutshell, of the parties who do have guns, the Irish Republican Army has been the only one to submit to and participate in the independently-overseen decomissioning process. The loyalist paramilitaries, meanwhile, have continued to kill people. I wonder if Bush likes Belfast not only for the security advantages, but also because it is the example of the kind of double talk he just loves.


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