NSN Daily Update: As Things Fall Apart – Bush’s Foreign Policy Comes Full Circle, 8/15/08

What more can one say? This sums it up very well. The Bushist "Great Man" theory of foreign policy is a total dud, just like the "great men" who dreamed it up.

http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/939

Report 15 August 2008

This week clearly demonstrated the globally disastrous impact of President Bush’s foreign policy. Russia’s willingness to invade a Western ally showed not only the collapse of the President’s approach to Russia – which was almost entirely rooted in his personal relationship with fmr. President Putin – but also the significant decline in American power and prestige over the last eight years. With over the top rhetoric, the Bush administration repeatedly made unrealistic commitments to Georgia, which it clearly had no intention of keeping – a fact that has only further undercut U.S. credibility around the world. The fraying of the transatlantic alliance over the last eight years was also in full display as the U.S. and Europe were slow to respond and lacked a common approach.

But it wasn’t just the Georgia-Russia conflict. At the same time the President was coming to the realization that his insights into Putin’s soul may have been misguided, another failed policy was coming full circle. The announcement that President Musharraf would soon resign signaled the failed conclusion of the Bush administration’s approach to Pakistan, which – like its policy toward Russia - was based solely on supporting one individual. Meanwhile, almost seven years since 9-11, the administration’s failures next door in Afghanistan were also apparent, as violence worsened to the point of threatening Kabul and its surrounding areas. This week clearly demonstrates the need for a new approach, not more of the same.

The U.S. made hollow commitments to Georgia while neglecting to formulate a broader policy toward Russia. “Many officials in the U.S. government who have worked on the Russia relationship in recent years said, President Bush lionized Mr. Saakashvili as a model for democracy in the region to a point that the Georgian leader may have held unrealistic expectations about the amount of support he might receive from the U.S. and the West. These officials also point to a lack of clarity governing the U.S.-Georgia military relationship, which was increasingly close but not yet a formal alliance… Finally, these officials said, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seemed so preoccupied with Iraq, Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict that she didn't have time to fashion an effective response to Russia’s muscle-flexing on its borders.” Additionally, Secretary Gates seemed to contradict the administration’s previous approach to Russia when he said, “I have never believed that one should make national security policy on the basis of trust. I think you make national security policy based on interests and realities.”


Events in Georgia this week have illustrated the diminished prestige of the U.S. in the world. “The Bush administration mixed strong rhetoric with modest action… in response to Russia's continued military incursion in Georgia, warning that Moscow's international aspirations are threatened if it does not honor a negotiated cease-fire in the conflict…Bush's statement, along with the moderate measures that came with it, served to underscore the limited options available to the United States, which has neither the wherewithal nor the willingness to enter into a military conflict with Russia on its territorial border.” Moreover, “Janusz Bugajski, author of a forthcoming book on Russia's relations with its neighbors, said Washington's lack of forceful response sends a chilling message to nations that had been relying on the U.S. to counter Russia's power. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ‘is demonstrating to the rest of the world that the United States is not the sole superpower any more. Or if it is, it's so stretched that it's not going to come to your aid,’ Bugajski said. ‘That weakens the U.S. position globally quite a bit.’”


Conflict demonstrated the fraying of the transatlantic alliance. Jamie Rubin explains“Georgia has become yet another example of stunning incompetence by the Bush administration. Let's remember it was Chancellor Merkel of Germany who became the power broker when leaders at the NATO summit debated the subject of Georgia this spring. The United States, which has traditionally led NATO on such subjects, failed to push through a so-called Membership Action Plan for Georgia. That failure, as much as anything, gave Moscow a crucial signal that the West could not muster a serious response should it crack down on its troublesome neighbor.”

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after busholini inc stole everything in the treasury and borrowed trillions from China and then stole that.

If The People don't take decisive action to end the fascistic amerikkkan imperialism of busholini inc, the world will.

There will be a day of reckoning. Either The People make it happen, or it will be blow back that makes 9/11 look like a little girls' tea party.

Most likely by dismantling the USA economically

Started by raygun, whose strings were being pulled by poppy busholini.

How long has this been going on? 45 years, at least. 11/22/63 was the day the music died.

and we can no longer afford to feed ourselves - chaos

and kick our fat, lazy asses.

Those who learn to speak Mandarin get to work in the house, the rest of us are in the fields.

to preserve the American way. To get rid of PNAC. Around every corner we see our leaders 'working with' the Republicans whose leaders are ALLLLLL for PNAC and the barons whose job they are carrying out?

Either The People take back our power with extreme prejudice, or we will soon be Chinese slaves while the power elite of both parties, drink rice wine with our overlords.

What the hell do you think globalism is really about?