I was reading an article in the Economist about Turkey and the EU the other day about what Turkey needs to do to join the EU, if the EU wants Turkey to join, why is the EU resisting Turkish membership, and all that jazz (this is another topic entirely). Right now things don’t look so good for Turkish membership. It seems like the big EU nations would like Turkey to accept a “privileged partnership.” Yeah, I’m sure the Turkish government is going to love that idea.
So the Turks have turned to the United States. And the US, wanting Turkey to join the EU, is diplomatically going to do what it can to help Turkey. And that means getting President Bush to place calls to various EU members on behalf of Turkey.
And I was reading that and thinking… is that who you really want lending a helping hand right now? Isn’t that a bit like having Arthur Anderson do your accounting?
I just shook my head, not in disgrace, but in pure, and utter, disappointment. Who’s going to listen to Bush right now? Of course these countries have to, because the US is always the billion pound gorilla in the room. It’s not that you can just ignore the US - we’re too big, too rich, too powerful to write off.
But at the same time, Bush’s voice on the world stage is all but useless at this point. The rest of the world’s view of the US is pretty negative. As one foreign diplomat put it over Chicago’s bid for the 2016 Olympics, they have no chance. “Your president is a disaster.” SITE
And that’s yet another tragedy in this Eff-up called Iraq. Not only did Bush openly “lie” or “mislead” the country about Iraq’s WMDs, Iraq’s threat to world “peace”, and then all the prisoner abuse and probable torture of other detainees - he also lied to the world. As the bodies continue to pile up and things go from bad, to worse, to chaos, to anarchy; everything is placed upon the US and Bush.
There is no creditability to anything that Bush says to over half of this country. And Bush’s creditability around the world is probably even worse. Why believe anything Bush’s says? Why listen to anything that comes from Bush’s mouth? Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…
I was eating lunch with a classmate who’s from another country and 9/11 came up. The person I was eating with suggested that maybe the people behind 9/11 weren’t who we believe it was, in other words that they weren’t members of Al Qeada and bin Laden had nothing to do with it. Of course a suggestion like that is incorrect (and I told the person so, saying that the 19 highjackers all had connection to Al Qeada and bin Laden. “But how do you know? Bush lied about Iraq after all.” I reminded them that bin Laden and Al Qeada did take responsibility for the attacks).
We have two more years of this. Two more years of Bush traveling around like that kid who no one likes, but has to hang out with because his sister is hot or his older brother is cool (you know, like Roger Clinton). Two more years of phone calls from Bush to other leaders that feature a lot of ‘yeahs’ and ‘uhuns’. Two more years of zero creditability from our President on the world stage. Two years of diplomatic and political waste and stagnation.
This is when I wish life featured a fast forward button. Or a rewind… only this time I can help the morons in Washington not waste the opportunity they had to make the world a better place. (And in a way, this might be the greatest tragedy of all when looking back at the Bush administration).
Oh, and Turkey might want to consider having someone else place those phone calls for them. I wonder if Bill Clinton is up to anything?
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