Resistance Spreading in Middle East

Daily Kos has an updated summary of largely youth-based anti-autocratic movements gaining steam throughout the Middle East, following the ouster of Egyptian President Mubarak. If there was only some assurance that the old despots won't be replaced by new ones.

(Photo: Protesters in Algeria, Feb. 12, AP Photo/Sidali Djarboub)

Dumbya's Deciderin'

It's true that we won't have much time to kick Dumbya around, but this is truly jaw-dropping: the Decider won't interrupt his holiday vacation to deal with the crisis in the Middle East! He has long since broken Ronnie Raygun's record for days spent "on vacation", with a total of 879 days at his "ranch" at Crawford, TX (almost two and a half years).

Bravo, Decider! You have your priorities straight!

Iraq War About Oil?

That's what John McSame seemed to suggest today in a town hall meeting in Colorado:
"I will have an energy policy. . . that will prevent us from ever having to send our young men and women into conflict again in the Middle East."

Again? So we sent them there because of our dependence on Middle East oil, not to capture WMD or fight al Qaeda?

The Huffington Post has the full statement here.

Are We Going Steady Now?

Next week's Middle East conference in Annapolis likely won't bring any meaningful change to the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Condi "Minute" Rice is not highly regarded in that region for her diplomatic skills, and most realize that this is an attempt by lame duck Dumbya to create something of a legacy, after 7 miserable years of foreign policy debacles. The conferees will go through the motions, issue bland statements, and adjourn with little accomplished beyond burning a lot of jet fuel.

Interestingly, the Saudis were nearly the last to accept an invitation to the conference. The royal Saudi foreign minister has also vowed not to shake the hand of any Israelis. Maybe Dumbya can act as an intermediary, since he's held so many Saudi royals' hands in the past.

PanDumbya's Box

As Pandora's box contained a host of calamities, so it appears does PanDumbya's box. When he decided to let al Qaeda off the hook and pursue his family's old nemesis Saddam Hussein, he unleashed a series of calamitous events in the Middle East, with many events yet to reach their ugly peak. The loss of allied support that we had gathered after 9/11 to go after al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts, the lies and misinformation developed to justify attacking Iraq, the miserably failed occupation and subsequent uprising: one lie and bungle after another. And now a strengthened al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Turkey poised to invade the Kurdish region of Iraq, and this nutty Assministration and its neocon allies making ominous war noises toward Iran. This should settle the world's Muslims down all right.

Hail the conquering moron!

D'oh!

Today's Washington Post reports that Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice once again used a suspect aphorism in describing the "challenging time" for the U.S. in the Middle East. "I don't read Chinese, but I am told that the Chinese character for crisis is weiji, which means both danger and opportunity," she said. "And I think that states it very well. We'll try to maximize the opportunity." A possible source for this ersatz erudition? None other than Lisa Simpson, who engaged in this exchange with Homer:

Lisa: "Look on the bright side, Dad. Did you know that the Chinese use the same word for 'crisis' as they do for 'opportunity'?"
Homer: "Yes! Cris-atunity."

Elsewhere, the Post also reports that Victor Mair, professor of Chinese at the University of Pennsylvania, calls this a "grossly inaccurate formulation," saying that the character "ji" actually means "incipient moment" or a "critical point." Weiji should really be translated, he says, as "a genuine crisis, a dangerous moment, a time when things start to go awry."

Well put, Secretary Rice!