USA: Diplomacy: Bush to Bagdhad, Vienna, Budapest and back again
.
President George W. Bush has been on a major diplomatic campaign in recent weeks. First, he flew into Bagdhad to congratulate Iraq's new militant democratic government and its new Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki. The two governments briefed one another in a video conference between the two cabinets.
More recently Bush flew into Vienna, Austria. One of his motives in going there and, indeed, a motive of the EU in inviting him during the Austrian term of presidency of the EU, was to combine forces in facing Iran. But the larger background was the shift in Europe on this Bush's 15th visit there since he entered America's h+est office, toward a stiffer stand against Islamofascist terrorists -- within Europe itelf.
You wouldn't know it, of course, from the usual masses of addle-brained youth protesting in the streets, nor from the European press corps who asked questions around Bush's pitiful results in opinion polls there. It's a cultural thing: the USA Democratic Convention writ large. Again, there's a "but." Europe's definite tilt, at the h+est levels of leadership and diplomacy, closer to Bush, far outdistanced the stupefied masses and the preening media professions of Europe, generally speaking. Austria's PM Wolfgang Schuessel certainly spoke up for the majority of European leadership, and it had concerns at hand far heavier than the demonstrators can even conceive. Much of the European populace is still in denial about the crisis burgeoning in their midst, they quaintly imagine the Engl+tenment fantasy of Marxism-Lennonism that there's no Heaven and that the Islamofascists don't intend to turn Europe into Hell.
It was deliteful to hear Europresumption of moral superiority over America answered by Bush with the word, "Absurd." Again, we're talking about his characterization of mass opinion, of mass anti-Americanism, and its opinion-makers (a guild mindset today in the European media which has been documented in a number of countries); not the rising generation of mature leadership on the continent who are replacing the Chirac/Schroeder generation that led the Old Europe, not about the New Europe who understand the need to defeat the new threat of global terrorism which would take away the very liberties that the former East bloc countries have only recently gained.
There's often a difference between appearances and reality. I think Vienna's meaning does not dwell in the appearances of the protest crowds or president-pestering press. I think that Bush's Vienna diplomacy achieved a convergence based on his 15 diplomatic journeys to Europe and upon a Bushward tilt just moved past the tipping point in regard to Europe's homegrown Islamofascism and Iran's nuclear adventures. Bush gained, whatever the polls do with him at home and in Europe. Bush is building for a peace and civilized order much further ahead in time than the end of his tenure, or who is elected in the USA in 2008.
From Vienna, Bush flew to Hungary for an early celebration of Hungary's Uprising against the Soviet-imposed dictatorship, a revolutionary effort some 50 years ago. The actual anniversary will be in October, when Bush will be unable to visit due to the upcoming Congressional elections in the States. In Budapest, Bush made a major public address, reported by Michael Abrahamowitiz of Washington Post.
"As people across the world step forward to claim their own freedom, they will take inspiration from your example, and draw hope from your success," he told an audience gathered on Gellert Hill, a spectacular vista of Budapest and the Danube River behind him.Here again, the theme is that of support for the fledgling democracy of Muslim majority in Iraq by waging war against the terrorists there and, its correlative, stopping the terrorists in power in Iran from proceeding with nuclear armament (in Vienna, Bush also got in a lick against North Korea's most recent nucelar threats and manoeuvres. The truth must be faced that most of Europe's masses, particularly the youth, want the terrorists to succeed in Iraq, not democracy; most want the Mullahs to continue in their oppression of the Iranian people. Why? Because the miseducated of Europe have an unacknowledged hatred of the peoples of the Middle East. The Enl+tenment has achieved the depth of its tendency toward self-destruction in following thru to its bitter end the racism that lurks behind the pretendeded universality of Kantian thawt and its successors in the movement of Modernist culture.
"Many of you lived through the nightmare of fascism, or communism, or both," Bush said. "Yet you never lost hope. You kept faith in freedom. And 50 years after you watched Soviet tanks invade your beloved city, you now watch your grandchildren play in the streets of a free Hungary."
Bush's salute to this country's people and history on the second and final day of a European visit won the appreciation of many citizens here, though some expressed mixed feelings given his prosecution of the war in Iraq, which is widely unpopular here.
Finally, the ultra-leftwing Guardian ran a note by Jon Dennis: "In Vienna yesterday, where he was attending a summit of EU leaders, George Bush admonished North Korea, one of the "axis of evil". Bush was relatively warmly received in Vienna, according to Nicholas Watt, the Guardian's European editor. And today the president's in Hungary, praising the heroes of 1956." -- Politicarp
Further Resources:
No comments:
Post a Comment