Bush - A modern day Marie Antoinette and the best friend Bin Laden could h

[stevenleser]

http://www.websiteadv.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_060916_bush___a_modern_day_.htm

September 16, 2006 at 09:10:49

Bush - A modern day Marie Antoinette and the best friend Bin Laden could have
by Steven Leser

I went to see a special premier of the new Marie Antoinette film at FIAF (French Institute - Alliance Française http://www.fiaf.org/index.htm ) here in Manhattan a few days ago. The film is a documentary aimed at giving a true image of the life of France's last and arguably most famous Queen. Among many myths dispelled is the one that purports that she responded, "Let them eat Cake" when informed that many of France's people were starving. She never said any such thing and was oblivious to the suffering and difficulties outside of Versailles. If you will, Marie lived in a bubble, does this sound familiar?  http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_steven_l_051212_bush_asserts_having_.htm and http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/131205bushdenies.htm .

I found so many similarities between Marie Antoinette and George W. Bush that I could think of little else during the film. I was going to list many of these similarities but before I did I thought I would do a little internet search to see if anyone had done this before and done a good job of it. Lo and behold, I found this great article http://davidwiggins.net/let_them_eat.html by a man by the name of Dr. David Wiggins a former US Army Captain, Doctor and finally, Conscientious Objector. I recommend that people pause reading my article here and read his before continuing. I would add a few more things that several historians in the film pointed out. Like Bush, Marie Antoinette was not stupid. When Marie applied herself, decided to take something seriously and performed the requisite research and work, she was as bright and capable as anyone was. The problem is that like her 21st century counterpart, George W. Bush, she rarely did so. The two share(d) a common affliction, bibliophobia or the fear of books. Just as troublesome for heads of state, the two have/had similar problems with limited affect and empathy. Unless someone metaphorically took Bush or Marie by the shoulders, shook hard and forced them to put themselves in mindset of people in a different condition, country, etc., they had a difficult time understanding other people and acting appropriately. They seem to be governed by two or three emotions. Both seem to spend a lot of time being mirthful and Bush additionally seems to spend a lot of time being angry and spiteful. By the time her friends in the French Court were able to convince Marie that she had an image problem, it was almost too late. The perception of her would have been hard to break even by an expert at dealing with such things. When she finally understood that some action was necessary, her limited ability to understand other people and how they would take her statements and actions sealed her fate. Bush's ill-advised Iraq war and response to Katrina feel the same way to me.

Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda as well as Hezbollah and Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah are the primary beneficiaries of Bush's inability to understand how his actions would be perceived by the world in general and the Middle East and predominantly Islamic countries in particular. His War On Terror is a failure because his actions have caused more sympathy and respect for those who engage in the practice of terror and similarly has helped the terrorist organizations gain more recruits. This poll performed by WorldPublicOpinion.org http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/middle_eastn_africa_br/172.php?nid=&id=&pnt=172&lb=brglm shows that people in predominantly Muslim Countries who live where one may assume the majority of terror recruitment happens, overwhelmingly believe that the Iraq War has increased the threat of Global Terrorism. They see and hear this happening in their cafes and mosques and other meeting places.

Bin Laden had to be rescued by Bush after he failed to achieve what he hoped with the 9-11 attacks. From Bin Laden's statements since the attacks, we can see that he hoped that the 9-11 attacks would cause the US to be drawn into a quagmire in Afghanistan that would allow Bin Laden and the combination of Al Qaeda and Taliban Mujahideen to defeat us in a lengthy war of attrition. He hoped that war of attrition in Afghanistan would critically harm our economy, just as had happened with the former Soviet Union. See http://www.cnn.com/2004/world/meast/11/01/binladen.tape/ . He also thought that the Afghan war would cause a groundswell of support for Al Qaeda just as the Soviet's war did and would draw many new recruits to his cause. In fact, the Soviet war in Afghanistan made Bin Laden who he is and caused him to leave a successful business in Saudi Arabia to come to Afghanistan and become a freedom fighter. 9-11 failed on all counts for Bin Laden. The world, including the Middle East and other predominantly Islamic states were nearly universal with their support any sympathy for the United States. We fought the war in Afghanistan with surprisingly few troops on the ground and expenditures of resources. In fact, we could easily have put in another 15,000-30,000 more troops in Afghanistan, finished of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, declared victory in the War on Terror and put the issue behind us. In fact, up to this point, Bin Laden's strike in the US failed to gain Al Qaeda supporters much like Timothy McVeighs attack on the Murrow building in Oklahoma failed with galvanizing the militia movement against the US Government. Both had the opposite effect. The militia movement has never been the same since Oklahoma. Support for terror was at an all time low in the year following 9-11.

Then, Bush did Bin Laden and Al Qaeda a favor and manufactured false reasons for invading Iraq. Iraq has become everything Bin Laden thought Afghanistan would become after 9-11. A never ending, cash draining quagmire that has drawn tens of thousands of fighters from all over the Islamic world into the fight to defeat the United States. Al Qaeda recruitment has soared and Anti-Americanism has soared. It has split communities apart all over the world. The lead up to the Iraq war helped fuel a reversal to a 10 year decline in anti-Semitism among Hispanics in the US according to an Anti Defamation League study referenced in the Panama News  http://www.thepanamanews.com/pn/v_09/issue_02/opinion_01.html .

Despite this and the link after link I could include with facts and evidence to support my thesis, Republicans, particularly on the far right of the party continue to support war as a preferred choice to resolve our issues in the Middle East, http://news.bostonherald.com/editorial/view.bg?articleid=157605&srvc=news . What is particularly disturbing about this article and its support on the far right including the folks at Free Republic, http://www.freerepublic.com and http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1702509/posts , is that I agree with Krauthammer's assertion of the costs of such an undertaking in terms of our and the world's economy and other costs. But as El Baradei and other's pointed out, our assessment of Iranian nuclear capabilities is way off. We would likely be incurring all the costs pointed out by Krauthammer for no reason  http://english.ohmynews.com/articleview/article_view.asp?at_code=360353 just like the non-existent Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction and the non-existent link between Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein caused us to incur the costs of an Iraq war that gained us nothing and cost us Trillions of dollars.

Americans, Palestinians, Israelis, Lebanese and Iraqis have already suffered enough with our Marie Antoinette President. We need to make sure that both houses of congress turn Democratic in November and start checking the actions and decisions of this President.

Steven Leser is a freelance journalist specializing in Politics, Science & Health, and Entertainment topics. He has held positions within the Democratic Party including District Chair and Public Relations Chair within county organizations. His coverage of the Ohio Presidential Recount in 2004 was distinguished by interviews with Carlo Loparo, spokesperson for the Ohio Secretary of State, along with Supervisors of Elections of several Ohio counties. Similar efforts on other topics to get first hand information from sources separate Mr. Leser from many of his contemporaries. Mr Leser was the journalist who broke the story of the Bush Impeachment Resolution being drafted in the Illinois General Assembly. The story was printed right here on OpEdNews.com

[Me.]

1. There Are Quite A Number Of Differences Between

Marie Antoinette and B***, and I think it hardly fair for you to paint her with the same brush. She was a teenager when she was introduced, when she married Louis, to the most poisonous court in Europe. To make matters worse she was Austrian, the traditional enemy of the French. Further, she was forced to live under the extremely restrictive protocols of the court which had been set up by Louis XIV to keep the aristocrats in line. She had no friends when she arrived and was, right from the start the subject and target of a great deal of intrigue. Nor did she have any decision making ability, as regards her own life and certainly not that of the country. Was she careless, and oblivious to what was going on in the country? Yes, but so was every other royal and aristocrat (with a few minor exceptions). Further there were two reasons the 14 year old Marie was married to Louis, an alliance between Austria and France which never worked because the two countries never did trust each other, old wounds never healed and suspicions about each other remained. The second reason was to provide heirs to the French throne. However, because of a foreskin problem with Louis, it took 8 years for the marriage to be consummated (a small operation took care of the problem but it took that long for Louis to be talked into it) and in between you had people looking through peep holes when they went to bed and checking the sheets in the morning. She did spend a lot, but no more than any other queen of France and she is credited with bringing back to life the French industries (porcelain, fabric, furniture making etc,) which to this day remain popular.

She was no Mother Theresa but what really destroyed the country was several very cold winters and the financing of the American Revolution, which went a long way in bankrupting France.

*shadow government*

[OwnedByFerrets]

2. Wow, I feel like I just came from

history class. Nice, Me.

[lapfog_1]

3. Yup. I just saw this on the weather channel

widespread crop failures do to a temporary climate change (micro ice age) and it's affects on world
politics.

Funny how history classes never cover this stuff.

[Me.]

4. They Never Do Get Us Past Popular (Mis)-Conceptions Do They?

One has to wonder how history will write/report about the blivet. Will they say he believed in what he thought and did as a way to making his actions right? (I always wonder when I hear someone say that about B*** why no one says, most dictators and tyrants usually do). Will they talk about how "heroic" he was on 9/11 or will they mention the frightened and confused man who sat reading about a goat in a classroom?

I'm glad the old canard about "let them eat cake" has finally been disputed but I doubt people will stop saying it and, attributing it to her.

*shadow government*