Phil just sent me this, and it made me very sad…
WASHINGTON, Dec. 14 – Taking its fight against abortion overseas, the Bush administration opened a sharp debate over a landmark family-planning agreement during a United Nations conference this week, angering several of its allies, European and Asian diplomats said today. The skirmish has been taking place at a United Nations regional family-planning conference in Bangkok, where the United States has threatened to withdraw its support for a 1994 family-planning agreement reached in Cairo that called for bringing population growth under control by improving the legal rights and economic status of women, as well as broadly expanding access to health care…the American delegation’s refusal to budge from its demands had stalemated the conference and made discussion of other pressing issues, like H.I.V. and AIDS prevention, impossible. “People hoped to discuss very practical, service oriented things: how to develop services to deal with sexually transmitted infections, H.I.V. and AIDS, how to do sex education,” an Asian diplomat said. “People’s frustration was that we’re not able to discuss what we really want to discuss, because the U.S. insists on renegotiating key Cairo concepts which we are not willing to do.” The fight in Bangkok comes at a time when the Bush administration has been trying to win international support for its Iraq policies and to dispel the perception that it is increasingly acting on its own. Some delegates argued that the dispute was undermining both efforts. Those critics also asserted that the Bush White House, like the Reagan White House before it, was carrying the abortion fight overseas mainly to bolster its support among Catholic and fundamentalist Christian voters.
This was funny, but made me sadder: www.dubyadubyadubya.com
What the hell is happening over there? I asked Phil “What do you think it would take to get you to turn your back on your country? What would it take for you to be so embarrassed to be English that you were willing to become a citizen of another country? Think about that. Why do you think I was willing to do this? It’s not just because of the pretty countryside.” I am embarrassed and ashamed of American right now, and I am afraid for the people left behind. Bush is insane…or he’s been taken over by an alien intruder. What else could explain this? He’s going to go to war against all Arab nations, and do it with no supporters. Insane.
It doesn’t bode well for the people we left at home…