Thread: Furious Bush defends US role on world stage

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jh ... w_22062006

Furious Bush defends US role on world stage
By David Rennie in Vienna
(Filed: 22/06/2006)

President George W Bush told Europeans yesterday it was "absurd" to regard the United States as the greatest threat to world peace, as he concluded an EU-US summit overshadowed by disputes on Guantanamo Bay and trans-Atlantic trade barriers.
A visibly annoyed Mr Bush was responding to a journalist's question about opinion polls, asking why most Europeans believe the United States is a greater menace than Iran or North Korea.

"It's absurd, is my statement," Mr Bush snapped, taking the microphone ahead of the president of the European Commission in his haste to answer the question. "We'll defend ourselves, but we are working with our partners to spread peace and democracy around the world."
Even before Mr Bush landed for the one-day meeting in Vienna, his host, the Austrian chancellor, Wolfgang Schuessel, had made clear he would be demanding the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, in the name of the European Union.
As Mr Bush arrived for the annual summit, held this year in the baroque Hofburg palace, scattered protesters burned an American flag and chanted "go home Bush".

Once inside the meeting, however, Mr Bush took the initiative, and spoke of his desire to close Guantanamo Bay, diplomats said. Mr Bush said the US was keen to send all but the most dangerous detainees back to their home countries.
But he pointedly reminded his European hosts that the majority of the detainees still in the camp were from countries like Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan.
The Bush administration has previously faced sharp criticism and opposition from Europe for proposing to send terrorist suspects to such nations, where they may face torture or the death penalty. Speaking at the press conference after the summit, Mr Bush said: "I'd like to end Guantanamo, I'd like it to be over with. One of those things that we will do is that we will send people back to their home countries."
Two hundred detainees had been sent back, and some 400 remained, he went on, mostly from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan and Yemen. "I explained our desire to send them back. Of course, there is international pressure not to send them back. I hope we will be able to resolve that," he said. The US president repeated his insistence that some of those in the camp were "cold-blooded killers", who had to be tried in US courts, and who would murder again if let out on the streets.
Mr Bush was starting the summit when he and his European hosts learned of a statement from the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, declaring it would be mid-August before his country responded to a European offer of incentives to suspend suspicious nuclear enrichment activities.
Asked if the United States would come to the table for provisional talks, while waiting for a final Iranian verdict, Mr Bush replied: "Our position is, we'll come to the table when they verifiably suspend. Period."

The US president said that two months "seems like an awfully long time" to wait for an answer to the European offer, presented in early June. "It shouldn't take the Iranians that long to analyse what's a reasonable deal."
Mr Bush also offered a warning to North Korea that it faced further isolation if it carried through on hints that it was about to test-fire a long range missile, capable of hitting Alaska.
Mr Bush was tackled a second time on the collapse in European public support for his administration by a Viennese journalist who reeled off statistics, including the fact that three quarters of Austrians regard the United States as a grave threat.
It was absurd to think America more dangerous than Iran, he repeated. "We are a
transparent democracy, we debate things in the open," he said.
Citing record US funding for Aids victims in Africa, Mr Bush said his foreign policy was "tough when it has to be, but on the other hand it's compassionate".
On trade barriers, the two sides appeared to have made little progress, with only weeks to go until a crucial meeting to agree market opening measures aimed at helping the developing world.
A formal joint statement said only that the EU and the United States were committed to "reaching an ambitious conclusion" to the current round of talks, which have already missed crucial deadlines and are far behind schedule. It offered no specifics.

Even before Mr Bush landed for the one-day meeting in Vienna, his host, the Austrian chancellor, Wolfgang Schuessel, had made clear he would be demanding the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, in the name of the European Union.

I am so sick of foreign nations sticking their nose into our business, but then again we stick ours in where it does not belong too, don't we

I hope America learned it's lesson about electing a president that dosen't have a clue about diplomatic relationships and foreign affairs.

Dixie

The problem is, Mr. Bush and his ENTIRE Diplomatic Staff (key top level staff) are antagonistic and combative in their approaches and almost without exception approach diplomacy using the BIG STICK approach.

Bolton is a prime example...Bush has to use the back door approach to send him to the United Nations, most people in the know feeling he was the wrong person for the job, and the United Nations did not want him as well. Time as born out the beliefs of the nay sayers as Bolton and his HARSH antics offend even our closest friends within the halls of the UN.

Condi Rice is arrogant, self centered and even petulent when she does not get her way.

Even Bush himself manages to offend most Americans. There were better ways to have dealt with Saddam, and our nation is paying a very high price for his wrong war....over 2500 of our proud young fighting men and women have lost their lives, another 18,000 plus have been seriously maimed and wounded as our national debt spirals out of countrol as a war that Bush stated would be paid for with oil revenues nears a over all cost of over ONE TRILLION DOLLARS as the insurgents grow stronger and bolder with each passing day of Bush's failed war strategy unfolds.

We need a change in this country, need a significant change in leadership. Was as American need a president that is not willing to give away our FREEDOMS, a president that will stand up to Mexico, a president that tells Mexico to stem the tsunami of their citizens flooding our nation, or prepare to pay the consequence as we take the steps to stop the flow ourselves. We need a president that delivers more than false promises when it comes to work place enforcement, and takes the task of deporting illegals as a seriously number one priority. We need a Senate that listens to the masses instead of a Senate that gives itself a raise while refusing to pass a raise in the minimum wage. We need a Senate that has a back bone, rather than a Senate who panders to Big Business and illegal alien criminals by granting them Amnesty.

We lastly need a president that has enough personal intellect to realize that his global war to SPREAD DEMOCRACY makes America the AGRESSOR, and as AGRESSORS, our honor around the world is fading. This perhaps is his biggest folly, the folly that may over time topple our great nation if more rational minds are not put at the helm of our government.

Makes you wonder if we shouldn't go back to the isolationist stance we held many years ago. Of course, that was BEFORE nuclear weapons, which make it so that we have to worry about what the rest of the world is doing. But, I do wish they'd mind their own business, and that we'd properly mind ours!!

AMEN PintoBean! And you are right about the US being seen as an agressor, we have to stop, and we need to get out of the UN anyway!!! Besides, *politician* and *backbone* are oxymorons, diametrical opposites!

We're a "transparent democracy" that "discusses things out in the open?" Really? 99% of this country has never even heard of this North American Integration scheme and its open borders agenda, even though we can look around and see things changing very quickly in our daily lives. Also, I'd say about the same percentage still isn't clear as to why we invaded Iraq.

This is the worst president of my lifetime, besides Jimmy Carter.

This is the worst president of my lifetime, besides Jimmy Carter.

Yeah, but we were only stuck with Carter for four years.

I think Bush is just going to get more and more irresponsible until his term is over.

Isn't it funny how Bush is DEMANDING Democracy in all the countries?
Where's OUR DEMOCRACY???? He's taken that away from us but he wants it everywhere else.
Don't know about you all, but I'm beginning to feel like I'm in the Land of the Lost.

It is not our job to spread democracy to a region that has never known it. I don't want North korea coming in and spreading Communism here.

Who decided this was our job and responsibility? I think most Americans thought we were going into Iraq because they were tied to 911 and perhaps future attacks but now we know that was not the case

Originally Posted by BobC

It is not our job to spread democracy to a region that has never known it. I don't want North korea coming in and spreading Communism here.

Who decided this was our job and responsibility?

I agree! And Bush always talks about spreading *democracy*! Actually we're a democratic REPUBLIC, and why do we have to spread it if they don't want it?!