Nancy Pelosi’s recent diplomatic trip to the Middle East was very effective, according to Syrian activists and via Sandmonkey, the popular Egyptian blogger.
Here’s a clip from the interview at Atlas Shrugs:
SANDMONKEY: Let me tell you something. I was in Turkey a couple of weeks ago and I met a couple of Syrian activists. They one thing they told me that was really funny about the Pelosi visit. After Pelosi came to Syria two things happened. People on Syrian TV were saying, “We forced the Americans to knock on the Damascus gate!” Sort of like an admission that we messed things up in Iraq so much that America had to come and beg for their help. But the day after Pelosi’s visits there were immediate arrests of Syrian activists. That was the fruit she yielded. “Oh the Americans came over and they said they have a different foreign policy and they’re more interested in placating Bashar’s ego.” And he went out and got [arrested] everyone he wanted because he knew he had an ally in Washington that wouldn’t pressure him as much.
Ms. Pelosi et. al. are very effective diplomats – but not for the United States. Read the post, listen to the interview. Real people are being arrested, jailed, and silenced by oppressive governments in ways that Americans who freely call President Bush “Hitler” could not possibly fathom. Sandmonkey will no longer be blogging due to increased state security in Egypt… state security which has been cracking down on bloggers and activists since the 2006 elections:
The Democrats won the Congress. There is no more pressure coming from Bush because he is not able to push people anymore to do those things. He is not able to push the Egyptian government anymore because the American public is suddenly not interested in reforming the Middle East because of what’s going on in the Iraq. So suddenly the Egyptian government is not afraid of the American pressure. They are doing whatever they want to do. They are beating up demonstrators, they are cracking down on activists, they are changing the constitution, and eroding civil liberties once and for all and they are using proxies to take down bloggers.
Pelosi is not satisfied with having encouraged government oppression and human rights violations in Egypt and Syria, however. Weasel Zippers has the story: Pelosi Plans Two More Stops on her Tour of Murdering Thugs… This is a disgrace. Democrats justifiy headlines on Republican scandals by saying, “it’s the hypocrisy, stupid.” When a Bush Administration appointee or a Christian pastor is caught in sexual sin, they say it’s not the crime that’s the problem. It’s that they are not walking the talk. Fair enough… but Democrats frequently cry “human rights violation!” (especially in the United States where they are practically non-existent) and say publicly that intervention in Darfur is justified – while they encourage those violations in other countries. Had it been simple ignorance, that merely would have been deplorable, given Pelosi’s position. The fact is that she was warned about this kind of thing and went in spite of it, simply discounting the possibility that talking to a dictator could have any negative repercussions. This is a disgrace that should be shouted from the rooftops. People – especially the liberal media who champion human rights when Bush wants to monitor phone calls between the United States and foreign countries, or follow the money that potential terrorists use to finance their evil – should be demanding that Pelosi step down from her leadership position in disgrace.
But the media’s response to what would be front page, wall to wall coverage had this been a Republican who defied Clinton and there were visible human rights repercussions is so far, a lone WaPo editorial… and the rest… ::: crickets chirping :::
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