"birth pangs of a new Middle East." ... Condi

[RedEarth]

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice faced a thankless, all but impossible task in trying to sell the Arab world on the U.S. policy of delaying a cease-fire so that the Israeli military can continue its anti-Hizballah campaign. But her case was hardly helped when she explained that the violence that has already killed more than 400 Lebanese and turned more than a half million into refugees represents the "birth pangs of a new Middle East." Phrases like that -- and her rejection of the call for an immediate cease-fire on the grounds that "whatever we do, we have to be certain that we're pushing forward to the new Middle East, not going back to the old Middle East" -- carry a revolutionary ring that scares the hell out of America's allies in the region. It was revolutionaries like Lenin and Mao, after all, who rationalized violence and suffering as the wages of progress, in the way a doctor might rationalize surgery -- painful, bloody, even risking the life of the patient, but ultimately necessary. Social engineering is not surgery, however, and its victims find little comfort in the homilies of its authors.

Arab leaders, moreover, have learned to be suspicious of Rice's revolutionary ambitions -- just a year ago, she spoke of spreading "creative chaos" in the region. Iraq, after all, is Exhibit A of the Bush Administration's "New Middle East," and it's a bloody mess that is growing worse by the day. Now, for Act 2, the Arabs are being told to sit quietly while Israel tears Lebanon apart, after months of watching it slowly throttle Gaza through a U.S.-backed economic blockade, and then bomb it for weeks on end. Hardly surprising that the Arabs -- from the U.S.-backed autocrats to the beleaguered liberal democrats and the rising Islamists -- see little to cheer in the Bush Administration's "new Middle East."

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1219325,00.html

[burythehatchet]

1. In a related story

Mother Earth dies in labor.

[gasperc]

2. of endless and mindless death and destruction

sounds like the same old ME

[QuettaKid]

3. I heard that and the FIRST thing I thought of

was these were more of the NEOCONS "code words" to the rapture ready folks. That phrase "birth pangs" is from thir holy book of imaginary Judeo/Christian ramblings.

[SpiralHawk]

4. Death Rattle induced by BushCo republicon evil crusader greed for oil $

I felt Condi's propaganda lies could use a wee bit of clarification, to give patriotic Americans a point for contemplation while filling up the gas tank and enriching the corrupt republicon Oil Cronies of Death.

[JHB]

Or more graphicly speaking...

[Atman]

I'm reminded of Gina Davis's little Brundlefly...

Remember her giving birth to a ten pound...? well, this is a family board. If you saw the remake of The Fly, with Davis and Jeff Goldblum, you undoubtedly remember the birthing scene. That's kinda the image Condi evokes. An ill advised but intriguing idea has gone horribly awry. And despite BrundleCons fascination at the uncontrollable result of their failed experiment, they just can't accept the inevitable.

[whistle]

5. Condi Rice is shaping up to be as much a war criminal...

...Secretary of State as Henry Kissinger. See link to crimes against humnaity that Kissinger has been accused of.

http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0611-03.htm

[Javaman]

6. Birth pangs?? more like the alien bursting from the chest...

if you ask me.

[OneBlueSky]

7. so who made Condi midwife of the Middle East? . . .

and who made creating a "new Middle East" a U.S. prerogative? . . .

that particular role belongs to the people who live there, and no one else . . .