In A Word – Hypocrisy – Say oil, say Bush, say independence from foreign suppliers – say oxymoron.
Gerald Eisman
September 04, 2006
Hypocrisy: The practice of professing beliefs, feelings, or virtues that one does not hold or possess; falseness.
The President referred to the act as “Kleptocracy,” which means a government characterized by greed and corruption. To quote our leader, he stated –“(Kleptocracy) is a grave and corrosive abuse of power that threatens our national interest and violates our laws.” Bush made the statement and the following comment as he began an initiative to combat the practice of kleptocracy. The plan, he also stated, would be a “critical component of our freedom agenda.”
So what do you think is happening to the “plan?” About three weeks after making the statements and setting the “initiative” in motion, the administration is making arrangements to host Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, on a visit to the White House. Nazarbayev runs a nation that couldn’t be farther from democratic ideals, and the head man personally is thought to have pocketed $78 million in bribes from an American businessman among other nasties that go counter to American ideals.
And what is the reason for such treatment for the man who some U.S. prosecutors consider a Kleptocratic thief? OIL!
Kazakhstan is a nation of 15 million people that sits on the Central Asian steppe and has become a very important player in the international oil market. It contains the largest crude oil reserves in the Caspian Sea area. It currently pumps 1.2 million barrels of crude oil daily and exports all but 200,000 barrels of its daily production. Kazakhstan’s government has expectations of increasing that output to 3.5 million barrels daily by 2015 which would make it the rival of Iran in export and in potential political clout.
Nazarbayev last visited the United States in 2001 prior to the Justice Department filing a case in 2003 alleging he took bribes. The visit also predated Bush’s proclamation (in 2004) that corrupt foreign officials would no longer be granted entry to the country. (An official of the administration has noted hundreds of foreign dignitaries have been denied visas and cannot explain why Nazarbayev has been exempted.)
The Nazarbayev’s visit to the United States suggests a rather large dichotomy between Bush’s words and his intentions. On the one hand, Bush has vowed to fight corruption in governments around the world and, on the other, invites and hosts one of the world’s premier violators of honesty and integrity to visit the White House. According to Bush, however, Nazarbayev represents a friendly, stable moderate in a region where harsher, hostile dictators (we aren’t getting too far with them when it comes to oil).
This is a glowing description for a man whose government has banned opposition parties, closed newspapers, harassed advocacy groups and done other equally distasteful acts. But Martha Brill Olcott, a Kazakhstan specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International peace, said this.
I really do think he has learned how to be clean. He has learned a lot more about how you can promote to some degree divestiture (referring to assets.) Most of his holdings are, I wouldn’t say transparent, but they’re more so.”
Martha speaks fine descriptive words that say nothing. President Nazarbayev is still a dictator holding a nation captive. Considering that our own administration is soft on this dictatorship, Bush’s stated vocal pledge to be harsh and unyielding on those “other” not so friendly dictators in the world is nothing short of hypocrisy.
Nazarbayev isn’t the first dictator type to visit the United States since Bush took office. The administration welcomed the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev to the White House. His main claim to fame is that he has been accused of rigging elections. His accusers seem to have lost their collective voice. Condoleezza Rice, our Secretary of State, hosted Teodoro Nguema, president of Equatorial Guinea. He, it seems, has millions of his country’s money stashed in overseas accounts. These are fine gentlemen all, and all are considered “friends” of the administration.
To top the visit by Nazarbayev to the White House, our own Vice President, Dick Cheney, went to Kazakhstan in May of this year to praise him as a friend of the United States. The trip drew sharp criticism because the day before he took it Cheney came down hard on Russia for backsliding from democracy. Now, the invitation has resulted in outrage in Kazakhstan. Small wonder!
Now we, as Americans, are faced with a new dilemma. Should we accept this latest subterfuge from George W. Bush, or find a way to curb his deceitful hypocrisy. The longer this man insists on speaking through both sides of his mouth the longer it will take our nation to recover from the damage he has wrought. The damage continues to mount with every unsavory act he performs, every hypocritical statement he makes, and every unpopular suggestion he seeks to foist on the public.
The time has come to divest Mr. Bush of all his powers and protect America from further damage. It’s time to give that other group a chance to right the wrongs and, if they don’t, toss them out of office as well.
The President referred to the act as “Kleptocracy,” which means a government characterized by greed and corruption. To quote our leader, he stated –“(Kleptocracy) is a grave and corrosive abuse of power that threatens our national interest and violates our laws.” Bush made the statement and the following comment as he began an initiative to combat the practice of kleptocracy. The plan, he also stated, would be a “critical component of our freedom agenda.”
So what do you think is happening to the “plan?” About three weeks after making the statements and setting the “initiative” in motion, the administration is making arrangements to host Nursultan Nazarbayev, President of Kazakhstan, on a visit to the White House. Nazarbayev runs a nation that couldn’t be farther from democratic ideals, and the head man personally is thought to have pocketed $78 million in bribes from an American businessman among other nasties that go counter to American ideals.
And what is the reason for such treatment for the man who some U.S. prosecutors consider a Kleptocratic thief? OIL!
Kazakhstan is a nation of 15 million people that sits on the Central Asian steppe and has become a very important player in the international oil market. It contains the largest crude oil reserves in the Caspian Sea area. It currently pumps 1.2 million barrels of crude oil daily and exports all but 200,000 barrels of its daily production. Kazakhstan’s government has expectations of increasing that output to 3.5 million barrels daily by 2015 which would make it the rival of Iran in export and in potential political clout.
Nazarbayev last visited the United States in 2001 prior to the Justice Department filing a case in 2003 alleging he took bribes. The visit also predated Bush’s proclamation (in 2004) that corrupt foreign officials would no longer be granted entry to the country. (An official of the administration has noted hundreds of foreign dignitaries have been denied visas and cannot explain why Nazarbayev has been exempted.)
The Nazarbayev’s visit to the United States suggests a rather large dichotomy between Bush’s words and his intentions. On the one hand, Bush has vowed to fight corruption in governments around the world and, on the other, invites and hosts one of the world’s premier violators of honesty and integrity to visit the White House. According to Bush, however, Nazarbayev represents a friendly, stable moderate in a region where harsher, hostile dictators (we aren’t getting too far with them when it comes to oil).
This is a glowing description for a man whose government has banned opposition parties, closed newspapers, harassed advocacy groups and done other equally distasteful acts. But Martha Brill Olcott, a Kazakhstan specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International peace, said this.
I really do think he has learned how to be clean. He has learned a lot more about how you can promote to some degree divestiture (referring to assets.) Most of his holdings are, I wouldn’t say transparent, but they’re more so.”
Martha speaks fine descriptive words that say nothing. President Nazarbayev is still a dictator holding a nation captive. Considering that our own administration is soft on this dictatorship, Bush’s stated vocal pledge to be harsh and unyielding on those “other” not so friendly dictators in the world is nothing short of hypocrisy.
Nazarbayev isn’t the first dictator type to visit the United States since Bush took office. The administration welcomed the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev to the White House. His main claim to fame is that he has been accused of rigging elections. His accusers seem to have lost their collective voice. Condoleezza Rice, our Secretary of State, hosted Teodoro Nguema, president of Equatorial Guinea. He, it seems, has millions of his country’s money stashed in overseas accounts. These are fine gentlemen all, and all are considered “friends” of the administration.
To top the visit by Nazarbayev to the White House, our own Vice President, Dick Cheney, went to Kazakhstan in May of this year to praise him as a friend of the United States. The trip drew sharp criticism because the day before he took it Cheney came down hard on Russia for backsliding from democracy. Now, the invitation has resulted in outrage in Kazakhstan. Small wonder!
Now we, as Americans, are faced with a new dilemma. Should we accept this latest subterfuge from George W. Bush, or find a way to curb his deceitful hypocrisy. The longer this man insists on speaking through both sides of his mouth the longer it will take our nation to recover from the damage he has wrought. The damage continues to mount with every unsavory act he performs, every hypocritical statement he makes, and every unpopular suggestion he seeks to foist on the public.
The time has come to divest Mr. Bush of all his powers and protect America from further damage. It’s time to give that other group a chance to right the wrongs and, if they don’t, toss them out of office as well.
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