99 Red Balloons for Bush

PRESIDENT BUSH jets into Ireland next month and most are not amused by his visit. I think hoteliers should lower their American flags in protest of American failures in Iraq. Dublin Corporation has approved the flying of white flags at several points along the River Liffey.

Jenny Levine points to Daily Kos where "plong" thinks Wi-Fi hotspot operators should set up welcome screens on their wireless networks that rail against American foreign policy. That would be something worth repeating by Indymedia--their white flag suggestion seems to have taken hold. Personally, I like the idea of releasing 99 red balloons from various perimeter locations surrounding the Bush entourage. Balloons float upwards like messages float in bottles. Masses of red balloons are like red flares of distress. National networks need to beam the message to the States that the world cannot tolerate another four years of the most despised foreign policy since WWII.

Last Wednesday (12 May 2004), Martin Wolf explained in theFinancial Times what's wrong with the Bush Administration. "Put simply, it fails to understand the basis of US power, mis-specifies US objectives and is incompetent in executing its intentions .... Crafting a foreign policy for a new era is hard. The last time this had to be done was in the time of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry Truman more than half a century ago. The institutions they established and the values they upheld were the foundation of the successful US foreign policy of the postwar era. Now, a task even more complex has fallen on this president. He is not up to the job. This is not a moral judgment, but a practical one. The world is too complex and dangerous for the pious simplicities and arrogant unilateralism of George W. Bush."

Ireland should be able to simply state this case. Take down the American flags. Release the red balloons.

We can do that, while still calling Americans friends.

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Red balloons from Claus Meyer. The political balloons shouldn't be in the form of red hearts.
plong in Daily Kos -- "WiFi against Bush." Kos served in Bamberg while I served in Ramstein. Although both of us were in uniform, neither of us went to Desert Storm. It's a small world.
Alan Ruddock -- "Anti-Americanism is a disase" in The Sunday Times, May 16, 2004.

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