This comment about W-Bush-being-not-only-a-shoe-dodger demonstrates a particularly important nuance by Kazak as well as demonstrates the sensitivity that some in Kuwaiti share with Americans, who also feel it is time to change the government or status quo. [For example, Kuwaitis have voted to change the government two times in less than two years already—and the trend is to vote down the current regime. This very week the Emir of Kuwait had accepted the resignation of his cabinet.]
I honestly believe that the symbolism of Bush-as-a-dodger-of-justice may become the ultimate symbolism of 2008-2009 if no federal personnel are tasked to investigate and arrest him, Cheney and other political-above-the-law types in the U.S.A.
BEFORE THE SHOE DROPS—STOP “WASTA” IN AMERICA
Kuwait is a country, like many of its Arab neighbors, suffering under a horrible system of “wasta”.
Wasta is simultaneously defined in some countries as (a) using one’s strong political connections to get things you want, or (b) indirectly bribing someone with future chits, or (c) a means of protecting one’s family and friends in an unfair- or biased system of tribal and personal allegiances and incompetency.
Overall, I believe that the Kuwaitis (and other nationals here) as a whole have been astounded the manner the U.S. business contractors and friends of Bush-Cheney over the past 8 years in Iraq have broken most codes that America have worked hard to set up since the 1970s as international business and trade standards to provide a freer and more honest form of capitalism in the Middle East.
As early as the mid-1980s, the U.S.A.’s one-decade long campaign against corruptions was beginning to be notable for its successes in both Africa and the Middle East.
http://www.afbis.com/analysis/corruption.htm
The pattern was one where, although it still might be true that European and Japanese firms might bend the rules and allow all kinds of corruption, the USA’s Government Accounting Office (GOA) and other international and federal agencies would take both U.S. and foreign firms to court if U.S. standards were breached—just as has recently occurred with the Siemens settlement in the U.S. court system.
http://www.transparency-usa.org/survey_96.htm
[Siemens is paying 1.3 billion dollars in this most recent U.S. prosecution of corruption and company sanctioned bribes that create unfair trade and business practices around the globe.]
http://www.comcast.net/articles/finance/20081215/BUSINESS-US-SIEMENS-SETTLEMENT/
Now, after the news that U.S.’s 2003 no-bid contracts in Iraq and subsequent corrupt or fairly-unfair and poorly-run government oversight & business practices have helped ruin both Iraq and the U.S. budget, how many years will it be before the U.S. is taken seriously when it goes after corruption and unfair trade and business practices in Russia and China? http://economyincrisis.org/articles/show/1820
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-02-15-iraq-reconstruction_x.htm
In short, the secret has been out for years. U.S. money-men flushed with the U.S. takeover of one the world’s major oil producers, has been seen more and more as a corruptible golden cow.
