The New York Times finds a place where there's support for George Bush: Albania. Even here, however, the Bush loves seems to be part of a larger Americaphilia that ultimately derives from the Clinton administration's support of the Albanian cause in Kosovo rather than from much of anything that Bush did.
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He's Big in Albania
09 Jun 2007 11:29 am
Comments (15)
I wonder if Bush sang this?
Albania!
Albania!
You border on the Adriatic!
Your land is mostly mountainous,
and your chief export is coal!
- Coach, "Cheers"
Given the nature of Albanian society, they probably assume that Bush is Bill Clinton's son or perhaps his nephew.
Once someone explains that Bush is actually head of a rival American clan, they'll probably try to kill him...
Bush was pretty popular in Slovakia when I was there there two years ago. I think it was because Bush visited Brataslava, but he didn't go to Prague.
The article indicates that Albania's pro-US sentiment goes back a lot farther than the Kosovo war:
Every school child in Albania can tell you that President Woodrow Wilson saved Albania from being split up among its neighbors after World War I, and nearly every adult repeats the story when asked why Albanians are so infatuated with the United States.
James A. Baker III was mobbed when he visited the country as secretary of state in 1991. There was even a move to hold a referendum declaring the country America’s 51st state around that time.
I've heard that Mongolians like him as well. Surrounded as they are by Russians and Chinese, they like anyone with the clout to take on either of those countries, so they're pro-Bush.
...and of course he's still popular in the news rooms and TV studios of America. He's like an Enver Hoxha of their own.
Bush is also big in the Kurdish parts of Syria and Iraq and, to a lesser extent. Syrian and Iraqi Kurds kept trying to tell me that "George Bush is the father of freedom." I laughed and laughed and laughed.
It's because Albanians are really, really smart. Like Americans back in the olden days such as 2004.
Re: and of course he's still popular in the news rooms and TV studios of America. He's like an Enver Hoxha of their own.
Since when? They’ve always reported on Bush as a butt-dumb ex-drunk, draft-dodging frat boy president. Of course that’s all they have to say bad about him, just personal defects. No serious analyses of his bad policy. They never do that. They report on politics in much the same vein they report on Paris Hilton. By the way, I knew when Bush’s presidency was in big trouble: when the National Enquirer and other tabloids starting running smear stories about him going back on booze and cheating on Laura.
I used to listen to Radio Tirana on shortwave radio before there was an internet. (Some of us are incurable information junkies) They'd cite innumerable statistics about how great the country was doing, and how they owed it all to glorious leader Envar Hoxa (pronounced hosya).
When the invasion of Albania began during the Balkan wars of the Clinton Administration and it was apparent that there was nothing to defend the country except little mushroom bunkers, then the silliness of it all became apparent. It seemed like something out of a Monty Python epic.
It was hilarious, if it hadn't been for one thing--it laid the groundwork for the next phase of the operation. The media had become accoustomed to taking the government's case for anything that was fed to them. That was as wrong for them as it would have been wrong for us to have accepted the claims of the Envar Hoxa government, for they both had a point of view to promote without any regard to the truthfullness of their claims.
Now we are engaged in the midst of a war which has no right to be--the war in Iraq. What a horrible state of catastrophe this is. The war was started on the basis of provable lies, it is continued because the Congress won't cut off the money to fund it, the Congress needs to impeach the lying president that started it, and we shouldn't have ever begun the damn thing to begin with.
No wonder just 21% of the public thinks that the country is headed in the right direction.
If more people had stood up in the War in Bosnia and in the Balkans on general principle, that only the Congress has the right to declare war, then maybe, just maybe, we'd have avoided this disaster in Iraq.
Those people who wrote the Constitution weren't conservatives and they weren't liberals, in the modern-day sense of the word. They were very practical people who tried to construct a society which would yield the benefits of liberty to their heirs.
James Hogan
"If more people had stood up in the War in Bosnia and in the Balkans on general principle, that only the Congress has the right to declare war, then maybe, just maybe, we'd have avoided this disaster in Iraq."
Eh, for all intents and purposes, Congress did declare war on Iraq, with the authorization to use force. We haven't declared war officially on any country since World War II, but Bush I set an important precedent: For big wars, where lots of American casualties are possible, Congress gets to vote. For little stuff (e.g., the invasion of Panama), giving a quiet heads up to Congressional leaders would suffice. Since Clinton didn't launch any wars that risked lots of American casualties, he didn't have to get a Congressional vote. Bush II followed the precedent his father set, and got Congressional authorization for his two big wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Georgians (the country, not the state) were also crazy about Bush. The catch is they also loved Joseph Stalin.
Albania is a small Mediterranean country, with a very old and rich history.
Most people here have no clue in geography, maybe the shortwave radio guy!. Of course the communists in Albania isolated their country for a good while.
What is unique about them, is that they still maintain certain (great) old customs towards the guest! Try to go and visit. You will have to see for yourself to understand it!
Meantime, nothing surprising here, the US is the only real supporter for Kosovo's independence. The Europeans and Russia consistently have screwed them when it come to the national issue. Instead, the US consistently backed them up!
As for the religion of the Albanians....they really are AGNOSTIC!!!
OK? It is in their upbringing, in their culture! Of course 500 years of Turkish invasion has left certain east relics over there. They are portrayed as Islamic or religious... whatever..... religion is really not part of their life period! You would have to know them to understand it. Albania holds some of the most genuine treasures in Europe still to be discovered in the west.
Comments closed June 23, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
Don't forget Poland.
Posted by Petey | June 9, 2007 11:51 AM