..think about it. If the media publicizes a photo with Bush holding hands with a Saudi - what are they trying to sell to the public?

That Bush is somehow particularly beholden to Saudis.

Bush 43 made up his own mind on Iraq. He didn't listen to dad, Baker or the rest who had the closest ties to the Saudi government.

Likewise he didn't respect the French investment, Russian investment or German investment in Iraq.

The UN was being touted by Europe as the answer. "Worried about WMD -Let inspections work."

Of course Bush had access to intelligence that hinted at the corruption within the UN regarding Saddam & Iraq and the fact that they were proxies of European interests, from Kofi Annan on down.

And so Bush went his own way. Cheney & Rumsfeld were not new to the machinations political physics of the region. They know dictators in these nations are propped up by western support. France supported the Ayatollah Khomeni in 1978. We supported Saddam in 80 after the French helped oust the Shah.

And why did the French help oust the Shah and the pro-western, anti-fundamentalist regime?

Because France was shut out of the oil loop in Iran.

British & US interests held those.

So none of this France meddling is new. It has been going on for decades. France believes, because of its former imperialist holding in the muslim world, that it has a special relationship with these peoples - and it exploits fundamentalist to further its own resource/financial interests.

In Vietnam they were exploiting the Vietnamese for Rubber.

Do you EVER hear that? Do the words French, Vietnam & rubber ever appear in the same paragraph anywhere? Long before oil was big, rubber was a major 'indochina' commodity. Naturally, the French were ruthless exploiters and created the Ho Chi Minh's in droves.

In Vietnam we were fighting not just proxy-soviet-communist expansion, we were fighting the god-awful memories the Vietnamese people had of Frenchploitation. We tried to save the French holding - but it was not our fight.

The main change in the political scene is that we no longer have an ally in West Germany. Since reunification we lost a powerful European ally. The other change is that we now see Russo-Euro cooperation in exploitation of the Middle East. Prior to 1991 they were in competition for the role of "Dictator backer".

Right now the French are exploiting Burma & Sudan in the same way they were exploiting Vietnam - the anti-French hate in these by the people & victims in these nations is HUGE. They will eventually revolt and succeeed in overthrowing the dictators/militias that run these lands and then they will throw out the French with them.

France knows this intuitively. They see their track record. And so they keep pushing their trump card - islamofascist expansion. They have the best and most stable corporate relations with islamofascists. It is in their best interest to see Islamofascism expand all over Africa, Malaysia and Europe.

But hey... I'm giving all this inside knowledge away here and no one is really interested or cares. If anything I just get snarky comments from folks.

If someone wants to know about this type of stuff they can ask.