political : WHY HASN'T GEORGE W. BUSH CONDEMNED THE COUP IN THAILAND? [+] serious ballot by cranky ACTIVE Thu Sep 21, 06 - Tue Jun 16, 09 At the United Nations lectern this week, President Bush hailed the spread of democracy. "From Beirut to Baghdad," he said, "people are making the choice for freedom." Yet even as he spoke, tanks were rolling through the streets of Bangkok as a military coup toppled the elected leader of Thailand, who at that moment was in New York for the U.N. session. Bush made no mention of the dramatic events on Tuesday and left New York yesterday without ever seeing the deposed prime minister, much less offering any public support for a onetime strong ally of the United States. The president's spokesman later provided a strikingly mild response only after being asked by a reporter, pronouncing the White House "disappointed" by the coup. With the president's attention focused on the Middle East, the state of democracy elsewhere in the world does not rate as high on his priority list. "The president's freedom agenda is inherently selective," said Thomas Carothers, head of the democracy project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "We care very much about democracy in Afghanistan and Iraq, but . . . Thailand's just not part of the story, so this falls off the map a bit." Thailand is hardly the only example. Bush strongly supports Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president who took power in a military coup, and plans to meet with him at the White House twice in the next week. Bush will also host Kazakhstan's president, Nursultan Nazarbayev, at the end of next week despite the suppression of opposition parties, newspapers and human rights groups in the oil-rich Central Asian republic. The coup in Thailand poses the latest challenge to Bush's commitment to "ending tyranny in our world," as he vowed in his second inaugural address. Aides said yesterday that he did not mention the coup in his U.N. speech because they were still gathering information, but they did not explain why he said nothing later in the day as it became clear that the military had ousted Thaksin. The administration has likewise embraced autocratic leaders in such disparate places as Azerbaijan and Ethiopia while generally tempering criticism of anti-democratic policies in Russia and China. Even in the Middle East, Bush has treaded lightly in nudging allies such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia to reform. Lorne W. Craner, former assistant secretary of state under Bush and now president of the International Republican Institute, agreed that U.S. concerns with Thaksin did not justify a coup. "You can't sanction a coup just because you don't like the guy if you're going to stand up for democracy," he said. "It's unconstitutional." Washington Post * * * * * * * * Why hasn't Bush, who makes so much noise about democracy in some places, basically ignored the coup that eliminated democracy in Thailand? Thailand? Thailand doesn't have any oil There are hardly any Muslims to hate in Thailand For Bush, "democracy" is just a code word for "hand over the oil and nobody gets hurt" Supporting democracy is good PR, but Bush really prefers dictatorship He has condemned the Coup. Ballot #102297 : SEE RESULTS Comment: show your vote with comment?

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