Colombia Deploys 15,000 Troops for Bush

[maddezmom]

CARTAGENA, Colombia - The Spanish colonialists who fortified this Colombian seaport 400 years ago to guard against pirates and rival imperial powers could only have dreamed of the security being implemented for President Bush (news - web sites)'s visit here Monday.


About 15,000 Colombian security forces — backed by warplanes, helicopters, battleships and two submarines — will safeguard Bush's four-hour trip to discuss the nation's war on drugs. That is the same number of American troops deployed in the Fallujah offensive in Iraq (news - web sites).


~snip~

But Bush will not see any of the walled city, unlike President Clinton (news - web sites), who toured its cobblestone streets in a horse-drawn carriage in August 2000. Bush and his conservative Colombian counterpart, Alvaro Uribe, will remain at a colonial estate on an island just off the coast for their talks.



more: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=589&ncid=734&e=2&u=/ap/20041122/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/colombia_bush_security

[dogman]

1. Maybe he hasn't kicked the habit.

There needed to protect the countries major export. Maybe the oil too.

[pinkpops]

2. Shows you how loved the man is.

Everywhere he goes he needs an army to protect him.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. Yeah, but he's created a world he in which he thrives.

Think about it. He doesn't have to walk among us common folk the way Clinton did; and he doesn't have to deal with hecklers because of his loyalty oaths; and he can surround himself with just the "important people."

This isn't hell for this man. This is a ruler's nirvana.

[0007]

13. junior is the most hated man in the world

He needs all the protection he can get!!

[daleo]

14. And every now and again he can be shown a Potemkin village

Sweet.

[movonne]

3. This is crazy!!!

[anakie]

4. and who foots the bill for all of this

commander in chief scaredy pants

[jobycom]

5. 15,000 troops deployed for Bush, and he still escaped!

Oh, wait, were they trying to arrest him or protect him?

[Straight Shooter]

6. All those people over there who are as poor as dirt

must certainly appreciate the expenditure on the Most Paranoid Man in the World

[Zorra]

7. Bu$h is a parasite living off the labor of the taxpayers of the world. n/t

[struggle4progress]

8. If he insists on this insane level of security ...

... the poor nations should simply say, "Don't come. We can't afford your visit."

[VegasWolf]

9. Probably doesn't bother bush at all, he has no intellectual

curiousity of the world around him.

[cliss]

10. I agree. To Bush, the notion that

a poor country mobilizes 15,000 troops to protect him is probably seen as an ego thing. No doubt it makes him feel more special, more PROTECTABLE.

The fact that Clinton was able to jog in London and move around the world freely probably doesn't resonate in his limited brain.

Bush probably sees himself as more valuable.

[DemoTex]

12. I hate to point this out. At some point 15,000 troops, ain't gonna do it!

It fact, how can they possibly trust those 15k not to turn on the Gringo Presidente? Or at least some of them? Oh, Ok the Secrete Service protects. Look what happened to them!. MOTHER OF MY DOG!

[flordehinojos]

15. that Colombian security was probably orchestrated by Bush's SecurityDetail

and now ... for the man who likes to trumpet the fact that the world is safer because he got rid of saddam hussein ...... his actions seem to tumpet the truth louder than his words.
1) he won't attend a state dinner in chile (which had to be cancelled) because the chilean government won't allow his security detail in the dining room and 2) because the president won't allow having his guests have to go through metal detectors after they are already in the presidential palace so they can sit next to bush.

and 3 ... this 15,000 military force ......

why, the little punk has the feisty balls to tell us that the world is safer because he got rid of saddam hussein...

should we believe his words, his louder than words actions?