Pres. George W. Bush and the Middle East essays

Pres. George W. Bush and the Middle East essays This essy explores 3 Bush quotes about the Middle East to analyze, from a layperson's perspective: 1) what is he saying (or trying to say)? 2) are his administrations policies consistent with the statement? Quote @ "There's nothing more deep than recognizing Israel's right to exist. That's the most deep thought of all. ... I can't think of anything more deep than that right." This statement seems to be the result of very shallow thinking: a more literate person would most likely have substituted "profound" for "deep" in the sense of "thoroughgoing; far-reaching: profound social changes; penetrating beyond what is superficial or obvious." Looking at the history of the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, I wonder why the Palestinians' right to their homeland is not also considered "deep"? There are even Israeli and Jewish American organizations that agree that if the Israeli government is serious about peace, they will withdraw settlers from Palestinian lands. In the same press conference that this quote came from, Bush all but affirms that the Israelis are friends, while the Palestinians are just, well, Palestinians... "But we're concerned about the Middle East, because it's affecting the lives of the Palestinians and our friends, the Israelis." Quote B: "There's a lot of people in the Middle East who are desirous to get into the Mitchell process. Andbut first things first. Thethese terrorist acts and, you know, the responses have got to end in order for us to get the frameworkthe groundworknot framework, the groundwork to discuss a framework for peace, to lay theall right." 1. There are Middle Eastern people who want to follow the Mitchell Plan. What's the Mitchell Plan? It's a plan developed by a group of Middle East experts, led by former U.S. Senator George Mitchell and including Warren Rudman and their colleagues Suleyman Demirel(Turkey), ...

The 1990s and Beyond

The 1990s and Beyond The 1990s brought a new president, Bill Clinton (1993-2000). A cautious, moderate Democrat, Clinton sounded some of the same themes as his predecessors. After unsuccessfully urging Congress to enact an ambitious proposal to expand health-insurance coverage, Clinton declared that the era of big government was over in America. He pushed to strengthen market forces in some sectors, working with Congress to open local telephone service to competition. He also joined Republicans to reduce welfare benefits. Still, although Clinton reduced the size of the federal workforce, the government continued to play a crucial role in the nations economy. Most of the major innovations of the New Deal and a good many of the Great Society remained in place. And the Federal Reserve system continued to regulate the overall pace of economic activity, with a watchful eye for any signs of renewed inflation. The economy, meanwhile, turned in an increasingly healthy performance as the 1990s progressed. With the fall of the Soviet Union and Eastern European communism in the late 1980s, trade opportunities expanded greatly. Technological developments brought a wide range of sophisticated new electronic products. Innovations in telecommunications and computer networking spawned a vast computer hardware and software industry and revolutionized the way many industries operate. The economy grew rapidly, and corporate earnings rose rapidly. Combined with low inflation and low unemployment, strong profits sent the stock market surging; the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which had stood at just 1,000 in the late 1970s, hit the 11,000 mark in 1999, adding substantially to the wealth of many though not all Americans. Japans economy, often considered a model by Americans in the 1980s, fell into a prolonged recession a development that led many economists to conclude that the more flexible, less planned, and more competitive American approach was, in fact, a better strategy for economic growth in the new, globally-integrated environment. Americas labor force changed markedly during the 1990s. Continuing a long-term trend, the number of farmers declined. A small portion of workers had jobs in industry, while a much greater share worked in the service sector, in jobs ranging from store clerks to financial planners. If steel and shoes were no longer American manufacturing mainstays, computers and the software that make them run were. After peaking at $290,000 million in 1992, the federal budget steadily shrank as economic growth increased tax revenues. In 1998, the government posted its first surplus in 30 years, although a huge debt mainly in the form of promised future Social Security payments to the baby boomers remained. Economists, surprised at the combination of rapid growth and continued low inflation, debated whether the United States had a new economy capable of sustaining a faster growth rate than seemed possible based on the experiences of the previous 40 years. - Next Article: Global Economic Integration This article is adapted from the book Outline of the U.S. Economy by Conte and Carr and has been adapted with permission from the U.S. Department of State.