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marathonrnr262
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 Posted: 07/21/05 - 09:54 Post subject: Ugly Americans!!!!!!!!!!
This morning on the news, Condy Rice was demanding an appolgy from the Sudan government for the "rough" way the reporters were handled.
They interviewed the reporter. She said that she was asked not to ask Q's to the PM. She was told that it is improper in their customs for the reporters to ask Q's. This is what she said she was told.
So what does she do. She says we have freedom of the press and stands up and blurts out a Q. All this after being asked nicely not to ask.
The Sudan body guards forcibly removed her.
Now we want an appology???
What have we become that we can completely disregard someonelses wishes and say that we don't recognize your beliefs and laws...?
Her actions speak loudly for us "Ugly Americans."
Sheldon
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robp
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Posted: 07/21/05 - 10:06 Post subject:
She got it:
"Ambassador Khidair Haroun Ahmed, head of the Sudanese mission in Washington, attempted to smooth over the situation. “Please accept our apologies,” he told reporters and Rice aides. “This is not our policy.” "
I didn't see anywhere though that reporters were requested to not ask questions.
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kristin31
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Posted: 07/21/05 - 10:17 Post subject: Re: Ugly Americans!!!!!!!!!!
| marathonrnr262 wrote: | This morning on the news, Condy Rice was demanding an appolgy from the Sudan government for the "rough" way the reporters were handled.
They interviewed the reporter. She said that she was asked not to ask Q's to the PM. She was told that it is improper in their customs for the reporters to ask Q's. This is what she said she was told.
So what does she do. She says we have freedom of the press and stands up and blurts out a Q. All this after being asked nicely not to ask.
The Sudan body guards forcibly removed her.
Now we want an appology???
What have we become that we can completely disregard someonelses wishes and say that we don't recognize your beliefs and laws...?
Her actions speak loudly for us "Ugly Americans."
Sheldon |
True. If you want respect from others, you must also show it to them. She doesn't need or deserve an apology, and it makes us as a country look more rude to the rest of the world.
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robp
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Posted: 07/21/05 - 10:19 Post subject: Re: Ugly Americans!!!!!!!!!!
| kristin31 wrote: |
True. If you want respect from others, you must also show it to them. She doesn't need or deserve an apology, and it makes us as a country look more rude to the rest of the world. |
I disagree. Guards roughing up some reporters and aides because someone asked a question? Can you imagine if it happened here - everybody in the world would be up in arms about it!
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sonnylax
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Posted: 07/21/05 - 12:15 Post subject:
| robp wrote: | She got it:
"Ambassador Khidair Haroun Ahmed, head of the Sudanese mission in Washington, attempted to smooth over the situation. “Please accept our apologies,” he told reporters and Rice aides. “This is not our policy.” "
I didn't see anywhere though that reporters were requested to not ask questions. |
Yep. She got it.
| Quote: | Speaking after the incidents at the presidential palace, Ms Rice demanded an apology.
"It makes me very angry to be sitting with their president and have this happen," she told reporters.
"They had no right to manhandle my staff and the press."
State department spokesman Sean McCormack later said that Sudanese Foreign Minister Mustafa Osman Ismail had telephoned Ms Rice "apologising for the treatment of our delegation and the press corps accompanying the secretary".
And Ambassador Khidair Haroun Ahmed, head of the Sudanese mission in Washington, said: "Please accept our apologies. This is not our policy." |
Makes you wonder what their policy actually is. Suprised they even took the time to visit with Condi as a black female, non-muslim. But they probably view the US of A as a giant piggie bank. (But that's a different topic for a different day.)
Last edited by sonnylax on 07/21/05 - 12:29; edited 1 time in total
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phillycat
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Posted: 07/21/05 - 12:23 Post subject:
I think the actions of the reporter were arrogant and disrespectful. I don't think that it was too much to ask for her to respect their customs and not ask questions. They were not asking her to cover her face or anything like that.
Why can't people understand that "our" way (whomever that may be...could be any nationality) is not always the only way or the right way. We need to learn to respect others and "their" ways.
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robp
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Posted: 07/21/05 - 12:39 Post subject:
| phillycat wrote: | I think the actions of the reporter were arrogant and disrespectful. I don't think that it was too much to ask for her to respect their customs and not ask questions. They were not asking her to cover her face or anything like that.
Why can't people understand that "our" way (whomever that may be...could be any nationality) is not always the only way or the right way. We need to learn to respect others and "their" ways. |
I agree with your first paragraph, if that is what actually happened. I don't agree with them "roughing up" people though, especially guests to their country.
As for your second paragraph, why is it always "us" who are in the wrong?
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phillycat
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Posted: 07/21/05 - 12:43 Post subject:
| robp wrote: |
I agree with your first paragraph, if that is what actually happened. I don't agree with them "roughing up" people though, especially guests to their country.
As for your second paragraph, why is it always "us" who are in the wrong? |
I agree with your point of "roughing up".
Why I put us in "" was because what I mean is that no matter who you are or what culture you are from, when you go to another country and experience another culture, you should be respectful of their customs.
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sonnylax
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Posted: 07/21/05 - 22:54 Post subject:
An eyewitness report from an ugly american named Andrea Mitchell....
| Quote: | There is no freedom of the press here’
Andrea Mitchell, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Things were not going well from the minute that Secretary Condoleezza Rice arrived in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. Her motorcade got separated and her personal advisor, Jim Wilkinson, got slammed against a wall while he tried to bull his way into the meeting. They blocked all the other State Department officials from even attending this meeting between Rice and the president of Sudan. In fact, for the first six or seven minutes of this meeting, Rice and President el-Bashir couldn't talk because the Arabic translator was prevented from getting in. None of the other top officials ever got into the meeting, including U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Andrew Natsios. So already there were apologies from Sudanese officials to U.S. officials. Things were not going well. And at that point, there were already problems over which reporters could go in and whether the American press corps could be part of a Sudanese press pool covering the photo opportunity. The State Department officials were insistent that the Americans be represented, as had previously been agreed to. Sudanese officials wanted to only let a camera in, but not permit any writers from newspapers or television. At one point, Sean McCormack, the assistant secretary for public affairs, said to his Sudanese counterpart, "I'll convey your desires about not permitting reporters to ask questions, but that's all I'll do. We have a free press." And his counterpart said, "There is no freedom of the press here." Which kind of told the whole story.
So by the time we finally did get in, there were Sudanese officials saying, "Don't ask any questions," and American officials saying, "No agreements. No deals." And we went in, and I asked President el-Bashir why, in essence, anyone should believe his promises when his government has said repeatedly that it will stop the violence and then it continues to support the militias that are doing the killing. At which point two guys came up behind me, two of his armed security guards, and grabbed me from behind and started pulling me out the door. I tried to keep my balance so that I didn't go down. And they shoved me out the door. Rice was furious and came back as soon as we got to the airport to leave for the refugee camp. She said she was very sorry that it happened and that she had demanded an apology from the Sudanese government. Within the hour, before we landed in northern Sudan, she received a call from the foreign minister apologizing. It was the third apology from the Sudanese that day. But two of them preceded the incident, which made everyone in the American delegation think that they weren't worth very much, the apologies. One of the comments from Wilkinson was that Diplomacy 101 says you don't mistreat your guests, especially not when you're trying to get them to restore Sudan's status, remove sanctions and take the country off the terror list.
All of this pales, obviously, in the context of why we're here, why Secretary Rice even came to Sudan, which is to try and do something about the horrendous killings, which the U.S. and Rice again yesterday called genocide... the displacement of two million people over the last two years, the burning of villages, the looting of livestock (which is the only means the Sudanese people have to survive). Rice is trying to focus, in this delicate balance, on the possibility for improvement, but many of the players are the bad guys who carried out these policies in the past, including President Omar el-Bashir, my new best friend. |
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8616820/#050721a
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phillycat
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Posted: 07/22/05 - 07:03 Post subject:
| sonnylax wrote: | An eyewitness report from an ugly american named Andrea Mitchell....
| Quote: | There is no freedom of the press here’
Andrea Mitchell, Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent
Things were not going well from the minute that Secretary Condoleezza Rice arrived in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. Her motorcade got separated and her personal advisor, Jim Wilkinson, got slammed against a wall while he tried to bull his way into the meeting. They blocked all the other State Department officials from even attending this meeting between Rice and the president of Sudan. In fact, for the first six or seven minutes of this meeting, Rice and President el-Bashir couldn't talk because the Arabic translator was prevented from getting in. None of the other top officials ever got into the meeting, including U.S. Agency for International Development Administrator Andrew Natsios. So already there were apologies from Sudanese officials to U.S. officials. Things were not going well. And at that point, there were already problems over which reporters could go in and whether the American press corps could be part of a Sudanese press pool covering the photo opportunity. The State Department officials were insistent that the Americans be represented, as had previously been agreed to. Sudanese officials wanted to only let a camera in, but not permit any writers from newspapers or television. At one point, Sean McCormack, the assistant secretary for public affairs, said to his Sudanese counterpart, "I'll convey your desires about not permitting reporters to ask questions, but that's all I'll do. We have a free press." And his counterpart said, "There is no freedom of the press here." Which kind of told the whole story.
So by the time we finally did get in, there were Sudanese officials saying, "Don't ask any questions," and American officials saying, "No agreements. No deals." And we went in, and I asked President el-Bashir why, in essence, anyone should believe his promises when his government has said repeatedly that it will stop the violence and then it continues to support the militias that are doing the killing. At which point two guys came up behind me, two of his armed security guards, and grabbed me from behind and started pulling me out the door. I tried to keep my balance so that I didn't go down. And they shoved me out the door. Rice was furious and came back as soon as we got to the airport to leave for the refugee camp. She said she was very sorry that it happened and that she had demanded an apology from the Sudanese government. Within the hour, before we landed in northern Sudan, she received a call from the foreign minister apologizing. It was the third apology from the Sudanese that day. But two of them preceded the incident, which made everyone in the American delegation think that they weren't worth very much, the apologies. One of the comments from Wilkinson was that Diplomacy 101 says you don't mistreat your guests, especially not when you're trying to get them to restore Sudan's status, remove sanctions and take the country off the terror list.
All of this pales, obviously, in the context of why we're here, why Secretary Rice even came to Sudan, which is to try and do something about the horrendous killings, which the U.S. and Rice again yesterday called genocide... the displacement of two million people over the last two years, the burning of villages, the looting of livestock (which is the only means the Sudanese people have to survive). Rice is trying to focus, in this delicate balance, on the possibility for improvement, but many of the players are the bad guys who carried out these policies in the past, including President Omar el-Bashir, my new best friend. |
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8616820/#050721a |
I saw this on the news last night and I think that both sides were wrong. She was completely obnoxious to go ahead and ask questions when told that she shouldn't...and just plain stupid. You don't go to a country where people openly walk around with machine guns and go against what they tell you are their rules.
Were they rude, pushy and out of line too? Absolutely. But I would think that seeing how they treated the group from the get go, you would be a bit more cautious. I was not suprised to see the reaction from the Sudenese when she asked her question after seeing everthing that happened prior to the incident.
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marathonrnr262
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Posted: 07/22/05 - 07:04 Post subject:
That is the piece that was on TV.
I still don't understand. She was told no Q's, but just had to open her mouth.
Oh well!
Sheldon
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Sahara
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Posted: 07/25/05 - 14:51 Post subject:
| Quote: | | All of this pales, obviously, in the context of why we're here, why Secretary Rice even came to Sudan, which is to try and do something about the horrendous killings, which the U.S. and Rice again yesterday called genocide... the displacement of two million people over the last two years, the burning of villages, the looting of livestock (which is the only means the Sudanese people have to survive). Rice is trying to focus, in this delicate balance, on the possibility for improvement, but many of the players are the bad guys who carried out these policies in the past, including President Omar el-Bashir, my new best friend. |
This is the bottom line. There is more than a little tension not only within Sudan but also between Sudan and neighboring countries... I would hope that she and any American would not jeopardize making it worse. Sudan and those neighboring countries are just the Red Sea away from the Middle East and terrorist influence.
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gretriever
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Posted: 08/08/05 - 21:17 Post subject:
| marathonrnr262 wrote: | That is the piece that was on TV.
I still don't understand. She was told no Q's, but just had to open her mouth.
Oh well!
Sheldon |
I think this is more a case of an individual reporter trying to get attention more than "We don't do that in America - I'll teach them a lesson." Women reporting stories, etc., from Iran (and I think much of the Arab world), repsect the mandate that women have a head covering.
I agree with you, Sheldon, this is one person behaving badly.
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