Dubya is burying is alcohol-soaked head in the sand ... while his neo-con extremist regime's lies come crashing down around him ... Rather than restore "honesty and integrity" to the White House, he has lied to the American People; acted like a neo-hiterlian thug on the world stage; and, plundered and looted taxpayers at home and the war-torn peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq, all to enrich himself and his corporate paymasters and corrupt cronies.
"This is trouble for the White House. And that was evident today at McClellan's daily briefing for reporters. He was repeatedly asked what Bush intended to do to get to the bottom of this ugly episode. In essence, McClellan's answer was, nothing. Over and over, McClellan said the Justice Department, not the White House, was the "appropriate agency" to investigate. And he said that anyone with information on this matter should contact the Justice Department--not the president. But shouldn't the president be taking steps on his own? the reporters wondered. Every time that query was placed in front of McClellan, he batted it away with a stock reply, noting that the White House had no information beyond the media reports--which were based on anonymous sources--to "suggest White House involvement" in the Wilson leak. "Are we supposed to chase down every anonymous report in the newspaper?" McClellan asked. And several times, he challenged his inquisitors, "Do you have any specific information to bring to my attention suggesting White House involvement?"
This was a ruse. McClellan was claiming that the White House was not obligated to conduct an inquiry in response to allegations predicated on anonymous sources. But the CIA's request for an investigation indicated these allegations are serious and not merely the routine spin often attributed to anonymous sources in the media. After all, the anonymous quotes that appear in the papers each day rarely charge the White House with criminal behavior that possibly harmed national security. Isn't Bush--who promised to restore honesty and integrity to the White House--curious about whether his aides might have engaged in illegal and underhanded conduct? McClellan maintained that Bush takes the matter seriously. Just not seriously enough to order any action, such as questioning top White House aides." Read the entire story on http://www.thenation.com/capi... , as Corn also describes the WMDs lies that the Bushies are unable to cover-up.
Moreover, the nasty little scandal about Dubya's corrupt buddy (nope, not Kenny-boy (Enron) Lay this time) Joe Allbaugh's corporation designed to steal Iraqi businesses and natural resouces, is starting to emerge in the main-stream press. In "Washington Insiders' New Firm Consults on Contracts in Iraq" by Douglas Jehl, on http://www.nytimes.com/2003/0... , he reports:
"A group of businessmen linked by their close ties to President Bush, his family and his administration have set up a consulting firm to advise companies that want to do business in Iraq, including those seeking pieces of taxpayer-financed reconstruction projects.
The firm, New Bridge Strategies, is headed by Joe M. Allbaugh, Mr. Bush's campaign manager in 2000 and the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency until March. Other directors include Edward M. Rogers Jr., vice chairman, and Lanny Griffith, lobbyists who were assistants to the first President George Bush and now have close ties to the White House." Read the rest of the story on http://www.nytimes.com/2003/0... .
"We the People" have sat idly by and watched, and thereby collaborated in the corrupt blood-letting by the Bush Regime resulting in the heart-breaking deaths of 360 American and British Soldiers, 17 Journalists, and between 7352 & 9152 innocent Iraqi civilians. (http://www.antiwar.com/ewens/... )
Moreover, Dubya has squandered over $76.9 Billion thus far ( http://www.costofwar.com/ ) to enrich the Bushies and their corporate paymasters, driving us into a $500 Deficit that the rich have been exempted from paying-off (War-profiteering Corporations and Rich Robber-barons got Massive Tax Cuts, Tax Loopholes & Boondoggles) ... but mean slashed services for those in need and a back-breaking burden for us poor slobs.
It is time to stand-up now and revolt against the Bushies obscene corruptions. Please contact your Congressmen and women today and demand that Bush's request for another $87 Billion for a Grand Total of $166-$170 Billion Swindled American Taxpayer Money (blood-money sucked from American taxpayer to enrich Bushies' pimps - read "Hypocritical Bush Regime's List of Goodies for Iraq (Halliburton) That They Deny America" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ) be rejected. Contact Congress NOW on http://www.congress.org .
Hypocritical Bush Regime's List of Goodies for Iraq (Halliburton) That They Deny America
The hypocritical and corrupt Bush Regime have requested that Congress squander over $20.3 Billion (included in the $87 Billion making the cost of this insane neo-imperial incursion $166 Billion), on a fat list of goodies for Iraq (i.e. Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Big Oil, etc.), that they deny America. Indeed, at a time that the neo-fascist Bushies cut programs here at home; put 3 million people out of work; and, mis-manage the economy to record-level $500 Billion Deficits ... it's a Gold Rush for Bush's Corporate Robber-barons.
"We the People" should be outraged at this obscene and bloody war-profiteering devised in order to benefit Bush's corrupt paymasters and cronies, at a time when we are "saddled" with massive debts, and the Bushies make no "sacrifices" and continue to live the "high life" as they lie, cheat and steal ... Moreover, the Bushies' ghoulish blood-suckers are already looting Iraq, having set-up new corporations (e.g. Joe Allbaugh's "New Bridge Strategies LLC", and "Iraqi International Law Group (IILG)" headed by Salem Chalabi, nephew of the embezzler and wanted thug, Ahmad Chalabi & puppet of the corrupt Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz Gang) to steal Iraqi businesses and natural resources [The Iraqi People have no voice! Some squalid "democracy" set-up by the Bush Regime.]. Refer to "Dig Deep Into Your Pockets To Pay-off Bush's Massive Boondoggles For His Corporate Cronies!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... .
Once we have invested in re-building Iraq's infrastructure at a back-breaking cost to the American taxpayers (who are denied basic needs & improvements here at home), the Bushies and their cronies will then move in and steal (i.e. privatize) their businesses and natural resources, thus, scamming the two countries at the expense of the American and Iraqi peoples ... A Dual Swindle of Both Countries ... The Rich Get Richer and the Rest of Us Poor Slobs Pay With Our Blood, Sweat and Tears!
A better way-forward is outlined by Jessica Matthews in "Iraqis Can Do More" (hidden away in the back pages), on http://www.washingtonpost.com... :
"CPA is also letting the best be the enemy of the better-than-Saddam, employing U.S. contractors in needlessly expensive projects that strive for U.S.-level technology. U.S. contractors can't fix 1960s technology. They have to replace it. Iraqis, with a fraction of the money and sometimes with help from their original suppliers, could make it go. The benefit would be cost savings for us, employment and a priceless sense of ownership for them.
It is, after all, their country. The sooner we can convince Iraqis and the rest of the world that we understand this, and the sooner we can add the legitimacy conferred by a U.N. political role, the greater our still slim chances of success. We will need all the help we can get." -- The Bushies are Too Stupid & Too Corrupt to Comprehend and Follow Ms. Matthew's wise counsel.
Demand that Congress justify and explain this insane boon-doggle and rape of America and Iraq, before they "rubber-stamp" the corrupt Bush's imperial demands for a neo-feudal state here at home, followed by Iraq, on http://www.congress.org .
Just take a look at the list of some of the goodies for Iraq, from the IRAQ PROJECT SAMPLER:
The United States would spend $20.3 billion to rebuild Iraq under the latest spending proposal from President Bush. According to The Washington Post, some of the projects include:
1. Four-week business course for 2,000 Iraqis, $20 million ($10,000 per pupil)
2. Forty new garbage trucks, $2 million ($50,000 per truck).
3. Imported petroleum, including kerosene and diesel, $900 million.
4. Funding to bring in 100 prison-building experts for six months, $10 million ($100,000 per expert).
5. Seven planned communities to include 3,258 houses, roads, an elementary school, two high schools, a clinic, and a place of worship and market for each community, $100 million.
6. Witness protection program for 100 families averaging five persons per family, $100 million ($200,000 per person).
7. New curriculum to train the Iraqi army, $164 million.
8. Two 4,000-bed prisons, $400 million ($50,000 per bed).
9. Funding for 500 experts to investigate crimes against humanity, $100 million ($200,000 per expert).
10. Protection for 400 judges and prosecutors, $20 million ($50,000 per person).
11. Begin work on a $500 million to $700 million children's hospital, $150 million.
12. Overhaul business practices of Iraq's postal service, including start of ZIP code system, $9 million.
13. Computer study of the Iraqi postal service, $54 million.
Gail Russell Chaddock reports in "Senate digs into Iraq $87 billion: Debate begins Monday with focus on proposals for billions to build everything from prisons to a modern post office." on http://csmonitor.com/2003/092... :
"WASHINGTON – After a week of intense questioning, Congress Monday begins to mark up President Bush's $87 billion wartime supplemental spending request - the largest ever sought by a president.
The White House says it's a must-pass request. If the United States loses the peace in Iraq, "we will have provided the terrorists with an incredible advantage in their war against us," presidential envoy Paul Bremer told senators in his first of six appearances before congressional panels last week.
It's an argument likely to prevail on Capitol Hill, but not before lawmakers scour the minutiae of the request, especially the $20.3 billion set aside for Iraq's reconstruction.
With thousands of homes in the D.C. area - including Mr. Bremer's - still blacked out seven days after hurricane Isabel, lawmakers especially focused on the contrast between spending in Iraq and needs at home. The White House proposes $5.7 billion to rebuild Iraq's power grid at a time when many Americans doubt the viability of their own, Democrats say.
This is also time when lawmakers are acutely aware of the half-trillion-dollar budget deficit. They also see domestic programs getting the ax at a time when the White House wants to fund similar projects for Iraq.
Norman Ornstein, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, says: "It's very clear that the $20 billion [for Iraq] includes a wish list plucked out of thin air - and some extremely generous amounts for social programs and building houses."
He continues: "The further you get away from reconstruction of things destroyed during the war and the closer you get to welfare state support, the more vulnerable they become, because it's at precisely the point that the White House wants to cut those areas here in Washington."
One example is homeland security. Democrats note that the Bush administration rejected, as too costly, a $200 million Democratic proposal to increase support for US first responders, even as it proposed $290 million for the Iraqi police force. Similarly, a request for $125 million to hire 1,300 more customs inspectors on US borders was turned down, yet $150 million is proposed by the White House for 5,350 border inspectors in Iraq.
"Many of us on this committee have tried to better protect the American people from future terrorist attack, but time after time the administration has actively opposed efforts to boost homeland security," says Sen. Robert Byrd (D) of West Virginia, ranking member on the Senate appropriations committee. "Eyes have been trained solely on Iraq, while we remain vulnerable here at home."
Another risk for Bush and his GOP allies in Congress is that many of the items for Iraq look bloated. For example, why would new Iraqi prisons cost $50,000 a bed? "They're spending more on prisons [in Iraq] that we do in the US," says Sen. Patrick Leahy (D) of Vermont.
Iraq administrator Bremer explained to the lawmakers that the cement used in Iraq for construction must be imported, boosting the cost.
Even for Republicans who strongly support the war and the rebuilding, the numbers Mr. Bush proposes appear daunting.
Sen. Larry Craig (R) of Idaho says the citizens of his state have some apprehensions: "In a time of flat economies and large deficits, we are expending a phenomenal amount of money."
GOP Sen. Robert Bennett of Utah pressed for assurances that the US aims to provide "simply the absolute baseline, plain-vanilla kinds of security and services that are necessary," while leaving Iraqis to pay for the rest.
Mr. Bremer responded, "By 2005 Iraq's oil revenues should be more than sufficient to pay for the Iraqi government and provide an extra amount ... for ... either more electricity or more schools."
But in the near term, members of Congress expect Americans will be footing most of the bill. The World Bank estimates that Iraq will need as much as $70 billion in the next four to five years to get its economy going. This $20.3 billion would be the first installment.
At the same time, Iraq's foreign debt is close to $200 billion, including $116 billion in unpaid Gulf War reparations.
"How do I explain to my constituents that those who helped to prop up Saddam's regime - the French, the Russians and others - could potentially be repaid, but those who financed the war to liberate the Iraqi people will not be repaid?" asks Sen. Evan Bayh (D) of Indiana.
Democrats and GOP moderates are pushing to make convert some of the aid to Iraq into a loan.
A Senate vote is on the $87 billion is expected this week."
Condoleezza Rice Should Go ... She Continues to Lie & Is Incompetent
On "Meet the Press" (Sunday, 28 September 2003), Condoleezza Rice again regurgitated the same old lie that Saddam Hussein had "connections" with Al Qaida, cynically used by the corrupt Bush Regime to frighten American people into mis-thinking that Iraq was somehow connected to 9/11: IT WASN'T! Condi Rice should go ... she is a liar.
Condi Rice described in July 2001, a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt." Shortly after the horrific attack on America on 9/11, Condi said that it was an "enormous opportunity" to invade Iraq and grab their oil. This insane, immoral and illegal adventure into Iraq was waged to enrich the Bushies' corporate cronies, that is resulting in the rape of the American taxpayer and Iraqi resources (oil). Refer to "Condoleezza Rice and the Case of the Big Swindle" on http://www.tblog.com/template... and "Dig Deep Into Your Pockets To Pay-off Bush's Massive Boondoggles For His Corporate Cronies!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... .
"We the People" should demand that the incompetent and corrupt Condi Rice step down, as she is a danger to our national security. Please contract Congress on http://www.congress.org .
Read "Post-War Iraq Planning Was 'Perfect Storm' of Mistakes and Bad Luck: Weak Intelligence, Wrong Assumptions, Blinders, Poor Coordination" - "Infighting at State Dept. and Pentagon Prevented U.S. From Taking Control Of A Bad Situation at the Outset" on http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/0... :
"NEW YORK, Sept. 28 /PRNewswire/ -- Newsweek interviews with top government officials involved in the planning and execution of the reconstruction of Iraq point to a "perfect storm" of mistakes and bad luck: wrongheaded assumptions, ideological blinders, weak intelligence and poor coordination by White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice. Much of the damage was done at the outset-in the first days after the war, when political infighting and wishful thinking prevented the United States from taking control of a bad situation that was turning worse, report Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas and National Security Correspondent John Barry in the October 6 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, September 29). (Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bi... ) Last February, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered retired Lt. Gen. Jay Garner to cut 16 of the 20 State Department officials from his roster of experts to rebuild Iraq after the war was over. It seems that the State Department people were deemed to be Arabist apologists, or squishy about the United Nations, or in some way politically incorrect to the right-wing ideologues at the White House or the neocons in the office of the Secretary of Defense, Newsweek reports. The vetting process "got so bad that even doctors sent to restore medical services had to be anti-abortion," recalls one of Garner's team to Newsweek. Finally, Secretary of State Colin Powell tried to stand up for his troops and stop Rumsfeld's meddling. "I can take hostages, too," Powell warned the secretary of Defense. "How hard do you want to play this thing?"
There was considerable confusion over who was supposed to be in charge of post-Saddam Iraq. "What do we mean by 'regime change' anyway?" CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks queried Secretary Rumsfeld in the middle of the war. Many CIA and State Department officials were skeptical about Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi and other exiles, insisting (correctly) that they had no popular base of support. At the State Department, Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage, Powell's number two, fought bitterly with the Defense Department neocons, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, the Pentagon's third-ranking civilian. Armitage was convinced that the Defense neocons had spies at the State Department. "Bats, we call them. Bats," said Armitage, in a colorful private harangue reported to Newsweek. "Because they hang upside down all day, with their wings over their eyes, pretending they don't see anything. But at night they spread their wings and fly off to whisper, whisper, whisper."
The ideological intrigue reached into the upper levels of the Bush administration. Rumsfeld ordered General Garner to drop a State Department official named Thomas Warrick from his reconstruction team. Garner protested, his aides recall; he needed Warrick, who had been the author of a $5 million, yearlong study called "The Future of Iraq." Rumsfeld's reply, as relayed by Garner to his aides, was: "I'm sorry, but I just got off a phone call from a level that is sufficiently high that I can't argue with him." Sources tell Newsweek that Rumsfeld was taking his orders from Vice President Cheney. Administration officials say that Warrick was vetoed because he did not get on with Iraqi exile leaders.
On May 16, five days after he arrived in Baghdad, Paul Bremer, who replaced Garner in Iraq, assembled the top American officials in Baghdad and announced that all ministries would be "de-Baath-ized" by removing roughly the top six layers of bureaucracy. The CIA's Baghdad station chief demurred. "We'll, that's 30,000 to 50,000 pissed-off Baathists you're driving underground," said the senior spook. Bremer went on: the army would be disbanded and not paid. "That's another 350,000 Iraqis you're pissing off, and they've got guns," said the CIA man. Said Bremer: "Those are my instructions."
Who is to blame for the missed signals and too-rosy scenarios? The person charged with coordinating U.S. foreign policy is the president's national- security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. She likes to say that her national security staff is not "operational," meaning that it advises on policy and leaves the implementation to government agencies, Newsweek reports. White House staffers are now surprisingly willing to dump on the Defense Department for bungling postwar security in Iraq. But for too long, White House staffers kept any qualms private. It is also true that the White House, including the president, signed off on the basic war plan and reconstruction effort.
On the ground, the Coalition Provisional Authority, charged with actually running Iraq until the Iraqis can take over, is the source of increasing ridicule. "CPA stands for the Condescending and Patronizing Americans," a Baghdad diplomat told a Newsweek reporter. "So there they are, sitting in their palace: 800 people, 17 of whom speak Arabic, one is an expert on Iraq. Living in this cocoon. Writing papers. It's absurd," says one dissident Pentagon official. He exaggerates, but not by much. Most of the senior civilian staff are not technical experts but diplomats, Republican appointees, White House staffers and the like. "
Dig Deep Into Your Pockets To Pay-off Bush's Massive Boondoggles For His Corporate Cronies!
Bush is a puppet of the corporate robber-barons, and if anyone doubted that, the following article in today's Washington Post should dispel any question marks. Bush has swindled the American people by awarding massive boondoggles, tax loopholes, and tax cuts, to his corporate paymasters who put this corrupt regime in office-- and to the richest-of-the-rich. Meanwhile, we're being forced to dig into our pockets to enrich these crooks!
"We the People" should be rising up in outrage at the squandering of our hard-earned tax-payer dollars, that are obscenely funnelled to the immoral Bushies, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and, their criminals-in-arms, including Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Big Oil ... and new corporations are set-up by Bush's buddies like Joe Allbaugh's "New Bridge Strategies LLC", and "Iraqi International Law Group (IILG)", a new outfit ready to "help you secure contracts for rebuilding Iraq". [Do the Iraqi people have any choice in the matter?] And let me also introduce you to the head of IILG, Salem Chalabi, nephew of the embezzler, Ahmad Chalabi. Ahmad Chalabi is wanted throughout the Arab World for theft and embezzlement, and is a puppet of the corrupt Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz Gang-- all colluding to rape Americans and Iraqis for all we're worth.
The Bush Regime's shell game was exposed by Condi Rice, who in April last year, described September 11 2001 as an "enormous opportunity" and said America "must move to take advantage of these new opportunities." [ http://new.globalfreepress.co... ], Powell and Rice are reportedly to have said that Saddam Hussein was disarmed in the 1990s and posed no threat, early in 2001.
The Bush Regime saw an "enormous opportunity" to lie to the American People, and wage an illegal and immoral incursion into Iraq, in order to destroy their infrastructure, and thereby award lavish (no-bid, cost-plus, no-audit) top-secret contracts to re-build the infrastructure in order to enrich their corporate cronies & buddy-boys. Moreover, they waged that they could (1) get the sleepy-headed American public to foot-the-bill, and (2) then grab the 2nd largest oil reserves for Big Oil: A Double Whammy of Shake-Down of American Taxpayers and Iraqi Oil ... The Biggest Robbery in the History of the World!
Amongst the obscene squandering of monies is $54 Million for a computer study of the Iraqi post office!!! Entire computer projects cost many times less than this ... $54 Million for a study is a wasteful giveaway to some Bush crony, who probably paid $2,000 for bar-be-que at a recent party given by the Bushies while our men and women, and innocent Iraqis are dying and/or injured and maimed for life, to enrich these war-profiteers.
Call for a halt to the Bush Regime's corruption by writing your Congress on http://www.congress.org , and demanding a full-blown investigation into their Crimes Against Humanity and Fraud, perpetrated upon the American and Iraqi peoples. Also, demand that no reconstruction appropriation be awarded until a full-scale audit of the $76 Billion squandered to-date is conducted by an independent accounting firm, and made public to the American People.
Read "In GOP, Concern Over Iraq Price Tag - Some Doubt Need For $20.3 Billion For Rebuilding", by Jonathan Weisman and Juliet Eilperin, on http://www.washingtonpost.com... :
"A new curriculum for training an Iraqi army for $164 million. Five hundred experts, at $200,000 each, to investigate crimes against humanity. A witness protection program for $200,000 per Iraqi participant. A computer study for the Iraqi postal service: $54 million.
Such numbers, buried in President Bush's $20.3 billion request for Iraq's reconstruction, have made some congressional Republicans nervous, even furious. Although the GOP leadership has tried to unite publicly around its president, cracks are beginning to show.
"President Bush should live up to his recent pledges to restrain spending, by . . . taking a strong stance that the new Iraq can and should pay for its own reconstruction," wrote Rep. Tom Feeney (Fla.), a freshman Republican, and Stephen Moore, a conservative economist, in an editorial for the National Review.
The discontent is relatively contained so far, said Jim Dyer, Republican staff director of the House Appropriations Committee, but that is because few lawmakers have read the proposal's fine print. As more details seep out, he said, anger is sure to rise.
Those details include $100 million to build seven planned communities with a total of 3,258 houses, plus roads, an elementary school, two high schools, a clinic, a place of worship and a market for each; $10 million to finance 100 prison-building experts for six months, at $100,000 an expert; 40 garbage trucks at $50,000 each; $900 million to import petroleum products such as kerosene and diesel to a country with the world's second-largest oil reserves; and $20 million for a four-week business course, at $10,000 per student.
"If those are what the costs are, I'm glad Congress is asking questions," said Brian Reidl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "If the White House wants to be portrayed as spending tax dollars in Iraq as cost-effectively as they spend [money] anywhere else, they're going to have to explain this."
Already, the administration's request for $400 million to build two 4,000-bed prisons at $50,000 a bed has raised enough questions in Congress to force Provisional Authority Administrator L. Paul Bremer to explain that cement must be imported to make concrete.
"We're not talking sanity here," Dyer said. "The world's second-largest oil country is importing oil, and a country full of concrete is importing concrete."
Republicans have grown nervous enough about Iraq that Vice President Cheney and White House budget director Joshua B. Bolten traveled to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet privately with the agitated ranks and go over the $87 billion emergency war spending request.
"What [lawmakers] really wanted them to do was carefully review it so they can justify to constituents why they voted for it," said a GOP aide who was at the meeting. "You've got to be able to go back home and explain why we need to do all this."
In several closed meetings this week, Republicans questioned why the administration is piling more spending atop an ever-expanding federal deficit. Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, plans to offer an amendment making the package a loan, which the White House adamantly opposes.
"The people of eastern Tennessee want to know why the $20.3 billion couldn't be repaid by the Iraqi people from the oil revenues," Wamp said.
Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) urged that the administration press nations such as France, Russia and Germany to forgive some of Iraq's $200 billion foreign debt, which Bremer conceded is now the United States' responsibility. "It's tough to make a case to give $20 billion outright," Flake said. "There are a lot of us who are still troubled."
Flake and other conservatives also want the administration to offset the reconstruction package with cuts in other areas.
Meanwhile, at a House hearing yesterday, Democrats pressed Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz about whether the administration plans to withdraw troops right before the 2004 presidential election. He said no decisions are being made on political grounds.
"These are national security decisions; they have to be made on that basis," he said. Wolfowitz said that does not mean that "we're not trying to, in fact, get more Iraqis on the front lines, get them dying for their country so fewer Americans have to."
It is the reconstruction spending, however, that is drawing some conservatives' ire. Moore, who heads the political action committee Club for Growth, called some of the aid request "frivolous" and much of it "preposterous." Pete Sepp, a spokesman for the conservative National Taxpayers Union, said Americans are being misled.
"Many members of the general public are being led to believe this money is just to turn the lights back on in Iraq," Sepp said. "Once word gets out about the nature of some of these projects, it will pose a real dilemma for a number of policymakers who believe U.S. foreign aid is already suffering from administrative problems as well as overambitious goals. These are the kinds of things that radio talk show hosts love to chew up and give to their listeners."
GOP pollster Robert Teeter hinted that congressional Republicans are right to be nervous -- not so much about the military campaign in Iraq, or even the rising U.S. casualties, but about the White House's spending request. Support for the war remains relatively high, he said, and if elected Republicans can frame the full $87 billion package as the amount it takes to support the troops, they will be fine.
But as soon as the discussion turns to the nuts and bolts of Iraq's reconstruction, the public's long-standing antipathy to foreign aid quickly surfaces, Teeter said.
Then, he said, the overwhelming sentiment is, "We need to take care of our own." It is up to Republicans to keep the conversation centered on the troops, while Democrats will try to focus on the reconstruction's spending details.
Some Democrats want to split the $87 billion bill into a $67 billion military spending measure for quick passage and a separate reconstruction measure. Republican leaders adamantly oppose this, saying the entire proposal is essential and cannot be picked apart.
"The package is a wartime supplemental [spending bill], directly tied to the security and the ultimate withdrawal of United States forces from the region," said White House budget office spokesman Trent Duffy. "It has to be viewed in that context."
Duffy dismissed as "preposterous" Democrats' assertions that the administration is willing to spend more on Iraqis than on its own citizens. The federal government spends $5.9 billion on prisons each year, compared with the $510 million the administration wants for corrections in Iraq next year, he said. Domestic air and ground transportation consumes $64 billion, dwarfing the $753 million the White House wants for Iraq.
For conservatives pushing for less spending in the United States, such comparisons hold little value. It is not the dollar totals but the targets. "A $54 million study for their post office?" asked Dan Mitchell of the Heritage Foundation.
Some Republican aides say the numbers may be more defensible than they sound because the budget is not quite real. They suggest the administration has inflated costs, in part to avoid having to come back next year for a new emergency spending bill, and in part so they can skim some of the money for classified military efforts.
And many congressional Republicans quietly say they will never challenge the president's request in public. To do so, they say, would risk an intraparty rift that could endanger Bush's reelection efforts as well as their own.
Democrats, meanwhile, question how long the GOP can remain unified. "Republicans are losing confidence the president can commit these resources in a reasonable way," Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said.
Senate GOP leaders are rushing to bring the $87 billion request to a vote by the end of next week, prompting Democratic complaints that the measure is not being fully considered. Daschle questioned the need for haste, noting that Bremer told Democrats this week that the money will not be needed until January."
Is Bush's War a "Brain Fart"? ... Ret. General Zinni May Be Right, As Bush's War Stinks!
Retired General Anthony Zinni has rightly expressed his outrage that the Bush Regime misled the American people on the rationale for war. He called Bush's insane war a "brain fart", and this stupid war does indeed stink.
The Bushies' illegal and immoral incursion-turned-guerrill a-quagmire has resulted in the horrific massacre of 358 American & British Soldiers, 17 Journalists, and between 7346 and 9146 innocent Iraqi civilians. [ http://www.antiwar.com/ewens/... ] This nightmare of blood-letting and slaughter, is not waged for any beneficial purpose, but instead to enrich the Bush Regime's cronies.
Moreover, the Bushies have squandered over $76 Billion thus far at an obscene cost of $4 Billion per month with no end in sight-- as the United States faces the highest job losses (Bush destroyed 3 million jobs, to bring unemployment to 9 million) since the Great Depression, and over 34 million people are under the poverty line. Actually many additional millions also live in poverty in the richest country in the world, as the "poverty line" hasn't been revised since the 1960s-- it would be too embarrassing to reveal the truth to the public: that our nation's wealth is being stolen by a few of the richest robber-barons, and the rest of us are systematically being impoverished. The corruption of the American oligarchy (including the Bush Family) is as outrageous as the rogue regimes hypocritically condemned for our self-satisfied (but ignorant) consumption.
L. Paul Bremer gleefully declares that the extravagant sum of $87 Billion demanded by Bush (to enrich Cheney's paymaster Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Big Oil), should be a "gift" ... Oh yeah, it's easy for these greedy goons to give "gifts" (they've amassed millions) paid for by the rest of us ... Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Bremer and their corporate pimps enjoy living like neo-emperor's off the hard-earned taxpayer dollars stolen from low-income, average, middle-class and fixed-income retirees. Remember, they've already awarded massive tax cuts to themselves and their rich campaign contributors, that would pay for Bush's corrupt war-mongering. Bush's insane tax cuts should be repealed as they have caused an unfair imbalance of burden in our society, with a $500 Billion Deficit! This may be acceptable to Bush's alcohol-soaked brain, but it is outrageous to demand that those of us who bear the heart-breaking consequences of their corrupt and back-breaking burdens be required to give our blood, sweat and tears, to the wealthiest among us. [ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin... ]
Rummy Rumsfeld says $87 Billion is his "exit strategy". Would you trust arrogant Rummy who has stumbled, bungled, and stupidly tumbled into a devastating guerrilla quagmire in Iraq, because he failed to listen to anyone with knowledge and brains??? [ http://news.ft.com/servlet/Co... ]
"We the People" should be calling for the resignations of the neo-con criminals who have so badly screwed us into a death trap, all to enrich the Bush/Cheney junta's corporate buddies-- and meanwhile, new companies are being set-up daily, to exploit and rape the Iraqi people of their businesses, resources and country, as they are too vulnerable and Iraq is too unstable, to discover they are being swindled. We have no excuse, however, as we watch the Bushies swindle America. Contact Congress now, to demand an investigation into Bush's and Cheney's crimes against humanity, and the dismissal of Rummy & Wolfy, and Powell & Rice, for their betrayal of their oaths of office, on http://www.congress.org .
"Did retired General Anthony Zinni really call George W. Bush's war in Iraq a "brain fart"? That seems to be the case. But first, some background.
On Thursday night, Zinni, the former commander of the U.S. Central Command, was interviewed by Ted Koppel on Nightline. And he was rather sharp in his assessment of George W. Bush's policy in Iraq. Before the war, Zinni, who had been an envoy for Bush in the Middle East, opposed a U.S. invasion of Iraq, arguing that Saddam Hussein did not pose an imminent threat. On Nightline, Zinni compared Bush's push for the war with the Gulf of Tonkin incident--an infamous episode in which President Lyndon Johnson misrepresented an attack on two U.S. Navy destroyers in order to win congressional approval of the war in Vietnam--and he challenged "the credibility behind" Bush's prewar assertions concerning Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction and its association with anti-American terrorists. "I'm suggesting," Zinni said, "that either the [prewar] intelligence was so bad and flawed--and if that's the case, then somebody's head ought to roll for that--or the intelligence was exaggerated or twisted in a way to make a more convenient case to the American people." Zinni said he believed that Hussein had maintained "the framework for a weapons of mass destruction program that could be quickly activated once sanctions were lifted" and that such a program, while worrisome, did not immediately endanger the United States.
Zinni raised the issue that Bush might have purposefully misled the public and not shared with it the true reason for the war: "If there's a strategic decision for taking down Iraq, if it's the so-called neoconservative idea that taking apart Iraq and creating a model democracy, or whatever it is, will change the equation in the Middle East, then make the [public] case based on that strategic decision....I think it's a flawed--like the domino theory--it's a flawed strategic thought or concept....But if that's the reason for going in, that's the case the American people ought to hear. They ought to make their judgment and determine their support based on what the motivation is for the attack."
Zinni was, in a way, being polite. Earlier in the month, he addressed a forum sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute and the Marine Corps Association. There he let loose. Reflecting the views of high-ranking U.S. military officials who were dubious about launching a war against Iraq and skeptical about the occupation that would follow, Zinni accused the Bush crowd of having not been ready for the challenges to come after defeating the Iraqi army. "We're in danger of failing," he noted, because the Bush administration had not readied itself for what would follow the initial military engagement. "We fought one idiot here [in Iraq], just now," he said. "Ohio State beat Slippery Rock 62 to 0. No shit! You know! But we weren't ready for that team that came onto the field at the end of that three-week victory." He went on:
"Right now, in a place like Iraq, you're dealing with Jihadists that are coming in to raise hell, crime on the streets that's rampant, ex-Ba'athists that still running around, and the potential now for this country to fragment: Shi'ia on Shi'ia, Shi'ia on Sunni, Kurd on Turkomen. It's a powder keg. I just got back from Jordan. I talked to a number of Iraqis there. And what I hear scares me even more that what I read in the newspaper. Resources are needed, a strategy is needed, a plan. This is a different kind of conflict. War fighting is one element of it."
Zinni displayed little confidence in Bush and his aides. He said that their Iraq endeavor has landed the United States into the middle of assorted "culture wars" in the Middle East. "We don't understand that culture," he remarked. "I've spent the last 15 years of my life in this part of the world. And I'll tell you, every time I hear...one of the dilettantes back here speak about this region of the world, they don't have a clue. They don't understand what makes them tick. They don't understand where they are in their own history. They don't understand what our role is....We are great at dealing with the tactical problems--the killing and the breaking. We are lousy at solving the strategic problems; having a strategic plan, understanding about regional and global security and what it takes to weld that and to shape it and to move forward."
Do you think Zinni is angry over the war? He did get worked up as he ended his speech:
"We should be...extremely proud of what our people did out there....It kills me when I hear of the continuing casualties and the sacrifice that's being made. It also kills me when I hear someone say that, well, each one of those is a personal tragedy, but in the overall scheme of things, they're insignificant statistically." (Perhaps he had in mind the comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made in June, when he played down attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq by saying, "You've got to remember that if Washington, D.C., were the size of Baghdad, we would be having something like 215 murders a month; there's going to be violence in a big city.") Zinni continued: "When we put [our enlisted men and women] in harm's way, it had better count for something, It can't be because some policy wonk back here has a brain fart of an idea of a strategy that isn't thought out."
Brain fart? That's not quite a military term. But those are fighting words. And Zinni practically counseled his audience to rebel against the Bush administration. U.S. troops, he said, "should never be put on a battlefield without a strategic plan, not only for the fighting--our generals will take care of that--but for the aftermath and winning that war. Where are we, the American people, if we accept this, if we accept this level of sacrifice without that level of planning? Almost everyone in this room, of my contemporaries--our feelings and our sensitivities were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and lies, and we saw the sacrifice. We swore never again would we do that. We swore never again would we allow it to happen. And I ask you, is it happening again? And you're going to have to answer that question, just like the American people are."
Brain fart. Garbage and lies. Never again. This was harsher rhetoric than Zinni deployed on Nightline, though his message was essentially the same. With such talk, he is in sync with Senator Ted Kennedy, who was blasted by Republicans for calling the war a "fraud." Note to Kennedy and other critics of the war: Fire away. If a Republican counter-attacks, you can always reply, at least I didn't say Bush is asking Americans to give their lives for a war based on mental flatulence. "
COMING SOON: David Corn's new book, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers, due out September 30). For more information and a sample, check out the book's official website: http://www.bushlies.com .
Dreams and Delusions ... Crime is Universal and So is Humanity
Human traits are universal and not restricted to any specific ethnicity, race, culture or nation. The United States of America has our own criminals, terrorists, robber-barons and, thugs-- only out for themselves with no conscience or concern for the welfare for their fellow men. Fortunately, we have a written U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, and a system of laws, so that the powerful cannot so easily pillage the vulnerable. Thankfully, we also have men and women of great courage, integrity, honesty, and honor, who care deeply about this country, other nations, and the welfare of all peoples on this planet.
Tragically, our country is now led by a corrupt Bush Regime that is not dissimilar to the Saddam Hussein Regime, with the exception that our laws have not as yet been so despoiled that mass executions can take place ... hopefully, that will not happen. Read Ted Rall's "Why We Hate Bush: It's the Stolen Election, Stupid" on http://www.uexpress.com/tedra... , as he articulates the contempt that the Bushies hold for America, the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, as well as the rights of other nations and peoples:
"Fear breeds hatred, and Bush's policies create a lot of both. U.S. citizens like Jose Padilla and Yasser Hamdi disappear into the night, never to be heard from again. A concentration camp rises at Guantánamo. Stasi-like spies tap our phones and read our mail; thanks to the ironically-named Patriot Act, these thugs don't even need a warrant. As individual rights are trampled, corporate profits are sacrosanct. An aggressive, expansionist military invades other nations "preemptively" to eliminate the threat of non-existent weapons, and American troops die to enrich a company that buys off the Vice President.
"Time to dust off the F word. "Whenever people start locking up enemies because of national security without much legal care, you are coming close [to fascism]," warns Robert Paxton, emeritus professor of history at Columbia University and author of the upcoming book "Fascism in Action." We're supposed to hate fascists--or has that changed because of 9/11?"
Israel is also run by a ruthless right-winged party, who insanely threatens to assassinate the democratically-elected leader of the Palestinian people, Yassar Arafat, and, who justifies the slaughter of the Palestinians, by calling them "terrorists" ... following Bush's appalling example. The "terrorists" fight back and kill Israelis, and the cycle continues ... Neither Bush, nor Sharon, who massively out-gun and out-arm all of the Arab countries, have shown wise leadership, but rather have escalated the horrific and tragic violence, and are responsible for thousands of deaths of innocent people. Neither Bush, nor Sharon are "men of peace".
Today, amidst the recent tragedies of mass slaughter in Iraq, Afghanistan, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, by the Bush & Sharon Regimes, a tiny glimmer of hope arises from a surprising quarter.
In "Israeli pilots refuse to fly assassination missions", by Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem, on http://www.guardian.co.uk/isr...,2763,1049271,00.html , reports:
"A group of Israeli airforce pilots declared yesterday that they would refuse to fly missions which could endanger civilians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"The declaration was aimed at Israel's policy of assassinating activists of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade.
"The 27 pilots sent a letter to the commander of Israel's airforce refusing to carry out duties, which include track and kill operations, in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. One of the pilots told Israeli television that the letter said: "We, veteran pilots and active pilots alike...are opposed to carrying out illegal and immoral attacks, of the type carried out by Israel in the territories.
"We, who have been educated to love the state of Israel refuse to take part in airforce attacks in civilian population centres. We refuse to continue harming innocent civilians." "
Over a year and a half ago, in January 2002, a similar protest by Israeli troops occurred, resulting in imprisonment for many soldiers. In "Israeli Troops Refuse to Serve in Gaza Strip, West Bank" by Laurie Copans on http://www.commondreams.org/h... :
"Fifty-two Israeli reserve soldiers said Friday they would no longer fight in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, claiming military actions there had nothing to do with security for Israel and were meant to control the Palestinians.
"In an advertisement in Israeli newspapers, the soldiers, some with the rank of major, said Israel's stringent travel bans, which confine many Palestinians to their communities, needlessly punish the Palestinians. Israel says the closures are needed to prevent attacks by Palestinian militants.
"We declare that we will not continue to fight a war for peace in the (Jewish) settlements" in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, read the ad. "We will not continue to fight on the other side of the Green Line with an intent to control, expel, starve and degrade an entire people.""
Perhaps, since sadly, we live in an age in which our leaders are corrupt thugs with selfish interests, who ruthlessly exploit the vulnerable and needy, to enrich themselves and bask in their own power, it is "We the People" who must stand-up and say "No ... We Will Not Be Collaborators ... We Refuse To Participate In Your Atrocities ... ", as these brave men and women have done.
These brave Israeli pilots today provided a shining example of the best of humanity, and perhaps the eminent Palestinian professor and author Edward Said, who died this morning, would have been somewhat heartened. In one of his last essays entitled "Dreams and Delusions" on http://www.guerrillanews.com/... , he wisely reflected that:
"The great danger is that American "magical" thinking à la Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Bush is being passed off as the supreme standard for all peoples and languages to follow. In my opinion, and if Iraq is a salient example, then we must not allow that simply to occur without strenuous debate and probing analysis, and we mustn't be cowed into believing that Washington's power is so irresistibly awesome. And so far as the Middle East is concerned the discussion must include Arabs and Muslims and Israelis and Jews as equal participants. I urge everyone to join in and not leave the field of values, definitions, and cultures uncontested. They are certainly not the property of a few Washington officials, any more than they are the responsibility of a few Middle Eastern rulers. There is a common field of human undertaking being created and recreated, and no amount of imperial bluster can ever conceal or negate that fact."
Miserable Failures say $87 Billion is "Affordable" for Their Bungled Guerrilla Quagmire! For Whom?
The Bush Regime are Miserable Failures, who say that an additional $87 Billion is "affordable" to support their bungled guerrilla quagmire. For Whom? Their track-record is already abysmal, having:
1) Massacred thousands of lives in Iraq (354 US & British Soldiers; between 7346 & 9146 innocent Iraqis; 17 Journalists) - [ http://www.antiwar.com/ewens/... ];
2) Squandered over $75 Billion in taxpayer money on a failed guerrilla quagmire thus far at $4 Billion/Month, with no end in sight - [ http://www.costofwar.com/ ];
3) Instigated increased terrorism via their insane unilateral "go-it-alone" approach that has damaged our goodwill and standing, and we now (rightly) face mistrust by respectable nations throughout the civilized world [ Even G. H. W. Bush 41 was able to get our allies & Arab Nations to pay $54 Billion (88%) of the $61 Billion for the Gulf War - http://people.psych.cornell.e...~fhoran/gulf/GW_cost/GW_p ayments.html ];
4) Bungled and stumbled into an unnecessary guerrilla quagmire by stupid arrogance displayed by a corrupt and deaf cabal, including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle and other neo-con ideologues, who told the American People that after the "war", the Iraqi people would be delighted to welcome us as "liberators", and that Iraq's oil would pay for the reconstruction and now American Taxpayers are being asked to sacrifice an additional $87 Billion making their misguided adventure $166 Billion, with no limits and no accountability - [ http://www.prospect.org/print... ];
5) Awarded massive no-bid, no-cap (with no audits) contracts to their Bush/Cheney/Rice cronies, most notably Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Chevron, etc., who are immorally profiteering from death, misery and hardships - [ http://www.worldpolicy.org/pr... , and http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2... ]
6) Pulled a "bait-and-switch" by creating a $500 Billion Deficit Spending by a Republican Administration (Executive, Senate & House), and highest job losses of over 3 Million (9 Million are unemployed) since the Great Depression, with Executive Pay soaring over 571% while average worker's rose only 37%, to enrich their paymasters. Moreover the corrupt Bush Doctrine awarded massive tax cuts and tax loopholes to Corporations and the Richest Americans, while low-income, average, unemployed, and fixed-income retirees are made to suffer - [ http://www.tallahassee.com/ml... ];
7) Ignoring 45 Million Americans lack health care insurance, while Bush & Rice hypocritically condemns regimes denying a modern infrastructure (energy, water, sewage, roads), public schools and health care for their citizens. The majority of Americans support a Universal Health Care System, even if it means repealing Bush's Insane Taxes for the Richest Among Us. - [ http://people-press.org/repor... ]
Instead of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rice, and Powell, being investigated for crimes and summarily fired for incompetence and lying to the public, they are lobbying corrupt Congressmen to support their pillage and looting of America and Iraq. [ http://new.globalfreepress.co... ].
Rumsfeld has the unmitigated gall to say that "Is $87 billion a great deal of money?", before the Senate Appropriations Committee, "Yes. But can our country afford it? The answer is also yes. Because it is necessary for the security of our nation and the stability of the world." This from an arrogant bungler responsible for the deaths of 167 Americans and thousands of Iraqis, since Bush's imbecilic appearance on the 1st May, declaring the battle over behind a banner waving "Mission Accomplished". [ http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin... ]
Perhaps, since "sacrifice" and "struggle" are what is required, the properties, assets and monies owned by the Bush Gang (Rumsfeld's to begin with) should be confiscated, and they should be paid minimum wage! Surely, this "generational commitment" of theirs is worth their "sacrifice" and I'm shocked that they haven't suggested it themselves!
Instead of impeachment hearings commencing against the worst president this country has ever had the misfortune to have thrust upon us, by a neo-con Supreme Court, Bush is making appallingly idiotic speeches at the U.N., that are an embarrassment to this nation. [ http://www.guardian.co.uk/eco...,12498,1030321,00.html and http://www.zmag.org/content/s... ]
The Iraqis weren't impressed with Bush's failed speech at the U.N. on Tuesday, either. In "Iraqis Negative About Bush's U.N. Speech" on http://www.guardian.co.uk/wor...,1280,-3186657,00.html :
"Iraqis gave largely negative reviews Wednesday to President Bush's speech to the United Nations in which he said Washington would not be forced into a hasty return of power to local authorities.
"Some longed for the return of a different kind of power - electricity - so that they can lead normal lives, and perhaps see such news on television.
"Iraqis also complained about security. Crime has increased dramatically since the fall of Saddam Hussein, and U.S. forces continue to come under attack, with civilians sometimes caught in the crossfire.
"Bush's speech was bad. He talked about liberating Iraqi people while the reality is that the Americans liberated only the criminals and bad people who are looting the country,'' said Anmar Mohammed, a former military officer who is now unemployed.
"He talked about Iraq being the front line for combating terrorism, while it was Bush's war that brought terrorists to our country. He talked about better life for the Iraqis, while now most of them are jobless,'' he said.
"Hani Jacob, a 40-year-old optician, agreed.
"What is the benefit of having a democratic system in the middle of this chaos?'' he asked. "
"Abdel-Razq Mohammed, a newspaper vendor, said Bush ignored the United Nations before the war but now wants the world body to bail him out. "
"Bush said many nice words about freedom, security and prosperity, but the Iraqi people need to see action. Saddam would have done better with less words,'' he said."
Moreover, our US Soldiers are disgusted and just want to come home. In "Most US Soldiers Say They Just Want to Go Home" on http://www.commondreams.org/h... , for example, "Most soldiers say they just want to go home. Jason Gunn, a 37th Armoured Division tank driver says the hardest thing is not the daily attacks, but the forced separation from his loved ones. ”You can deal with being shot at, because after a while you just get used to it,” he says. ”But when you come back in and you're by yourself, that's probably the hardest thing.”
"Without Iraqi friends, a soldier's life inside base is almost like being in prison."
"We the People" must express our outrage to our failed and rubber-stamp Congress that apparently is willing to write blank-checks to the corrupt and incompetent Bush Regime, and demands no accountability or responsibility for their crimes.
(1) Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz should be fired today for their lies, deceptions, and incompetence, costing the lives and treasure of the American people;
(2) Rice and Powell should be investigated for lying to the American People, from reports that they knew Saddam Hussein posed no threat (no WMDs, no terrorists in Iraq, no links to Al Qaida), and cynically mis-used 9/11 in order to frighten Americans into supporting a war for global hegemony and to enrich their corporate cronies;
(3) Call for impeachment hearings into the crimes committed by Bush and Cheney;
(4) Repeal the tax loopholes for Corporations, and the tax cuts for the top 5% income bracket and on dividends, that benefit the richest and the robber-barons;
(5) Revisit the no-bid, no-cap contracts awarded to the Defence Contractors, including Halliburton, Carlyle Group, Bechtel, Chevron, and others, and confiscate their obscene profits to pay-off their War Debts;
(6) Establish a United Nations group to oversee the orderly transition of power to a democratically-elected Iraqi Government, within the next 6 months;
(7) Halt the privatization of Iraqi businesses, assets and natural resources, as the Iraqi people have had no say in this matter, and the sell-off of their institutions, is tantamount to the global corporate empire's rape of their country. It is outrageous to privatize Iraq without the consent of the Iraqi people!
It is only right and proper for the United States Congress to fulfill the actions listed above, or otherwise, deserve the growing appellation of "Rogue Hyper-Power", warranting condemnation by civilized nations and conscientious peoples of the world. Let us also condemn nations (USA?) that exploit their people and resources to build-up massive armaments, WMDs, enriching the wealthy who build palaces (Bush's Crawford TX Palace?)-- while leaving their own people to suffer without a modern infrastructure, jobs, public education and health care. Some say "good intentions only matter if they lead to good results": hmmm ... Bush's actions have been disastrous for America and Iraq.
The Big WMD Lie ... The Truth May Always Find A Way, But Perhaps Not In The U.S.A.?
In Bush's speech delivered to the United Nations on Tuesday, the U.S.A. calls upon all nations to sign a nuclear non-proliferation agreement and to ban WMDs. Apparently Bush intends that all nations disarm, except for the United States of America! (Israel hasn't signed any existing nuclear non-proliferation agreements either.)
"We the People" are being misled not only on WMDs that other countries might have or want, but also about our own government's insane massive build-up of arms, that is inconsistent with Bush's dishonest rhetoric of "seeking peace". Furthermore, such an arms race won't protect us: it will instigate more terror around the world, and bankrupt us here at home.
Bush called a regime evil, that squanders its' national resources on massive armaments, WMDs, and, palaces for the rich, while ignoring the needs of its' people to provide a working infrastructure (energy, water, sewage, roads), education and health care. Perhaps it is time for the Bushies to look inwards ... and blush at the hypocrisy of their own rhetoric, as they treat America, as Saddam Hussein treated Iraq.
"We've got 11,000 nuclear weapons -- some as battlefield "tactical" nukes, some in storage, and about 7,000 mounted on fueled, hair-trigger-to-launch ICBMs. The Russians have about 19,500 nuclear weapons -- about 5,500 of them on fueled, hair-trigger-alert missiles. From the moment the early-warning systems cry danger (real or cyber-glitch), the US government allows itself 22 minutes before launch keys are turned in retaliation; the Russian government allows itself six minutes.
And the Bush Republican response?
1. We need more nukes. For terrorists.
2. North Korea is evil and can't have a nuclear weapon. Not one. Because someday soon we'll probably attack them. Unless they have a nuclear weapon.
3. The 30,000-strong Cold War arsenal of nukes will not, in any meaningful way, be on the agenda of the George Bush-Vladimir Putin summit this weekend. Not important enough, what with Iraq and oil and all.
And so goes yet-another missed opportunity for real security.
* * *
"Now look boys, I ain't much of a hand at makin' speeches. But I got a pretty fair idea that something doggoned important's going on back there. And I got a fair idea of the kind of personal emotions that some of you fella's may be thinking. Heck, I reckon you wouldn't even be human beings if you didn't have some pretty strong personal feelings about nuclear combat. But I want you to remember one thing, the folks back home is a countin' on ya, and by golly we ain't about to let 'em down. Tell you somethin' else. This thing turns out to be half as important is I figure it just might be, I'd say that you're all in line for some important promotions and personal citations when this thing's over with. That goes for every last one of you, regardless of your race, color, or your creed. Now, let's get this thing on the hump. We got some flying to do." -- that cowboy pilot from "Dr. Strangelove"
Read "Will New Nuclear Weapons Make Us More Secure?", by Henry Kelly and Ivan Oelrich, on http://www.fas.org/ssp/docs/0... , and "Senate approves nuclear spending - Sen. Feinstein predicts Bush's policy will result in 'arms race'" by Ian Hoffman, on http://www.oaklandtribune.com...,1413,82~1865~1637866,00.html .
Meanwhile, the truth may always find a way, but perhaps not in the U.S.A., where the following story has not as yet, been published. Refer to "Journo claims proof of WMD lies" by Paul Mulvey, on http://new.globalfreepress.co... :
"AUSTRALIAN investigative journalist John Pilger says he has evidence the war against Iraq was based on a lie that could cost George W. Bush and Tony Blair their jobs and bring Prime Minister John Howard down with them.
A television report by Pilger aired on British screens overnight said US Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice confirmed in early 2001 that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had been disarmed and was no threat.
But after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11 that year, Pilger claimed Rice said the US "must move to take advantage of these new opportunities" to attack Iraq and claim control of its oil.
Pilger uncovered video footage of Powell in Cairo on February 24, 2001 saying, "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."
Two months later, Rice reportedly said, "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
Powell boasted this was because America's policy of containment and its sanctions had effectively disarmed Saddam.
Pilger claims this confirms that the decision of US President George W Bush - with the full support of British Prime Minister Blair and Howard - to wage war on Saddam because he had weapons of mass destruction was a huge deception.
Pilger interviewed several leading US government figures in Washington but said he did not ask Powell or Rice to respond to his claims.
"I think it's very serious for Howard. Howard has followed the Americans and to a lesser degree Blair almost word for word," Pilger told AAP before his program was screened on ITV tonight.
"All Howard does is say `well it's not true' and never explains himself.
"I just don't believe you can be seen to be party to such a big lie, such a big deception and endure that politically.
"It simply can't be shrugged off and that's Howard's response.
"Blair has shrugged it off but Blair is deeply damaged. It's far from over here, there's a lot that is going to happen and much of it could wash onto Howard.
"And it's unravelling in America and Bush could lose the election next year.
"I've not seen political leaders survive when they've been complicit in such an open deception for so long."
Howard last week dismissed an accusation from Opposition Leader Simon Crean that he hid a warning from British intelligence that war against Iraq would heighten the terrorist threat to Australia.
In his report, Pilger interviews Ray McGovern, a former senior CIA officer and friend of Bush's father and ex-president, George Bush senior.
McGovern told Pilger that going to war because of weapons of mass destruction "was 95 per cent charade."
Pilger also claims that six hours after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he wanted to "hit" Iraq and allegedly said "Go Massive ... Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
He was allegedly talked down by Powell who said the American people would not accept an attack on Iraq without any evidence, so they opted to invade Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden had bases. Pilger claimed war was set in train on September 17, 2001 when Bush signed a paper directing the Pentagon to explore the military options for an attack on Iraq.
The big lie Mirror UK -Sep 22 2003
By John Pilger
EXACTLY one year ago, Tony Blair told Parliament: "Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programme is active, detailed and growing.
"The policy of containment is not working. The weapons of mass destruction programme is not shut down. It is up and running now."
Not only was every word of this false, it was part of a big lie invented in Washington within hours of the attacks of September 11 2001 and used to hoodwink the American public and distract the media from the real reason for attacking Iraq. "It was 95 per cent charade," a former senior CIA analyst told me.
An investigation of files and archive film for my TV documentary Breaking The Silence, together with interviews with former intelligence officers and senior Bush officials have revealed that Bush and Blair knew all along that Saddam Hussein was effectively disarmed.
Both Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's closest adviser, made clear before September 11 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no threat - to America, Europe or the Middle East.
In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."
This is the very opposite of what Bush and Blair said in public.
Powell even boasted that it was the US policy of "containment" that had effectively disarmed the Iraqi dictator - again the very opposite of what Blair said time and again. On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years". America, he said, had been successful in keeping him "in a box".
Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."
So here were two of Bush's most important officials putting the lie to their own propaganda, and the Blair government's propaganda that subsequently provided the justification for an unprovoked, illegal attack on Iraq. The result was the deaths of what reliable studies now put at 50,000 people, civilians and mostly conscript Iraqi soldiers, as well as British and American troops. There is no estimate of the countless thousands of wounded.
In a torrent of propaganda seeking to justify this violence before and during the invasion, there were occasional truths that never made headlines. In April last year, Condoleezza Rice described September 11 2001 as an "enormous opportunity" and said America "must move to take advantage of these new opportunities."
Taking over Iraq, the world's second biggest oil producer, was the first such opportunity.
At 2.40pm on September 11, according to confidential notes taken by his aides, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary, said he wanted to "hit" Iraq - even though not a shred of evidence existed that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the attacks on New York and Washington. "Go massive," the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not." Iraq was given a brief reprieve when it was decided instead to attack Afghanistan. This was the "softest option" and easiest to explain to the American people - even though not a single September 11 hijacker came from Afghanistan. In the meantime, securing the "big prize", Iraq, became an obsession in both Washington and London.
An Office of Special Plans was hurriedly set up in the Pentagon for the sole purpose of converting "loose" or unsubstantiated intelligence into US policy. This was a source from which Downing Street received much of the "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction we now know to be phoney.
CONTRARY to Blair's denials at the time, the decision to attack Iraq was set in motion on September 17 2001, just six days after the attacks on New York and Washington.
On that day, Bush signed a top- secret directive, ordering the Pentagon to begin planning "military options" for an invasion of Iraq. In July 2002, Condoleezza Rice told another Bush official who had voiced doubts about invading Iraq: "A decision has been made. Don't waste your breath."
The ultimate cynicism of this cover-up was expressed by Rumsfeld himself only last week. When asked why he thought most Americans still believed Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of September 11, he replied: "I've not seen any indication that would lead me to believe I could say that."
It is this that makes the Hutton inquiry in London virtually a sham. By setting up an inquiry solely into the death of the weapons expert David Kelly, Blair has ensured there will be no official public investigation into the real reasons he and Bush attacked Iraq and into when exactly they made that decision. He has ensured there will be no headlines about disclosures in email traffic between Downing Street and the White House, only secretive tittle-tattle from Whitehall and the smearing of the messenger of Blair's misdeeds.
The sheer scale of this cover-up makes almost laughable the forensic cross-examination of the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan about "anomalies" in the notes of his interview with David Kelly - when the story Gilligan told of government hypocrisy and deception was basically true.
Those pontificating about Gilligan failed to ask one vital question - why has Lord Hutton not recalled Tony Blair for cross-examination? Why is Blair not being asked why British sovereignty has been handed over to a gang in Washington whose extremism is no longer doubted by even the most conservative observers? No one knows the Bush extremists better than Ray McGovern, a former senior CIA officer and personal friend of George Bush senior, the President's father. In Breaking The Silence, he tells me: "They were referred to in the circles in which I moved when I was briefing at the top policy levels as 'the crazies'."
"Who referred to them as 'the crazies'?" I asked.
"All of us... in policy circles as well as intelligence circles... There is plenty of documented evidence that they have been planning these attacks for a long time and that 9/11 accelerated their plan. (The weapons of mass destruction issue) was all contrived, so was the connection of Iraq with al Qaeda. It was all PR... Josef Goebbels had this dictum: If you say something often enough, the people will believe it." He added: "I think we ought to be all worried about fascism (in the United States)."
The "crazies" include John Bolton, Under Secretary of State, who has made a personal mission of tearing up missile treaties with the Russians and threatening North Korea, and Douglas Feith, an Under Secretary of Defence, who ran a secret propaganda unit "reworking" intelligence about Iraq's weapons. I interviewed them both in Washington.
BOLTON boasted to me that the killing of as many as 10,000 Iraqi civilians in the invasion was "quite low if you look at the size of the military operation."
For raising the question of civilian casualties and asking which country America might attack next, I was told: "You must be a member of the Communist Party."
Over at the Pentagon, Feith, No 3 to Rumsfeld, spoke about the "precision" of American weapons and denied that many civilians had been killed. When I pressed him, an army colonel ordered my cameraman: "Stop the tape!" In Washington, the wholesale deaths of Iraqis is unmentionable. They are non-people; the more they resist the Anglo-American occupation, the more they are dismissed as "terrorists".
It is this slaughter in Iraq, a crime by any interpretation of an international law, that makes the Hutton inquiry absurd. While his lordship and the barristers play their semantic games, the spectre of thousands of dead human beings is never mentioned, and witnesses to this great crime are not called.
Jo Wilding, a young law graduate, is one such witness. She was one of a group of human rights observers in Baghdad during the bombing. She and the others lived with Iraqi families as the missiles and cluster bombs exploded around them. Where possible, they would follow the explosions to scenes of civilian casualties and trace the victims to hospitals and mortuaries, interviewing the eyewitnesses and doctors. She kept meticulous notes.
She saw children cut to pieces by shrapnel and screaming because there were no anaesthetics or painkillers. She saw Fatima, a mother stained with the blood of her eight children. She saw streets, mosques and farmhouses bombed by marauding aircraft. "Nothing could explain them," she told me, "other than that it was a deliberate attack on civilians."
As these atrocities were carried out in our name, why are we not hearing such crucial evidence? And why is Blair allowed to make yet more self-serving speeches, and none of them from the dock?
Related Articles:
Gulf-News and Asia Media didn't mention the "Iraq-lies"
Journo claims proof of WMDs lies - NEWS.com.au Pilger claims White House knew Saddam was no threat - Sydney Morning Herald
Pacific Journalism Review features Iraq media war Asia Pacific Media Network - 6 hours ago ... first time this week and features a series of articles about Iraq ... Weekly editor Patrick Ensor, independent Australian journalist and film-maker John Pilger ...
Linda S. Heard: Apathy of Afghan women after Taliban Gulf News, United Arab Emirates - 2 hours ago ... of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) recently told writer and filmmaker John Pilger ... by the American president for the reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq ...
Original Powell-Transcript, 24 February 2001 usis.it
"...We will always try to consult with our friends in the region so that they are not surprised and do everything we can to explain the purpose of our responses. We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq, and these are policies that we are going to keep in place, but we are always willing to review them to make sure that they are being carried out in a way that does not affect the Iraqi people but does affect the Iraqi regime's ambitions and the ability to acquire weapons of mass destruction, and we had a good conversation on this issue..." "
Iraqi Leaders and American Military Families Speak Out: Bring Them Home Now!
In the last few days, 6 US Soldiers have died for nothing, increasing Bush's Death Toll to 351 US and British Soldiers, and over 7,800 innocent Iraqi civilians [ http://www.antiwar.com/ewens/... ] in Bush's Guerrilla Quagmire. Our young men and women are dying, as are innocent Iraqis, while the Bushies and their corrupt cronies are enjoying the "high life" ... fat, juicy (top-secret) contracts for corporate war-profiteers; oil corporations lusting after the 2nd richest oil fields that belong to the Iraqi People; and, immoral tax cuts for the "top dogs" and "fat cats".
The lives of our US Military personnel are miserable, and they face the possibility of death on a daily basis ... but not for L. Paul Bremer and the Bush Gang, ensconced in palaces, well-fed, well-rested, and well-protected, in the bosom of their armed guards. In fact, Iraqi leaders plan to testify before Congress and report the money wasted by the Americans who are living like neo-emperors: Read "Iraqi Leaders to Press Congress for Control Over Rebuilding" by Patrick E. Tyler, on http://www.nytimes.com/2003/0... . An excerpt:
"The Americans are spending money here to secure themselves at a rate that is two to three times what they are spending to secure the Iraqi people," said Ahmad al-Barak, a human rights lawyer and a member of the council. "It would be better for us if we would be in charge of how to spend this money and, of course, they could monitor how it is spent."
"He estimated that in some cases the savings could be a factor of 10. "Where they spend $1 billion, we would spend $100 million," he said."
"In the spirit of demonstrating such savings, the Governing Council this month canceled the $5,000-a-day contract that Mr. Bremer had arranged to feed the 25-member body and its staff and found a cheaper supplier." One can only wonder the exorbitant amount of taxpayer dollars Bremer squanders on his own meals. Presumably more than is being spent on our U.S. Soldiers charged for their daily meals deducted from their measly incomes, if they are injured in battle and hospitalized.
The Iraqi people want control of their own country, and a delegation from the US-appointed Governing Council wants more authority turned over to Iraq. Refer to "Iraqis Urge Quick End to Occupation", by Rajiv Chandrasekaran on http://www.commondreams.org/h... .
Isn't is ironic that the Bushies don't want the Iraqis to control their own country after having "liberated" them? Of course not, because the Iraqi people might not agree to be raped by the Bush Gang's corrupt cabal of robber-barons like Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group & Big Oil-- The Bush Regime won't allow the Iraqis to determine their own future ... they won't allow them free elections, just as they won't allow us free elections in America.
Military families are rightly speaking out [http://www.mfso.org/ ], as they don't want their loved ones massacred, simply to save the corrupt Bush Gang's fatt rear-ends ... Why should human beings die for an insane neo-con ideology of global hegemony to enrich the corporate empire on behalf the rich oligarchy?
"I am a soldier currently on active duty and my husband is a member of the Reserves and has been activated since Feb. 13, and is currently in Iraq, supporting the 4th ID, where he's been since April. We were both deployed at the same time. I was fortunate enough to have my unit return earlier this summer.
"Some of the conditions I experienced over there were deplorable. It sickens me every time I see news articles quoting dignitaries coming from there saying, "The soldiers are in good spirits," "Morale is high." I'm here to tell you, it's all lies. Morale is at an all-time low. Soldiers are hating life there, so much so, some are taking their own lives rather than deal with the situation. It has become that drastic" ... For more access : http://www.alternet.org/waron... .
The hypocritical screed and propaganda spewed by the Bush Regime, must be exposed for the neo-fascist rhetoric full of deceptions, that it represents. Wolfy Wolfowitz lied over the week-end by suggesting that Saddam Hussein massacred millions of Iraqis, which is factually untrue, just as he lied about phony WMDs and fabricated links between Iraq and Al Qaida [ http://www.nytimes.com/2003/0... ]. But Wolfy plays fast-and-loose with reality, believing that Americans are dumb sheep willing to believe his neo-con flim-flam.
L. Paul Bremer must have racked up millions of frequent-flyer points, and is back in Washington DC today to sell another "lemon" to the rubber-stamp, credulous Congress, in order that he can play neo-Lawrence of Arabia, by persuading them to hand-over billions into his dirty, sticky fingers. "Terrorists love state sponsors" ... "Saddam's Iraq was one of those countries", spits Bremer, except for the fact, that Al Qaida was not linked to Iraq. The Bush Regime created chaos and a hot-bed for terrorism ... destroyed their infrastructure ... and now say "$87 Billion is an important element in the war on terrorism" and to re-build Iraq.
If Congress can't see past this flim-flam "bait-and-switch" scam, perpetrated by the arrogant Bush Regime to enrich their Corporate Cronies, then they are either stupid or corrupt or both. The Bushies want the poor, low-income, middle-class and fixed-income Americans to pay-off all their debts. The Bushies don't want their corporate cronies or their rich campaign contributors to sacrifice any of their ill-gotten blood-money.
The chaos and rape of America and Iraq, has been instigated on behalf of Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Big Oil, and other corporate robber-barons. Meanwhile, average taxpayers and Iraqi citizens are paying Bush's obscene $166 Billion War Tab, as well as his record-level $500 Billion Spending-Spree Deficit, all being squandered on the rich.
Meanwhile, the Bushies are pretending that all is rosy and everybody in Iraq, is tickled pink-- as Richard Perle spouts the official propaganda on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, except that representatives from global aide agencies, as well as reports showing real people on the streets (not in the palaces) of Baghdad, starkly contradicts the official Bush Regime's position.
"We the People" have an obligation to contact Congress today to demand that the war-profiteers' profits be confiscated; tax cuts for the richest-of-the-rich be repealed; and, liars like Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz be summarily fired for incompetence and corruption. Bush should also be tried and impeached for betraying his oath of office.
"Holding Fire" by Karen Kwiatkowski, Retired USAF Lieutenant Colonel
"Holding Fire" is an insightful assessment of Bush's Iraqi Affair, by Karen Kwiatkowski, a recently retired USAF Lieutenant Colonel, who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon. Ms. Kwiatkowski, was a senior Pentagon Middle East specialist, who worked in the office of Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith until her retirement in April 2003. Upon retirement, she confessed:
"What I saw was aberrant, pervasive and contrary to good order and discipline," Kwiatkowski wrote [Rumsfeld's Office of Secretary of Defense]. "If one is seeking the answers to why peculiar bits of 'intelligence' found sanctity in a presidential speech, or why the post-Saddam [Hussein] occupation [of Iraq] has been distinguished by confusion and false steps, one need look no further than the process inside the Office of the Secretary of Defense [OSD]."
"Kwiatkowski went on to charge that the operations she witnessed during her tenure in Feith's office, and particularly those of an ad hoc group known as the Office of Special Plans (OSP), constituted "a subversion of constitutional limits on executive power and a co-option through deceit of a large segment of the Congress".
"Kwiatkowski's charges, which tend to confirm reports and impressions offered to the press by retired officers from other intelligence agencies and their still-active but anonymous former colleagues, are likely to make her a prime witness when Congress reconvenes in September for hearings on the manipulation of intelligence to justify war against Iraq.
"According to Kwiatkowski, the same operation that allegedly cooked the intelligence also was responsible for the administration's failure to anticipate the problems that now dog the US occupation in Iraq, or, in her more colorful words, that have placed 150,000 US troops in "the world's nastiest rat's nest, without a nation-building plan, without significant international support and without an exit plan". [Source: "Insider fires a broadside at Rumsfeld's office", by Jim Lobe on http://www.atimes.com/atimes/... ]
"We the People" should be outraged at the subversion and abuses by Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Bolton and Feith, of the operations of government, to pursue their insane doctrine of global hegemony and corporate cronyism. Moreover, Bush, Powell and Rice have all collaborated in these ghoulish schemes, and regurgitated lies, deceptions and falsehoods devised to lead us into an illegal and immoral incursion into Iraq, that has resulted in the massacre of over 350 US & British Soldiers, over 7800 innocent Iraqi civilians, and untold misery for the injured and maimed.
The squandered cost in treasure currently exceeds $74 Billion thus far ($4 Billion per Month), and Bush has the gall to request an additional $87 Billion raising the wasteful costs to an obscene $166 Billion Death Tab. Meanwhile, Halliburton, Carlyle Group, Bechtel, and other Bush Regime Paymasters are warmongers profiting from this horrific blood-letting, and are not asked to sacrifice any of their excessive gluttony ... nor are the richest in this country who were awarded massive tax cuts by the Bushies.
Contact Congress to demand the resignations of those responsible for Bush's Guerrilla Quagmire on http://www.congress.org .
"Secretary of State Colin Powell tells us, "Those who are so critical of the administration might want to hold their fire..." He said this in the context of his recent trip to Iraq and the "hope" he saw there. One hears a faint murmur of parley in Washington.
Powell is echoing Rumsfeld’s suggestion last week that "those who have been critical of the administration's handling of the war in Iraq and its aftermath might be encouraging enemies of the United States to believe that it might one day walk away from the effort, as it has in past conflicts." Considering Rummy’s vast personal experience fighting in such conflicts in Vietnam, Beirut and Somalia – adventures we walked into stupidly and away from too late – one is left to wonder only whether Rumsfeld is simply ignorant or willfully ignorant.
The administration seems to have hat in hand, as it awaits the rubber stamping of the second installment of nearly ninety BILLION dollars for more soldiers, more treads for the Bradley’s, more Kevlar, and more bullets for Iraq, and fully funded contracts for select U.S. conglomerates. Last time – only a few months ago – it was $71 or so billion, today it is $87 billion. But there’s more! Tricky Dick Cheney made a rare public appearance this weekend to tell us this won’t be the last government payment for the neoconservative cabal’s lies, feints and an expensive ideology that confuses the idea of human liberty with neocon freedom to remake the world as they see fit.
I’ll tell you what. I’ll consider holding fire, after I get a better look at that white flag the administration seems to be waving.
Is that flicker of white the letter Dubya has sent to the Pentagon asking for the post-haste resignation of Messieurs Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith and Perle? Removing these un-elected desert pirates disguised as advisors to the President is basic justice given their massive and willful failure to properly utilize the trillion dollar U.S. taxpayer investment in intelligence and warfighting capability, thus causing gratuitous death, destruction and dismay for all involved. Firing Rummy, Wolfie, Dougie and Richie would also tip the scales towards practical solutions by instantly removing the two-legged roadblocks to bringing the rest of the world on board in cleaning up the neocon’s mess in Iraq. Immediately returning these ideologues to the private sector, as requested by Representative David Obey, would be the most, and to date the only, salient indicator that we are moving towards real Iraqi self-government.
Or is the flicker of white the rolled eye of a nervous horse, stamping and agitating about something its rider doesn’t see? I’d like to see a little white-eyed nervousness and stamping feet and agitation in the White House and Congress over the approval of this additional funding.
Instead of the mantra that "…this time we are going to make the President tell us how he is going to spend it, really we are…," I’d like to hear the kind of thing I tell my kids when they ask me for money. After they tell me what, when, why and how (and as with Bush the Younger, the rationale will predictably include equal measures of elaboration and pretense), I communicate my sincerest sympathy. Then, like Nancy Reagan, I usually just say no.
George Bush and the neocons will whine and cry and say I don’t understand, just like my own kids do. But the Rolling Stones told us true, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try, you just might get what you need. Work, creativity, patience, a change of plans – all of these things come into play. Bushco can figure out a way to drop their costs in Iraq and bring back our troops, or else the neocons can raise the cash and troops on their own. I am certainly willing to purchase a couple of uniforms for Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz, to allow them report in style for guard duty in Najaf or Fallujah. They’ve earned that, and nothing else.
What we have here is far more than a failure to communicate. We have a broken contract. We were promised an oil-funded rebuilding of a free Iraq and a bunch of dangerous WMDs off the street. We got a United Fruit Company modeled oil monopoly in a serf-filled Iraq that, ENRON-like, exhibits only grandiose futuristic and imaginary accounts and assets. We have no WMDs, no nuclear or biological programs. David Kaye, for all of his posturing last year, is now embarrassed to submit the big report on the WMDs he couldn’t find. Who says Don Rumsfeld is a demanding old sea captain? He didn’t even ask David about the WMDs when they last met, saying he assumes "[David will] tell me if he’s got something that he thinks I need to know."
In the case of a broken contract, the normal thing to do is stop payment on any uncashed checks, and call the credit company. The Congress will be quite proud of itself for negotiating and nitpicking the $87 billion, even though the majority of Americans have ALREADY SAID NO to Bush’s request. What Congress needs to do is what we all do in the case of a broken contract. Stop further transactions and call the lawyer. Period.
The administration is asking me and millions of others to hold our fire. I am looking for a white flag and I’ve identified suitable substitutes I’m willing to accept. I haven’t asked for a mea culpa from 1600 Pennsylvania, and I don’t need groveling. But is Bush sending his arrogant and foolish advisors back to the dock? Is the White House and Congress exhibiting the slightest concern about the debts I and my children, and grandchildren will have to pay so that a U.S. cabal can manage global oil flows through well-armed brutality, military garrisons and puppet governments instead of through the free market?
Bush says America is safer now, and now we have the "real" pirates on the run. All evidence points otherwise, yet Captain George W. Kidd still insists the rest of us pay for his profiteering adventures. Like the famous privateer Kidd, a mission that started out as "a unique legal opportunity to steal from pirates and from the hated French" ended up with the poor Captain dishonored, landlocked and unable to find volunteers to crew his ship.
Bush and his administration of ne’er do wells have not invoked the right of parley. They have not presented a flash of white to help me understand their intentions. Therefore, I am left with no choice but to pull up broadside, and sink their ship."
Should a man be judged by the company he keeps? The old proverb "Birds of a Feather Flock Together" is a truism meaning that people generally associate with those who hold similar values, interests and behaviors.
The Bushies and their associates are not respectable individuals. Bush's best buddy Kenny-boy (Enron) Lay is a thief and criminal who stole livelihoods, pensions, and assets, leaving a bankrupt company and thousands of people jobless and desperate in his wake. Cheney's gang at Halliburton are making out like bandits in Iraq, from the blood and misery of Americans and Iraqis who die or are injured daily. Rice's cronies at Chevron are greedily rubbing their hands together in anticipation of grabbing Iraqi Oil. Rumsfeld's Defence Contractors are bilking the American taxpayer as they pour money into the pockets of the "top dogs" and "fat cats" for boon-doggles and massive armaments of death, that do not protect us, but indeed place us in more danger. Wolfowitz's PNAC (Project for New American Century) and neo-fascist AEI, have dreams of global domination and riches dancing in their pathological heads. Who said "The Crazies are Back!" at the Pentagon upon Cheney, Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz's return?
The Bush Gang's Iraqi collaborator, embezzler and criminal-in-arms, is Ahmad Chalabi, wanted for stealing millions from banks throughout the Arab world. (Refer to "Bush's Whore Chalabi Should Be in Prison" on http://www.tblog.com/template... )
Chalabi had been living the high-life in exile for years, and is out-of-touch with the Iraqi people. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz are buddies with Chalabi, because he is a man that they can do business with. He is like them:-- willing to rape, ravage and betray his own people on behalf of their Global Corporate Empire. He'll be well-rewarded for his slavish devotion to their ghoulish schemes. The Bush Regime and Chalabi Regime are "Birds of a Feather Who Flock Together", who feed off the carcasses of our dead and injured citizens, squander our treasure, and, loot our natural resources.
"We the People" should be outraged on behalf of the Iraqi People, with corrupt criminals like Chalabi thrust upon them by the Bush Regime, as they pursue their insane Doctrine of the Global Corporate Empire, intending to enslave their citizens, and exploit their resources, in order to handsomely profit rich, greedy robber-barons who are their paymasters.
Bush is betraying Iraq, as he has betrayed America. If a man is judged by the company he keeps, then the Bushies and Chalabi are mendacious war profiteers and greedy vultures who deserve each other ... But we deserve better.
"Critics say the Bush administration had no plan for postwar Iraq. In fact, before the war, hundreds of Iraqis were involved in discussions with Washington about securing and stabilizing their country after military action. Today's difficulties are not the result of a lack of foresight, but rather of poor judgment by civilians at the Pentagon who counted too much on the advice of one exile — Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress — and ignored the views of other, more reliable Iraqi leaders.
Last year the State Department, joined by 17 other federal agencies, put together the Future of Iraq Project, which was supposed to involve Iraqis from the country's many ethnic and religious factions, including representatives from the exile community. The project had working groups on topics ranging from agriculture to the economy to new government structure. I was adviser to the democratic principles working group, which the Iraqis called the "mother of all working groups." Anticipating many of the problems playing out in Iraq today, participants worked on plans for maintaining security, restoring services and making the transition to democracy.
On security, the participants envisioned a key role for reformed elements of the Iraqi Army. They insisted on the dissolution of agencies involved in atrocities — like military intelligence and the secret police (the Mukhabarat) — and proposed setting up a body to investigate war crimes, prepare a "most wanted" list, and prosecute war criminals. They envisioned a military council vetting and then taking steps to professionalize the armed forces.
Representatives of the Iraqi National Congress, however, claimed to control a vast underground network that would rise in support of coalition forces to assist security and law enforcement. They insisted that the entire Iraqi Army be immediately disbanded. The Pentagon agreed, in the end leading many Iraqi soldiers who might otherwise have been willing to work with the coalition to take up arms against it. Mr. Chalabi's promised network didn't materialize, and the resulting power vacuum contributed to looting, sabotage and attacks against American forces.
The working group also emphasized winning hearts and minds of average Iraqis, largely through improving living conditions. It urged cooperation with Iraq's existing technocracy to ensure the uninterrupted flow of water and electricity. Though civil servants and professionals for the most part were required to be Baath party members, the working group maintained that not all Baathists were war criminals. The group proposed so-called lustration laws to identify and remove officials who had committed atrocities.
On the other hand, the Iraqi National Congress was adamant that all former Baath party members were inherently complicit in war crimes. Siding with Mr. Chalabi, the coalition provisional authority decided that the Baath party would be banned, and dismissed many party members from their jobs. As a result millions of Iraqis are still without electricity and fresh water, necessities they could at least count on under the criminal regime of Saddam Hussein.
Most important, the working group insisted that all Iraqis needed a voice in the transition to a stable, democratic Iraq. Participants agreed that exiles alone could not speak for all Iraqis, and endorsed discussions with leaders inside and outside the country as the basis for constituting a legitimate and broadly representative transitional structure.
Before the London opposition conference in December, Mr. Chalabi lobbied the United States to appoint a government in exile, dominated by his partisans, to be installed in Baghdad at the moment of liberation. Concerned about legitimacy, the Bush administration ultimately rejected this proposal. Still, Mr. Chalabi's supporters in Washington — particularly civilians in the Pentagon — relentlessly promoted him as Iraq's future leader. Exceptional treatment included airlifting Mr. Chalabi and his American-trained 700-man paramilitary force to Nasariya in the middle of the war. He is now a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, serving as its president this month.
Why such devotion to a man whose prewar advice proved so misguided? For one thing, Mr. Chalabi has shown himself amenable to those in Washington who want to reshape the entire Middle East. They envision Iraq as a springboard for eliminating the Baath party in Syria, undermining the mullahs in Iran and enhancing American power across the region.
There are benefits to spreading democracy in the Middle East, but hegemonic ambitions are sabotaging the shorter-term project of turning Iraq into a viable state. The other day, a Sunni participant in the democratic principles working group told me he is reluctant to speak up about how its recommendations have been ignored lest criticism discourage the coalition. In frustration, he asked: "So this is liberation?"
The Iraqi people have suffered a generation of tyranny and deserve better. To succeed in Iraq, and be constructive elsewhere in the world, the Bush administration must listen to all voices, not just those that are ideologically compatible. Liberation cannot be imposed."
David L. Phillips is deputy director of the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations.
The Villain is Ignorance: The Bush Regime's "Errors" Cost the Lives of Thousands & Endless Misery
Did the Bush Regime make a "mistake"? Did the Bushies simply "mis-speak"? Did Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Powell et al. just "slip-up"? Ooooppppssss ... When most folks make a "mistake", it doesn't cost the lives of over 350 American and British Soldiers; over 7800 innocent Iraqi civilians; and, the misery of thousands of maimed and injured human beings, with lost limbs and living in abject agony.
Bush's "error" has cost thousands of lives; mistrust and hatred around the world; and a war-turned-guerrilla-quag mire thrusting the U.S., Britain (and others) and Iraq into a human tragedy resulting in death and endless misery; more terrorism (not less); and, an economic fiasco with human needs ignored in America, as well as Iraq.
Yesterday, Bush admitted (ooooppppssss) that Saddam Hussein wasn't involved in 9/11 ... The only buffoons who believed the Bush Regime's lies and deceptions as they perpetrated the myth that Saddam Hussein "supported" Al Qaida and "was" involved in 9/11, were: ... the ignorant (60% of Americans sheepishly lapping up the Bushies' bushit) ... neo-con ideologues blinded by lust for war ... neo-con court jesters desperate for invites to Bush & Cheney bar-b-ques ... and, neo-con naifs.
In "The Villain Is Ignorance" on http://www4.arabnews.com/?pag...§ion=0&article=32225&d=19 &m=9&y=2003 , a pro-American web-site opines:
"President Bush has said that there is no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. A strange admission — because no one with even the most basic understanding of the Middle East believed that Saddam was in any way linked with the attack. Yet a poll in the US indicates that 70 percent of Americans believe it. A substantial number of them also think that Iraqis were involved in the attack, despite all the evidence to the contrary.
The blame lies entirely with the Bush administration. From the president downward, the US government has for the past two years deliberately clouded what were two distinct issues: Sept. 11 and the Iraqi regime. They confused the public and the media alike into believing that there was a link by constantly talking about Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda in the same breath. Only last week, Vice President Dick Cheney was still refusing to rule out a link between Iraq and Sept. 11, saying “we don’t know.”
Why now, two years on — after the invasion of Iraq that so benefited from the US public believing that Saddam Hussein was involved — has Bush come clean? Clearly with the 2004 election campaign under way, he needs to pre-empt accusations that he deliberately misled the American public. If there is one thing that Americans will not tolerate, it is official deception. The Democrats are going to throw that accusation at the Bush camp from now to November next year, and the US media is going to jump on it, all the more so because it too is likely to be bitter at having been used to spread the lie.
From an Arab and Muslim perspective, however, this has far more serious implications than the mere fate of Bush or the outcome of the next US election.
The appalling reality is that Americans were ready to believe anything about Saddam Hussein because he has been so demonized by American officialdom and the media. And so too has Yasser Arafat; if asked, Americans would probably answer that he too was involved in Sept. 11. It does not stop there. The anti-Saudi, anti-Muslim current flowing through American politics and media shows no sign of abating. Nor is it being countered, other than with complaints. There is no point expecting the American media or public to start seeing the Middle East as it is. They have already proved they cannot. What is needed is a pro-active, intelligent campaign, working alongside the mainstream US media, to change American perceptions. We have seen what happens when Americans get their facts wrong. They supported a war that was wrong; they support an Israel that is wrong. US public ignorance about the region is at the root of the Middle East’s problems. It has to be countered."
"We the People" cannot simply pretend that poor Bush's imbecilic "errors" are analogous to a child stealing a cookie from the cookie jar. The Bush Regime deliberately lied to wage war upon a sovereign nation that posed no threat to ourselves, when this war was opposed by the majority of nations of the world. The U.N. Security Council did not support Bush's War ... and they were declared "irrelevant" until Bush's Geniuses, Rumsfeld & Wolfowitz proved they are not geniuses and planned-us-into-quick-san d! Now, the U.N. is "relevant" again as the Bushies (who don't seem to learn from their "mistakes") ask others to spill blood and squander treasure for zip, zero, nada!
The Bushies have squandered the lives and treasure of America and Iraq to enrich their corporate cronies. Who benefits from this tragedy: Halliburton, Carlyle Group, Big Oil ... etc. [Get your War-Profiteers & War-Mongers Deck of Cards on http://www.warprofiteers.com/... .]
"Today, too, the obvious is trumped by the argument of power. The need therefore is not just to produce more facts and better arguments (though those are always needed) but to challenge the powers that uphold illusion. The best antidote is the counterforce of public opinion, which means, in the last analysis, the force of voting. Today, as in Vietnam thirty years ago, it is possible to win this battle. In the Vietnam years, public opinion gradually changed. It drove a President--Lyndon Johnson--out of office. It forced another, Richard Nixon, to end the war, and then he was driven out of office, too. Today, public opinion is already shifting. A recent ABC-Washington Post poll records that 60 percent of the public opposes George W. Bush's request to Congress for $87 billion for the war. The antiwar candidate Howard Dean has become the acknowledged front-runner for the Democratic nomination. In some polls, Bush's overall approval ratings are in negative territory. This is the kind of argument that Presidents understand.
The question is, How many more people, American and Iraqi, will have to lose their lives to teach our leaders the obvious?"
Let us make that choice today, and call upon our fellow citizens to say "No" to PNAC (Project for the New American Century) and e-mail Congress to express our outrage at this despicable, bloody war-turned-guerrilla-quag mire in Iraq ( http://www.congress.org ), and urge all to vote for a Regime Change in the U.S.A. in 2004!
Did You Know That Bush Resigned a Week Ago? Read "Bush Resignation Hailed By World Leaders"
Did you know that Bush resigned a week-ago today? Of course, his resignation was hailed by world leaders! As usual, "We the People" weren't told anything about it, as it wasn't published by the pandering neo-conservative media and press!
Later in the day, Dubya changed his mind, when Rove advised him that he'd better stay in until Halliburton & Bechtel collect their Iraqi war-booty and recuperate (many times over) their campaign contributions to the Bush Regime. The corporate robber-barons threatened to work closely with the United Nations and mend-fences with Europe if Dubya stepped-down.
By the time I finished perusing the following article, it was obvious that it was a spoof-- because, Dubya isn't that articulate! [Message For Neo-Cons: You do know this is a spoof, right? Neo-Cons lack a sense of humor and must be constantly reminded that jest is permitted in our country. Otherwise, they'll try again to sue Al Franken or Greg Palast.]
"[Washington] The surprise resignation of the forty-third President of the United States, George W. Bush, on the second anniversary of the terrorist attack on America, was hailed by chiefs of state throughout the world. Mr. Bush announced that after, "two years of bloodshed, economic devastation, and spreading fear in America and abroad," he saw no choice but to accept that, "I have held a title which I did not win, and for which I have proven unqualified."
The text of the former President's September 11 address to the nation follows:
"My fellow Americans:
I come to you tonight with a heavy heart. Two years ago today, thousands of innocent Americans were murdered by terrorist maniacs.
In the script I've been handed, I'm now supposed to tell you that America is safer today, and that the world is kinder and nicer and happier, because of I'm such a brilliant general in the War on Terror.
But who are we kidding? Yesterday, Osama released his new hit video. The terrorists are having a picnic ever since I turned over our foreign policy to Saudi Arabia and Exxon-Mobil.
And here's the point in my speech where my handlers would have me tell you about how I've been praying hard, making it sound like I just got off the phone with the Lord. I don't know about you, but I find it pretty darn offensive, downright blasphemous, to drag the Lord's name into every cheap campaign speech and chest-pounding war threat. Osama says he talks to God too. Let's leave Him out of the politics from now on, OK?
Look, in my speech this past Sunday, I used the word "democracy" about 11 times when talking about Iraq. It's democracy Florida-style, I suppose. Except we're not fixing the vote this time … we aren't letting these people vote at all. "Iraqis aren't prepared for democracy." That's what Dick Cheney and Saddam Hussein told me.
So we're blowing 100 billion bucks we don't have to colonize a country we don't want. Rummy tries to explain it to me each morning -- oil this and oil that -- but I just don't see it. And one of our kids dying there every day - where are their parents, anyway? My dad didn't let that happen - he got me out of the service. Didn't I look neat in that fly-boy suit?
And, let me tell you, I just looked at our nation's piggy bank. Uh-oh.
When I arrived, the last guy left me $4 trillion and said, "Be careful with all that cash in this neighborhood." Well, I have to level with you, America: it's all gone. The cupboard's bare and this year alone we blew half a trillion more dollars than we have in our bank account. Man, I can't believe I went through all that dough stone sober.
And what did we get for it? A Fatherland Security Department that's trying to read the labels on everyone's underpants. Think about it, all this Total Information Awareness KGB stuff: two years ago Americans were the victims - but my government has made Americans the suspects. I don't know about you, but this guy Ashcroft scares the bejeezus out of me.
And today I'm told that over nine million Americans are out of work. That's not so bad: I haven't done much work in my lifetime either. But my mama explained to me that not everyone's daddy can lend them an oil well to tide them over.
It's like I can't get anything right. The lights are going out in Ohio and the North Pole is melting. I don't get it. I appointed all those regulators that Ken Lay told me to, and I got rid of all the rules that got in the way of patriotic Polluter-Americans …. and what's the upshot? America the Beautiful is looking like she's had a pretty rough night. Won't be long before the whole country smells like Houston.
And now the stock market's floating face down in the swimming pool - despite everything I've done for those guys on Wall Street. Even my plan to give every millionaire an extra million seems to have backfired. Greenspam says I've created "business risk." Says I spook investors. But when I asked Greenspam for a solution, all he did was hand me a bag of pretzels.
Hey, I can take a hint. OK, I'm over my head on this one. I look back over these last years, and what have I got to show you for it: two years of bloodshed, economic devastation, and spreading fear in America and abroad.
When I ran for this office, I said the issue was, "character." And just look at the characters around me. I've gotten all their resignations today. And while I've got some character left, here's my own good-bye note too. Let's face it: I have held a title which I did not win, and for which I have proven unqualified. You know it. And I know it.
It's at this point in the speech where I'm supposed to say, "And may God bless America." God better, because Dick Cheney won't. Don't panic: I'm not turning over this sacred office to Mr. Contracts-R-Us.
Instead, I've petitioned the United States Supreme Court to pick a President for us. Those guys picked the last one, why not the next one?
And so, my fellow Americans, you can take this job and …."
Here, Mr. Bush's words became unintelligible. As usual."
Bush May Be Forced to Change His Failed Strategy, Failed Policies & Failed Plans
The Bush Regime is a Miserable Failure, that unfortunately a cowardly and rubber-stamp Congress has thus far refused to investigate for perpetrating gross lies, deceit and falsehood upon the public, resulting in a war-turned-guerrilla-quag mire in Iraq, and a bankrupt economy here at home. However, Bush may be forced to change his failed strategy, failed policies and failed plans, that are leading Republicans as well as Democrats in Congress to demand more accountability.
Failed Strategy: Many in Congress are not stupid enough to believe that Americans won't discover Bush's con-game of "bait-and-switch" in which he diverts our attention onto blood-thirsty wars, while he shoves down our throats, immoral tax cuts benefiting corporations and the richest-of-the-rich, leaving the rest of us to pick-up his $500 Billion Deficit-Spending Tab!
Failed Policies: Like "rats deserting a sinking ship", many in Congress do not want to be slapped down (voted out) in 2004! They're not stupid enough to believe that Americans are so stupid as to ignore Bush's insane "go-it-alone" foreign policies producing more terror (not less), more bloodshed (not less), and more hatred around the world (not less). The post-war planning done by self-proclaimed "geniuses" Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were copied out of a pre-school playground re-enactment of cowboys and indians.
Failed Plans: Congress is also not stupid enough to believe that Americans will accept the highest jobs losses by any president since the Great Depression (Bush has destroyed 3 million jobs, and unemployment stands at 9 million people). Read "The slow awakening of George W." by Patrick J. Buchanan, on http://www.wnd.com/news/artic... . Nor will Americans accept massive debt by re-distributing taxpayer money into the pockets of the corporate robber-barons, with nothing to show in America but a crumbling infrastructure, no health care, no public education improvements ... and a polluted environment that is poisoning us all.
Is Bush awakening? ... if so, it's far, far too slow!
In "U.S. recasting Iraq resolution in bid for support from France, Germany, Russia" on http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin... , the Bushies are learning the lesson that simply because they insult, coerce, punish and attempt to bribe other countries, that everyone in the world is not prepared to be a mercenary force sending their own men into die for nothing, simply because Bush throws a temper-tantrum.
As new lies emerge daily, the Bush Gang are in a panic-stricken modus operandi, desperate to get their own stories straight. Last Sunday, Cheney idiotically pretends there is some link between Al Qaida & 9/11, and Saddam Hussein. On Monday, Rummy Rumsfeld denies any evidence of a connection between Saddam Hussein and 9/11. Last night, on Nightline, a nervous Condi Rice tells Ted Koppel that the Bushies never said there was a link between Saddam Hussein & Al Qaida or 9/11 (I guess it depends upon what the meaning of the word Is, Is ... or Was, Was).
On Nightline, Rice was pathetic in her desperate attempt to defend the indefensible and went on to condemn any regime that would deny infrastructure improvements and health care to their own people, for the sake of amassing large quantities of weaponry and enriching the wealthiest. One wonders if Rice later saw the irony of her babbling & bumbling performance ... as her own boss must have shivered if he heard her observation: but he probably didn't ... Bush prefers to watch re-runs of baseball games.
Today's lie uncovered, is that the Iraqis who attack U.S. and British Soldiers are all old supporters of Saddam Hussein. Of course, it always amazed me that such an "evil" guy still has thousands of such fervent supporters who love him so much that they remain loyal even after he's toppled. In "U.S. to face hostile ordinary Iraqis" on http://www.azcentral.com/news... , the truth that ordinary Iraqi citizens are joining forces to oppose an illegal and immoral occupation, has been exposed by intelligence officials in the Department of Defense. Surprise! Surprise! Surprise to no one, but die-hard neo-con ideologues, neo-con court jesters, or neo-con naifs.
"We the People" must take stock of one of the most damning indictments of all, that comes from an American Soldier on the ground in Iraq ... and not comfortably ensconced in palaces under heavy armed-guard, like the Bush Gang who have been painting "rosy-but-oh-so-false" surrealistic pictures. In "Paths of Glory Lead to a Soldier's Doubt" on http://www.latimes.com/news/o...,1,1681259.story?coll=la-news-commen t-opinions , Tim Predmore, relates this tragic eye-witness account of Bush's War:
"Tim Predmore is on active duty with the 101st Airborne Division near Mosul, Iraq. A version of this essay appeared in the Peoria (Ill.) Star Journal."
"For the last six months I have participated in what I believe to be the great modern lie: Operation Iraqi Freedom.
After the horrific events of Sept. 11, 2001, and throughout the battle in Afghanistan, the groundwork was being laid for the invasion of Iraq. "Shock and awe" was the term used to describe the display of power the world was to view upon the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was to be a dramatic show of strength and advanced technology from within the arsenals of the American and British militaries.
But as a soldier preparing to take part in the invasion of Iraq, the words "shock and awe" rang deep within my psyche. Even as we prepared to depart, it seemed that these two great superpowers were about to break the very rules they demanded that others obey. Without the consent of the United Nations, and ignoring the pleas of their own citizens, the U.S. and Britain invaded Iraq. "Shock and awe"? Yes, the words correctly described the emotional impact I felt as we embarked on an act not of justice but of hypocrisy.
From the moment the first shot was fired in this so-called war of liberation and freedom, hypocrisy reigned. After the broadcasting of recorded images of captured and dead U.S. soldiers over Arab television, American and British leaders vowed revenge while verbally assaulting the networks for displaying such vivid images. Yet within hours of the deaths of Saddam Hussein's two sons, the U.S. released horrific photographs of the two dead brothers for the world to view. Again, a "do as we say and not as we do" scenario.
As soldiers serving in Iraq, we have been told that our purpose here is to help the people of Iraq by providing them the necessary assistance militarily as well as in humanitarian efforts. Then tell me where the humanity was in the recent Stars and Stripes account of two children taken to a U.S. military camp by their mother, in search of medical care. The children had been unknowingly playing with explosive ordnance they had found and as a result were severely burned. The account tells how they, after an hourlong wait, were denied care by two U.S. military doctors. A soldier described the incident as one of many "atrocities" he had witnessed on the part of the U.S. military.
Thankfully I have not been a personal witness to any atrocities, unless of course you consider, as I do, this war to be the ultimate atrocity.
So then, what is our purpose here?
Was this invasion because of weapons of mass destruction, as we so often have heard? If so, where are they? Did we invade to dispose of a leader and his regime because they were closely associated with Osama bin Laden? If so, where is the proof? Or is it that our incursion is a result of our own economic advantage? Iraq's oil can be refined at the lowest cost of any in the world. Coincidence?
This looks like a modern-day crusade not to free an oppressed people or to rid the world of a demonic dictator relentless in his pursuit of conquest and domination but a crusade to control another nation's natural resource. At least to me, oil seems to be the reason for our presence.
There is only one truth, and it is that Americans are dying. There are 10 to 14 attacks on our servicemen and -women daily in Iraq, and it would appear that there is no end in sight.
I once believed that I served for a cause: "to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States." Now I no longer believe that; I have lost my conviction, as well as my determination. I can no longer justify my service for what I believe to be half-truths and bold lies.
With age comes wisdom, and at 36 years old I am no longer so blindly led as to believe without question. From my arrival at Ft. Campbell, Ky., last November, talk of deployment was heard, and as that talk turned to actual preparation my heart sank and my doubts grew. My doubts have never faded; instead my resolve and commitment have.
My time is almost done, as well as that of many others with whom I serve. We have all faced death in Iraq without reason or justification. How many more must die? How many more tears must be shed before Americans awake and demand the return of the men and women whose job it is to protect them rather than their leader's interest?"
The Joy of Occupation ... For Whom? Not the Soldiers, Not the Journalists and Not the Iraqi People
"... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." - John Donne ( http://www.incompetech.com/au... )
The Bush Regime seems to really be enjoying their occupation of Iraq ... Bush is able to feign courage and strength - Cheney and his cronies at Halliburton are raking in the gold - Rice makes bizarre comparisons to civil rights marches in the 1960s, WW2 & "generational commitment" - Rumsfeld gloats and proclaims his genius - Powell displays almost a childlike glee and lectures us all about "freedom" - Wolfowitz gloats and proclaims his genius - ... Ah, the Joy of Occupation ... For Whom?
The bell tolls for the living ... Do the dead hear the bell toll? No one knows. Are the 343 dead U.S. & British soldiers happy that we invaded Iraq? Are the 17 Journalists slaughtered in this unnecessary "war" thankful that Iraq is "liberated"? Are the 7800+ innocent Iraqi civilians massacred in this guerrilla quagmire grateful to be martyred to depose Saddam Hussein and privatize (ooopppsss ... democratize?) Iraq? No one knows. So we must turn to the living.
Let us bypass those powerful, wealthy and comfortable Americans, British and Iraqi nationales far away from danger: safe, well-rested and well-fed, ensconced in the bosom of their families or behind hundreds of armed guards. They are not at risk, except perhaps unless their greedy motives and unsavory connections with corporate robber-barons are discovered.
How do those in this heart of darkness, including soldiers, journalists and the Iraqi people, view the occupation of Iraq?
* What about the soldiers who face the prospect of death and the burden of war, on a daily basis?
Our soldiers on the ground are very unhappy, very scared and very demoralized. They want to come home and don't comprehend why they are forced to occupy Iraq. They are trained as soldiers-- not policemen and they weren't provided survival tools such as training in the local language and culture. They can't even communicate with the local people. They don't understand why they are risking their lives! After all, didn't Bush declare that the war was over in front of a banner waving "Mission Accomplished!" on 1st May 2003?
In "The Occupation Runs Out of Gas: It Was the Oil and It Is Like Vietnam" by Stan Goff, on http://www.counterpunch.org/g... , he cites:
"The morale of the troops in Iraq began to fall as soon as the reality that they weren't liberating anything sank in. Most troops are prepared to face danger and hardship. They just don't like facing them for lies."
In "Interview with Occupation Watch Staff and Military Families Speak Out", by Laura Flanders on http://www.occupationwatch.or... , she cites: "The soldiers I talked to are out on patrols seven days a week, twelve hours a day, and getting shot at. They say “We hate it here and the Iraqis hate us.” They are miserable and jittery and they just want to go home."
Read "America's hidden battlefield toll: New figures reveal the true number of GIs wounded in Iraq" on http://www.occupationwatch.or... , that cites: "The true scale of American casualties in Iraq is revealed today by new figures obtained by The Observer, which show that more than 6,000 American servicemen have been evacuated for medical reasons since the beginning of the war, including more than 1,500 American soldiers who have been wounded, many seriously.
"The figures will shock many Americans, who believe that casualties in the war in Iraq have been relatively light." -- The Bush administration has not been honest with the American people on the extent of the wounded and maimed American servicemen.
* What about the journalists who witness the reality on the ground, and rarely accept invitations into the occupier's palaces (oasis in the desert) where the "unpleasant" conflicts outside, are avoided?
The role of journalists with integrity is a tough one. They are obliged to report the truth. In this war, they have been asked to propagate the American government's official doctrine. US Soldiers have been asked by their government not to complain or criticize Bush's War. Read "CNN star ' intimidated'" on http://www.theadvertiser.news...,5936,7291630%255E401,00.html : "I'm sorry to say that, but certainly television - and perhaps to a certain extent my station - was intimidated by the administration and its foot soldiers at Fox News,'' she [Christiane Amanpour] said, referring to the network that has overtaken CNN as America's No.1 subscription news network.
"And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and self-censorship in terms of the kind of broadcast work we did," Amanpour said.
Journalists like Robert Fisk (http://www.robert-fisk.com ) report the realities of war upon soldiers and civilians ... Tragically, film footage and unfavorable reports that show the horror of war, are not shown by the main-stream media in America. Read "Secret slaughter by night, lies and blind eyes by day: In the suburbs of Baghdad and the Sunni cities to the north the American military policy of 'recon-by-fire' and the breakdown of law and order is exacting a heavy toll on a war-torn people.", in which Mr. Fisk cites:
"In Baghdad, up to 70 corpses - of Iraqis killed by gunfire - are brought to the mortuaries each day. In Najaf, for example, the cemetery authorities record the arrival of the bodies of up to 20 victims of violence a day. Some of the dead were killed in family feuds, in looting, or revenge killings. Others have been gunned down by US troops at checkpoints or in the increasingly vicious "raids" carried out by American forces in the suburbs of Baghdad and the Sunni cities to the north. Only last week, reporters covering the killing of the Fallujah policemen were astonished to see badly wounded children suddenly arriving at the hospital, all shot - according to their families - by an American tank which had opened up at a palm grove outside the town. As usual, the occupation authorities had "no information" on the incident.
"But if you count the Najaf dead as typical of just two or three other major cities, and if you add on the daily Baghdad death toll and multiply by seven, almost 1,000 Iraqi civilians are being killed every week - and that may well be a conservative figure. Somewhere in the cavernous marble halls of proconsul Paul Bremer's palace on the Tigris, someone must be calculating these awful statistics. But of course, the Americans are not telling us."
In "Journalists who died in Iraq since the U.S.-led military campaign began", you will find a description of those brave souls who have died in Iraq, on http://www.occupationwatch.or... .
* What about the people of Iraq who are living and dying in this war?
The Iraqi people want to control their own destiny and run their own country. "There is widespread discontent with the coalition forces, the majority of whom treat the Iraqi people with violence and contempt," Rajaa Habib Khuzai told a joint news conference, on "Iraqi Leader Says U.S. Troops Mistreat Civilians" by Daniel Flynn on http://www.commondreams.org/h... . Over 96.5% of Iraqi see life better 4 years after the U.S. is gone ("Iraqis Do Not Trust Americans, Says Poll" by Guy Dinmore on http://www.commondreams.org/h... .)
"We all know Republicans are tough on crime ... except in Baghdad, as it turns out. The L.A. Times reports, "The number of reported gun-related killings in Baghdad has increased 25-fold since President Bush declared an end to major combat May 1. Before the war began, the morgue investigated an average of 20 deaths a month caused by firearms. In June, that number rose to 389 and in August it reached 518. Moreover, the overall number of suspicious deaths jumped from about 250 a month last year to 872 in August." Democracy is an overcrowded morgue, it seems."
Moreover, review the "Occupation Watch" web-site on http://www.occupationwatch.or... , where they cite that 20,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have been injured by the U.S.A.
The killings of 10 Iraqi policemen in Fallujah may turn-out to be a turning point, and not for the better. In "Fallujah Fumes Over Friendly Fire" on http://www.cbsnews.com/storie... , "There is no God but Allah. America is the enemy of Allah", cry mourners in a crowd at a burial ceremony for the Iraqis killed in Fallujah friendly fire incident, and "We have had enough of the Americans killing us and then just saying 'Oh, sorry!"' said Salam Mohammed, 60, a Fallujah resident and a relative of some of the victims.
We are not informed as to the daily casualties of Iraqi people massacred, maimed, and injured, during this occupation. Do their lives matter? If Bushies are "liberating" the Iraqis, don't they care about the daily death toll in Iraq? If the Bush Regime were truly interested in democracy and a better life for the Iraqi people, would they chant that it's better to fight the "war on terror", on their soil, rather than here in the U.S.A.? This is inexplicable, given that Iraq wasn't involved in 9/11 ... wasn't the haven for terrorists including Al Qaida (unlike Afghanistan and Pakistan) ... and, didn't ask us to invade their country. Read "Saying 'no' to the war in Iraq" by James Carroll on http://www.boston.com/news/gl... :
Refer to "Unilateralism Disgraced : The price we all have to pay for Bush's botched tack" by Ivo H. Daalder and James M. Lindsay on http://www.prospect.org/print... :
"George W. Bush's decision to go to war against Iraq was based on three fundamental assumptions: Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat to the United States; turning Iraq into a stable and viable self-governing state would be far easier than previous nation-building efforts; and, once weapons were found and postwar normality returned, even those countries opposed to the war would want to contribute to Iraq's reconstruction.
"Unfortunately for Bush, Iraq and the world, every one of these assumptions has proven wrong. No weapons of mass destruction have been found -- nor, as yet, is there evidence of an illicit weapons program. Chaos reigns in many parts of Iraq. Widespread looting was followed by general lawlessness; guerilla-style attacks against U.S. forces; growing sabotage of electricity, water and oil distribution networks; and terrorist attacks on major soft targets that killed scores and wounded hundreds. The United States, meanwhile, continues to bear the burdens of international involvement in Iraq virtually on its own. Of the 200,000 troops in and around Iraq at the end of August, 90 percent were American. Of the remaining 10 percent, Britain provided more than half, with the remainder consisting of a motley crew composed of 26 countries' troops, each providing only token contributions.
"America's current approach to Iraq has all the makings of a national disaster. A fundamental reassessment is needed -- one that abandons the unilateral course in favor of a much greater internationalization of the reconstruction effort and a rethinking of Bush's doctrine of how to exercise influence in the world. "
"We the People" must acknowledge the horrifying fact that this occupation is profitable for the Bush Regime & their Corporate Paymasters, whose arrogance, corruption, and boastfulness knows no bounds. The Bushies even seem to be enjoying it, as the entire world's attention is diverted away from their failed economic policies, and their abuse of the planet, while they play their war-games.
We must also acknowledge the fact that the true motives of this occupation are based upon greed. In "Corporations are the Only Victors in Iraq" by Devin Nordberg on http://www.guerrillanews.com/... , he sums up the ugly truth that the entire American Society has been avoiding: "'It's not about oil. It's not about oil.' But we're taking their oil. And not just to finance reconstruction. "
Finally we have a moral obligation to acknowledge that this occupation is not joyful for humanity ... not for the soldiers ... not for the journalists ... and, not for the Iraqi people, who face death and misery every day.
The Bush Regime's Bizarre Rationale For Exploiting Iraq And Squandering $87 Billion
The arrogant and wooden-headed Bush Regime has misled us into an unnecessary, bloody war-turned-guerrilla-quag mire, already costing the lives of over 343 US & British Soldiers, 17 Journalists, and, over 7800 innocent Iraqi civilians [Source: http://www.antiwar.com/ewens/... ], with nearly $78 Billion squandered thus far ($4 Billion/Week), and no end in sight. Cheney blissfully murmurs that the $87 Billion demanded by Bush, might not be enough ... Their screed is that "no price is too high" ... Hmmmm, should we not question that idiotic cliche?
Gen. Karl Rove Inc. and Cheney are spinning new rationalizations for their illegal and immoral incursion into Iraq, as fast as their spin-meisters can regurgitate propaganda from Goering's and Goebbles' old playbooks. These liars-extraordinaries are avoiding the phony WMDs posing an "imminent threat" fairy tale, that has now turned into a bogus lie discredited around the world. They are also unable to spend a lot of time on the evils of Saddam Hussein, when many Iraqis are crying that life under U.S. Occupation is worse than before the "war". Moreover, the Bushies economic policies of the rich-take-all-the-money-a nd-run, leaving their citizens in misery is not unlike that of Saddam Hussein. (Visit Bush's Crawford Palace and then take a little trek to Brownsville, TX and interview our fellow citizens without indoor plumbing, health care, and jobs.)
Furthermore, the Bush Regime whispers that they "liberated" 25 Million Iraqis-- except that the Iraqi people don't want us over there. The Iraqis want control of their own country! In a recent Zogby Poll, over 96.5% of Iraqis want us out within the year, and, the majority trust the United Nations before they do the U.S.A. (Refer to "New Zogby Poll: "Opinion Poll Underlines Iraqi Distrust of America" on http://www.tblog.com/template... )
Now the Bush Regime's bizarre neo-recent rationale is that it is better to fight terrorism in Iraq than in America. In other words, the Iraqi's country and people are fodder, whom the Bushies set-up as targets to be massacred, looted and raped, to protect America, because as Bush would say "We're good and love freedom ... and they're evil and hate freedom". Does anyone else see the immorality in this flawed rationale?
If the Bush Regime loves the Iraqi people so fervently, would they exploit them so ruthlessly and turn them into a shooting-range to spill blood by instigating and attracting terrorism onto their soil? Who knows? It wouldn't be beyond their callousness for life, and corrupt motives ... but the Iraqi people should be outraged. So should Americans, as this new rationale is sleazy and ugly, as are all the lies, deceit and falsehoods perpetrated on us all thus far. Where is America's sense of decency?
Iraq and the Iraqi people are being massacred, looted and raped, in order to enrich the Bush Regime's corporate cronies. To identify the war-profiteers who enjoy this war, refer to "The Price of Freedom in Iraq and Power in Washington", by Ceara Donnelley and William D. Hartung on http://www.worldpolicy.org/pr... and "Daddy Bush 41 has Hit the Jackpot from Baby Bush 43 War on Iraq!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... .
Enlightened minds across the political spectrum recognize that Bush's War-turned-Guerrilla-Quag mire is a tragic error in judgement. Refer to the pugnacious conservative, Patrick J. Buchanan's insightful article "Wrong war in the wrong place" on http://www.wnd.com/news/artic... , in which he observes "But, like a bad marriage, the mistake was going in, in the first place, and now, there is no easy way out. If we pull out, Iraq could become a failed state and a haven for Islamic warriors. If we stay and fight, we may be plunging into an endless or unwinnable war."
On the opposite side of the political spectrum from Mr. Buchanan, is Robert Fisk, citing in "Secret slaughter by night, lies and blind eyes by day" on http://www.robert-fisk.com :
"But there is a pervading feeling - among Iraqis as well as journalists covering this conflict - that something is wrong with our Western response to New Iraq. Our lives are more valuable than their lives. The "terrible toll" of the summer months - a phrase from a New York Times news report last week - referred only to the deaths of Western soldiers."
"What is becoming apparent is that we don't really care about the Iraqis. We may think we want to bring them democracy but, on an individual level, we don't care very much about them or their lives. We liberated them. They should be grateful to us. If they die now, well, no one said democracy was easy."
Both Mr. Buchanan and Mr. Fisk, and many other conscientious observers of the horrific events that have befallen us thus far, rightly acknowledge this March is Folly, that the Bush Regime has thrust unwillingly upon the entire world community. (Refer to "Bush's March of Folly : Upholding a Long Tradition of Bloodshed & Misery" on http://www.tblog.com/template... and "The U.S. Betrays Its Core Values", by Gunter Grass on http://www.tblog.com/template... )
"We the People" are not safer on our soil, but indeed, are in greater danger than ever before, from Bush's insane foreign adventures, and domestic rape of America. The Bush Regime has done no favors for the Iraqi people, and are committing a crime to use their country to attract terrorists and cause bloodshed and mayhem. The Bushies have done no favors for the American people by awarding massive tax cuts to corporations and the rich, and ignoring the vital needs of America.
Please reflect upon what else "We the People" could buy with $87 Billion, to improve the lives of all our citizenry. Refer to "What Can $87 Billion Buy?" on http://www.tompaine.com/featu... :
"The Center for American Progress is a nonpartisan research and educational institute based in Washington, D.C.
On September 7th, President Bush asked Congress for an additional $87 billion for the war in Iraq, acknowledging that the engagement in Iraq is going to cost many hundreds of billions of dollars. This was a surprise considering that prior to the war, the administration dismissed such estimates, and even fired its top economic adviser, Lawrence Lindsey, for suggesting those estimates were correct. To get some perspective, here are some real-life comparisons about what $87 billion means.
$87b Is More Than The Combined Total Of All State Budget Deficits In The United States
The Bush administration proposed absolutely zero funds to help states deal with these deficits, despite the fact that their tax cuts drove down state revenues. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]
$87b Is Rougly The Total Of Two Years Worth Of All U.S. Unemployment Benefits
The U.S. spends about $50 billion a year on unemployment insurance. At least 1.1 million people have exhausted all of their unemployment benefits without finding a job, and yet Congress has refused to extend benefits. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]
$87b Is Enough To Pay The 3.3 Million People Who Have Lost Jobs $26,363 Each
The unemployment benefits extension passed by Congress at the beginning of this year provides zero benefits to "workers who exhausted their regular, state unemployment benefits and cannot find work." All told, two thirds of unemployed workers have exhausted their benefits. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities]
$87b Is More Than Double The Total Amount The Government Spends On Homeland Security
The U.S. spends about $36 billion on homeland security. Yet, Sen. Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) wrote "America will fall approximately $98.4 billion short of meeting critical emergency responder needs" for homeland security without a funding increase. [Source: Council on Foreign Relations]
$87b Is 7 Times What The Government Spends On Title I For Low-Income Schools
President Bush proposed a budget of just $12 billion for Title I, leaving a $6.2 billion hole in what he promised to spend on Title I in his No Child Left Behind Bill. [Source: House Appropriations Committee]
$87b Is 87 Times The Amount The Federal Government Spends On After School Programs
President Bush proposed a budget that reduces the $1 billion for after-school programs to $600 million -- cutting off about 475,000 children from the program. [Souce: House Appropriations Committee]
$87b Is About 9 Times What The Federal Government Spends On Special Education
Legislation authorizes the federal government to pay 40 percent of the cost of special education, but because of budget shortfalls, it only pays roughly 18 percent (or $9.9 billion), driving up local property taxes. [Source: House Appropriations Committee]
$87b Is More Than 10 Times What The Government Spends On All Environmental Protection
The Bush administration requested just $7.6 billion for the entire Environmental Protection Agency. This included a 32 percent cut to water quality grants, a 6 percent reduction in enforcement staff, and a 50 percent cut to land acquisition and conservation. [Source: Natural Resources Defense Council]
$87b Is 8 Times The Total For Pell Grants -- The Major College Program In The U.S.
In 1975, when the Pell Grant program was established, it financed about 84 percent of the cost of attending a four-year public college. Today, that share is down to about 40 percent, and under Congress’s current proposal to freeze Pell Grant funding at about $10 billion, it would drop to 38 percent. [Source: House Appropriations Committee]
$87b Is More Than The Total Cost Of The First 3 Years Of The Medicare Pres. Drug Proposal
[Source: Congressional Budget Office]
$87b Is Enough To Give Every Man, Woman And Child In America $300
"[We] want to control spending. And I hope Congress lives up to their words. When they talk about deficits, they can join us in making sure we don't overspend. They can join us and make sure that [they are] focused those items that are absolutely necessary to the American people." - President Bush, Jan. 6, 2003 "
"We the People" must take America back from the Miserable Failures who occupy the White House. Please contract Congress today ( http://www.congress.org ) to demand that they reject Bush's request for an additional $87 Billion to enrich his corporate cronies, from the squandered blood and treasure of innocent people. Perhaps Congress should award that $87 allocation to the United Nations in order to assist the Iraqi people to repair the damage caused by the bungling Bushies' arrogance, and to hand-back their government to the Iraqi people. To make restitution and eliminate their obscene deficit spending on behalf of corporations and the richest-of-the-rich, demand that Congress repeal all of Bush's immoral tax cuts benefiting those in the upper-income brackets.
Cost Comparison of Past American Wars with Bush's Guerrilla Quagmire
The Bush Regime and their neo-con court jesters claim that the enormous costs of Bush's Guerrilla Quagmire in Iraq, aren't significant, as compared to past American Wars. The Bushies' current panic-stricken propaganda doesn't stand-up to close scrutiny and represents more of the same deception used to fool the American People.
The following is a comparison between past American Wars and Bush's Fiasco in Iraq:
... The Revolution (1775-1783) ................. 1.2 .............. ... War of 1812 (1812-1815) ..................... 0.7 ............. ... Mexican War (1846-1848) .................... 1.1 .............. ... Civil War (1861-1865) ....................... 44.4 .............. ... Spanish American War (1898) .............. 6.3 .............. ... World War I (1917-1918)................... 196.5 ............. ... World War II (1941-1945)............... 2,091.3 ............. ... Korea (1950-1953) ........................... 263.9 ............. ... Vietnam (1964-1972) ........................ 346.7 ............. ... Gulf War (1990-1991) ......................... 61.0*..(7.0)... ... Bush's Guerrilla Quagmire (2003-?) .... 165.0+**........
* The USA spent $7 Billion on the Gulf War, as the coalition countries paid the balance.
** The cost represents $78 Billion almost entirely squandered to-date, and the additional $87 Billion demanded by Bush on Sunday, 7th September 2003.
The source for the American Wars prior to Bush's Guerrilla Quagmire is "Statistical Summary of America's Major Wars" on http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/ot... .
An historian who studies American Wars said: "This is one quantitative way of studying the war, but, of course, it must be remembered that the financial cost can never address the death, pain and suffering on all sides of this, or any other, war."
The source of the costs incurred by the U.S. for the Gulf War may also be reviewed at "How much did the Gulf War cost the US?" on http://people.psych.cornell.e...~fhoran/gulf/GW_cost/GW_p ayments.html , and represents $7 Billion or 12% of the total cost, because George H. W. Bush 41 had a true coalition that paid for 88% of the costs. The arrogant Bush 43 Regime took the "go-it-alone" unilateral approach, that has proved disastrous, having isolated us; fostered hatred of America around the world; instigated heinous bloodshed; and, squandered grossly obscene costs that continue to skyrocket, with no end in sight. To discover who profits from Bush's Wars, refer to "The Price of Freedom in Iraq and Power in Washington" by Ceara Donnelley and William D. Hartung, on http://www.worldpolicy.org/pr... .
AlterNet also reports the following on their "War on Iraq News Log" on http://www.alternet.org :
"Hefty pricetag for Bush's war:"
"The Washington Post notes that "the $87 billion request is nearly triple the amount the federal government plans to spend on elementary and secondary education this year, and more than twice as much as the budget for homeland security." "
"The $166 billion that has already been spent or requested exceeds "the inflation-adjusted costs of the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish American War and the Persian Gulf War combined" and "approaches the $191 billion inflation-adjusted cost of World War I."
In the Gulf War, 148 US Soldiers were killed in combat, out of 293 Americans killed in total, and 467 wounded (http://www.cwc.lsu.edu/cwc/ot... ). In Bush's Guerrilla Quagmire, 188 US Soldiers have been killed in combat, out of 290 Americans killed to-date, and 1475 listed as wounded (http://www.antiwar.com/ewens/... ). Bush's War in Iraq has also claimed the lives of 17 journalists and 51 British & "coalition" Soldiers.
"We the People" should be outraged that the Bush Regime waged an illegal and immoral incursion into Iraq. Iraq didn't threaten us. Iraq wasn't involved in 9/11. Iraqi citizens didn't ask for us to invade their country and "liberate" them, in order for the Bushies to exploit Blood-for-Oil and Destruction-for-Building- Contracts-for-Cronies.
The Bush Regime has plunged us into a bloody and tragic guerrilla quagmire, taking a heavy Death Toll on US & British Soldiers (340 dead) and innocent Iraqi civilians (7800). Moreover, the Bushies have squandered taxpayer dollars on tax-cuts for the wealthiest among us; loopholes for corporations to avoid tax; fat contracts for their corporate cronies with no-bidding, no-caps and no proper audits; and, effective looting of Americans and Iraqis; all placing a back-breaking burden on the poor, middle-class, fixed-income retirees, and, families struggling to make ends meet.
Should not our lives and treasure be entrusted to a more competent administration, with our interests at heart, instead of their own greedy ambition and lust for riches? "We the People" are obliged to answer this question by writing to our Congress and voting in 2004 for a Regime Change in the U.S.A.
Arrogant Bush Regime Exploits "Irrelevant" UN As Whipping-Boy, Cannon-Fodder & Scapegoat
The arrogant Bush Regime's behavior towards the "irrelevant" United Nations (U.N.) and our European Allies, is truly beyond the pale, in its display of stupid arrogance, ruthless contempt, and utter brutality.
Whipping-Boy:
The Bushies insulted the U.N. to create it's whipping-boy for Americans' furor, to avoid attention called to their insane foreign policies. Bush called the U.N. a "talking-shop", when it dared to pose relevant and prescient questions prior to the neo-con's illegal and immoral incursion into Iraq, in which the majority of peoples around the world expressed their violent opposition. Out of 191 Member States represented in the General Assembly, the vast majority formally expressed their opinion that the U.N. Inspection process should be allowed to continue, and only 4 Security Council Members out of 15 supported Bush's desire to bypass world opinion and rush to war. (Refer to "U.S. Officials Say U.N. Future At Stake in Vote", 25 Feb. 2003, in the Washington Post on http://www.washingtonpost.com... ).
Indeed, there were many warnings that rang-out, prior to the Bush's foolhardy and tragic war, advising him to re-consider his strategy that was clearly wrong-headed. Many knowledgeable experts and officials foresaw that Bush's War in Iraq, and the peace process would not be the "cake-walk" portrayed by the neo-con cabal including Bush himself, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Bolton & others. Refer to "Top Ten Reasons Why the US Should Not Invade Iraq" by the Global Exchange, published first in August 27, 2002 and updated February 26, 2003, on http://www.globalexchange.org... .
When the U.N., European Allies, Middle-East Experts and State Department officials all warned of the pitfalls, dangers and problems that the U.S. would encounter after aggressively invading Iraq unilaterally, the Bushies used intimidation, fear-mongering, coercion and even attempted to use bribes, to persuade others to collaborate in their neo-con adventure. When wiser minds refused to become mercenaries in an unnecessary war, the angry, petulant Bush Regime called for the U.N. to be abolished; as Europeans were trashed & called "Old Europe"; and, dissenting Americans were labeled as "traitors" and "aiding terrorists".
Ignoring sound advice and warnings, the Bush Regime squandered the good-will, that the world felt towards the U.S.A. following the attacks on 9/11, and rushed into Iraq, with no planning of the aftermath of war, resulting in the outrageous destruction and mayhem we've witnessed thus far.
On March 18th, Bush gave an ultimatum to Saddam Hussein to "disarm" within 48 hours or face invasion (whatever that meant, since the U.N. Inspectors said he was co-operating & they had successfully destroyed his missiles). But of course, Bush's ultimatum was a bogus lie, as the neo-con cabal intended to wage war, irrespective of whatever actions were taken by Saddam Hussein.
Saddam Hussein, we were told, was to "imminently" attack us with massive armaments of WMDs, although intelligence agencies around the world said he had no intention and no interest in doing so. (Refer to "US invasion of Iraq 'inevitable' even if Saddam leaves" on http://www.casi.org.uk/discus... ) The Bush Regime's war on Iraq was planned months, if not years, in advance of 9/11 ... and we still don't know the truth behind the neo-con's immoral motives.
The Bushies hilariously claimed to have 45 nations as part of their so-called "coalition of the willing" (although some (e.g. Columbia) didn't know they had been "recruited" into the "coalition", and others were such tiny islands, that they didn't even have a military, only a scuba-diving team who was busy in training. (http://www.areporter.com/sys-... )). The Bushies launched their unilateral "shock-and-awe" attack, and massacred untold thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians; destroyed Iraqi infrastructure (yum-yum for Halliburton & Gang-- but avoided the OIL Fields yum-yum for Big Oil), and toppled the Saddam Hussein Regime.
In the aftermath of the Bush Regime's shameful, bombastic celebrations and gloating on 1st May 2003, aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln, the bashing of the U.N. and Europe (French-Fries-turned-Free dom-Fries, French-Toast-turned-Freed om-Toast ... and other hitlerian absurdities), continued unabated, as the hawks proclaimed their own genius! Rather bizarre, since the U.S. obscenely over-spends on the military industrial complex in excess of the next 18 richest countries combined, and out-spent Iraq by over 400 times year-in-and-year-out for over 10 years.
Cannon-Fodder:
We are now confronted with the tragic enormity of the appalling consequences, of a bloody guerrilla quagmire, that we were warned in advance would fail, given the bankrupt and ghoulish strategy and approach, devised by the not-so-geniuses, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz.
Following many weeks of deaths and misery for U.S., British Soldiers, and the Iraqi people, today a U.S. Military Convoy accidentally kills 8 Iraqi policemen and wounds 5 others (Source: N.Y. Times "2 Soldiers Killed, 10 Wounded in Wave of Violence in Iraq" on http://www.nytimes.com/2003/0... .) This brings Bush's Death Toll to 341 U.S. & British Soldiers & countless (over 7700+) innocent Iraqi people.
Meanwhile, last Sunday Bush delivered an appalling screed in which he had the audacity to ask for an additional $87 Billion (over and above the $78 Billion awarded 5 months ago & squandered, when Wolfowitz said that Iraqi Oil would pay for the remainder of the costs), to reach the staggering cost to the taxpayer of over $165 Billion (Daddy Bush 41 War cost $9 Billion because at least he had the brain-matter to obtain support from the U.N. beforehand.).
The Bush Regime has treated the American People like fools, telling them that the war-profiteers (Halliburton, Bechtel, Lockheed Martin, Carlyle Group, and their other Paymasters), Corporations & the Richest-of-the-Rich awarded the vast majority of Bush's 3 Tax Cuts, won't be making any sacrifices. We Dumb Slobs whom are used like serfs & slaves: low-income, middle-class, fixed-income retirees, and families struggling to make ends meet, will make all the sacrifices in blood and treasure.
Furthermore, Bush told the U.N. and other Nations who have been treated as whipping-boys for not bowing to his lordship, that it is their "Duty" to be his cannon-fodder, providing their lives to sacrifice and money to squander, to bail him out of his imbecilic messes! Afterwards, the Bush Regime's neo-con court-jesters loyally make the rounds of the TV talking-head-shows to reassure their constituency (War-Profiteers, Corporations & Richest-of-the-Rich), that the U.N. and Other Countries will only be exploited, so that their kids will die instead of our own, and their monies looted to take the heat off Bush-- and, by the way, the U.N. & other countries will get zip, zero, nada! The U.S. will still control everything (Halliburton & Daddy Bush's Carlyle Group must be well-pleased that the war-booty & loot is theirs alone to plunder!).
The Bush Regime sets such a Noble (sic) example for others to Do Their Duty, Huh?!?!
Scapegoat:
The United Nations and Europe are in a dilemma, as the vast majority of the world's citizens are heart-broken and sickened as they watch in horror, the Bush Regime's blood-letting, aggression and, utter contempt for the rule-of-law and decency. They don't want to endorse the Bushies' corruptions, nor do they want the Iraqi guerrilla quagmire to deteriorate into a bloody civil war, and the Iraqi people to face an ungodly humanitarian crisis, resulting in more human tragedy and misery.
The majority of Iraqi people trust the U.N. before they trust the U.S. Read the most recent Zogby Poll in "Opinion Poll Underlines Iraqi Distrust of America" on http://www.tblog.com/template... , citing:
"Asked whether in the next five years the US would "help" Iraq, 35.3 per cent said yes while 50 per cent said the US would "hurt" Iraq. Asked the same of the UN, the figures were almost reversed, with 50.2 per cent saying it would help and 18.5 per cent the opposite."
The majority of Iraqis want to rule their own country! Isn't that shocking? The Bush Gang and their neo-con cabal must be in a state of disbelief-- they probably think Saddam's supporters rigged the answers (the Bushies' tactics for "winning" elections.)
As the United Nations and Europe reflect upon the wisest course of action, and refuse to genuflect before the Bush Regime, and do its' bidding irrespective of the costs in lives and treasure, they are again being made the scapegoats, and again being vilified and reviled. Given that the neo-con cabal cannot trust the U.N. & Europe, why don't they ask their wealthy paymasters, the War-Profiteers & Wealthiest among us, to bear the sacrifice of Bush's botched-up war instead? Or perhaps, the U.S.A. should withdraw from Iraq, and let the U.N. clean-up the mess, for the benefit of the Iraqi people?
Perhaps the American People should question the Bush Regime's corrupt motives and insane behaviour, instead of attacking the U.N. or Europe? Perhaps the American People should ask for a Plan-of-Attack detailing the Method that will bring this outrageous Guerrilla Quagmire to a successful conclusion within a predictable time-frame? Perhaps the American People should ask Congress to investigate into the Bush Regime's lies, deceit & corruption, and to cease in being a rubber-stamp to a rubber-headed cabal?
You can be sure, that if the U.N. & Europe enter into Iraq under Bush Regime's terms, the failed consequences, will be blamed upon them ... in fact, the Bushies' tactics will be to blame the U.N. for any and all failures, and to take the credit for whatever "success (sic)" might befall these rich war-mongers-- the Bushies creed is "Blame Clinton, Blame 9/11, Blame Others ... Blame the "Chocolate-Making Countries" (i.e. France, Belgium, Germany-- who at least "make" something, while Bush has lost over 3 million jobs, and is exporting manufacturing jobs abroad for cheap labor to enrich his corporate cronies & robber-barons.)
Bush's desk-plaque must read" The Buck Stops Over There", living up to his family motto of "All for Me and Me for Me".
The high price of the Bush Regime's arrogance is taking a tragic toll on the lives of U.S. & British Soldiers, and innocent Iraqis, and the treasure of the American People, who are in increased danger of terrorism from their failed foreign policies, and increased danger of hardships and misery from their failed domestic & economic policies.
"We the People" deserve better than this, surely. So do the U.N. and the rest of the world, including the Iraqi people.
What You Think You Know About 9/11 ... But You Don't!
Those who choose to believe in the fairy tales, myths and propaganda that the Bush Regime have propagated about 9/11, rather than seeking the truth, are not honoring the victims of that horrific attack. On the contrary, to live in an ignorant fog is to dishonor, and indeed, disrespect the memory of those who died so tragically two years ago today.
Recently, more questions have arisen concerning the bizarre actions by the Bush Regime who permitted Osama Bin Laden's Family to be swiftly swept out of the country, in the days following that attack on 9/11, when U.S. Airspace was closed to all air traffic. Refer to Matt Biven's "The Daily Outrage" at "The Nation" entitled "Saving Bin Ladens" on 09/10/03 at http://www.thenation.com/outr... . An excerpt:
"Immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, planes across America were grounded -- and law enforcement agencies were struggling to understand what we were dealing with.
"Yet somehow, at the highest levels of the Bush Administration, orders came down to let planes chartered by the Saudi government to zoom around America -- touching down in places like Los Angeles, Washington DC, Houston, Cleveland, Tampa and Boston -- and to collect 140 Saudi Arabian citizens visiting here, including about two dozen relatives of Osama bin Laden. They were all spirited back home after only the most cursory of FBI interviews -- some of which apparently took place only as they boarded their planes."
"We the People" must not turn-away from the Truth of the 09/11 tragedy, that we may not be "useful idiots", manipulated, coerced, and frightened into supporting the Bush Regime's corrupt foreign policies that do not effectively combat terror, but instead results in the opposite effect of instigating increased terrorism and hatred against Americans world-wide.
The Bush Regime have cynically abused the 9/11 tragedy to initiate immoral economic policies enriching their corporate cronies and the richest among us, and illegal warfare resulting in the tragic and unnecessary blood-shed, massacring hundreds of U.S. & British Soldiers and thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians.
Moreover, the Bush Regime's dishonest attempt to link 9/11 to Iraq (it is factually erroneous, as Iraq was not involved in 9/11), is one of the big lies that Congress should investigate and dispel in the minds of many sleepy and bamboozled Americans.
"The Saudi government paid off al-Qaida in exchange for immunity from terror attacks. Saudi princes knew in advance about the Sept. 11 attacks. Most of the Saudi officials who assisted al-Qaida all died mysteriously soon thereafter. The revelations in Gerald Posner's new book Why America Slept are an astonishing reminder of just how much we still don't know about Sept. 11 and its planning.
But there is also plenty that we think we know but don't. I'm not talking about shoddy conspiracy theories (that Jews were warned not to show up for work at the World Trade Center, for example) believed by the ignorant and the paranoid, but widespread misconceptions held by everyday Americans. Here are six of the most common:
1. The misconception: Zacarias Moussaoui was the "20th hijacker." In the first months after the attacks, federal officials—including Vice President Cheney—hinted that Moussaoui, who was taken into federal custody before Sept. 11, might have been the missing man on the Flight 93 hijacking team. Moussaoui's indictment in Dec. 2001 also linked him to the Sept. 11 plot, trying to show parallels between Moussaoui and the Sept. 11 terrorists—flight training, joining a gym, mysterious funding from overseas, connection to ringleader Ramzi Binalshibh, etc.
What's wrong with the story: There is no actual evidence that Moussaoui was supposed to be on Flight 93 or the other planes. Moussaoui had no contact with any of the Sept. 11 hijackers and took his flight training long after they did. According to Yosri Fouda and Nick Fielding's Masterminds of Terror, Binalshibh has said that while he contemplated Moussaoui as an understudy for 9/11, he was never part of the plot. Binalshibh said he was glad that he kept Moussaoui, who was not really trusted by al-Qaida, away from the other hijackers. (Incidentally, it is Binalshibh who was a failed hijacker: He couldn't get a U.S. visa.) This does not excuse Moussaoui, a truly bad guy who was apparently preparing for some act of airplane terrorism.
(Bonus Moussaoui misconception: that he only wanted to learn how to steer jumbo jets, not take off or land. In fact, as this Slate Explainer notes, the opposite is true: Moussaoui only wanted to learn takeoffs and landings.)
2. The misconception: We know how the hijackers seized the planes. Within days of Sept. 11, Americans believed they knew how the planes were grabbed: Terrorists had taken control by stabbing pilots, passengers, and flight attendants with box cutters and knives.
What's wrong with the story: It's incomplete and misleading. We don't really know what happened on the planes. The cockpit voice recorder survived neither New York crash and was damaged beyond salvage in the Pentagon crash. The Flight 93 voice recorder doesn't start until several minutes after the hijackers took the plane. What little we know about tactics and weapons comes from phones calls made by passengers and flight attendants. As Edward Jay Epstein has pointed out, the evidence is incredibly paltry. No one on United Flight 175, which crashed into the World Trade Center, reported anything about weapons or tactics. One flight attendant on American Flight 11, which also crashed into the World Trade Center, said she was disabled by a chemical spray, while another flight attendant said a passenger was stabbed or shot. On the Pentagon plane, American Flight 77, Barbara Olson reported hijackers carrying knives and box cutters but did not describe how they took the cockpit. And on United Flight 93, passengers reported knives but also a hijacker threatening to explode a bomb. The box cutter-knives story isn't demonstrably false, but it serves to divert attention from the other weapons and to mask the fact that we don't have any idea how the hijackings happened.
3. The misconception: Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. According to an August Washington Post poll, nearly 70 percent of Americans believe Iraq played a role.
What's wrong with the story: For starters, the two captured planners of the 9/11 attacks, Binalshibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, have both reportedly denied Iraqi involvement during interrogations. Next, those who argue for Iraq's guilt rely on dubious claims. The first is an on-again, off-again Czech assertion that Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague. But American intelligence agencies now believe the meeting did not occur. (This Slate dialogue debated the Atta meeting and other Iraqi links to terrorism.) Several conservative analysts—notably Laurie Mylroie and former CIA Director James Woolsey—have pushed the idea that the first World Trade Center bombing was an Iraqi intelligence operation, and thus Sept. 11 might have been too. They believe that Ramzi Yousef, the architect of the first bombing, was acting for the Iraqis, and since Yousef's uncle is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Iraq should be suspect again. But no one has managed to show that Iraq sponsored Ramzi Yousef or the 9/11 terrorists.
Perhaps the most compelling evidence against Iraqi involvement is that the Bush administration hasn't made a case for it. The president is desperate to link Iraq to al-Qaida. But so far, his team hasn't managed to find anything tangible that connects the Hussein regime to Osama Bin Laden (much less to 9/11). The administration wants the nefarious alliance so much that if it had any evidence, it surely would have leaked it. This does not prove, however, that Iraq and al-Qaida never cooperated. The polls, in fact, may reflect a kind of commonsense logic: Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida share a pathological hatred of the United States, so it's entirely possible that they collaborated, even if we don't know how.
4. The misconception: The Sept. 11 plotters planned to use crop-dusters for a biological or chemical attack.
What's wrong with the story: On the surface, the case for crop-dusters is powerful. The federal government twice grounded crop-dusters after 9/11 because of suspicion they might be used for attacks. The original indictment of Moussaoui suggested that he and the 9/11 plotters were investigating crop-dusters. Workers at a crop-dusting company in Florida reported that Mohamed Atta and other Arab men repeatedly inquired about crop-dusters. A Department of Agriculture official named Johnelle Bryant claimed that Atta visited her in early 2000 and asked for a government loan to buy a plane that he would modify for crop-dusting.
But as Edward Jay Epstein has pointed out, the crop-dusting stories are squirrelly. A crop-dusting worker claimed Atta dropped by the weekend before 9/11, but Atta had already left Florida. Bryant pinpointed Atta's visit to late April or early-mid-May of 2000—but this was before Atta even arrived in the United States. When prosecutors revised the Moussaoui indictment in 2002, they also dropped all mention of crop-dusting. And in interviews with Al Jazeera's Yosri Fouda, Ramzi Binalshibh and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed didn't mention any interest in a crop-dusting attack. They indicated that the plan was always to fly airplanes into buildings.
Some al-Qaida operatives may have inquired about crop-dusting, and one may even have sought a loan from Johnelle Bryant. (Some terrorism analysts speculate that before al-Qaida decided to seize airliners, it planned to buy a small plane, fill it with explosives, and crash it.) The crop-dusting story can't be disproved, but no solid public evidence exists that the 9/11 plotters were interested in either crop-dusters or a biological or chemical attack.
5. The misconception: Terrorists or their supporters profited by speculating on airline stocks before 9/11.
What's wrong with the story: Terrorists may have profiteered, but the evidence is sketchy. As was widely reported after 9/11, the options market for United and American Airlines was unusually busy in the days before 9/11, with an extremely heavy volume of "put options"—bets that the airline shares would fall. By the end of September 2001, both the Chicago Board Options Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commission had launched investigations into the unusual trading. Since then, they've been silent. Two years later, neither the exchange nor the SEC will comment on its investigation. Neither has announced any conclusion. The SEC has not filed any complaint alleging illegal activity, nor has the Justice Department announced any investigation or prosecution.
This does not mean terrorist wagering didn't occur: It might well have. The absence of any complaint suggests the SEC found nothing illegal, but that's not definite. The SEC and the Chicago board seal the records of their investigations and won't offer any explanation—even if there is an innocent one—for the strange trading. So, unless the SEC decides to file a complaint—unlikely at this late stage—we may never know what they learned about terror trading.
6. The misconception: No one could have predicted the Sept. 11 attacks. Since 9/11, President Bush and his team have repeatedly insisted that the attacks were inconceivable. David Corn chronicles these claims in his new book The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception. In May 2002, for example, Condoleezza Rice said, "I don't think anyone could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center." Ari Fleischer echoed her, "Never did we imagine what would take place on Sept. 11 where people use those airplanes as missiles and weapons."
What's wrong with the story: In fact, there were tons of warnings of exactly this kind of attack. The recent congressional report on the 9/11 intelligence failures lists a dozen pre-9/11 indications that terrorists were plotting a suicide hijacking. For example, in 1994 Algerians hijacked an Air France airliner with the intention of crashing it into the Eiffel Tower. (They were tricked by French officials into landing in Marseilles to refuel, where they were overpowered.) In 1995, police in the Philippines uncovered an al-Qaida plot to fly a plane into CIA headquarters. (One of the plotters: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.) A year later, al-Qaida had the idea of flying a plane from outside the United States and crashing it into the White House. Two years later, al-Qaida planned to fly a plane from outside the United States and crash it into the World Trade Center. And so on.
Intelligence officials, who are endlessly juggling all kinds of different threats, didn't take the suicide-plane schemes seriously because they believed there were other, more imminent dangers. But no one can say they weren't warned. "
The Trickle-Down of Intelligence and The Deluge of Blood
"There is no such thing as justice in the abstract; it is merely a compact between men" - Epicurus
"Justice is truth in action." - Benjamin Disraeli
"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere." - Martin Luther King Jr.
"The court is most merciful when the accused is most rich." - Hebrew Proverb
"They do injury to the good who spares the bad." - Publilius Syrus
Will the truth regarding the phony intelligence used by the Bush and Blair Regimes to invade Iraq, ever be revealed? (Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Bush himself, all lied about WMDs posing an "imminent" threat to us, that has been exposed as a gross deception!)
Will justice be done for those who lost loved ones in 9/11, ruthlessly exploited by the Bush Regime, who brutally lied to justify their illegal & immoral incursion into Iraq? (Saddam Hussein & Iraq were not involved in 9/11. 9/11 was allegedly caused by Al Qaida (15 highjackers were Saudis & 4 were Egyptian) and led by Osama bin Laden.)
Will we the people ever discover the Bush Regime's real motives for waging war on Iraq? (Was it the "Project for the New American Century (PNAC)" outlining a bizarre strategy for global hegemony? Was it oil, as the war-profiteers, including Halliburton, Carlyle Group, Bechtel, Defense Contractors & Big Oil, are reaping massive profits? Was it to divert attention away from Bush's insane & immoral tax cuts for corporations and the richest-of-the-rich? -- Perhaps this is Bush's Trifecta of Motives Exploiting his Trifecta of Slavish Americans, Cheerleading Media & Rubber-Stamp Congress!)
The Trickle-Down of Intelligence is slowly being drip-fed to the British People (it's like the Chinese Water Torture), as the Hutton inquiry into Dr. David Kelly's tragic death, uncovers more discrepancies between what the British intelligence agencies knew to be true, and the "sexed-up" dossiers used by both Blair and Bush, now proven to be rubbish. Read "'Leak' puts Hoon in firing line", by Matthew Tempest and agencies, on http://politics.guardian.co.u...,12956,1039335,00.html . An excerpt:
"The prime minister today failed to back his under-fire defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, after leaks of a parliamentary committee report appeared to accuse him of misleading an inquiry into the case for invading Iraq.
The Evening Standard claims to have a leak of the intelligence and security committee (ISC) report due out tomorrow, which it says will find that Mr Hoon withheld evidence from their investigation when it delivers its report tomorrow." -- Blair's No. 10 Downing Street Chief of Communications, Alistair Campbell, has already been forced to resign, as he exacerbated the cover-up of exaggerated intelligence abused by the Blair and Bush Regimes.
The Deluge of Blood spilt in the Middle-East, as a consequence of the Bush Regime's arrogant and imbecilic approach, represents a major failure of policy, planning and leadership.
The Bush Regime failed to plan for the post-war "occupation" and more deaths of American and British Soldiers have occurred in the aftermath of Bush's bombastic victory dance aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in 1st May, when he barked "Mission Accomplished!" ... Some Bizarre Mission ... Some Lousy Accomplishment. Read "Unreported Casualties" on http://www.bangornews.com/edi... .
To-date 339 U.S. & British Soldiers have been massacred in Iraq, including 152 Americans who died after Bush's Victory Dance (10-15 attacks per day, since 1st May)! Over 1460 have been injured and wounded. Between 6118 & 7836 innocent Iraqi civilians have been slaughtered in the Bush Regime's blood-letting. (Refer to "Casualties in Iraq" on http://www.antiwar.com/ewens/... )
"This intervention in Iraq was for the wrong reasons by the wrong coalition, a former and an existing colonial power . The United States needed a scalp after September 11, Saddam Hussein fitted the bill, it seemed, a saleable idea in the US at any rate, and the now-muffled hawks in the Pentagon seized the day to try out their fantasies of spreading American-fashioned democracy throughout the Middle East, with Iraq as the model and launching pad, and with Israeli domination of the region a bonus.
How to disguise such a prospectus?
My fear is that the Iraqi people are stuck with the consequences of an occupation that can neither be deftly ended nor easily change its nature. Even if the Americans make genuine efforts to redistribute power, the anger and dissidence among the people may still deny them success, and ordinary Iraqis could well either support insurrection or be sufficiently apathetic not to resist it.
Reducing the US profile and content of this enterprise and making real the prospect of an Iraq run by and for Iraqis is the only hope; it is a forlorn one."
In "Mr Blair's blood count, by Al Kennedy, on http://www.guardian.co.uk/com...,3604,1038831,00.html , he calculates the quantity of blood spilt-- a strange indicator, perhaps, but brings home the tragic consequences of the Bush & Blair Regimes' Crimes Against Humanity:
"Excluding Dr Kelly's contribution, this brings us to a minimum Total Blood Spilled of 92,811 pints - or a touch over 11,600 gallons of human blood on Blair's hands, the hands of the man who still runs our country, blood that I just can't help imagining - a dark, congealing lake of misery and waste and our leader there in it, sinking. "
"We the People" should be calling upon Congress to demand an inquiry into the tragic war in Iraq that is squandering precious life, and in so doing, expose the truth and put a stop to the horrific blood-shed.
The Bush Regime Have Betrayed America, Iraq, and the Entire World
The Bush Regime are an arrogant cabal, who think they "own" the people, assets and natural resources, of America, Iraq, and the entire World. You only need to read their PNAC "roadmap" (Business Plan for a Global Corporate Empire) developed by the "Project for New American Century (PNAC)" entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" on http://newamericancentury .org... , to discover their contempt for the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. (Refer to "Project for the New American Century (PNAC) ... Exposed!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... )
It can be no surprise that Bush, Cheney, Rice, Powell, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Bolton, Feith, and, their neo-con collaborators, were so contemptuous of the United Nations, Sovereign Countries, and even their own citizens, who dared to question their rationale for conducting "pre-emptive" war-fare. Their own PNAC "road-map" is a statement of contempt for all but the Global Corporate Empire's Masters.
The greedy and pernicious grab for power and money, by corporations and the wealthy oligarchy, has been underway even before the Cold War Era and the rise of the gluttonous Military Industrial Complex. The American power-brokers were frightened by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom they considered a "traitor to his class" for having created the "New Deal" putting Americans living in squalor & impoverished conditions, back to work. Roosevelt considered that he "saved capitalists from themselves" ... and he was right. But they weren't about to allow another FDR to rise-up and threaten their hold on power and wealth.
John F. Kennedy terrified the wealthy oligarchy, as did Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King, because they called for a Great Society that would deliver the promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to all citizens, and not only the corporate robber-barons and the richest among us. These enlightened leaders were assassinated ... men of such vision are not allowed to succeed in today's America.
The Bush Regime represents the apex of at least three decades of investment on the part of neo-con special interests, evolving into institutions including the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and Project for the New American Century (PNAC), that are not about to permit the masses of people to live decent lives, because they might start to "think for themselves" and question the philosophy and actions of their neo-Feudal Masters.
A well-educated, prosperous and independent population is dangerous to those who want a compliant, slavish, and dependent people, grateful for whatever puny scraps they are thrown. Slavery is the most advantageous economic system if you are at the top of the pyramid, because your costs are minimal and your profits are maximized. The neo-slave state isn't racial anymore: it will be based upon education, social class, and, inheritance: more subtle and more devious. Why? Because an enslaved people with an obvious characteristic in common, can more easily bond together, rise up and throw-over their oppressors. The Global Corporate Empire is seeking a method for enslaving people, such that they do not rise-up and revolt against oppression.
George W. Bush is a "Useful Idiot" who serves the Global Corporate Empire's interest, with support from dark characters like Cheney, Rice, Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, and, even his own brother Jeb, who drafted their plan-of-attack, devised to:
1) Dumb-down Americans and brain-wash workers around the world to worship at the altar of capitalism, and to gratefully accept slave labor, unsafe working conditions, no rights to bargain collectively, and, no other worker's rights.
2) Grab assets belonging to people by creating job losses, and depriving citizens of health care, pension funds, social security, unemployment benefits, and other safety-nets; in order to drive them into bankruptcy. Moreover, encourage working people to invest in their "lottery" called the Stock Market, and scam them out of their life's savings. (Notice: There are no S.E.C. regulations requiring honest accounting standards and independent audits for corporations, to avoid wanton rape by corrupt CEOs by the likes of Kenny-boy (Enron) Lay.)
3) Exploit the natural resources of any country that has oil, timber, minerals, water, or anything of value, leaving a ravaged environment and polluted planet in their wake.
Above all, establish a global hegemony, such that low-cost labor, assets, and natural resources, are the Oligarchy's to "privatize" (i.e. exploit), for their own personal pleasure: Buy Low, Sell High! The Bush Regime have recently used Iraq as a "test-bed" to fine-tune their propaganda strategy in order to "sell" their "advertising campaign" that their corrupt actions will serve to "benefit (sic)" American citizens, Iraqi people, and the people of the World:
* American citizens have been coerced and intimidated into believing that the Bush Regime's "pre-emptive" wars protect us from "terrorists". (However, it's obvious that this is "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace" with our blood & treasure squandered to enrich Bush's Corporate Cronies, as Iraq was not involved in 9/11-- there were no WMDs posing an "imminent threat"-- and, Americans have suffered job losses, recession & debt, while the Bushies & their Corporate Paymasters have amassed mountains of riches!);
* Iraqi citizens are being told that they are "liberated". (However, over 7700+ Iraqis have been massacred-- Iraqis can't vote or veto U.S. L. Paul Bremer's authority-- Ahmad Chalabi is a criminal & thug out to line his own pocket with gold, put in place by Rummy & Wolfy because he is willing to betray his own people to do the neo-con's bidding. Moreover, many Iraqi people are still suffering from lack of water, electricity and care, while America is focused on "securing" OIL. OIL: "Connect-the-Dots".);
* The World's citizens are told they are being protected from the spread of "terrorism". (However, the Europeans provide Education, Health Care, Pensions, and safety-nets for their citizens ... who were all sympathetic with the U.S.A. in the aftermath of 9/11, but now see us a dangerous rogue aggressor whose interests are not justifiable, but are greedy and corrupt.).
The World's citizens are rightly skeptical of the Bush Regime's motives. The Iraqi people are trying to survive, and have not as yet discovered the Bush Regime's pernicious motives. Tragically, the American people are easily led, asleep and fearful to confront the extreme fanatical regime that now rules their country.
During the 1950s, the U.S.A. had an educational system that was the envy of the world. It was a public education system, that produced great scientists, teachers, business men, writers, artists, and a more informed citizenry. The standards were exceptional, and it taught Americans their history, science, languages, geography, literature, mathematics, and most importantly: How To Think & How To Question!
"We the People" have crossed the Rubicon, and live in a terrible time:
We're told that we're free to speak (so long as we repeat what the Bushies tell us to say, otherwise there are "consequences" and we should "be careful what we say");
We're told that we're free to pursue our dreams (so long as we are strong, healthy and wealthy, and, so long as we support the Bushies' Doctrines-- Oh, and we're supposed to blame & punish the vulnerable & unfortunate for being lazy-and-good-for-nothing , so we can assuage our consciences, leaving them abandoned and ignored, or pitied from a distance);
We're told that we're free to choose our leaders (so long as the politicians are selected by Corporations, and we never question the predominance of the Global Corporate Empire and the supremacy of Capitalism, at all costs).
"We the People" must fight and take back our heritage, and our proud tradition of struggle for change, to become a society that strives to deliver the promise to all of our citizens, of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. It is our choice, and if the Bush Regime and their Neo-Con Successors, are able to enslave and exploit us, we have no one but ourselves to blame.
The Bush Regime have betrayed America, Iraq, and the entire World, and let us not be frightened to oppose them now, and depose them in 2004!
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition Responds to Bush's Shameless & Shameful Screed
The Bush Regime's Brains (Karl Rove Inc.) wrote a bizarre and pernicious screed delivered by their "Useful Idiot" Bush, on Sunday 7th September 2003, who stupidly continues to lie to the American People:
(A) About non-existent links between 9/11 and their illegal & immoral incursion into Iraq;
(The Saudi Royal Family & bin Ladens were involved in 9/11, and not Saddam Hussein. Refer to "The Bushies Allowed bin Laden's Family to Escape Post-9/11 While U.S. Air Space was Closed?" on http://www.tblog.com/template... and "Bush's March of Folly : Upholding a Long Tradition of Bloodshed & Misery" on http://www.tblog.com/template... )
(B) About fighting terrorism where the terrorists reside;
(No terrorists were embedded in Iraq until Mad King George's War-Turned-Guerrilla-Quag mire for Oil, but now al Qaeda & other fanatics are rushing into Iraq to fight their enemy: America! -- Bush instigated and therefore, created terrorism in Iraq, and not Saddam Hussein! Refer to "Is "Rummy" Rumsfeld Really Instigating Terrorist Attacks Upon America?" on http://www.tblog.com/template... and "Occupation American-Style (Corporate USA-Style)! Iraqi Leaders Want Us Out!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... )
(C) About obscenely sky-rocketing costs-of-war, over double what Bush originally said he would request from Congress, at a mind-boggling $87 Billion (over and above the $72 Billion already squandered and the on-going monthly cost of $4 Billion/Month ...).
(But Bushy-boy isn't asking his War-Profiteers, Corporate Robber-Barons & Richest-of-the-Rich who were awarded the lion's share of his immoral Tax Cuts for the Rich (Welfare for Gluttonous Cronies) to sacrifice, only the low income, middle-class, fixed-income retirees, and families struggling to make ends meet. Refer to "War-Profiteers & Wealthiest Ought to be Patriotic & Pay for Bush's War Along with the Rest of Us" on http://www.tblog.com/template... and "Daddy Bush 41 has Hit the Jackpot from Baby Bush 43 War on Iraq!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ).
"We the People" are being terrorized by the corrupt and imbecilic panic-stricken Bush Regime, attempting to frighten and intimidate us all into supporting massive expenditures on warfare and neo-con nightmares, rather than improving the lives of our own people and nation. (Refer to "Project for the New American Century (PNAC) ... Exposed!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... )
A.N.S.W.E.R. responds to Bush's Shameless and Shameful Screed, entitled "A.N.S.W.E.R. COALITION RESPONDS TO PRESIDENT BUSH'S NATIONAL TELEVISION ADDRESS OF SEPTEMBER 7, 2003" on http://www.iacenter.org/bush_... , as follows:
"President Bush's illegal war and occupation of Iraq has left the Administration in a position of extreme political vulnerability. He now wants the United Nations and U.S. taxpayers to bail him out. Having defied U.S. and world public opinion - which preemptively opposed his planned, illegal invasion of Iraq - the Bush administration wants to internationalize responsibility for the U.S. quagmire in Iraq. With U.S. casualties mounting daily he wants the soldiers of other countries to do more of the dying to take the heat off himself at home. And in the name of fighting international terrorism he wants the already suffering working class, poor and middle class communities to foot the bill to the tune of another $87 billion (triple what they had projected). Having had his public rationale(s) for the war exposed in recent weeks as a complete fraud, Bush shamelessly reverts to the time-tested tactic of trying to scare the hell out of people.
President Bush's conduct on Iraq - before, during and now after the Iraq war - has made the old cliché about truth being the "first casualty in war" to be a grand understatement. Everything about this "pre-emptive war" is premised on deceit. Even in the realm of ever duplicitous "world politics," the Administration's pattern of cynical deception was and remains breathtaking. Tonight's nationally televised address conforms to this pattern of endless deceit.
1) Bush lied before the war. Iraq never posed a grave and imminent danger to the United States. Iraq had nothing to do with September 11th. Iraq never possessed nuclear weapons. Iraq was not rapidly trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. This was a war of aggression against the second-largest oil producer on the planet that had been weakened by a decade of economic sanctions and political isolation.
2) Bush lied during the war. This was not liberation. The Iraqi people did not welcome the U.S. armed forces as liberators but as occupiers. Their lives did not become better. On the contrary, this culturally rich society has been torn apart, deprived of necessary services to sustain civilian society and on the brink of internal collapse.
3) Bush is lying now. Iraq is not the battlefield between "international terrorism" and the forces of so-called "freedom" and "civilization." The growing resistance to U.S. occupation is the consequence of an angry and proud people in Iraq who insist on reclaiming their own sovereignty. Having killed tens of thousands of Iraqis in an illegal invasion - and a growing number of dead and maimed U.S. soldiers - the Bush team wants U.S. taxpayers to spend at least another $87 billion on the occupation of Iraq. The vast majority sentiment in Iraq wants the U.S. soldiers to leave and the U.S. GIs want to go home. The Iraqi people's call to end the occupation is not a call for even more foreign nations to occupy it and to take a share in the looting of Iraq's natural resources. The truth is that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is viewed by the people of the Middle East as an act of "international terrorism" and as such it can only lead to a dangerous escalation in the cycle of violence.
Why did Bush address the nation tonight? He, like Nixon a generation ago, fears that the people of the United States are turning against this criminal war. During his administration, Bush has only rarely felt that he must address the people, and does so when he fears that a sentiment is growing strong enough to challenge his illegal actions. He must then lie more to convince the people of the U.S. to support his criminal endeavors, or at least acquiesce in them. His shameful "top gun" act aboard the aircraft carrier the U.S.S. Lincoln, in front of a "Mission Accomplished" banner, was an effort to tell people in the United States and around the world that the war was over and that no more critical attention need be focused on Iraq. Tonight, with that lie laid bare, he is seeking to go a new route, to convince people that far from being over, the war is a high stakes game to save "civilization" and "freedom" and that it requires endless sacrifice in human life and vitally needed resources.
The A.N.S.W.E.R. coalition calls on people in the United States to join together for a massive demonstration in Washington DC on October 25th to demand "Bring the Troops Home Now, End the Occupation of Iraq." Tens of thousands will be in the streets that day as the antiwar movement picks up new momentum. For information about transportation to Washington DC or to get literature go to http://www.internationalanswe... "
War-Profiteers & Wealthiest Ought to be Patriotic & Pay for Bush's War Along with the Rest of Us
"We the People" should demand that Congress say NO to the Bush Regime's "supplemental" appropriation request for $87 billion, unless war-profiteers, corporate robber-barons, and the wealthiest, who are the primary beneficiaries of their corrupt tax cuts and wars, bankrupting this nation, pay their fair share instead of asking average Americans to bear the entire burden! Aren't the Bushies' Cronies Patriotic?
Already, the American people are burdened with a debt of over $72 billion, and an on-going $4 billion/month squandered on an illegal, immoral and unnecessary incursion into Iraq, that has turned into a bloody guerrilla quagmire due to the Bush Regime's arrogance, ineptitude and bad planning.
Given the tragic deaths of over 336 American & British Soldiers and over 7700+ innocent Iraqi civilians, as well as countless injured and maimed human beings, I am astonished that the Bush Regime have not been forced to ask Cheney, Rummy, Wolfy, Feith, Bolton & Rice to resign (all lied about phony WMDs representing an "imminent threat"). For their true motives, refer to "The Price of Freedom in Iraq and Power in Washington", by Ceara Donnelley and William D. Hartung, on http://www.worldpolicy.org/pr... .
Indeed, Congress should be conducting an investigation into the lies, deceptions and corruptions perpetrated by the Bush Regime in their ghoulish lust to install the blood-thirsty "Project for New American Century (PNAC)", having effectively high-jacked our U.S. Government, and are transforming us into a neo-fascist Corporate Global Empire. Refer to "This war on terrorism is bogus: The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination", by Michael Meacher, on http://www.guardian.co.uk/com...,3604,1036571,00.html .
The Bush Regime awarded tax cut representing between $807 billion and $1.062 trillion over ten years (2003-2013), if the expiration dates are extended or made permanent, to corporations & the filthy rich. Refer to 'Center on Budget & Policy Priorites' report "True Cost of New Tax Legislation May Reach $1 Trillion" on http://www.cbpp.org/5-28-03ta... . The following tax cuts that awarded grossly obscene benefits to corporate "top dogs" and "fat cats" should be over-turned NOW:
If these immoral tax cuts alone were repealed, that would raise $544-$799 Billion over the next 10 years (2003-2013). These tax cuts benefit the richest-of-the-rich as "the top 1% of stock owners hold almost half (47.7%) of all stocks, while the bottom 80% own just 4.1% of total stock holdings. Stock market gains were similarly concentrated among top stock owners, with nearly 35% of the gains going to the wealthiest 1% of households from 1989-98." (Ref. "New Report on State of Working Americans Finds That Income Rises for Typical Family, But So Do Work Hours & Household Debt" in 2000 on the Economic Policy Institute's http://www.epinet.org/content... .)
The 'Center on Budget & Policy Priorities' reports the truth regarding the actual impact upon Americans of the Bush Regime's tax cuts:
"2003 Tax Cut for Households at Different Income Levels":
* Bottom 50 million households $0
* Bottom 74 million households $100 or less
* Middle fifth of households $217 (average)
* Households earning $1 million or more $93,500 (average)
The Bushies dishonestly persuaded the uneducated or corrupt to support their tax cuts by saying "Ya'll will get (on average) $1,000 per family" (It's BUNK!). It was a swindle of the Average American Worker: If my salary was "averaged" with that of Bill Gates, I'd be fabulously wealthy. Why should we be surprised? The Bush Regime lied about motives for war, taxes & the economy, and, the environment.
Bush claimed in January 2003, "Our first goal is clear," in his State of the Union address: "We must have an economy that grows fast enough to employ every man and woman who seeks a job." (Source: "Bush urges tax cuts to bolster the economy" on http://www.msnbc.com/news/865... ). It hasn't worked. Indeed, we've lost 93,000 jobs in August 2003 alone ... Bush has lost 3,000,000 jobs on his watch.
Moreover, successful billionaires like Bill Gates Sr, and Warren Buffet oppose Bush's recklessness. Refer to Washington Post's, May 20, 2003, article by Warren Buffet entitled "Dividend Voodoo", and he cites:
"When I was young, President Kennedy asked Americans to "pay any price, bear any burden" for our country. Against that challenge, the 3 percent overall federal tax rate I would pay -- if a Berkshire dividend were to be tax-free -- seems a bit light."
"Administration officials say that the $310 million suddenly added to my wallet would stimulate the economy because I would invest it and thereby create jobs. But they conveniently forget that if Berkshire kept the money, it would invest that same amount, creating jobs as well."
Now, we Americans are being asked to squander a mind-boggling additional $87 Billion on the Bushies' War ... Who will pay their bills if the corrupt Bush Regime have their way?
Not War-Profiteers! Not Corporate Robber-barons! Not Defense Industry Gluttons! Not the Wealthy Oligarchy! Nope, not them, and not the Bushies!
Why aren't the profits from war-profiteers confiscated to pay for the war? Why aren't the CEO pay-packets restricted to reasonable compensations, instead of obscenely excessive amounts that rape the employees, assets & pension funds (At Rate of Growth of CEO Pay Over Last 2 Decades, Minimum Wage Would Now Be Over $25/Hour!)? Why aren't the wealthy oligarchy asked to make a sacrifice? Why aren't the Bushies asked to contribute and make amends for their incompetence and wooden-headedness?
Those who are asked to bear the burden are the poor, low-income, middle-class and fixed-income retirees, and, families who are struggling to make ends meet. Unemployed 9,000,000 people aren't getting any help from the Bush Regime, in the way of new jobs, or unemployment assistance.
We lack money for proper education for our kids! We lack money for universal health care! We lack money for jobs! We lack money for a clean environment! We lack money for improvements to our infrastructure!
This is OUTRAGEOUS!
The Bush Regime doesn't lack money for gluttonous Defense Spending of over $450 Billion per annum, representing an expenditure that exceeds that of the next 18 richest nations combined. The Bush Regime doesn't lack money to enrich their corrupt cronies. The Bush Regime doesn't lack money for wars to massacre thousands of people (Where are the mass graves of the 7700+ Iraqis killed by the Bushies?)!
"We the People" demand that Congress rejects Bush's "supplemental" appropriation to wantonly squander hard-working taxpayer dollars on Iraq, unless the U.S.A. Budget is Revisited, and the Tax Structure & Expenditures are Modified to be FAIR. As it is, it's a rape of vulnerable Americans to enrich Corporations and the Wealthy Oligarchy.
The Bush Regime admits it made mistakes, but says (conveniently) that "we have no choice" but to spend whatever it takes to clean-up their bungled mess. Then, it follows that the Bushies must themselves pay some restitution and make-up for their failure-- that is best done by repealing their obscenely unjust tax cuts for the gluttonous rich.
The consequences of failure to be fair to Americans is unthinkable. If "we have no choice" but to repair the damage and destruction caused by our wanton rape of Iraq, then "we have no choice" but to do right by America!
Bush's Slide Down His Own Slippery Slope as the Truth Emerges
Americans are back from their summer holidays, and it appears that some of our fellow citizens are beginning to pay a little attention to the shambolic state of the union. As they commence to take stock of current affairs, Bush is sliding down the slippery slope of his own making, as the truth emerges regarding his destructive domestic and foreign policies.
In "Bush Job Approval Falls in Two U.S. Polls", "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's job approval rating dropped in two polls released on Saturday amid concern about the economy and instability in Iraq." on http://cnn.netscape.cnn.com/n...%2F20030906%2F163612519.htm&sc=rontz&photoid=2003 0905CDH104 , and reports:
" Forty-five percent gave Bush positive marks for job performance in the new survey, down from 52 percent in August and the lowest since January 2001, the month he took office.
"In a Time magazine/CNN poll of registered voters, the president's approval slid to 52 percent. The same poll recorded 63 percent approval for Bush back in May.
"The economy clearly is the chief concern," pollster John Zogby said, noting that recent surveys found more people fearful of losing their jobs within the next year.
"A Labor Department report Friday showed a weak labor market as initial claims for unemployment aid rose unexpectedly, even as other indicators showed the economy gaining strength. "
[The Bushies dishonestly try to pretend the economy is improving, when no-one will invest in the stock-market, as Bush betrayed his promise to prosecute corporate wrong-doers (Bush's Buddy, Kenny-boy (Enron) Lay is still at large, having swindled employees, retirees & stock-holders), and, the Bush Regime have not demanded institutional and accounting reforms (via the S.E.C.) that would prevent the plundering of company assets, jobs, and pensions. Bush lost 93,000 more jobs in August, and 3 million jobs thus far! Bush is a Miserable Failure Who Panders to Corporate Robber-Barons.
"Iraq, where U.S. soldiers face daily attacks amid rebuilding attempts, has also hurt Bush's standing, Zogby said. "
[Bush has created an Iraqi guerrilla quagmire where 336 US & British Soldiers are massacred thus far, and over 1000 injured (maimed, lost limbs, etc.), as well as killing over 7700 innocent Iraqi civilians. Bush has also squandered over $72 billion thus far, with a current recurring cost of $4 billion/month and no end in sight. Bush is a Miserable Failure Who Panders to Neo-Con "Arm Chair" "Chicken-Hawks", War-Profiteers & the Gluttonous & Bloated Military Industrial Complex.
No wonder, as Americans awaken from their summer slumber and face the nightmarish reality, they are disgusted by the Bush Regime's ineptitude and corruption. Furthermore, as the real truth unfolds about a ghoulish, bizarre 'Project for the New American Century' (PNAC) dreamt-up in the "bowels" of the neo-con, neo-fascist organizations, including members of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), by these high-jackers of the U.S. Government, is it clear that we face unprecedented dangers (not from without) from within.
"We the People" must demand that our Congress take action and investigate into the lies, deceptions and criminal activities perpetrated by the Bush Regime.
In "This war on terrorism is bogus: The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination", by Michael Meacher, on http://www.guardian.co.uk/com...,3604,1036571,00.html . An excerpt:
"Massive attention has now been given - and rightly so - to the reasons why Britain went to war against Iraq. But far too little attention has focused on why the US went to war, and that throws light on British motives too. The conventional explanation is that after the Twin Towers were hit, retaliation against al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan was a natural first step in launching a global war against terrorism. Then, because Saddam Hussein was alleged by the US and UK governments to retain weapons of mass destruction, the war could be extended to Iraq as well. However this theory does not fit all the facts. The truth may be a great deal murkier.
"We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
"The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says "while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
"The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document attributed to Wolfowitz and Libby which said the US must "discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role". It refers to key allies such as the UK as "the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership". It describes peacekeeping missions as "demanding American political leadership rather than that of the UN". It says "even should Saddam pass from the scene", US bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently... as "Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has". It spotlights China for "regime change", saying "it is time to increase the presence of American forces in SE Asia".
"The document also calls for the creation of "US space forces" to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent "enemies" using the internet against the US. It also hints that the US may consider developing biological weapons "that can target specific genotypes [and] may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool". "
CNN Poll: Bush is in Trouble ... "It's Bush's Economy, Stupid!"
The next presidential election (November 2004) is 14 months away from now ... too, too far into the future! Unfortunately, it is a pathetic historical trend that most Americans don't pay attention to political issues until the final three or four months run-up prior to an election.
A CNN Poll published today suggests that Bush's high ratings enjoyed in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack, and his immoral and illegal war in Iraq (war always makes Presidents popular unless they turn into guerrilla quagmires ... hmmm).
The labor market is a shambolic mess ("Labor Market For Americans Worsens Under the Bush Administration!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ), with 93,000 more jobs lost in August 2003-- Bush has destroyed 3 million jobs on his watch. Massive tax cuts for corporations and the rich, while running-up record-level deficits, will place an increasingly back-breaking burden on low income, middle-class and fixed income retirees in America.
Moreover, the obscene squandering of over $72 billion thus far in Iraq, with recurring costs of $4 billion per month, is insane-- and Bush is now forced to seek help from "Les Enfants Terribles" and "Old Europe" whom he treated infamously, simply because they insisted that inspections should continue, and war should only be employed as a last resort. ("The Neo-Relevant United Nations is Now Needed to Clean-Up the Bush Regime's Fiasco in Iraq!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... )
With more US Soldiers having been tragically killed after Bush foolishly bragged "Mission Accomplished!" on 1st May, than beforehand, and thousands of Iraqis massacred, it is clear that Iraq has become a neo-Vietnam, and not a neo-Post WW2 Germany or Japan as claimed by propagandists neo-cons Rice & Rummy ("Condi's & Rummy's Phony History" on http://www.tblog.com/template...).
It is becoming clearer to enlightened and educated minds, that Bush is indeed, a "Miserable Failure" both on foreign and domestic policies affecting the United States of America, and the entire World.
This is the beginning of the end, for a foolhardy, contemptuous, arrogant buffoon, Bush and his corrupt regime, who deserve to be deposed. If Congress did its job, then we would be watching an investigation into the crimes committed by the Bush Gang misleading the country into a war based upon lies and deceptions-- that is illegal under the US Constitution: wherein Bush would be tried and impeached. As it is, we most probably must await 2004, and use the Right to Vote to defeat this corrupt cabal.
"We the People" need an enlightened government who are concerned about the welfare and conditions for all of our citizens, and not simply the corporate robber-barons and the richest-of-the-rich. "It's Bush's Economy, Stupid!":-- Bush's tax cuts, Bush's deficits, Bush's job losses, Bush's insane warfare, Bush's gifts to Halliburton & Corporate Goons and, Bush's alienation of our allies, etc. And, despite productivity improvements, no one with a brain cell left in their head, is investing in a stock-market, that allows a few crooks to take-the-money-and-run, since no accounting reforms by the Bush Regime (via the S.E.C.) have been put in place to keep Bush's buddies like Kenny-boy (Enron) Lay from swindling employees & stock-holders, and stealing the corporate assets.
Definitely For Bush? 29% Definitely Against Bush? 41% Might Vote For or Against Bush? 25%
(CNN) -- Can any Democrat beat President Bush in 2004?
"Only 38 percent of all Americans think so, and Bush leads any of the active presidential candidates in hypothetical head-to-head match-ups. But don't write off the 2004 election just yet.
Some 41 percent of all registered voters say they will definitely vote against Bush; just 29 percent say they will definitely vote for him. So Bush must woo about seven in ten swing voters -- not a difficult task for a popular incumbent, but far from a certainty.
Who will the Democrats throw into the ring against Bush in 2004? National polls are traditionally unreliable at predicting the eventual nominee at this stage of the game.
It looks like Massachusetts Senator John Kerry is benefiting from an "announcement bounce," gaining support as a result of this week's carefully choreographed appearance in front of an aircraft carrier in South Carolina to announce, yet again, that he is running for president.
We have seen these "announcement bounces" before (and seen how ephemeral they are); nonetheless, this particular bounce is enough to put Kerry at the top of the list with 16 percent of all registered Democrats to 13 percent for Joe Lieberman and 11 percent for Howard Dean.
Dick Gephardt has dropped back into single digits with 7 percent, putting him in a tie for fourth place with John Edwards. "
Bush Regime's "Cost-Plus" Welfare Program For Halliburton & Corporate Cronies
The Bush Regime have been funneling billions of dollars towards their corporate cronies faster than Average American Taxpayers can "deliver-the-goods", like medieval serfs paying tithes, to our corrupt Corporate Neo-Feudal Lords. Bushies have plunged us into record-level deficits and debts, and the day-of-reckoning is ahead of us (please don't shed-any-tears for corporate robber-barons & the wealthy oligarchy who were awarded massive tax cuts & are living the neo-Belle Epoque).
Ironically, the dishonest Bush Gang slammed Saddam Hussein for living like an Emperor in palatial conditions, while the Iraqi People lived in poor ? (compared with America's poor?) conditions. Perhaps all Americans should pay a visit to Bush's Palace in Crawford, and then travel down to Brownsville (417 miles), where poor American People live in sub-standard impoverished conditions that would have made the Roman Emperors blush. Read "Why isn't there a "Pre-emptive" War on Poverty?" on http://www.tblog.com/template... .
Meanwhile, if "follow-the-money" has any merit to discover a greedy thug's motives, then it is no wonder that the deals made in the "bowels" of the Bush White House with Corporate U.S.A. are unsavory, immoral, and possibly illegal. Read "Utopian Myths About Corporate America" on http://www.tblog.com/template... .
The Bush Regime and their corporate cronies are war-profiteers (used to be called Traitors), who are gorging on mountains of dollars, from the blood of US & British Soldiers (Death Toll is 336) and Innocent Iraqi Civilians (Death Toll is 7700+), and the record-level $480 Billion deficits, and squandering of $72+ Billion in Iraq thus far, with countless billions to be stolen by the rich in the future. The brunt of Bush's obscene costs in blood and treasure are borne by the poor, low-income, middle-class and fixed-income retirees, not the corporate or wealthy swindlers.
Does it make sense that the Bush Regime gave massive tax cuts to their Corporate Cronies & the Wealthy Oligarchy, while squandering Taxpayer Dollars on dangerous & destructive adventures enriching Corporate Robber-barons? Of course not. Read as "Daddy Bush 41 has Hit the Jackpot from Baby Bush 43 War on Iraq!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... .
Is the Bush Regime's spend-spend-spend-America into massive debt, enriching the richest-of-the-rich and impoverishing everyone else, sustainable? Of course not. Read "Bush's Lootocracy in the USA and Iraq" on http://www.tblog.com/template... .
Is the Bush Regime's pandering to the Military Industrial Complex wasting hundreds of billions on boon-doggles, good for America? Of course not. Read "Inside the 'Bowels' of the Pentagon" on http://www.tblog.com/template... .
"We the People" are now faced with the Bush Regime's bizarre, panic-stricken turn-around, and hysterical attempts to get "Old Europe" to spill their blood and squander their treasure ... and what do they get in return? Ah, there's the rub: the satisfaction of saving the Bush Regime's political life ... the same regime that treated them like garbage, demonized & insulted them. Read "The Neo-Relevant United Nations is Now Needed to Clean-Up the Bush Regime's Fiasco in Iraq!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... and and "At Current Rate of Spending, War in Iraq is Costing $48 Billion Per Annum!" on http://www.tblog.com/template... .
Time is up for the Bush Regime's "Cost-Plus" Welfare for Halliburton and other Corporate Cronies ... their scam, con-game and swindle is exposed. The Bushies treat the American people, US Constitution & Bill of Rights, and the entire world community, with contempt and condescension. Now is the time to express our collective outrage and put a stop to it!
"We've recently learned Vice President Dick Cheney's old company (which still cuts him regular checks) is getting hundreds of millions of tax dollars more than we thought. As The Washington Post reports, "as much as one-third of the monthly $3.9 billion cost of keeping US troops in Iraq is going to independent contractors," most of which are Halliburton. The company Cheney once ran has been handed no-bid [!] contracts for "building and managing military bases, logistical support for the 1,200 intelligence officers hunting Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, delivering mail and producing millions of hot meals. Often dressed in Army fatigues with civilian patches on their shoulders, Halliburton employees and contract personnel have become an integral part of Army life in Iraq."
More emerges all the time, often via the indispensable Halliburton-related web page of House Democrat Henry Waxman. But perhaps the most irritating news comes in the second-to-last graph of The Post's article: "the cost-plus-award fee system ... is the basis for most contracts." I once worked for US AID in Kazakhstan, and afterwards discussed cost-plus accounting and other outrages in an article in Harper's Magazine. Under a cost-plus contract, one is reimbursed all costs -- and then paid a percentage of those costs (the plus) as a fee. The upshot: You will never spend $1 million to do a job when you can spend $10 million. Cost-plus is the ying to Enron accounting's yang.
To see cost-plus magic in action, check out "The Promise and the Threat" post by the wonderful "Girl Blog from Iraq" (scroll down to Aug. 28 to find it): "My cousin, a structural engineer, is a bridge freak. He spends hours talking about pillars and trusses and steel structures to anyone who'll listen," writes the Baghdad blogger. She says her cousin was asked by the American occupying authority to estimate the cost of rebuilding a bridge in south Baghdad. He and his team came up with $300,000.
"Let's pretend my cousin is a dolt. Let's pretend he hasn't been working with bridges for over 17 years. Let's pretend he didn't work on replacing at least 20 of the 133 bridges damaged during the first Gulf War. Let's pretend he's wrong and the cost of rebuilding this bridge is four times the number they estimated -- let's pretend it will actually cost $1.2 million. Let's just use our imagination. A week later, the New Diyala Bridge contract was given to an American company. This particular company estimated the cost of rebuilding the bridge would be around -- brace yourselves -- $50 million!!" "
Perhaps all citizens of the world should be required to read at least two tales:
Hans Christian Andersen's "The Emperor's New Clothes", and,
"The Legends of Robin Hood" ...
In today's time, both fables have lessons so relevant to the dilemmas we must confront in the lies, deceptions and corrupt acts by the imperial Bush and Blair Regimes:
W. J. Linton's "An Hour Of Robin Hood" includes his beautifully crafted verse:
"O for the life of Robin Hood, to wander an outlaw free Rather than crawl in the market-place of human slavery: Better with men In the wildest glen, Than palaced with Infamy."
Better with men, In the wildest glen, Than palaced with Infamy ... We live in a time, when so many make their pact with the proverbial "devil" and collaborate or turn-a-blind-eye to the outrageous undermining of the great principles of our democracy by the corrupt Bush Regime, including their:
* Dangerous Executive Orders & Patriot Acts ("The Reign of Terror: Executive Orders & Patriot Acts" on http://www.tblog.com/template... );
The Bush Regime's damaging decisions have all culminated in their illegal & immoral incursion into Iraq, resulting in a bloody, guerrilla quagmire that has taken a heart-breaking toll on US, British & Iraqi lives, and created a back-breaking toll on the American Taxpayer, particularly those in low-income, middle-class and fixed-income retirees who will bear the brunt of the Bush Regime's record-level deficits & future debts.
In "The Emperor's New Clothes", the little boy is the only brave soul to point out that the vain Emperor's non-existent clothes are phony. (Hans Christian Andersen had the good sense not to write a realistic epilogue, in which the little boy is probably tortured & hanged, for being alone in crying-out the truth, that no one else had the courage to speak!). In his fable, once the little boy speaks the truth, the crowd is ashamed to have collaborated with the foolish Emperor's pretences. Furthermore, the Emperor himself is ashamed of his own vanity & abuse of power!
In our time, tragically, the crowd is not yet ashamed to have collaborated in Bush's & Blair's phony pretexts for an insane, cruel and blood-thirsty war, based upon their "cooked-up", "sexed-up" propaganda of massive WMDs to be "imminently" used against us by Saddam Hussein. Don't even bother "holding-your-breathe" awaiting Emperor Bush & Emperor Blair, to show any contrition for their own vanity & abuse of power.
The only surprise is that the World has not risen up and cried out "But The Emperor Has No WMDs!" But, which Emperor is to be exposed first: Bush or Blair?
"We the People" of both the United States of America and Great Britain, should be asking our respective branches of government, our elected representatives, to conduct an investigation into Emperor Bush's and Emperor Blair's Regimes and their collective Crimes Against Humanity.
It would appear that Blair's carefully crafted web-of-lies is unravelling, as reported today in "Blow to No 10 dossier claims" by Julia Day, Matthew Tempest and Ciar Byrne, on http://politics.guardian.co.u...,13747,1034913,00.html :
· Dossier 'too strong', says MoD man · MoD: no documents shredded · Police 'confident' of suicide
"A senior intelligence official today dealt a blow to Tony Blair's claims that the dossier on Iraq had not been "sexed up" when he said the language used in the foreword, which was personally signed off by the prime minister, was "too strong".
Brian Jones, a retired branch head of the defence intelligence analysis staff, told the Hutton inquiry his staff had concerns about the dossier at the centre of No 10's row with the BBC, parts of which he described as "over-egged".
But he said they had been particular concerned about the infamous 45-minute claim, which sparked the war of words between Downing Street and the BBC.
Dr Jones said the use of the word "indicated" to express the strength of the intelligence on the 45-minute claim in the main body of the dossier was "a little bit strong but I felt I could live with that".
But when it came to the executive summary and foreword he said: "I thought they were too strong."
Dr Jones told Lord Hutton that Dr Kelly, who had regular contact with his department and had the security clearance to come and go as he liked, was certainly aware of concerns among staff about the use of intelligence in the dossier.
Dr Jones told the inquiry his department had been concerned about "the tendency ... to, shall we say, over-egg certain assessments, particularly in relation to the production of chemical weapons"."
Is U.S. Secretary of Defense, Donald "Rummy" Rumsfeld really instigating terrorist attacks upon America? Today, America confronts the frightening phenomena of orwellian abuse of power by the Bush Regime. Chris Floyd writes a compelling argument that should ring alarm bells amongst all Americans, across this nation, especially since the Bush Regime refused to divulge what they knew in the days & weeks leading up to the 9/11 attacks, to the 9/11 Investigative Committee.
The 9/11 Investigative Committee complained that the Bush Regime stonewalled: sure they did, as they refused an investigation for over a year, hoping it would "blow over" but for the dogged persistence by the Families of 9/11 Victims. Americans have a right to know "what they knew, and when they knew it" with reference to 9/11, which the Bush Gang then dishonestly used along with phony WMDs posing an "imminent threat" to aggressively invade a sovereign nation, Iraq. By the way, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11.
Moreover, the Bush Regime should be forced to disclose Cheney's energy meetings in 2000 & 2001, prior to 9/11, in which the very same corporate robber-barons who profitted from staging a bogus energy crisis in the summer of 2000 costing consumers tens of billions, are now gorging on the blood and treasure from the Iraqi war. (Read "Phony Energy Crisis Exposed" on http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cs... )
What promises did Cheney & co. make in 2000-2001 (prior to 9/11) to his Energy Cronies that would enable them to swindle America and the World? Did the Bush Regime plan their illegal and immoral incursion into Iraq prior to 9/11 to enrich their Corporate Campaign Contributors? How has the Bush Regime benefited from 9/11, terrorism and, warfare, to divert attention from their insane tax cuts for corporations & the rich, and to bolster their popularity ratings by scaring folks silly?
Is it legal to establish a rogue group (Office of Special Planning (OSP)), comprised of neo-con ideologues, that effectively high-jacked policies and procedures, and bypassed professionals in both the State Department and Department of Defense (DOD), in order to "sex-up" a weapons dossier to mislead Americans and the World into envisioning "mushroom clouds", nuclear weapons, and biological/chemical weapons (all non-existent) about to be launched "imminently" by Saddam Hussein?
The OSP is not a department within the DOD, but instead comprises Rummy's & Wolfy's bon amis, who aren't on the US Government Payroll (but are instead associates of the neo-fascist American Enterprise Institute (AEI)). These dark horses planned their murky strategy (sic) for bypassing official government channels, with Cheney making unprecedented visits to the CIA, and intimidating intelligence agents into supporting their blood-thirsty war. Others who had intelligence the Bush Gang didn't like were ignored or punished.
What is this "Project for New American Century", that the neo-cons have dreamt-up from the "bowels" of their nightmares to create a neo-feudal Global Corporate Empire, in which they play the roles of neo-Emperors? Don't "We the People" have any voice in the Bush Regime's ghoulish plans for America? Under our system of government, the neo-cons aren't supposed to be above the rule of law? Or has that changed too, since their motto is: "9/11 Changed Everything!" ... Everything? Hmmmm ... that's tragic.
"How long before the whole mountain we call the United States of America comes down? As a nation, we've been sliding down that "slippery slope" for decades, grasping at a twig here, a rock there to slow our journey to oblivion.
All the rights and ideals embodied in our Constitution—the glue that has held us together as Americans—are being rapidly stripped away by a criminal gang that has finally succeeded in seizing power and is bent on holding on to it at all costs.
To our criminal rulers not only are our Constitutional rights legal fictions, but they have stood the Constitution on its head to grant themselves powers denied them by the framers. So much for their nonsensical palaver about being strict constructionists. "
"This age: layers of lime harden in the sick son's blood... There's nowhere to run from the tyrant-epoch... Who else will you kill? Who else glorify? What other lies will you invent?" Osip Mandelshtam, "1 January 1924"
"This column stands foursquare with the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, when he warns that there will be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large. We know, as does the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, that this statement is an incontrovertible fact, a matter of scientific certainty. And how can we and the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, be so sure that there will be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large?
Because these attacks will be instigated at the order of the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense.
This astonishing admission was buried deep in a story which was itself submerged by mounds of gray newsprint and glossy underwear ads in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times. There--in an article by military analyst William Arkin, detailing the vast expansion of the secret armies being massed by the former Nixon bureaucrat now lording it over the Pentagon--came the revelation of Rumsfeld's plan to create "a super-Intelligence Support Activity" that will "bring together CIA and military covert action, information warfare, intelligence, and cover and deception."
According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new organization--the "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)"--will carry out secret missions designed to "stimulate reactions" among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to "counterattack" by U.S. forces.
In other words--and let's say this plainly, clearly and soberly, so that no one can mistake the intention of Rumsfeld's plan--the United States government is planning to use "cover and deception" and secret military operations to provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent people. Let's say it again: Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush and the other members of the unelected regime in Washington plan to deliberately foment the murder of innocent people--your family, your friends, your lovers, you--in order to further their geopolitical ambitions.
For P2OG is not designed solely to flush out terrorists and bring them to justice--a laudable goal in itself, although the Rumsfeld way of combating terrorism by causing it is pure moral lunacy. (Or should we use the Regime's own preferred terminology and just call it "evil"?) No, it seems the Pee-Twos have bigger fish to fry. Once they have sparked terrorists into action--by killing their family members? luring them with loot? fueling them with drugs? plying them with jihad propaganda? messing with their mamas? or with agents provocateurs, perhaps, who infiltrate groups then plan and direct the attacks themselves?--they can then take measures against the "states/sub-state actors accountable" for "harboring" the Rumsfeld-roused gangs. What kind of measures exactly? Well, the classified Pentagon program puts it this way: "Their sovereignty will be at risk."
The Pee-Twos will thus come in handy whenever the Regime hankers to add a little oil-laden real estate or a new military base to the Empire's burgeoning portfolio. Just find a nest of violent malcontents, stir 'em with a stick, and presto: instant "justification" for whatever level of intervention/conquest/rap ine you might desire. And what if the territory you fancy doesn't actually harbor any convenient marauders to use for fun and profit? Well, surely a God-like "super-Intelligence Support Activity" is capable of creation ex nihilo, yes?
The Rumsfeld-Bush plan to employ murder and terrorism for political, financial and ideological gain does have historical roots (besides al Qaeda, the Stern Gang, the SA, the SS, the KGB, the IRA, the UDF, Eta, Hamas, Shining Path and countless other upholders of Bushian morality, decency and freedom). We refer of course to Operations Northwoods, oft mentioned in these pages: the plan that America's top military brass presented to President John Kennedy in 1963, calling for a phony terrorist campaign--complete with bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans--to provide "justification" for an invasion of Cuba, the Mafia/Corporate fiefdom which had recently been lost to Castro.
Kennedy rejected the plan, and was killed a few months later. Now Rumsfeld has resurrected Northwoods, but on a far grander scale, with resources at his disposal undreamed of by those brass of yore, with no counterbalancing global rival to restrain him--and with an ignorant, corrupt president who has shown himself all too eager to embrace any means whatsoever that will augment the wealth and power of his own narrow, undemocratic, elitist clique.
There is prestuplyeniye here, transgression, a stepping-over--deliberate ly, with open eyes, with forethought, planning, and conscious will--of lines that should never be crossed. Acting in deadly symbiosis with rage-maddened killers, God-crazed ranters and those supreme "sub-state actors," the mafias, Bush and his cohorts are plunging the world into an abyss, an endless night of black ops, retribution, blowback, deceit, of murder and terror--wholesale, retail, state-sponsored, privatized; of fear and degradation, servility, chaos, and the perversion of all that's best in us, of all that we've won from the bestiality of our primal nature, all that we've raised above the mindless ravening urges and impulses still boiling in the mud of our monkey brains.
It's not a fight for freedom; it's a retreat into darkness.
And the day will be a long time coming."
"Slim Shady" Eminem is Rated More Trustworthy Than Dubya!
Several polls conducted recently suggest that almost anybody, and I mean anybody, is deemed more truthful than Dubya.
In Katrina vanden Heuvel's Editor's Cut in "The Nation", she reports:
"It sounds like a Texas wrestling match: Slim vs Dubya. But in a recent poll that asked about truthfulness, rapper Eminem scored higher than President Bush 43. According to a global marketing agency, Euro RSCG Worldwide, 53 percent of American adults aged 35-44 believe that Eminem's lyrics contain "more truth" than Bush's speeches. (62 percent in the 18-24 age group agreed.) It turns out that we may need to do a better job of protecting our kids from our President's gangsta' rap." [Ref. Editor's Cut, 09/01/2003, "Slim Shady vs. Dubya" on http://www.thenation.com/edcu... ]
In this month's "The Washington Monthly", Dubya is ranked the most dishonest President in recent history, having told more serious "tall tales" destructive to the USA, than his predecessors ... And, that's quite a feat! [Ref. "The Mendacity Index", September 2003, on http://www.washingtonmonthly.... ]. The panel ranked Bush's mendacity at 3.6 out of a possible Liar's Score of 5.0. The results of readers taking the survey consider Bush's Lies as having a far more dangerous impact upon our nation, than do the panel.
Many others have noted that Bush's horrific mendacity extends beyond the very serious lies, deceptions & cover-ups regarding the phony WMDs posing an "imminent threat", resulting in his immoral & illegal incursion into Iraq with the deaths of over 330 US & British Soldiers, and over 7700 innocent Iraqi civilians.
When George W. Bush ran for president three years ago, he promised us an era of responsibility in Washington--instead we've got an era of irresponsibility unparalleled in our history. A week after discovering that the cost of occupying Iraq will be double the original estimates, we found out that the nation's deficit is 50 percent higher than estimated just five months ago. In fact, during his two-and-a-half years in office, the President has misled us, the American people, on nearly every policy initiative his administration has put forth. ... The following information contrasts the administation’s assertions with what the administration has actually done: ... ASSERTION: “. . . [O]ur budget will run a deficit that will be small and short term.” (President Bush, State of the Union address,1/28/2003)
TRUTH: “... by 2013 the deficit will reach $530 billion or 3.0 of Gross Domestic product, equivalent to $2,300 for each household in America. In addition, such a policy of amassing ever greater debt over the next decade will cause the cost of annual interest payments on the debt to soar to $425 billion a year by 2013. . .” (CBPP, $300 Billion Deficits, As Far as the Eye Can See, 7/8/2003) ... ASSERTION: In January 2003, Bush defended No Child Left Behind: “The main reservations we’ve heard in the year since we passed the reform have come from some adults, not the children, who say the testing requirement is an unfunded mandate on the states. Well, that’s not true. We put up $387 million to provide for testing …We demanded excellence. We’re going to pay for the accountability systems to make sure that we do get excellence.” (Official statements, Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, 1/13/03)
TRUTH: The GAO released a report that the new testing will cost the states between $1.9 and $5.3 billion. (GAO Report, “Characteristics of Tests Will Influence Expenses; Information Sharing May Help States Realize Efficiencies, May 2003) The FY 2004 Bush budget request was only $387 million; Congress has already appropriated $771 which still leaves a shortfall of $742 million. (Congressional Press Release, 5/8/03) ... ASSERTION: In March 2001, Bush pledged to support children’s hospitals: “This is a hospital, but it's also - it's a place full of love. And I was most touched by meeting the parents and the kids and the nurses and the docs, all of whom are working hard to save lives. I want to thank the moms who are here. Thank you very much for you hospitality…There's a lot of talk about budgets right now, and I'm here to talk about the budget. My job as the President is to submit a budget to the Congress and to set priorities, and one of the priorities that we've talked about is making sure the health care systems are funded.”
TRUTH: Bush’s first budget proposed cutting grants to children’s hospitals like the one he visited by 15% ($34 million). His 2004 budget additionally proposes to cut 30% ($86 million) out of grants to children’s hospitals. (“Caught on Film: the Bush Credibility Gap,” House Minority Appropriations Committee) ... ASSERTION: On Earth Day, in April 2002, Bush said, “Clear Skies legislation, when passed by Congress, will significantly reduce smog and mercury emissions, as well as stop acid rain. It will put more money directly into programs to reduce pollution, so as to meet firm national air-quality goals.”
TRUTH: The Clear Skies plan would "generate millions more tons of smog-forming nitrogen oxides and allow three times more mercury emissions than current law." And according to EPA estimates, "the plan would have the effect of raising the amount of coal burned by power companies… potentially generating 50 percent more sulfur emissions and delaying by up to 10 years major cuts in sulfur emissions required by the Clean Air Act." (League of Conservation Voters 2003 Presidential Report Card) ... ASSERTION: In January 2003, Bush praised the Boys and Girls Club: “I want to thank the Boys & Girls Clubs across the country…The Boys & Girls Club have got a grand history of helping children understand the future is bright for them, as well as any other child in America. Boys & Girls Clubs have been safe havens. They're little beacons of light for children who might not see light. And I want to thank them for their service to the country. Part of the vision for America is that we have a mosaic of all kinds of people providing love and comfort for people who need help.” (“George W. Bush Delivers Remarks on First Anniversary of the USA Freedom Corps,” FDCH Political Transcripts, 1/30/02)
TRUTH: In his 2002 budget, Bush proposed cutting all federal funding for the Boys and Girls Club. ... ASSERTION: On January 17, 2003, Bush visited 5 soldiers injured in Afghanistan at the Walter Reed Medical Center. He praised Army doctors and said, “We should and must provide the best care for anybody who’s willing to put their life in harm’s way.” (“Bush Visits Soldiers Mending from Afghanistan Wounds,” Associated Press, 1/17/03)
TRUTH: The previous day, Bush’s Department of Veterans Affairs announced it was cutting off access to its health care system for 164,000 veterans who were expected to enroll in the current fiscal year. (“VA Cuts Some Veterans Access to Health Care,” Washington Post, 1/17/03) ...
ASSERTION: In April 2002, at the South Dakota Ethanol Plant, Bush said, “I said when I was running for President, I supported ethanol, and I meant it. I support it now, because not only do I know it's important for the ag sector of our economy, it's an important part of making sure we become less reliant on foreign sources of energy.”
TRUTH: The plant had received $602,000 in 2001 under Clinton’s Bioenergy Program. Bush cut the plant’s bioenergy program in his 2004 budget. (“Ag Department Biodiesel, Ethanol Program May Be Renewed,” Associated Press, 4/22/02)
(source:The President Has Misled Us)
"We the People" have been bamboozled, scammed, conned, hoodwinked & ravaged, out of both our blood and our nation's treasure to enrich the greedy Bush Regime and their corporate cronies.
Let us not become so cynical as to permit the Bush Gang to lie with impunity; treat the law with contempt; and, exploit us to achieve their own corrupt ends. Let us call for an investigation into the Bush Regime's lies, deceptions and corrupt actions that have created so much misery for so many people, to the glee of Corporations & the Wealthy Oligarchy. The freedoms enshrined in our US Constitution and Bill of Rights, are based upon the principle that No Man is Above the Rule of Law: not Eminem, and not Dubya!
Labor Market For Americans Worsens Under the Bush Administration!
The labor market for working and unemployed Americans continues to dramatically worsen under the Bush Administration!
Over 9 million Americans are out of work today, 700,000 more than a year ago today. The Bush Regime have destroyed nearly 3 million jobs since they took office, and we are facing the worst job slump since the Great Depression. (Refer to "Organized labor targets Bush for unemployment rate" on http://www.billingsgazette.co... )
On Labor Day 2002, the unemployment rate was 5.7%, and on Labor Day 2003, the unemployment rate jumped-up to 6.2% the highest in over 9 years. "In terms of employment growth, the recovery is the worst since the Great Depression, EPI said. Employment has fallen by 1 million since the recovery began. Since the start of the recession in March 2001, about 2.7 million jobs have been lost. "
In "Labor market left behind: Evidence shows that post-recession economy has not turned into a recovery for workers" by Jared Bernstein and Lawrence Mishel, Economic Policy Institute, on http://www.epinet.org/content... , they cite:
"Over the past few years, the Bush Administration and Congress have passed numerous tax cuts purportedly intended to stimulate the weak economy and restart the engine of job creation that was delivering 241,000 jobs per month, on average, between 1995 and 2000, a stark contrast to an average loss of 93,000 jobs a month since March 2001. Thus far, these tax cuts have failed to lower unemployment, much less stimulate private sector job growth. In fact, hundreds of economists, including 10 Nobel laureates, argued that these cuts were poorly structured as a stimulus."
"The lesson of the Depression was that if ordinary workers lacked jobs and adequate incomes, the economy would crash because too few people could afford to buy what businesses hoped to sell. This was demand-side economics and it laid heavy stress on spreading incomes and job opportunities broadly."
"The simple truth is that the standard of living of most Americans depends on getting jobs that pay well. This means that unemployment matters not just for those out of work but also for those whose wages are depressed when too many people are competing for too few jobs. For most Americans, the best economic policy is still low unemployment. That's why the late 1990s produced income growth for the poor and the middle class as well as the wealthy."
"I am all for a nation of owners and investors. But most people need jobs. For 25 years, we have been hearing that labor depends upon capital. It's time to resurrect the other, buried truth: that capital depends upon labor. Our prosperity really does require keeping the "Labor" in Labor Day."
The corporate propaganda mistakenly says "we're a nation of stock-holders" ... this is true for the rich, but not for the rest of America: [Refer to "Utopian Myths About Corporate America" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ]
"The top 1% of stock owners hold almost half (47.7%) of all stocks, while the bottom 80% own just 4.1% of total stock holdings. Stock market gains were similarly concentrated among top stock owners, with nearly 35% of the gains going to the wealthiest 1% of households from 1989-98." (Ref. "New Report on State of Working Americans Finds That Income Rises for Typical Family, But So Do Work Hours & Household Debt" in 2000, on http://www.epinet.org/content... )
Today, Dionne reports:
"It's still the case that most stock is owned by a small percentage of Americans. An analysis of Federal Reserve data by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, for example, recently found that the top 10 percent of income earners owned 70 percent of directly held equities. The bottom 60 percent of earners owned just 9 percent of directly held equities. That's why policies that benefit investors (such as the dividend tax cut) shower huge benefits on a small number of Americans."
Ergo, jobs matter! The Bush Regime is misleading (they've found lying works with Americans) people into focusing on productivity figures alone. With some improvement in productivity, the economic indicators have crept-up slightly this summer, but economists are still concerned that with high unemployment and massive deficits of $455 billion in 2003 (estimated $1.9 trillion by the end of 2004), we could plunge into a recessionary spiral similar to Japan in the mid-1990s.
In "Looks Like a Recovery, Feels Like a Recession", by Steven Greenhouse, on http://www.nytimes.com/2003/0... , he cites ""We're having good productivity increases without jobs or wages growing." Dr. Mishel said. "That doesn't really help American families so much.""
Labor Secretary Elaine L Choa, said Mr. Bush had inherited the recession and weak job growth. She added that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the scandals at Enron, WorldCom and other corporations weakened the economy further. Economists, like Professor Paul Krugman (N.Y. Times), disagree ... But Karl Rove (Bush's Brain) figures if you blame others and chant "9/11 ... 9/11 ... 9/11" enough times, that the masses will believe you. Rove is clearly a student of Goebbles who used to say: lie, lie, lie… because the more you lie, the more people believe you.
The Bush Regime are trying to minimize the misery they've caused, by blaming others (Bushies Motto: "The Buck Stops Over There!"), as usual, for their own failed policies.
Dr. Krugman comments in "Fistfuls of Dollars" on http://www.nytimes.com/2003/0...%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%2 0and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd% 2fColumnists%2fPaul%20Kru gman :
"Still, even the government of a superpower can't simultaneously offer tax cuts equal to 15 percent of revenue, provide all its retirees with prescription drugs and single-handedly take on the world's evildoers — single-handedly because we've alienated our allies. In fact, given the size of our budget deficit, it's not clear that we can afford to do even one of these things. Someday, when the grown-ups are back in charge, they'll have quite a mess to clean up. "
"We the People" should be appalled by the disastrous state of domestic and foreign affairs, both of which have been mismanaged with startling ineptitude by the Bush Regime, to enrich their corporate cronies.
Don't worry, Bush and his corrupt cronies are all doing just fine and dandy-- raking in more big bucks than ever. You'll notice that none of Bush's cabal have offered to make any sacrifice by taking a pay-cut or foregoing their lavish tax cuts, while the poor, middle-class and fixed-income retirees are bearing the burden of their neo-Imperial policies. Nope, the Bushies, their corporate robber-barons, and the wealthiest are really enjoying this war and their blood-money!
Good Luck in All Your Labor Days, My Fellow Americans!
