The GOP has adopted the Ken Lay principles – that is obfuscation, false statements and feigned innocence. Republicans are obfuscating about the real reason for their opposition to extending unemployment benefits, the way Enron CEO Ken Lay concealed the truth about billions in losses his corporation racked up.

Lay assured Enron workers the corporation was strong – five weeks before it failed. When the nation's 7th largest corporation collapsed into bankruptcy in 2001, Lay walked away, by his own estimate, with $20 million. By contrast, Enron's 4,000 workers and creditors left with debts. The employees lost their jobs and pensions, and the creditors lost $65 billion.

Lay cooked the books. …

Republican acolytes of the Ken Lay way contend that the federal budget deficit prohibits spending $65 billion to extend emergency unemployment insurance for a year. But, at the same time, they insist the deficit doesn't constrain extending tax cuts to the richest 1 percent at a cost of $61 billion for the year 2011. It's masterful. And as corrupt as Ken Lay. . . .

Does anyone remember the "cakewalk war" that would last six weeks, cost $50-$60 billion, and be paid for out of Iraqi oil revenues?

Does anyone remember that White House economist Lawrence Lindsey was fired by Dubya because Lindsey estimated that the Iraq war could cost as much as $200 billion?

Lindsey was fired for over-estimating the cost of a war that, according to Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, has cost 15 times more than Lindsey estimated. And the US still has 50,000 troops in Iraq.

Does anyone remember that just prior to the US invasion of Iraq, the US government declared victory over the Taliban in Afghanistan?

Does anyone remember that the reason Dubya gave for invading Iraq was Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, weapons that the US government knew did not exist?

Are Americans aware that the same neoconservarives who made these fantastic mistakes, or told these fabulous lies, are still in control of the government in Washington?

The "war on terror" is now in its tenth year. What is it really all about?

A newly released study from students at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government provides the latest evidence of how thoroughly devoted the American establishment media is to amplifying and serving (rather than checking) government officials. This new study examines how waterboarding has been discussed by America's four largest newspapers over the past 100 years, and finds that the technique, almost invariably, was unequivocally referred to as "torture" -- until the U.S. Government began openly using it and insisting that it was not torture, at which time these newspapers obediently ceased describing it that way

Yahya Wehelie is an American citizen, born and raised in Virginia, trapped by President Obama's homeland security apparatus in a literally Kafkaesque nightmare which ranks right along with some of George Bush's most ludicrous homeland security shenanigans.

This is far from the first time that Obama has been in the spotlight for seamlessly continuing the Bush era philosophy that in The War Against Terror it's perfectly okay to cheerfully trample all over the Constitution, and then come back and jump on it with hob-nailed boots for good measure.

In the course of trying to prove that its "enhanced" interrogation program was legal, the Bush administration may have broken the law, according to a new report (PDF) by Physicians for Human Rights. The watchdog group claims that in an attempt to establish that brutal interrogation tactics did not constitute torture, the administration ended up effectively experimenting on terrorism detainees. This research, PHR alleges, violated an array of regulations and treaties, including international guidelines on human testing put in place after the Holocaust.

Neither represented nor excommunicated, only today could I learn what was discussed at the Summit of Port of Spain. They led us all to entertain hopes that the meeting would not be secret, but those running the show deprived us of such an interesting intellectual exercise. We shall get to know the substance but not the tone of voice, the look in the eyes or the facial look that can be a reflection of a person's ideas, ethic and character. A Secret Summit is worse than a silent movie. For a few minutes the television showed some images. There was a gentleman on Obama's left whom I could not identify clearly as he laid his hand on Obama's shoulder, like an eight-year-old boy on a classmate in the front row. Then, another member of his entourage standing beside him interrupted the president of the United States for a dialogue...

It was not the economist, the scientist, the intellectual or the poet speaking; Daniel did not choose an elaborate language to impress his audience. He spoke as the president of one of the poorest countries in the hemisphere, as a revolutionary combatant, ... I shall summarize his statement using his own words for each of the basic ideas he expressed.

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration threw open the curtain on years of Bush-era secrets Monday, revealing anti-terror memos that claimed exceptional search-and-seizure powers and divulging that the CIA destroyed nearly 100 videotapes of interrogations and other treatment of terror suspects.

The Justice Department released nine legal opinions showing that, following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Bush administration determined that certain constitutional rights would not apply during the coming fight. Within two weeks, government lawyers were already discussing ways to wiretap U.S. conversations without warrants.

The "war on terror" is a hoax that fronts for American control of oil pipelines, the profits of the military-security complex, the assault on civil liberty by fomenters of a police state, and Israel's territorial expansion.

The US brands Hamas and Hezbollah "terrorist organizations" for no other reason than the US is on Israel's side of the conflict. There is no objective basis for the US Department of State's "finding" that Hamas and Hezbollah are terrorist organizations. It is merely a propagandistic declaration.

"This transition period was supposed to be all about getting a grip on the financial crisis -- and it looked this week as if Barack Obama has succeeded sufficiently to take the Thanksgiving holiday off. But on Wednesday, the president-elect was reminded that he is inheriting messes far beyond Wall Street.

The devastating attacks in Mumbai -- which have left more than 100 dead and three times that number seriously wounded -- have put the war on terror back in competition for Obama's urgent attention. And the reported focus of the attackers in U.S. and European visitors to India makes this anything but a foreign affair. "

"It may have been the economic crisis that delivered the election to Barack Obama but his consistent opposition to the war in Iraq was also a key plank in his campaign – first to be the Democratic nominee, and then for president.

So it might therefore be surprising that he has retained the services of a Bush appointee, Robert Gates, as defence secretary. What's more, Gates has publicly disagreed with Obama's commitment to a 16-month timetable for withdrawal of combat troops from Iraq."

(for story, scroll down slightly after following the link)

The Fundamentals of the Campaign were Unsound

Why McCain Lost

When Republican consultants like Mary Matalin and Steve Schmidt first pondered [trying to sink Obama by hanging former Weatherman Bill Ayers round his neck] in the late summer, it must have seemed to them like a no-brainer – a reprise of the way George H.W. Bush finished off Michael Dukakis in 1988. Lee Atwater, Bush's smear manager, picked up Al Gore's use of Horton – the black rapist furloughed for a weekend, under a law passed by Gov. Dukakis – and retooled it, throwing in slurs about Dukakis as being some foreign outsider. So, in the final weeks of Campaign 2008, Barack Hussein Obama would be hit with similar accusations (actually, first aired by Hillary Clinton last April) of being an alien radical, with intimate ties to a man who had tried to blow up Congress and the Pentagon.

It might have worked but for the fact, which apparently escaped the notice of the well-paid campaign consultants running the McCain campaign – that America was engulfed in the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. There was a total disconnect between the financial hurricane hitting America and some archaeology about a Sixties radical sitting with Obama on the board of the Woods Fund, a nonprofit financed by the Annenberg Foundation (and today featuring board members from other known terrorist organizations such as British Petroleum and the Swiss banking giant UBS, whose U.S. operation has on its payroll as a vice president McCain's pal and advisor, Phil Gramm).

The Bush administration's latest prescription for the ailing financial industry — a program that clears the way for the U.S. government to buy a $250 billion equity stake in the nation's banks — provided only the slightest glimmer of optimism in the U.S. financial markets Tuesday.

On Tuesday morning, President Bush and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson were careful to tiptoe around the idea that with the program they were nationalizing the nation's banks. Instead, they preferred to cast their decision to spend about a third of the $700 billion Congress provided as a "recapitalization" effort. The president said the decision to buy shares in the nation's leading banks was "not intended to take over the free market, but to preserve it."

The outcome, unfortunately, was not quite what Mr. McCain had apparently hoped. He was first undercut by Mr. Obama, who disdained his suggestion to postpone the debate and suspend both campaigns, saying that a president should be able to handle more than one important thing at a time. Then, for all his rushing to Washington to wave his magic wand and bring about a bipartisan solution, CNN reported the following: "Multiple sources said McCain didn't say much. Two Democratic leadership aides said he didn't speak until 43 minutes into the meeting." So much for his gamble that his presence at the discussions might be more than noticed. And then, by his own admission, he seemed to admit that he had failed. USA Today reported that he "issued a statement acknowledging that a bipartisan White House meeting he appeared to have sought to help showcase his leadership skills on the economy had devolved into a 'contentious shouting match.'"

While Alaska Governor and Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin is getting all the attention, the current vice president, Dick Cheney, was able to pontificate about Russia and Georgia with barely any notice from the media. However, while hardly anyone was watching, Mr. Cheney echoed the hypocrisy of his boss, President George Bush. While traveling in Italy, Mr. Cheney decided to become the moral arbiter of Russia's foreign policies. His incredible remarks are worth studying.

If anyone doubted the vice president's disdain for those who elected him and kept him in power, this speech should have been an eye-opener. How he could make that statement with a straight face is beyond comprehension. Was he not a major force in the U.S. military invasion of Iraq? ...

Does the liberal-left have a clue? I sometimes think not.

Neither rule. America is ruled by organized interest groups with money to elect candidates who serve their interests. Frank's book does not even mention the Israel Lobby, which bleeds Americans for the sake of Israeli territorial expansion. Check the index. Israel is not there.

One is rendered almost speechless by the astounding hypocrisy of President George Bush. It has been bad enough for the last seven and a half years to hear his constant lies and to watch his fervent worship of the almighty dollar and those who can best enrich his elite, neocon circle. But by making the statements that he has uttered in the last few days he has shown once again his limitless capacity for hypocrisy.

Let's see now; if one is not mistaken, one could say that March 19, 2003 was part of the twenty-first century. That is the day that Mr. Bush used 'bullying and intimidation' to a horrific degree to 'conduct foreign policy.' That day marked the beginning of the 'Shock and Awe' campaign that has killed over 1,000,000 Iraqis, displaced millions more and killed over 4,000 U.S. soldiers and maimed tens of thousands more. Mr. Bush is correct: bullying and intimidation have no place in foreign policy, but his words are rendered empty, insincere and meaningless by his actions.

The conflict between Russia and the pro-US regime of Georgia has been a decisive turning-point in Russia's relations with Washington and has taken us to the brink of a new Cold War.

It is often said that the first casualty of war is truth. Behind the fog of disinformation coming from Washington, London, Tbilisi and, indeed, Moscow, the fact remains that the Russian invasion came after Georgia's bombardment of the breakaway region of South Ossetia. The vast majority of residents in the enclave are Russian citizens and Moscow had deployed its peacekeepers there. Many experts in Europe are depressed over the events in Georgia and blame hardliners in the Bush administration for provoking the Georgian President, Mikheil Saakasvili, to adopt the aggressive posture that has brought this disaster.

Thomas Frank, a Kansas boy who once followed conservatism deep into his home state and now writes op-eds that probably drive the readers of the Wall Street Journal crazy, has had a front seat at the Washington spectacle these last years as the Bush administration applied its "enhanced interrogation techniques" to the Federal government. In his latest must-read book, The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives Rule, Frank offers nothing short of a how-to history of the conservative era -- specifically how to destroy a government, leave Americans in the lurch, and enrich yourselves all at the same time.

Richard Nixon is credited with coming up with, or at least effectively recognizing, the idea of systematically exploiting the supposed weakness of Democrats as out-of-the-mainstream liberals who aren't like everyone else. As un-American. As anti-troops. As vaguely elite. As "pointy-headed." As feminine. As weak on defense.

Democrats can learn from the way Republicans consistently find charges that resonate with voters. But this should not be an effort to merely recast the debate. It is possible to make the argument that it is actually the Republicans whose policies promote big government, a weaker military, and higher taxes. But while that argument is possible, it often doesn't work very well because these issues don't resonate with voters as flaws in Republican candidates or policies. Instead, Democrats need to find the resonant truths about the Republicans that describe preconceived notions about GOP candidates and policies. And that's the key — the resonance of the charges. In other words, figure out what charges about Republicans resonate with voters, then exploit those preconceived notions. Let me explain.

WASHINGTON — The government's budget deficit will surge past a half-trillion dollars next year, according to gloomy new estimates, a record flood of red ink that promises to force the winner of the presidential race to dramatically alter his economic agenda.

The result: the biggest deficit ever in terms of dollars, though several were higher in the 1980s and early 1990s as a percentage of the overall economy.

Americans are increasingly choosing to live among like-minded neighbours. This makes the culture war more bitter and politics harder

SOME folks in Texas recently decided to start a new community "containing 100% Ron Paul supporters". Mr Paul is a staunch libertarian and, until recently, a Republican presidential candidate. His most ardent fans are invited to build homesteads in "Paulville", an empty patch of west Texas. Here, they will be free. Free not to pay "for other people's lifestyles [they] may not agree with". And free from the irksome society of those who do not share their love of liberty.

County-level data understate the degree of ideological segregation, reckons Bill Bishop, the author of a gripping new book called "The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart". Counties can be big. Cook County, Illinois, (which includes Chicago), has over 5m inhabitants. Beaverhead County, Montana, covers 5,600 square miles (14,400 square kilometres). The neighbourhoods people care about are much smaller.

Bugliosi Makes the Case

Death Penalty for Bush?

If Vincent Bugliosi were prosecuting George W. Bush for the murder of the more than 4,000 American soldiers who have died in Iraq, he would seek the death penalty.

Bugliosi said he is sending a copy of his book to all fifty state Attorneys General, offering his assistance in prosecuting Bush for homicide.

Another Stimulus Package for the Pentagon

War Abroad, Poverty at Home

The US Senate has voted $165 billion to fund Bush's wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq through next spring.

Before Bush began his wars of aggression, oil was $25 a barrel. Today it is $130 a barrel. Some of this rise may result from run-away speculation in the futures market. However, the main cause is the eroding value of the dollar.

Americans are in a panic over rising gas and heating oil prices, and with reason. For months, the price of a barrel of crude oil has been rising steadily, hitting a record $127 yesterday.

"Oil prices have gone from the mid $20 range in the fall of 2002 to $127 yesterday—a rise of $100/barrel in just over five years," he says. "And the bulk of that increase can be attributed to the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to the threats of war against Iran."

As the presidential horse race grows more frenzied and absurd -- Flag pins! Bowling! Obliteration!-- it is important to keep in mind what the election is really about: torture.

Bush and his minions know that if the rule of law is ever restored -- even partially and imperfectly -- they will be rightly be subject to prosecution, imprisonment and possibly even execution.

The U.S. Economy and the Costs of War

The Big Hurt

First of all, As Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel economist and chief economist at the World Bank, has noted, the real cost of the Iraq War is probably now closer to $3 trillion, in terms of future costs of veterans benefits, replacement of equipment, and payment on the debt that has been piling up because of the government's unwillingness to make the public pay for the war in real time. That whopping bill is in the minds of the international investors who have been deserting the dollar in droves, causing it to approach Third World status as a currency.

One is the misdirection of much of the nation's remaining industrial strength into war production. The late industrial engineer Seymour Melman long ago demonstrated how the military-industrial complex, by producing things not on a competitive but rather a cost-plus basis, destroys economic competitiveness, sucks up research and development talent and resources, and investment capital, and ends up producing nothing of use either for society or for the national trade account.

George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has dropped to a new low in American Research Group polling as 78% of Americans say that the national economy is getting worse according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.

Among Americans registered to vote, 18% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 78% disapprove. When it comes to the way Bush is handling the economy, 15% of registered voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 79% disapprove.

The Bush administration has failed to nominate any candidates to a newly empowered privacy and civil-liberties commission. This leaves the board without any members, even as Congress prepares to give the Bush administration extraordinary powers to wiretap without warrants inside the United States.

"The White House's failure to move forward with appointing the new board is unacceptable, and I call on the administration to do so as quickly as possible to prevent a gap in this vital mission," Collins said.

In his annual State of the Union speech, President Bush asked the US Congress to give his policy of sending more than 20,000 extra troops to Iraq a chance to work.

He also addressed a wide range of other topics including diversifying US energy supplies and reducing petrol usage. Here are some of the key excerpts:

Like the Energizer Bunny, the ripples from the Dec. 3 publication of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran's nuclear program just keep going and going and going.

Consider, for example, that the conclusions of the NIE have been known, at least by the top ranks of the executive branch, for quite a long time but were not permitted to be released. So why did President George W. Bush make dire statements like this one on Oct. 17: "I've told people that if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

President Bush could have achieved his goal of "regime change" in Iraq quickly and without the violence of war. Saddam Hussein offered, weeks before his country was invaded, to leave Iraq and go into exile. President Bush withheld this offer from public view-and refused it. Nor did the President need to invade Afghanistan to apprehend Osama bin Laden. On five different occasions, George Bush refused a standing offer from the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden-three times before 9/11 and twice thereafter, again without public disclosure.

No, the military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan are not directed against terrorism. They are territorial in nature. Mr. Bush intended from his first days in office to invade the two countries: as early as late January, 2001, his Administration was developing the decisions and beginning the preparations for both military incursions. 9/11 was in the distant future, so the conflicts cannot be exercises in counter-terrorism, as the Bush Administration frequently and dishonestly insists. They are premeditated wars of unprovoked conquest and occupation.

80 Percent of Americans Have Experienced a Falling Share of US Income

No Escape from War and Unemployment

New Hampshire voters have chosen warmonger clones of Bush/Cheney for their party's presidential candidates. The only candidates not in Israel's pocket are Kucinich, Paul, and Gravel, who have no chance for their party's nomination.

This means change is unlikely. Neocon think tanks, media, evangelical preachers, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and many other members of the government have succeeded in turning a majority of Americans into scared Islamophobes and in denying Americans any reliable information about the cause of the conflict.

What Would a Withdrawal Mean?

The US Occupation and Popular Opinion in Iraq

No nation that claims to value democracy for the world's people can maintain a military occupation against the will of the occupied population. Yet despite what seems like a fundamental moral truism-the notion that a military occupation of one country by another can only be justified if the occupied population supports it-mainstream commentators in this country rarely broach the subject of Iraqi attitudes toward the US-led occupation. Iraqi public opinion polls, when they even make it into the newspapers, are accorded astoundingly little weight. Instead, most US politicians and analysts repeat vague slogans about how "Iraqis need us" and how "we'll leave when they ask us to."

Over the last four years, and in polls from a wide range of sources, Iraqis have been especially unequivocal on one point: that the US military occupation of their country produces more violence than it prevents. A May 2004 poll sponsored by the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority found that roughly 80 percent of Iraqis had "no confidence" in US-led forces to improve security and that most "would feel safer if Coalition forces left immediately."

Lessons from the Past

Creeping Fascism

"There are few things as odd as the calm, superior indifference with which I and those like me watched the beginnings of the Nazi revolution in Germany, as if from a box at the theater ... Perhaps the only comparably odd thing is the way that now, years later...."

More about Haffner below. Let's set the stage first by recapping some of what has been going on that may have resonance for readers familiar with the Nazi ascendancy, noting how "odd" it is that the frontal attack on our Constitutional rights is met with such "calm, superior indifference."

The Des Moines Register ran a story Thursday about how Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney while on the campaign trail defended President Bush's approach to wiretapping.

So I checked with the Romney campaign team to clarify the former Massachusetts's governor's position and received this response:

In a single paragraph, Kennan derided "human rights," "democratization," and "standards of living conditions," and replaced them with the cold, callous concept of governance as a mere power struggle. Regrettably, Kennan wasn't wrong. Today, America does very much "deal in straight power concepts" -- the concept of what East Asian scholar Chalmers Johnson regards as military imperialism. While most Americans may be unfamiliar with their country's imperial goals, too many foreign peoples know too well about the "New Rome," which encompasses 1,000 military bases unofficially (737 officially) in over 40 countries. The White House, Pentagon, State Department, etc. claim that both our historical and current overseas military presence is to protect the US and create freedom for those with whom we partner. However, more than just Kennan's account belie this assertion.

We can observe this doctrine of "full spectrum dominance" through the following three points. One, the mere scope of our overseas military presence alone is staggering. Two, it has manifested itself in many presidential administrations, and the current Bush administration and its neoconservative base is no different as it has sought to merely "restructure" our global empire, not reduce it. Three, we must consider the consequences of our military imperialism. Through Status of Forces Agreements (SOFAs), which set forth the laws regarding whatever foreign occupation we are involved in, the United States has disregarded foreign people's lives, infringed upon their human rights, and in some cases so altered their cities as to make them unrecognizable. Indeed, there is a lapse in our democratic values on account of our military empire that has no apparent end in sight. Although too many Americans are unaware of this phenomenon, the gravity of it cannot be ignored.

Florida's crazy "stand your ground" gun law is part of an ideology of preemptive action against any perceived enemy spreading from the White House on down.

Crossing the state line into Florida on I-75, one is greeted by a billboard reading, "Visitor Warning. Florida residents can use deadly force. Please be careful." Erected by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, the sign is a reference to the fact that, for the last year and a half, Floridians have been allowed by law to shoot anyone they want.

The "stand your ground" law - called the "shoot first" law by opponents - passed the Florida legislature by a wide margin. Since it went into effect, similar laws have been passed in at least 14 other states and are being considered in many more.

It is a fact startling in its cynical simplicity and it requires cynical and simple words to be properly expressed: The presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush.

"Waterboarding is torture," Daniel Levin was to write. Daniel Levin was no theorist and no protester. He was no troublemaking politician. He was no table-pounding commentator. Daniel Levin was an astonishingly patriotic American and a brave man.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich, the candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination that the mainstream media like to ignore or belittle, stands head and shoulders above the moral midgets and shriveled sophists in that contest, especially today, after he successfully forced the full House to vote to send his bill to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney to a hearing in the House Judiciary Committee.

Kucinich, whose Cheney impeachment bill, despite having 22 co-sponsors, has been stalled for over six months thanks to the unconscionable machinations of the Democratic Congressional leadership and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, should now get at least a genuine debate in the House Judiciary Committee. With enough pressure from constituents, his bill might even go into hearings.

Heck of a Job, Hughsie

Karen Hughes throws in the towel

And so Karen Hughes is leaving her post as "public diplomat" in much the same way she assumed it, with an air of farce and mystery.

The farcical qualities, in both phases, were up front for all to see. Her entrance two years ago, in a high-profile PR trip to the Middle East, was a jaw-dropping display of ignorance and malapropism that made her the laughing stock of the region. Her announced exit yesterday was marked by tributes to her alleged achievements that were simply surreal.

Iraqi dam 'at risk of collapse'

The largest dam in Iraq is at risk of an imminent collapse that could unleash a 20m (65ft) wave of water on Mosul, a city of 1.7m people, the US has warned.

n May, the US told Iraqi authorities to make Mosul Dam a national priority, as a catastrophic failure would result in a "significant loss of life".

However, a US watchdog said reconstruction of the dam had been plagued by mismanagement and potential fraud.

Breaking Down an Innocent Man

The FBI's Right to Threaten Torture

A federal appeals court has concluded that an FBI agent must go to trial on charges he coerced a false confession out of a prime suspect in the 9/11 attacks. But the FBI still insists that its agent did nothing wrong. And the feds swayed the court to suppress that portion of a recent decision detailing how the FBI agent used the threat of torture to break an innocent man.

Three months later, guests were allowed to retrieve their belongings. When Higazy went to the hotel on December 17, he was arrested and accused of possessing an aviation radio. (A hotel security guard reported finding the radio in a safe in his room.) Higazy denied owning the radio. He was arrested as a material witness and locked up in solitary confinement.

The Michael Mukasey Senate Judiciary Committee confirmation hearing has demonstrated that Mukasey cannot be relied upon to function independently as U.S. Attorney General. Nevertheless, Senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee seem so thrilled that Mukasey is not Alberto Gonzales that they're willing to vote for him even though he's another loyal Bushie. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, backed down on his promise to hold up the confirmation hearing until the administration turned over material his committee had requested regarding several investigations. Leahy said of Mukasey after the hearing, "He's at least answered the questions, which is better than his predecessor. He's going to be different than Gonzales on all the issues, I think. He will certainly be better than Gonzales on morale."

Mukasey doesn't seem to have a memory problem; he relied on a different excuse for dodging the Senators' hard questions: he hasn't been "read in on" the details of Bush policies, such as interrogation techniques, or the "Terrorist Surveillance Program." Mukasey claims he doesn't know what water boarding is, so he can't say if it constitutes torture. Say what?

The international outcry over the recent Blackwater shootings forced the world to closely examine and appreciate the complex reality of the United States government's overdependence on private military contractors operating in Iraq. The foremost expert and most cited authority on the subject is Peter Warren Singer, a senior fellow at the prestigious Brookings Institute, co-founder of "The U.S. Policy towards the Islamic World" Program, and author of the seminal work on private military contractors, "Corporate Warriors." This interview, his most recent, examines the most current repercussions caused by the Blackwater scandal and private military firms within an overall context of The Iraq War, U.S. Foreign policy in the Middle East, and America's public relations with the Muslim world.

As the war grinds through its fifth year, Fort Leavenworth has become a front line in the military's tension and soul-searching over Iraq. Here on the bluffs above the Missouri River rising young officers are on a different kind of journey - an outspoken re-examination of their role in Iraq.

But the consensus was that not even after Vietnam was the Army's internal criticism as harsh or the second-guessing so painful, and that airing the arguments on the record, as sanctioned by Leavenworth's senior commanders, was part of a concerted effort to force change.

...the [UK] Government is permitting the US administration to install additional equipment at Menwith Hill, in Yorkshire, to support its unproven missile defence system.

There has been no public debate in Britain about the desirability or workability of missile defence, let alone about the strategic assumptions that underpin it.

.. The political will to persevere with it has been driven as much by industrial as military priorities. Its original justification was to defend against China: now it is said that it will protect against Iran, depicted in Washington as an implacable, long-term enemy."

What this says to me is that the current American government--and ours, for as long as we follow them - thrives on a state of war. They need it because it allows them to carry on with business as usual whilst at the same time suppressing dissent 'for security reasons'. It allows them to sidestep the democratic process by maintaining a continuous state of emergency.

Where Impeachment is Taken Seriously ...
By Everyone But Nancy Pelosi

The Streets of San Francisco

By BEN TERRALL

On January 6, 2007, two days after Nancy Pelosi became Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, about 1,000 activists laid down on San Francisco's Ocean Beach to spell out the word "IMPEACH!" in 100-foot letters. Photos of the clear message to Pelosi taken from a helicopter appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, and on websites around the world (for photos and footage, see www.beachimpeach.org).

Newsham wrote in a September 7 email: "Today I managed to speak to the senior staff member in Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco office, and through him I invited Ms. Pelosi to occupy the fourth seat in our helicopter. After all, there is going to be a crowd of impeachment-impassioned folks right there in her constituency, and maybe this would be a perfect time for her to at least have a bird's eye view of them. When he said that Rep. Pelosi was not available that day, I invited him, the senior staff member himself, but he quickly said he was not available either -- in fact no one from Pelosi's office would be available that day. 'So is this a dead end?' I asked. 'Yes.' End of curt, even icy, conversation."

September 6, 2007

Nuclear Hypocrisy in the Middle East

Bush, Iran and Israel's Hidden Hand

By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
Former CIA Analysts

The internet is loaded these days with reports of the inevitability of a U.S., or a U.S.-Israeli, attack on Iran. Some writers allege that the attack is imminent. Others, including the writers of this article, argue only that the attack will happen sometime before January 2009, when the Bush administration leaves office. Many of these stories have by now been picked up by the mainstream media. In fact, it is probably safe to say that today a majority of the traditionally cautious and so-called respectable foreign policy experts in the U.S. think it is at least possible that Bush will attack Iran before he leaves office.

...

Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. He served as a National Intelligence Officer and as Director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis.

Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession.

By now you've heard the news: Rove is stepping down. So here's my treatment of possible reasons why he's leaving, in reverse order of their likelihood:

Social Security
Faith-based wingnut welfare
Katrina
The 2006 elections
It is quite likely that Republicans have finally realized that if you want support from voters, you need to actually deliver on policies, not just promise to. But to change the previous "create our own reality" approach to governance, you'd have to get rid of Rove, because that's all Rove does.

Author Joe Bageant's "Deer Hunting with Jesus: Dispatches from America's Class War" gets down and dirty with the hardship economics in Middle America.

Every so often, you pick up a book and two pages in your nose is glued to it. Not necessarily because of the subject matter per se -- though good subject matter certainly helps -- but because the prose is so damned electric.

So the self-proclaimed socialist, atheist, heavy-drinking, three-times-married Joe returned home, to a landscape dominated by rabid, demon-battling fundamentalists (including his younger brother, a fire-and-brimstone preacher); NASCAR; overpriced mobile homes; greasy food; depressing, dead-end, anti-union workplaces; and gung-ho patriots whose pick-up trucks boast bumper stickers such as "Kick their ass. Take their gas."

How to Sell an Endless War

Buy Hard

The current Bush administration has sometimes been very frank about the need to sell the 'war on terror', and many of the elements used to sell that attack on Iraq--the intelligence dossiers, the unsourced revelations, the denigration of hard evidence, the cosying-up to prominent exiles--are now being used to sell an attack on Iran. With some 22 minutes out of every hour on US TV given over to advertising, the public is accustomed to being sold things on the promise of nirvana if they only succumb. If the Iraq debacle is anything to go by, the process can be extended--remarkably smoothly, in many ways--to selling (and buying) a war.

Andy Card, George W. Bush's chief of staff, said Congress had not been asked in August 2002 to authorise military force in Iraq because "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

Beyond Euphemism

How to Read a National Intelligence Estimate

Much notice has attended the release of the unclassified version of the latest National Intelligence Estimate [NIE] titled "The Terrorist Threat to the US Homeland." It contains the rectified juices of all sixteen of our intelligence agencies.

The title of the NIE itself will be of interest to future generations of historians. It refers, not to terrorist threats to the United States, but to "the US Homeland." The word "homeland," which resonates sinisterly like das Vaterland in German or rodina in Russian, was virtually unused before 9/11, and despite its relentless repetition by the Bush administration (to include the name of a cabinet agency), it has thus far refused to lodge itself in colloquial American English. One can hardly imagine an American businessman at an airport bar in Tegucigalpa telling a compatriot, "I'm taking the 9:17 flight to the homeland." Indeed, while Vaterland or rodina have non-ideological colloquial roots and were expropriated by Hitler and Stalin, "homeland" is a purely ideological construct of Bush administration. The page-and-a-half "Key Judgments" section uses the word "homeland" nine times.

"All of the Problems Come from the Occupation"

Iraqis will be the Deciders

As Congress debates whether to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq, George Bush is trying to buy time. He and Dick Cheney have no intention of ever pulling out of Iraq.

The motive for a permanent presence in Iraq has been obvious from day one. It's the oil. The oft-mentioned benchmark for Iraqi progress, touted by Bush and Congress alike, is the so-called Iraqi oil law. The new law would turn over control of most oil production and royalties to foreign oil companies. The Iraqi people are opposed to the oil law.

I feel compelled to share a few of my thoughts on personality types, human progress and the state of American politics...

I visit Newsvine less and less the longer I have been a member, though I have learned a lot in that period of time... I have learned a lot about human nature and about myself, my own limitations and my ability to endure.

One time I was sitting drinking a beer with a friend and we were talking about one of the more abrasive individuals at work, and my friend said, "I don't understand people who are angry all of the time, I guess they just want to be angry all of the time." I have thought a great deal about that simple statement. I added a related theory to my friend's statement -- "These people act like, 'the world treats me like crap so I will be obnoxious and treat everyone like crap,' whereas in reality they are obnoxious so the world treats them like crap...

I see it all the time. Instead of trying to accomplish anything these individuals emit endless streams of negativity. I often try to help people and am often met with outright hostility in response. Over and over, the same response; apparently I am a slow learner.

I see this "continual hostility" trait extremely often from sections of the American populace. A quick glance at the front-page of Newsvine bears out my conclusions. Concerning all of the articles about "Climate Change" -- scientists are worried about what we are doing to this planet and what we will leave behind for future generations of humanity, and some, with nothing constructive to contribute to humanity, decide to attack the concept of "climate change".

And from the "mainstream media," the AP wire, we get "Bush Rips Democratic Lawmakers' Failures" -- the Democrats are trying to restore fiscal responsibility and constitutionality to the US government and Bush, with nothing constructive to contribute to humanity, "rips" the Democrats.

I could go on-and-on about the articles spewed daily here on Newsvine, but I don't want to point to any specific article and give the impression that I am attacking that particular individual.

But, to get to my point. If somebody sees a problem and tries to fix it, that is "good". I'd say that is progress. If there isn't a problem, their efforts are a waste of time and don't concern me. But when people with very little intelligence or information consciously try to prevent human progress, I think it has devolved into pure sadism.

Hitler truly felt, deep in his heart, that he was doing a great service to humanity by cleansing the world of the impure. Bush truly feels, deep in his heart, that he is doing a great service to America by spending billions to secure permanent bases in the Middle East so that America will always control the flow of oil. While both truly believe in their rationale, neither helped, or is helping, humanity, in my humble opinion.

There's an old saying, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem." So some in America, not wanting to give up their gas-guzzling SUV's and pick-up trucks, do what they usually do, try to destroy something. In this case, they are trying to destroy the future of humanity on this planet. At this point, they have devolved into pure sadism, some would say evil. And out of a sense of fair-play and respect for human-rights, the others allow this. And here at Newsvine, with nothing constructive to contribute to humanity, some go around slinging mud and hate-mongering and Newsvine is turning into the Internet version of talk radio -- even worse than "sound and fury signifying nothing" because these people are deliberately and consciously working against the betterment of mankind to only bolster their own egos and wallets. And I find fewer and fewer reasons to visit Newsvine...

Sure, they dress up their agendas in words that are meant to deceive and placate us -- "national interest" and such. But I am a simple man, and I look for simple explanations. And over and over I come back to, they are angry all of the time, so I guess they just want to be angry all of the time, and these people act like, "the world treats me like crap so I will be obnoxious and treat everyone like crap," whereas in reality they are obnoxious so the world treats them like crap...

Media Silence About the Carnage in Iraq

Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month

A state-of-the-art research study published in October 12, 2006 issue of The Lancet (the most prestigious British medical journal) concluded that--as of a year ago--600,000 Iraqis had died violently due to the war in Iraq. That is, the Iraqi death rate for the first 39 months of the war was just about 15,000 per month.

The U.S. and British governments quickly dismissed these results as "methodologically flawed," even though the researchers used standard procedures for measuring mortality in war and disaster zones. (They visited a random set of homes and asked the residents if anyone in their household had died in the last few years, recording the details, and inspecting death certificates in the vast majority of cases.) The two belligerent governments offered no concrete reasons for rejecting the study's findings, and they ignored the fact that they had sponsored identical studies (conducted by some of the same researchers) in other disaster areas, including Darfur and Kosovo. The reasons for this rejection were, however, clear enough: the results were simply too devastating for the culpable governments to acknowledge. (Secretly the British government later admitted that it was "a tried and tested way to measuring mortality in conflict zones"; but it has never publicly admitted its validity).

Congress Set to Uncover Truth About NSA Spying Program

Vote to Authorize Subpoenas Sets Stage for Showdown Over Illegal Surveillance

San Francisco - The Senate Judiciary Committee voted today to authorize subpoenas related to the National Security Agency (NSA)''s domestic spying program, setting the stage for a Congressional showdown over the surveillance of millions of ordinary Americans. The subpoenas demand certain legal documents that the Administration has withheld despite Congress'' repeated requests.

MANCHESTER – Retired generals against the Iraq war are bringing their message to New Hampshire, the first primary state and home to vulnerable Republican U.S. Sen. John Sununu.

Former Maine U.S. Rep. Tom Andrews is the chairman of Win Without War. He said the group is focusing on New Hampshire to press the state's congressional delegation to stand up to President Bush on the war.

MEMORANDUM

FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity

SUBJECT: Countering Terrorism; How Not To Do It

Given the effort that many of us have put into suggestions for reform, how satisfying it would be, were we able to report that appropriate correctives have been introduced to make us safer. But the bottom line is that the PR bromide to the effect that we are "safer" is incorrect. We are not safer. What follows will help explain why.

Wrong-headed actions and ideas had already taken root before that Senate hearing on June 6, 2002. Post 9/11 dragnet-detentions of innocents, official tolerance of torture (including abuse of U.S. citizens like John Walker Lindh), and panic-boosting color codes, had already been spawned from the mother of all slogans-"The Global War on Terror"-rhetorically useful, substantively inane. GWOT was about to spawn much worse.

Is Bush Planning to Nuke Iran? If So, Say Goodbye to Democratic Outcomes

The Reign of the Tyrants is at Hand

The surprise decision by the Bush regime to replace General Peter Pace as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has been explained as a necessary step to avoid contentious confirmation hearings in the US Senate. Gen. Pace''s reappointment would have to be confirmed, and as the general has served as vice chairman and chairman of the Joint Chiefs for the past 6 years, the Republicans feared that hearings would give war critics an opportunity to focus, in Defense Secretary Gates words, "on the past, rather than the future."

This is a plausible explanation. Whether one takes it on face value depends on how much trust one still has in a regime that has consistently lied about everything for six years.

Let us suppose that the Bush-Cheney administration answers the neocons' prayer and does indeed bomb Iran sometime soon. The plan apparently involves more than the destruction of nuclear facilities, replicating Israel's attack on Iraq's Osirak reactor in 1981. (That attack, by the way was condemned by the whole world, including a furious President Ronald Reagan). It includes an all-out assault on the Iranian political and religious leadership. Government buildings and officials' residences will be targeted, guaranteeing collateral damage.
Since Iran is a highly complex society, and its government widely unpopular, there may well be some local support for a "shock and awe" campaign. We know that the administration has cultivated ties with the Mujahadeen Khalq (even though they remain on the State Department's terrorist list) and the Pakistan-based Balochi separatist group Jundallah (the Party of God). These among other organizations will get their marching orders amid the "creative chaos" produced by the attack. There can be no large deployment of U.S. troops in Iran, unless they evacuate from Afghanistan and Iraq which is unlikely.

I doubt that administration plans for the construction of a post-attack Iranian polity are any more sophisticated than their plans for post-Taliban Afghanistan or occupied Iraq. Some have suggested that the neocons' goal is actually to plunge the Muslim Middle East into prolonged pandemonium, insuring that all foes of Israel are off-balance and terrorized by the might of Israel's protector for generations to come. "Neocons," writes Paul Craig Roberts, "have convinced themselves that nuking Iran will show the Muslim world that Muslims have no alternative to submitting to the will of the US government."

The war on Iraq won't be remembered for how it was waged so much as for how it was sold. It was a propaganda war, a war of perception management, where loaded phrases, such as "weapons of mass destruction" and "rogue state" were hurled like precision weapons at the target audience: us.

The Bush claque of neocon hawks viewed the Iraq war as a product and, just like a new pair of Nikes, it required a roll-out campaign to soften up the consumers.

Who do you believe about the killing of Afghan civilians? Do you believe official US military statements, brought to us by the people who fabricated the story about Jessica Lynch and lied contemptibly at the highest levels about the killing of Pat Tillman? Or do you believe the Afghans who investigated the bombing?

...

Anti-Empire Report

What If NBC Cheered on a Military Coup Against Bush?

During the Cold War, if an American journalist or visitor to the Soviet Union reported seeing churches full of people, this was taken as a sign that the people were rejecting and escaping from communism. If the churches were empty, this clearly was proof of the suppression of religion. If consumer goods were scarce, this was seen as a failure of the communist system. If consumer goods appeared to be more plentiful, this gave rise to speculation about was happening in the Soviet Union that was prompting the authorities to try to buy off the citizenry.

I'm reminded of this kind of thinking concerning Venezuela. The conservative anti-communist American mind sees things pertaining to Washington's newest bête noir in the worst possible light (to the extent they're even being sincere). If Chávez makes education more widely available to the masses of poor people, it's probably for the purpose of indoctrinating them. If Chávez invites a large number of Cuban doctors to Venezuela to treat the poor, it's a sign of a new and growing communist conspiracy...

Why Did Bush Invade Iraq?
The Secret War

American soldiers have been fighting and dying in Iraq since 2003, and Americans do not know why.

What is the real agenda?

Dublin, Ireland

Ms. Pelosi, Speaker of the House, said after George signed the new weak as a newborn baby funding authorization bill: "Now, I think the president's policy will begin to unravel." Begin to unravel? How many more of our children will have to be killed and how much more of Iraq will have to be demolished before you all think enough unraveling has occurred? How many more crimes will BushCo be allowed to commit while their poll numbers are crumbling before you all gain the political "courage" to hold them accountable. If Iraq hasn't unraveled in Ms. Pelosi's mind, what will it take? With almost 700,000 Iraqis dead and four million refugees (which the US refuses to admit) how could it get worse? Well, it is getting worse and it can get much worse thanks to your complicity.

Visitors to the San Diego Zoo today had a surprise in store for them--the chain gang trio (Bush, Cheney and Condi) were bobbling their heads and performing their antics, dressed in prison stripes and waving big money around. I got to wear the Cheney head, which I reluctantly admit, means that I spent the morning being a Dick-head.

First--getting inside the head of a neo-con is a terrifying experience, but wearing the paper-mache head is no picnic either.

Rep. Jim McDermott rescues some history from the Memoryhole and puts Iraq into context: It's always been all about the oil.

Editor's note: After a week that saw Democrats cave to the White House in the worst possible way on Iraq, we thought this speech, offered on the House floor by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wa., last Wednesday, was worth highlighting. In a brief, five-minute commentary, McDermott does something almost unheard of in Washington: He looks at an issue in its larger historical context instead of pretending it just sprung up overnight like mushrooms after a rainfall.

The Washington, DC, think-tank, The American Enterprise Institute, camouflages its purpose with its name. There is nothing American about AEI, and the organization's enterprise is fomenting war in the Middle East against Israel's enemies. Its real name should be The Likud Center for Middle East War.

Now that the US invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan have failed, the AEI warmongers are conspiring with Vice President Cheney to foment war with Iran.

The divide between Democratic leaders contemplating their re-election prospects in 2008 and rank-and-file Democrats is becoming a chasm--one so wide that Congressional Democrats may soon find it hard to straddle it.

Meanwhile, down at the state and local level, Democratic Party committee after Democratic Party committee is voting out resolutions calling for impeachment. The latest Democratic Party organization to call for impeachment of both Bush and Cheney is the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

Time for a Summer of Action

The Democrats Cave to Bush

In reaction to President Bush's veto the Democrats are reportedly caving in to give him a Iraq War funding without any obligation to end the war. They are making Bush "the decider" once again. It seems that rather than having a lame duck president we have a lame Congress. The only thing that will end the war is constant, organized and focused pressure from Americans who oppose the war....

We want peace advocates to come and join us not only in traditional lobbying but in "extraordinary lobbying." The "Summer of Action" will build on the successful efforts of activists in DC and around the country who have been engaging in "extraordinary lobbying" by occupying offices, protesting in the Halls of Congress and sending a consistent message to end the war. It will build on the Occupation Project, Voices for Creative Non-Violence, and the Declaration of Peace. Already, key anti-war groups are supporting this effort including United For Peace and Justice and Voters For Peace.

Bring people from your local peace group and plan an office occupation or a demonstration inside one of the congressional office buildings as part of the "Summer of Action." Or, come alone and join our ongoing efforts to pressure Congress. ...

Almost Every Aspect of Iraqi Life has Gotten Worse in the Last Four Years

Operation Deepening Nightmare

By PATRICK COCKBURN

Four years ago, in the middle of the US invasion, I drove safely from Arbil in northern Iraq to Baghdad. There were heaps of discarded weapons beside the road, and long lines of former Iraqi soldiers walking home. Signs of battle were few, aside from the hulks of burned-out tanks, but they all seemed to have been hit by US aircraft after their crews had fled.

Tony Blair and George Bush still occasionally imply that the picture of Iraq as a war-torn hell is an exaggeration by the media. They suggest, though not as forcibly as they did a couple of years ago, that parts of the country are relatively peaceful. Nothing could be more untrue.

While serving as President Bush's White House lawyer, Alberto Gonzales advised Bush that the president's war time powers permitted Bush to ignore the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and to use the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on US citizens without obtaining warrants from the FISA court as required by law. Under an order signed by Bush in 2002, NSA illegally spied on Americans without warrants.

We are faced with the almost certain fact that the two highest law enforcement officials of the United States are criminals.

We need your help to advocate for a public broadcasting system that offers more independent programming, harder-hitting journalism, and the educational, ad-free content that is missing from commercial media.

Write a letter to Congress to guarantee permanent funding for public broadcasting.

A titanic power struggle is being waged within the policy elite or power elite, or more simply the U.S. ruling class. The clash is taking place over the war on Iraq, U.S. policy toward Israel--and ultimately over the best way to run the U.S. empire. The war on Iraq is shaping up as such a disaster for the empire that it can no longer be tolerated by our rulers in its present form. The struggle is as plain as the nose on your face; nevertheless it draws little comment. One reason is that we are taught to view matters political through the prism of Democrat versus Republican, whereas this struggle among our rulers cuts across party lines. On the "Left," few so much as allude to this internecine war, much less use it to good effect. This is apparently due to a very rigid, very dogmatic view of how empires function, indeed how they "must" function, and due to a fear of being labeled anti-semitic and thus running afoul of the Israeli Lobby. In many cases this silence reflects an actual sympathy among "liberals" for neocon foreign policy, either out of a latter day do-gooder version of the White Man's Burden, or an attachment to Israel.

This struggle is in no way hidden and definitely not a secret conspiracy. It is out in the open, as it must be, since it is in great part a battle for the hearts and minds of the American public. This fact makes the absence of commentary about it all the more chilling...

Video

Comments:

Suddenly everything has become clear to me.
Posted by: Peter | January 14, 2007

Some people still believe fire can destroy a steel skyscaper.
Posted by: Robert B. Livingston | January 14, 2007

Early on in the movement to oppose Bush's wars of aggression, Ramsey Clark and folks associated with the Workers' World Party advocated that the president be impeached. I recall attending antiwar demonstrations where people would go around collecting signatures on impeachment petitions, and thinking to myself:

(1) "No way this is feasible, given Bush's popularity ratings and growing fascist trends," and

(2) "Can't we do better in any case than channel our energies into some legal procedure that will---even if it were to succeed---leave the whole imperialist war machine intact?"

That was before the tide of U.S. public opinion turned, due primarily to the efforts of the people of an invaded country to resist that imperialist war machine. Had the project been the "cakewalk" predicted by prominent neocon Ken Adelman, Bush and his allies in the corporate media might have continued to persuade the masses that the invasion of Iraq was part of a rational, justifiable, heroic and even holy "war on terrorism."

Investigation after investigation convinces all with eyes to see and ears to hear that the war on Iraq is wrong. The tight grip of the corporate media on the American mind would not have allowed the decisive shift of opinion about the war had it not been for the success of the "insurgents" in making life hell for the invaders.

The complex and divided resistance movement, rather than antiwar activists in the American streets, has forced Americans to conclude that Bush did something profoundly immoral in attacking Iraq. The revelation (or what was for some a revelation) that Iraq possessed no weapons of mass destruction and no appreciable al-Qaeda ties has helped millions to figure out that the Iraq War is based on calculated lies.

It's good to be a Bush

Halliburton scored almost $1.2 billion in revenue from contracts related to Iraq in the third quarter of 2006, leading one analyst to comment: "Iraq was better than expected … Overall, there is nothing really to question or be skeptical about. I think the results are very good."
Very good indeed. An estimated 655,000 dead Iraqis, over 3,000 dead coalition troops, billions stolen from Iraq's coffers, a country battered by civil war – but Halliburton turned a profit, so the results are very good.

The article continues with outlines of how most members of the family profit from the war, including:
Bush Sr.
William H. T. "Bucky" Bush
Neil Mallon Bush
Marvin Pierce Bush

and also includes "Action Ideas".

WASHINGTON Jan 12, 2007 (AP)— The Pentagon has abandoned its limit on the time a citizen-soldier can be required to serve on active duty, officials said Thursday, a major change that reflects an Army stretched thin by longer-than-expected combat in Iraq.

The day after President Bush announced his plan for a deeper U.S. military commitment in Iraq, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters the change in reserve policy would have been made anyway because active-duty troops already were getting too little time between their combat tours.

By US Labor Against the War

The Democratic Party is soliciting messages of congratulations to House Speaker Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid. The website includes a space for 'personal' messages.

This provides an opportunity to send a message. The voters mandate could not have been more clear:

Get all of our forces out of Iraq now!

The Surge Pushers

The War and the New York Times

The war in Iraq, one of the most disastrous military enterprises in the history of the Republic, has the New York Times' fingerprints all over it. The role the newspaper played in fomenting the 2003 attack is now one of the best known sagas in journalistic history, as embodied in the reports of Judy Miller, working in collusion with Iraqi exiles and US spooks to concoct Saddam's imaginary arsenal of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

But so fixated have many Times critics been on the WMD/ Miller saga, that they have failed to notice that across the past sixth months the Times has been waging an equally disingenuous campaign to escalate American troop levels in this doomed enterprises.

The prime journalistic promoter of the escalation - it is time to retire the adroitly chosen word "surge" -- now being proposed by the White House is Michael Gordon, the Times' military correspondent, a man of fabled arrogance and self esteem.

Gordon's has been the mouthpiece for the faction -led by Gen. David H. Petraeus -- inside the U.S. military in Iraq that has been promoting the escalation. As Gordon himself triumphantly announced in the New York Times this weekend, Gen. Petraeus has been picked by Bush to lead the open-ended escalation of the war that Petraeus has long campaigned for.

Throughout his time in Iraq Gen. Petraeus himself has been very adroit at fostering good relations with carefully selected reporters, like Gordon. That strategy has been vindicated by the steady stream of stories in the Times--not just by Gordon--reflecting his views.

Once again the barbarians have succeeded in professing human dignity while ignoring human life's sanctity. My thoughts are filled with disgust as the so called civilized world revels in the hanging of Saddam Hussein yesterday.

Don't mistake my total distaste of the execution of Hussein for any alliance or sympathy for the tyrant killer. I just tire of the "morally superior" position of this nation (U.S.) when it comes to the administration's posturing around the capture, trial and execution of the man our government installed in the first place.

We did the same thing with Noriega in Panama and Diem in Vietnam. This names only a couple of many tyrants our nation has been responsible for bringing to power and maintaining in power at the expense of their own citizens.

Let's not forget the now infamous photo of Donald Rumsfeld warmly greeting Saddam back in the 1980's when it was ever so convenient to have a dictator in charge of a country with the second largest oil reserve in the world.

Let's not forget how we encouraged an uprising against Saddam after Gulf War I and then abandoned the rebels to be killed and tortured by his ruthless police.

Let's not forget when sanctions were in place, blocking even humanitarian aid such as medical supplies and water purification, Dick Cheney went around the rules that made it a crime to provide any supplies. By using the European branch of Halliburton (he was CEO at the time) Cheney helped supply Saddam with pipe for the oil fields. No doubt the costs were marked up and Halliburton made a tidy profit.

Meanwhile, let's not forget the hundreds of thousands of children who died as result of sanctions. The deaths could have been easily prevented had medical supplies and water treatment supplies been allowed.

Obviously the American government put more value on oil than the lives of a million Iraqi children. When people in groups like Voices in the Wilderness requested permission to enter Iraq to bring supplies they were denied. When Madeline Albright was informed of the dying children she dismissed it as the cost that had to be paid.

When Kathy Kelly of Voices went to Iraq independently the American government made threats of imprisoning her and handing out large monetary fines. Dick Cheney as Vice President of the United States is exempt from prosecution for his ventures into Iraq with Halliburton-Europe.

Let's also not forget the furor leading up to the war in Iraq about weapons of mass destruction. The American people were bombarded with the danger Saddam presented because of his WMD. As proof of this danger the Bush administration constantly pointed out Saddam gassed the Kurds in Northern Iraq.

What George W. Bush didn't tell the American people was how Saddam came to have any WMD's. Bush and his cronies failed to tell the American people what the American government knew of Saddam gassing the Kurds. They failed to admit the government knew in advance of the gassing and failed to intervene.

Time after time the government of the United States failed to intervene against the ruthless actions of Saddam. Saddam remained in power as long as he did because the American government viewed him as a stable opponent of the Iranian government that we feared was gaining too much influence in the oil rich Middle East.

Heading into 2007, and regarding whether I am more or less optimistic over this past year over the local and global response to peak oil, my response is what President Bush just said in his recent speech… "We are not winning, but we are not losing".

I am less optimistic for 2007 due to the fact that Americans are still in the dark about HOW to change our consumptive habits, or that they even need to sacrifice at all, starting right now. There is too-low attendance at Power Down meetings across the country. The president just used his media bullhorn to direct Americans to go out shopping, and that will make everything A-OK. Yet he says we need to get off of oil?

Like a drug addict depending on a dealer they don't know is running out of dope, Americans are about to get slammed by our dealers saying "Sorry, that high you depend on is gonna cost you five times as much tomorrow, and by the way, it's only going to get more expensive from here on out". Uh… say what?

US President George W Bush intends to reveal a new Iraq strategy within days, the BBC has learnt.

The speech will reveal a plan to send more US troops to Iraq to focus on ways of bringing greater security, rather than training Iraqi forces.

The move comes with figures from Iraqi ministries suggesting that deaths among civilians are at record highs.

The US president arrived back in Washington on Monday after a week-long holiday at his ranch in Texas.

The BBC has been told by a senior administration source that the speech setting out changes in Mr Bush's Iraq policy is likely to come in the middle of next week.

WASHINGTON, Dec. 31 — President Bush began 2006 assuring the country that he had a "strategy for victory in Iraq." He ended the year closeted with his war cabinet on his ranch trying to devise a new strategy, because the existing one had collapsed.

The original plan, championed by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Baghdad, and backed by Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, called for turning over responsibility for security to the Iraqis, shrinking the number of American bases and beginning the gradual withdrawal of American troops. But the plan collided with Iraq's ferocious unraveling, which took most of Mr. Bush's war council by surprise.

In interviews in Washington and Baghdad, senior officials said the White House, the Pentagon and the State Department had also failed to take seriously warnings, including some from its own ambassador in Baghdad, that sectarian violence could rip the country apart and turn Mr. Bush's promise to "clear, hold and build" Iraqi neighborhoods and towns into an empty slogan.

This left the president and his advisers constantly lagging a step or two behind events on the ground.

Records Can Be Baggage In Bids for White House

The attack ads practically write themselves: Hillary Clinton voted against ethanol! Barack Obama wants to increase taxes!

Such are the perils of running for president as a senator. The two front-runners for the 2008 Democratic nomination are newcomers to the chamber. But in the two years that Clinton and Obama have overlapped, they have taken opposite sides at least 40 times. That's a lot of material to mine, and even misrepresent.

Of the eight senators pondering presidential runs, Clinton (N.Y.), who is completing her first Senate term, and Obama (Ill.), sworn in two years ago, have the briefest voting histories. The Senate has held 645 roll-call votes during their shared tenure, and more than 90 percent of the time the two senators stood with other Democrats. They opposed John G. Roberts Jr.'s nomination as chief justice, supported increased funding for embryonic stem cell research and backed the same nonbinding measure that urged President Bush to plan for a gradual troop withdrawal from Iraq.

Even in GOP, Few Back the President

Sen. John McCain, leading a blue-ribbon congressional delegation to Baghdad before Christmas, collected evidence that a "surge" of more U.S. troops is needed in Iraq. But not all his colleagues who accompanied him were convinced. What's more, he will find himself among a dwindling minority inside the Senate Republican caucus when Congress reconvenes this week.

President Bush and McCain, the front-runner for the party's 2008 presidential nomination, will have trouble finding support from more than 12 of the 49 Republican senators when pressing for a surge of 30,000 troops. "It's Alice in Wonderland," Sen. Chuck Hagel, second-ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee, told me in describing the proposal. "I'm absolutely opposed to sending any more troops to Iraq. It is folly."

What to do about Iraq poses not only a national policy crisis but profound political problems for the Republican Party. Disenchantment with George W. Bush within the GOP runs deep. Republican leaders around the country, anticipating that the 2006 election disaster would prompt an orderly disengagement from Iraq, are shocked that the president now appears ready to add troops.

GOP Lawmakers Divided About 'Surge' in Troops

CRAWFORD, Tex., Dec. 31 -- Republican lawmakers appear uneasy about -- and in some cases outright dismissive of -- the idea of sending many more troops to Iraq, as President Bush contemplates such a "surge" as part of his new strategy for stabilizing the country.

Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), a leading GOP presidential contender for 2008, has been aggressively promoting a plan to send tens of thousands of additional troops to Iraq, and the idea has been gaining traction at the White House as a way to improve security in Baghdad.

But the proposition generates far less enthusiasm among rank-and-file Republicans, many of whom must face the voters again in 2008, presenting a potential obstacle for Bush as he hones the plan, according to lawmakers, aides and congressional analysts.