Dictator Bush Cheerleading at Annapolis

Photo: Midshipmen catch naps as they wait for more than an hour for U.S. President George W. Bush to deliver an address on the war in Iraq at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland November 30, 2005. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)


November 30, 2005

It's pathetic to see the world's most powerful man, shunted into prearranged venues so he can pitch his snake-oil to college aged boys. That said, Bush's appearance today at the Naval Academy has got to be a new low for the White House public relations team. Apparently the only people buying the huckster-in-chief's bedraggled vision of a democratic Iraq are rosy-cheeked young men who dream of battlefields instead of girlfriends.

Is this the last place Bush can count on a round of applause without body-scanning everyone who enters the door?

"Setting an artificial deadline to withdraw would vindicate the terrorist tactics of beheadings and suicide bombings and mass murder and invite new attacks on America," Bush boomed.

Bush loves the applause. He luxuriates in the warm glow of human affection. In many ways he is the consummate politician feeding his fragile ego with the ephemeral praise of complete strangers. Too bad, his only springboard to fame has been as bullhorn for right-wing fanatics and war-mongers. Now, he finds himself toddling on a narrower and narrower ledge, peering down into the abyss of defeat and disgrace.

Bush Resigns

George Bush today resigned his presidency.

Three months ago, Bush was slapped with a one-count indictment by the Iraq War Crimes Tribunal charging him with crimes against humanity.

Standing before Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Bush read the following statement:

"Today, I am resigning as President of the United States because I have compromised the trust of my constituents.

"Several months ago, I publicly declared my innocence because I was not strong enough to face the truth.

"So, I misled my family, staff, friends, colleagues, the public -- even myself.

"For all of this, I am deeply sorry.

"The truth is -- I broke the law, concealed my conduct, and disgraced my high office.

"I know that I will forfeit my freedom, my reputation, my worldly possessions, and most importantly, the trust of my friends and family.

"Some time ago, I asked my lawyers to inform the special war crimes prosecutor that I would like to plead guilty and begin serving a prison term.

"Today is the culmination of that process.

"I will continue to cooperate with the government's ongoing investigation to the best of my ability.

"In my life, I have known great joy and great sorrow.

"And now I know great shame."

Okay, so that wasn't George Bush.

Change a few words, and that is the verbatim statement of Congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham, who pled guilty in San Diego today to taking more than $2.4 million in bribes from a number of defense contractors.

He faces 10 years in prison.

Here's the rest of Cunningham's statement:

"I learned in Viet Nam that the true measure of a man is how he responds to adversity.

"I cannot undo what I have done.

"But I can atone.

"I am now almost 65 years old and, as I enter the twilight of my life, I intend to use the remaining time that God grants me to make amends.

"The first step in that journey is to admit fault and apologize.

"The next step is to face the consequences of my actions like a man.

"Today, I have taken the first step and, with God's grace, I will soon take the second."

Of course, George Bush did not learn anything in Vietnam.

Because he skipped out on Vietnam. Not out of principle, but simply from the exercise of class privilege.

But as former Congressman Cunningham said today, "the true measure of a man is how he responds to adversity."

And George Bush is facing adverse times.

Why wait for the indictment?

Do what white-collar criminals do.

Go to the prosecutor and come clean.

Admit to the war crimes you have committed.

What you have done is a violation of international law.

Indeed, as former chief justice and Nuremberg prosecutor Robert Jackson put it -- a war of aggression is the supreme international crime.

And you have committed it.

The first step of your journey is to admit fault and apologize -- to the American people, to the Iraqi people and to the people of the world.

The second step is to face the consequences of your actions like a man.

You have known great joy and sorrow in your life.

Now is your time to know shame.

Q/A on the Iraq War by Noam Chomsky

1. On Reconstruction

Anthony DiMaggio: The "humanitarian reconstruction" of Iraq has been acknowledged to a large degree as a failure in the corporate press. It's interesting, though, to see the reasons given for why: the resistance is hampering reconstruction, there wasn't perfect foresight by the Bush administration in the reconstruction coordination planning process, the excessive "rapid personnel shifts" of those Americans involved in rebuilding, American money has "necessarily" gone to "pacification" instead of rebuilding, etc. What seems to be systematically omitted here is any real responsibility placed on the Bush Administration for its failure to make humanitarian reconstruction a high priority.

Chomsky: The excuses also overlook the fact that the insurgency was created by the brutality of the invasion and occupation -- which is, in fact, one of the most astonishing failures in military history. The Nazis had less trouble in occupied Europe, and the Russians held their satellites for decades with far less difficulty. It is difficult to think of an analog. A few months after the invasion, I met a highly experienced senior physician with one of the leading relief organizations, who has served in some of the worst parts of the world. He had just returned briefly from Baghdad, where he was trying to reestablish medical facilities, but was unable to because of the incompetence of the CPA. He told me he had never seen such a combination of "arrogance, ignorance, and incompetence," referring to the Pentagon civilians in charge. In fact, it was monumental. They even failed to guard the WMD sites that had been under UN supervision, so that they were systematically looted, handing over to someone -- probably jihadis --high-precision equipment suitable for producing missiles and nuclear weapons, dangerous bio-toxins, etc., which had been provided to their friend Saddam by the US, UK and others. The ironies are almost indescribable.

Bush's Newest Crusader - Bush just appointed a guy to be deputy director of USAID who believes Muslims will burn in hell.

William Fisher has managed economic development programs in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and Asia for the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development. This piece was originally published in The Daily Star and is reprinted with permission.

Washington is a town where the best and the brightest usually coexist with well-connected political hacks. However, the Bush administration has taken promotion of the latter to embarrassing extremes, selecting unqualified people for posts because of their political loyalty and ideological persuasion. The most recent example of this was the appointment of Paul Bonicelli to be deputy director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which is in charge of all programs to promote democracy and good governance overseas.

One would have thought the administration had learned its lesson. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Michael Brown, was forced to resign because of his incompetence in dealing with the consequences of the storm. Soon afterward, President George W. Bush named While House counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. Her lack of qualifications, and a Republican revolt against the nomination, forced her to withdraw.

Like Brown and Miers, Bonicelli has little experience in the field he has been tapped to supervise. The closest he comes to democracy promotion or good governance is having worked as a staffer for the Republican Party in the International Relations Committee of the House of Representatives.

More significant to the administration, perhaps, is the fact that Bonicelli is dean of academic affairs at tiny Patrick Henry College in rural Virginia. The fundamentalist institution's motto is "For Christ and Liberty." It requires that all of its 300 students sign a 10-part "statement of faith" declaring, among other things, that they believe "Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, is God come in the flesh;" that "Jesus Christ literally rose bodily from the dead"; and that hell is a place where "all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity."

Faculty members, too, must sign a pledge stating they share a generally literalist belief in the Bible. Revealingly, only biology and theology teachers are required to hold a literal view specifically of the Bible's six-day creation story. Bonicelli has stated, "I think the most important thing is our academic excellence, [and the fact that we] combine it with a serious statement about our faith and values ... I believe in six literal days, but I remain open to someone persuading me otherwise."

Patrick Henry was founded in 2000 for home-schooled students. Among the fundamentalist community, home-schooling is seen as a way to promote Christian values as an alternative to what is regarded as an increasingly secular and irreligious culture prevalent in public schools. The college says it aims to "prepare Christian men and women who will lead our nation and shape our culture with timeless biblical values and fidelity to the spirit of the American founding." It seeks "to aid in the transformation of American society by training Christian students to serve God and mankind with a passion for righteousness, justice and mercy, through careers of public service and cultural influence."

Though Bonicelli has scant credentials for his new post, he and his institution enjoy close ties to the Bush administration and to fundamentalist religious groups that form such a critical part of the president's base. Many Patrick Henry students have been chosen to serve as interns working for White House political adviser Karl Rove, for the White House Office of Public Liaison, and for Republican members of the House and Senate. "Most students' values don't link up with [those of] the Democrats," Bonicelli says.

In 2002, Bush appointed Bonicelli—along with former Vatican adviser John Klink and Janice Crouse of the ultra-conservative Concerned Women for America—to an American delegation attending a United Nations children's conference, where they sought to promote biblical values in U.S. foreign policy. This sparked angry protests from groups advocating women's rights and the separation of church and state.

What's wrong with this picture is that the USAID programs Bonicelli will run are important weapons in the arsenal of Bush's new public diplomacy czarina, White House confidante Karen Hughes. These programs are intended to play a central role in boosting Bush's efforts to foster democracy and freedom in Iraq and throughout the broader Middle East.

One can only wonder how Muslims, the target audience for these USAID programs, will react to the view that "all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity."

Timely demise for Free Trade Area of the Americas

From upsidedownworld.org

The stage was set for a showdown. When the Bush cabinet announced intentions to revive the moribund Free Trade Area of the Americas at the Fourth Summit of the Americas in Mar del Plata, the countries of the Southern Common Market closed ranks to prevent it. What followed was a diplomatic melee that reflects not so much divisions within Latin America, as a growing resistance to the current free trade model throughout the developing world.

The November summit was officially billed as a forum to discuss employment, and the issue of creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas was not even on the agenda. However, well before landing in the Argentine beach town, the Bush administration made clear its intentions to leave with a specific commitment to restart negotiations.

The U.S. government was determined to come out of the meeting with a revitalized FTAA because the administration feared that if the negotiations were left to languish, momentum could be lost for the initiative at a crucial time. The FTAA was first launched by George W. Bush's father, but after ten years of inconclusive talks and significant differences between the countries, the goal of a hemisphere-wide NAFTA remained elusive.

Blog from Bolivia - If Morales Wins, Will He Seek the Presidency?

Predicting the future in politics is always a dubious business. In Bolivia it is dubious en el extremo (Who predicted in 2001 that we would have five different Presidents in five years?). But with an army of fresh foreign reporters headed this way to cover Bolivia’s Presidential vote – many of whom read this Blog – here’s a bit of analysis and prediction that they ought to keep in mind as they try to interpret the strange dance of Bolivia’s unplanned elections.

Rule #1: Winning the Popular Vote is Not Winning the Presidency

Okay, let’s say that the polls are relatively accurate and not much changes between now and December 18th. If that is the case, then Evo Morales and MAS will likely finish in first place with (and this is a guess) somewhere between 30% to 35% of the vote. Tuto Quiroga comes in a strong second place with 25%. Samuel Doria Medina finishes third with 15% or so. The rest of the pack comes in with somewhere between 2% to 5% each.

Chavez, Fox and the Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America

From upsidedownworld.org

In what has become a vindictive exchange of words between Mexican President Vicente Fox and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, which on the surface appears to be an ideological battle over trade policy, is in fact rooted in the future development and economic integration of the Americas. Although the Venezuelan president’s words may have isolated him for the moment from the Fox administration, it is actually Fox, and his party, who may be isolated from the Mexican people and government with elections coming up in July of 2006.

The debate, which is by no means a new one, has returned to public attention following the Summit of the Americas in Argentina, where Chavez, members of MERCUSOR (the South American trade bloc), and thousands of people in the streets of Mar Del Plata, "buried" the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).

Bush And Bomb Threats

The recent news that President George W. Bush might have threatened to bomb Al Jazeera is hard to believe. We don’t want to believe it. And given the source of the allegation—a British tabloid newspaper, The Daily Mirror —it deserves scrutiny. But it also deserves investigation, which so far the American press has been slow in pursuing.

Here's the background: Last week The Daily Mirror reported leaks of another memo from 10 Downing Street (a website in England called Blair Watch reports there may actually be two memos). The memo allegedly reported that, in a 2004 meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush discussed bombing Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Qatar. According to the allegation, Blair talked him out of it. The meeting between Bush and Blair occurred as U.S. troops were engaged in brutal combat in Fallujah—an offensive aired with all its gore by Al Jazeera but mostly sanitized in the United States. Bush was reportedly outraged that Al Jazeera was reporting the high number of Iraqi civilians killed in the assault.

The White House dismissed the bomb threat report as “outlandish.” For his part, Tony Blair tried to ignore it, and later derided it as a “conspiracy’ theory.

The specter of Bush threatening the Middle East’s most popular information source becomes less far-fetched when you consider the lengths this White House has pursued to censor damning information and the record of U.S. military attacks on the media. Many Americans don’t recall how, under George W. Bush, the U.S. military knocked out Saddam’s TV complex and attacked Al Jazeera offices in Kabul in 2001 and Baghdad in 2003. These incidents have for many U.S. viewers become “fog facts," in writer Larry Beinhart’s phrase—information we once knew, but has since disappeared from view.

Triumph of the Beast

The torture of Iraqi detainees by US military forces is undeniable. We now know the Bush administration condoned torture even before Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom was launched upon Afghanistan and Iraq, in this post-9/11 hysteria of terrorist infiltration on American soil.

Congressman Marty Meehan (D-MA), a ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, was horrified after he viewed Abu Ghraib prison photos released by the Department of Defense. Meehan remarked emerging from the darkened committee room, "I was obviously shocked and horrified to discover that the new photos were even more gruesome than those we have seen in the media. What went on there is indefensible and inexcusable."

During a recent trip to Panama, President Bush pontificated that Americans "do not torture"—his deployment of executive authority to keep Congress from imposing rules on prisoner treatment notwithstanding. With the implementation of the Patriot Act of 2001, President Bush was given express power to declare anyone suspected of having a connection to terrorists or terrorism an "enemy combatant" and thereby suspend his right to habeas corpus. The Senate diligently voted to cast innocent people into pain and darkness without recourse or rights. American citizens declared "enemy combatants"should not be denied the constitution; but a formable squawk about rights and habeas corpus forced a compromise of allowing a post-conviction appeal – for people who had been arbitrarily seized and held in isolation for years without charges, which had been tortured, humiliated and driven to madness, some committing suicide before facing a kangaroo court. Such was the deal cobbled together for Bush to present as a triumph of human spirit and the American way.

The Autumn of the Patriarchy

In the vice president's new, more fortified bunker, inside his old undisclosed secure location within the larger bunker that used to be called the West Wing of the White House, Dick Cheney was muttering and sputtering.

He wasn't talking to the pictures on the wall, as Nixon did when he finally cracked. Vice doesn't trust those portraits anyway. The walls have ears. He was talking to the only reliable man in a city of dimwits, cowards, traitors and fools: himself.

He hurled a sheaf of news reports with such force it knocked over the picture of Ahmad Chalabi that he keeps next to the picture of Churchill. Winston Chalabi, he likes to call him.

Vice is fed up with all the whining and carping - and that's just inside the White House. The only negativity in Washington is supposed to be his own. He's the only one allowed to scowl and grumble and conspire.

The impertinent Tom DeFrank reported in New York's Daily News that embattled White House aides felt "President Bush must take the reins personally" to save his presidency.

Let him try, Cheney said with a sneer. Things are nowhere near dire enough for that. Even if Junior somehow managed to grab the reins to his presidency, Vice holds Junior's reins. So he just needs to get all these sniveling, poll-driven wimps and losers back on board with the master plan.

Things had been going so smoothly. The global torture franchise was up and running. Halliburton contracts were flowing. Tax cuts were sailing through. Oil companies were raking it in. Alaska drilling was thrillingly close. The courts were defending his executive privilege on energy policy, and people were still buying all that smoke about Saddam's being responsible for 9/11, and that drivel about how we're fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here. Everything was groovy.

But not anymore. Cheney could not believe that Karl had made him go out and call that loudmouth Jack Murtha a patriot. He was sure the Pentagon generals had put the congressman up to calling for a withdrawal from Iraq. Is the military brass getting in touch with its pacifist side? In Wyoming, Vice shoots doves.

How dare Murtha suggest that Cheney dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged and dodged the draft? Murtha thinks he knows about war just because he served in one and was a marine for 37 years? Vice started his own war. Now that's a credential!

It always goes this way with the cut-and-run crowd. First they start nitpicking the war, complaining about little things like the lack of armor for the troops. Then they complain that there aren't enough troops. Well, that would just require more armor that we don't have. Then they kvetch about using incendiary weapons in a city like Falluja. Vice likes the smell of white phosphorus in the morning.

What really enrages him is all the Republicans in the Senate making noises about timetables. Before you know it, it's going to be helicopters on the rooftop at the Baghdad embassy.

Just because Junior's approval ratings are in the 30's, people around here are going all wobbly. Vice was 10 points lower and he wasn't worried. Numbers are for sissies.

Why do Harry Reid and his Democratic turncoats think they can call the White House on the carpet? Do they think Vice would fear to lie about lying about the rationale for going to war? A real liar never stops lying.

He didn't want to have to tell the rest of the senators to go do to themselves what he had told Patrick Leahy to go do to himself.

Now all these idiots are getting caught, even Scooter. DeLay's on the ropes and the Dukester is a total embarrassment, spending bribes on antique commodes and a Rolls-Royce. Vice should never have let an amateur get involved with defense contracts.

Republican moderates are running scared in the House, worried about re-election. Even senators seem to have forgotten which side their bread is oiled on. Ted Stevens let oil company executives get caught lying about the energy task force meeting, while Vice can't even get a little thing like torture chambers through the Senate. What's so wrong with a little torture?

And now John Warner wants Junior to use fireside chats to explain his plan for Iraq. When did everybody get the un-American idea that the president is answerable to America?

Vice is fed up with the whining of squirrelly surrogates like Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson on behalf of peaceniks like George Senior and Colin Powell. If Poppy's upset about his kid's mentor, he should be man enough to come slug it out.

Poppy isn't getting Junior back, Vice vowed, muttering: "He's my son. It's my war. It's my country."

International specialists forecast black future for US dollar in 2006

The rate of the US currency may hit the all-time minimum in 2006: the dollar may drop to 1.38 dollars per one euro, Citigroup analysts said. According to this forecast, the US dollar is likely to lose 20 percent of its value during the forthcoming year. If the forecast is true, such a considerable decline of the US currency may bring severe damage to Russian people's savings.

Mystery of Woodward's Three Sources

Buried deep in an article by the Washington Post's media writer Howard Kurtz is new evidence that senior Bush administration officials knew their case for war with Iraq was shaky – and that the Post's star reporter Bob Woodward ducked his duty to the American people to present this information before the invasion began.

Not only did Woodward withhold evidence that pre-war WMD intelligence was suspect, he added his clout to a post-invasion public relations campaign aimed at heading off criminal indictments of White House officials who had retaliated against an Iraq War critic by leaking classified information that endangered a covert CIA officer and her contacts.

To make matters worse, both these abuses of information came not on some garden-variety political dirty trick but on life-and-death questions about the administration’s integrity in leading the nation to war.

While it may be true that few of Washington's elite know the mostly working-class men and women in the all-volunteer U.S. military, the moral weight of their sacrifices – and their deaths – should have some bearing on the consciences in the nation's capital. Career advancement and seven-figure book contracts might for once take a back seat.

U.S. Military Covertly Pays to Run Stories in Iraqi Press

As part of an information offensive in Iraq, the U.S. military is secretly paying Iraqi newspapers to publish stories written by American troops in an effort to burnish the image of the U.S. mission in Iraq.

The articles, written by U.S. military "information operations" troops, are translated into Arabic and placed in Baghdad newspapers with the help of a defense contractor, according to U.S. military officials and documents obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Many of the articles are presented in the Iraqi press as unbiased news accounts written and reported by independent journalists. The stories trumpet the work of U.S. and Iraqi troops, denounce insurgents and tout U.S.-led efforts to rebuild the country.

Though the articles are basically factual, they present only one side of events and omit information that might reflect poorly on the U.S. or Iraqi governments, officials said. Records and interviews indicate that the U.S. has paid Iraqi newspapers to run dozens of such articles, with headlines such as "Iraqis Insist on Living Despite Terrorism," since the effort began this year.

The operation is designed to mask any connection with the U.S. military. The Pentagon has a contract with a small Washington-based firm called Lincoln Group, which helps translate and place the stories. The Lincoln Group's Iraqi staff, or its subcontractors, sometimes pose as freelance reporters or advertising executives when they deliver the stories to Baghdad media outlets.

The military's effort to disseminate propaganda in the Iraqi media is taking place even as U.S. officials are pledging to promote democratic principles, political transparency and freedom of speech in a country emerging from decades of dictatorship and corruption.

It's official: Diebold election bugware can't be trusted - The company implies as much

Diebold would rather lose all of its voting machine business in North Carolina than open its source code to state election officials as required by law, the Associated Press reports.
Due to irregularities in the 2004 election traced to touch screen terminals, North Carolina has taken the very reasonable precaution of requiring vendors of electronic voting gizmos to place all of the source code in escrow. Diebold has objected to the possibility of criminal sanctions if they fail to comply, and argued for an exemption before Wake County Superior Court Judge Narley Cashwell. The judge declined to issue an exemption, and Diebold has concluded that it has no choice but withdraw from the state.

The company's explanation is that their machines contain Microsoft software, which they have no right to make available to state election officials. This seems disingenuous, as it is hard to imagine Microsoft suing Diebold for complying with the law. It would hardly be Diebold's fault if it released MS code to a lawful authority on demand; that issue would be something for MS and North Carolina to work out.

One far-fetched explanation would be that MS has licensed its software to Diebold with a provision that the company withdraw from jurisdictions where the law requires the release of its source code. It's possible, but there's no reason to believe it.

A considerably more plausible explanation is that Diebold is using this non-problem as an excuse to keep its bugware from the prying eyes of government regulators. And the most likely reason for that is that they've got a lot of blunders to hide. If North Carolina were to reject the machines on the basis of their software, other states would undoubtedly become suspicious, and begin doing their own investigations. So in that case, withdrawing from the market is the smartest move the company can make.

But if the software is as good as the company claims, then North Carolina's future endorsement will make for excellent free advertising. Withdrawing from the market would be a very foolish move in that case, but, again, only if Diebold has nothing to hide

U.S. Farmers Use Pesticide in Violation of International Treaty

A sign, required by law, warns of a pesticide application of methyl bromide on a field near Watsonville, Calif., Aug. 12, 2005. The pesticide is used to fumigate the soil as preparation for strawberry planting. The U.S. continues to permit the methyl bromide to be used despite signing an international treaty that banned its use by 2005. Its survival demonstrates the difficulty of banishing a chemical that is a powerful toxin but that also helps deliver abundant, pest-free and affordable produce for farmers and consumers.

The Hallucinations of (Neocon Nazi) Joe Lieberman

In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal on November 28, Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) put forward an argument for staying the course in Iraq. Of course, his argument in "Our Troops Must Stay" was filled with false information.

Lieberman describes "real progress" and "self-securing nationhood." What are the facts? Rep. Murtha laid them out clearly saying the "war in Iraq is not going as advertised" and, more specifically:

The "National" Strategy for "Victory" in Iraq

From left i on the news

You don't really think I have the patience to read that crap, do you? Not when the very title contains at least two lies. "National" strategy? The "nation," in its overwhelming majority, wants the troops out of Iraq ASAP (somewhere between now and six months from now). This isn't the "national" strategy, it's the Bush administration strategy (and we use the word "strategy" loosely, of course). As far as "victory," that's also completely bogus, since Iraq isn't ours to "win," so the idea of "victory" is completely out of place.
I'll just note one thing that caught my eye -- the "long term" part of the "strategy": "Longer term, Iraq is peaceful, united, stable, and secure, well integrated into the international community, and a full partner in the global war on terrorism." Most people are focusing on the first few words, and the obvious implication that the U.S. will be in Iraq for a thousand years if we're waiting for Iraq to become "peaceful, united, stable, and secure" before leaving. But I think the other phrases say more about the U.S.'s real goals in Iraq. "Well integrated into the international community" means a full "partner" (i.e., lackey) in the international capitalist system, with low-paid labor and cheap raw materials (oil in this case) being furnished to the "international community" (i.e., the wealthy, imperialist nations), and foreign companies able to extract the maximum amount of profits out of Iraq. And "full partner in the [so-called] global war on terrorism" means, I presume, willing to host secret CIA prisons where people captured in other countries can be hidden and tortured out of the reach of the U.S. or international legal systems.

Well, at least that goal won't be too difficult to achieve.

Bush's speech contains one very interesting (and, I believe, new) thought (another word we use loosely):

"As we fight the enemy in Iraq, every man and woman who volunteers to defend our nation deserves an unwavering commitment to the mission -- and a clear strategy for victory. A clear strategy begins with a clear understanding of the enemy we face. The enemy in Iraq is a combination of rejectionists, Saddamists [Ed. note: do you think they've adopted that term for fear of how Bush might mispronounce "Saddamites"?] and terrorists. The rejectionists are by far the largest group. These are ordinary Iraqis, mostly Sunni Arabs, who miss the privileged status they had under the regime of Saddam Hussein -- and they reject an Iraq in which they are no longer the dominant group."

Bush asserts that "rejectionists" "reject an Iraq in which they are no longer the dominant group." Notice anything missing? Like the notion that the overwhelming majority (80%) of Iraqis "reject" the U.S. occupation of their country? But accepting Bush's words on their face, what is he saying? That the Sunnis are fighting to be the dominant group in Iraq. Perhaps they are. Who the hell is the U.S. to stick not only their nose, but the barrel of their guns, into that fight on the side of the other side, i.e., the Shiites? What earthly right (or international law) allows the U.S. to determine that the Sunnis should not be the dominant group, and that their wish to be so makes them an "enemy" that must be "defeated"? Shall we also go into battle in England or Canada on behalf of the Conservative parties in those countries, or into Israel on behalf of Sharon's "Forward" party? I hear all of them want to be the "dominant" group too.
I actually want to say a lot more about the response by Democratic Senators John Kerry and Jack Reed, which I watched in disgust, but I don't think there's a transcript anywhere yet. The video is online here, but I'll have to rewatch it to transcribe some of the most quoteworthy material to integrate with my comments. Suffice it for now to say that anyone counting on the Democrats to facilitate an exit from Iraq probably still believes in the tooth fairy.

The police who arrested the Five participated in the conspiracy to assassinate Venezuelan Attorney General Anderson

IN its November 10 late edition, the Miami daily El Nuevo Herald revealed that according to "a Venezuelan government witness in the investigation into the murder of Attorney General Danilo Anderson," Héctor Pesquera, former FBI chief in Miami, who directed, organized and effected the arrest of the five Cubans transformed into spies in a grand media show, was also involved in the assassination of the Venezuelan official.

By publishing this information, the Miami daily has confirmed what several articles that have appeared in the wake of the assassination in Granma International, linking Pesquera to the many accomplices of the crime.

In a text signed by journalists Gerardo Reyes and Casto Ocando, El Nuevo Herald specified that this witness testified that "an FBI chief by the name of Pesquera and a CIA agent, only identified as Morrison, participated in the meeting in Panama during which the official’s assassination was planned."

British mercenary firm with Pentagon contracts exposed in civilian shooting incident in Iraq.

November 29, 2005 -- British mercenary firm with Pentagon contracts exposed in civilian shooting incident in Iraq. A souvenir video (WMP) (Quicktime) has surfaced on the Internet showing private security contractors working for Aegis Defense Services "Victory" Group firing indiscriminately at Iraqi civilian motorists in Baghdad. The video was reportedly taken by an Aegis employee and posted on a web site run by an ex-Aegis employee. The video has since been removed from the site. The video contains four clips showing Aegis mercenaries firing at civilian automobiles. The video's soundtrack includes Elvis Presley's "Train I Ride." Aegis is run by former British Scots Guard officer Lt. Col. Tim Spicer, an international mercenary who has been involved in UN sanctions busting in Sierra Leone and Bougainville invasion planning in Papua New Guinea. Spicer's firm, Aegis, was awarded a $293 million security contract in Iraq. Spicer's men also stand accused of shooting teenager Peter McBride in the back in Belfast in 1992. That has prompted a number of members of the Irish Caucus in the Congress to demand the Pentagon withdraw its contract to Aegis. The Pentagon has rejected such action.



Pentagon Iraq contractor head Tim Spicer under arrest in 1997 in Papua New Guinea following failed Bougainville invasion and resulting coup d'etat.

Aegis maintains its head office in London's Picadilly. It is also reported to have an office on K Street in Washington, DC.

The Pentagon has had a longstanding relationship with Spicer. The Pentagon's love affair with mercenary firms began in the 1990s when they were viewed with favor for their military activities, including sanctions busting, in Africa. Under the Clinton administration, mercenary firms blossomed. Under George W. Bush, they have flourished. On June 24, 1997, the Defense Intelligence Agency sponsored a seminar titled "The Privatization of National Security Functions in Sub-Saharan Africa." This conference ushered in the present cooperation between mercenaries, oil companies, diamond and other mineral companies, U.S. intelligence agencies, the military, and non-government organizations (NGOs), including the always suspect Human Rights Watch, an NGO that often obscures and obfuscates important facts, as it did with the causality of the Rwandan genocide and as it is currently doing with regard to offering an incomplete list of CIA prisoner aircraft in Europe.

WMR has obtained the attendee list [Page One Page Two] for the 1997 Pentagon mercenary seminar. Spicer attended along with two colleagues from Sandline International (for which Spicer served as CEO), a mercenary firm that had already been implicated in illegal Sierra Leone and Papua New Guinea operations.

Mercenary firms, which in neo-con "Newspeak" are referred to as "Private Military Contractors," "Private Security Contractors (PSCs), and Personal Security Details/Detachments (PSDs), are viewed by informed observers as the future military forces that will continue to protect US business interests in Iraq after the planned withdrawal of a large number of U.S. troops next year. These companies are not governed by any military regulations or international legal constraints. According to informed sources within the security contractor community, three U.S. firms, Phoenix, Anteon, and Sytex, should be looked at closely by U.S. authorities for their interrogation operations in Iraq. Sytex is currently advertising for interrogators for the US Central Command's Area of Responsibility (AOR), which includes Iraq and Afghanistan. Military interrogators who were charged with sexually humiliating prisoners at Guantanamo and Iraq are now working for firms like Anteon and Phoenix Consulting Group.

El conflicto con Venezuela es de Fox, no del pueblo de México

A la Opinión Pública Nacional e Internacional,

El delicado estado en que se encuentran actualmente las relaciones entre los gobiernos de México y Venezuela, al borde de la ruptura, es motivo de grave preocupación para todos los mexicanos y mexicanas.

No se trata de un conflicto entre los pueblos de México y Venezuela, sino de un conflicto que tiene su origen en la actuación del gobierno mexicano en la IV cumbre de las Américas realizada en Mar del Plata, Argentina. Ahí, el presidente Fox fue a jugar vergonzosamente el papel de promotor y defensor a ultranza del proyecto de Estados Unidos conocido como Área de Libre Comercio de las Américas (ALCA), criticando abiertamente a los países que, con dignidad, se atrevieron a resistirse a incluirlo en los acuerdos. Tal actitud es aún más reprobable a la luz de las desastrosas consecuencias económicas y sociales dejadas en nuestro país por más de diez años de Tratado de Libre Comercio con Estados Unidos, el cual sirve de modelo al ALCA. Una conducta que, sin embargo, es congruente con la decisión del gobierno de Fox de firmar el Acuerdo para la Seguridad y Prosperidad de América del Norte (ASPAN), un TLC plus, que avanza en la integración subordinada de México a Estados Unidos.

Fox no se limitó a confrontarse en Mar del Plata con los gobiernos del MERCOSUR, sino que los acusó de hacerse eco de los reclamos surgidos de la III Cumbre de los Pueblos de América, que se realizaba exitosamente en esa misma ciudad y que tenía como reivindicación central el que no se reviviera el cadáver del ALCA. Fox confunde sus deseos con la realidad cuando afirma que los países que se opusieron a revivir el ALCA son minoría o están aislados; los pueblos de América han dejado claro su rechazo a ese proyecto neocolonialista estadounidense.

Como antes en sus deliberados conflictos con Cuba, el gobierno de Fox está haciendo el trabajo sucio para Estados Unidos, con lo que de hecho se convierte en punta de lanza de nuevas ofensivas desde el exterior contra Venezuela. El pueblo de México no debe dejarse engañar con el viejo truco de que se trata de defender a nuestro país y a sus instituciones, cuando lo que se busca en realidad es que avalemos los desatinos de Fox. Nadie ha insultado a México; lo que está en cuestión y nos agravia realmente es la torpe y entreguista política exterior que está siguiendo el gobierno mexicano en todos los foros internacionales, sin el respaldo ni la consulta del pueblo mexicano. Lo que está en el fondo en realidad es el debate entre el modelo de "libre comercio" e integración subordinada de América Latina a Estados Unidos y un modelo alternativo de integración más justo y equitativo que viene siendo promovido desde el Sur.