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The president who invaded Iraq without the slightest understanding of the country's ethnic composition or of the volcanic tensions that toppling its dictator might unleash.

The US-led "war on terror" has bolstered Iran's power and influence in the Middle East, especially over its neighbour and former enemy Iraq, a thinktank said today.

Another 9/11 `inevitable,' experts conclude - Washington's diplomatic efforts rated 1.8 out of 10

New Adviser Pulled No Punches in His Magazine Pieces.

· Bush officials' hard line provokes condemnation

A leaky president run afoul of "Little Rico"

Answer from Noam Chomsky: Iraq has the second largest oil reserves in the world, it is right in the midst of the major energy reserves in the world. Its been a primary goal of US policy since World War II (like Britain before it) to control what the State Department called "a stupendous source of strategic power" and one of the greatest material prizes in history. Establishing a client state in Iraq would significantly enhance that strategic power, a matter of great significance for the future. As Zbigniew Brzezinski observed, it would provide the US with "critical leverage" of its European and Asian rivals, a conception with roots in early post-war planning. These are substantial reasons for aggression -- not unlike those of the British when they invaded and occupied Iraq over 80 years earlier, at the dawn of the oil age.

See the full Washington Post "Chat With Chomsky"

US politicians aim for rugged, macho images because insecure voters want to feel that real men are in charge

Sandra Day O'Connor, a Republican-appointed judge who retired last month after 24 years on the supreme court, has said the US is in danger of edging towards dictatorship if the party's rightwingers continue to attack the judiciary.

Washington — Undaunted by the difficult war in Iraq, U.S. President George W. Bush reaffirmed Thursday his strike-first policy against terrorists and enemy nations and said Iran may pose the biggest challenge for the United States.

Resolutions approved by five towns to impeach U.S. President George W. Bush are giving several sleepy Vermont communities a new, renegade image.

WASHINGTON: The approval ratings of President George W Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld have fallen below 40 per cent, according to a poll published Tuesday.

PART 1: Why the emperor has no clothes

With its unique privilege of being able to print the world's reserve currency at will and at a cost of nothing but the paper and ink it is printed on, the US would seem to be in a can't-lose position economically. But even the mighty dollar is not invulnerable to the massive debt caused by over-consumption, under-production and the Pentagon's global adventures.

PART 2: The center of the doughnut

There is no doubt that a collapse of the US dollar would have far-reaching effects, even as some are abandoning Uncle Sam's formerly safe haven for euros, yen and even yuan. But while the US-dominated economy gets hollowed out like a doughnut, Uncle Sam marches forward with his global vision.

Cheney's influence has waned!

The public relations offensive is being launched amid intense concern in the White House about polls showing that a growing majority of Americans disapprove of Bush's handling of the war and harbor growing doubts about the prospects for success.

Karl Rove decided to pull the plug!

Bush PR stunt reaches new height of hypocrisy

Where Is Iraq After Nearly 3 Years of War?

Requires QuickTime and a high speed internet connection!

The Bush administration will oppose a U.N.-backed resolution calling for the creation of a council to expose the world's worst human rights abusers, John R. Bolton, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said Monday.

A Baptist preacher who calls New Orleans "sin city" and believes gay rights are the biggest threat to America, is questioning his faith in President George W. Bush.

David Model BlogSpot

Reality - Bush asks Congress for $75M to politically destabilize Iran!

Hours after a commercial plane struck the Pentagon on September 11 2001 the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was issuing rapid orders to his aides to look for evidence of Iraqi involvement, according to notes taken by one of them. Read the full article in the Guardian Unlimited!

Foreign operation of US ports is just a taste of what’s to come unless America changes its fiscal policies. See the full article by David Ignatius in the Washington Post!

 vital 
By Gore Vidal

Patriots do not like this government. This is an unpatriotic government. This is a government that deals openly in illegalities, whether it is attacking a country which has done us no harm, two countries—Iraq and Afghanistan—because we now believe, not in declaring war through Congress as the Constitution requires, but through the President. “Well, I think there are some terrorists over there, and I think we got to bomb them, huh? We’ll bomb them.” Now, we’ve had idiots as presidents before. He’s not unique. But he’s certainly the most active idiot that we have ever had.
And now here we are planning new wars, ongoing wars in the Middle East. And so as he comes with his State of the Union, which he is going to justify eavesdropping without judicial warrants on anybody in the United States that he wants to listen in on. This is what we call dictatorship. Dictatorship. Dictatorship. And it is time that we objected. Don’t say wait ‘til the next election and do it through that. We can’t trust the elections, thanks to Diebold and S&S and all the electronic devices which are being flogged across the country to make sure that elections can be so rigged that the villains will stay in power.
I think demonstrations across the country could be very useful on this famous Tuesday. Just say no. We’ve had enough of you. Go home to Crawford. We’ll help you raise the money for a library, and you won’t even ever have to read a book. We’re not cruel. We just want to get rid of you and let you be an ex-president with his own library, which you can fill up with friends of yours who can neither read nor write, but they’ll be well served and well paid, we hope, by corporate America, which will love you forever.
So I think it is really up to us to give some resonance to the State of the Union, which will be largely babble. He’s really not going to try to do anything about Social Security, we read in the papers. He has no major moves, other than going on and on about the legality of his illegal warrantless eavesdroppings and other breakings of the law.
I had a piece on the internet some of you may have seen a few days ago, and there’s a story about Tiberius, who’s one of my favorite Roman emperors. He’s had a very bad press, because the wrong people perhaps have written history. But when he became emperor, the Senate of Rome sent him congratulations with the comment, “Any law that you want us to pass, we shall do so automatically.” And he sent a message back. He said, “This is outrageous! Suppose I go mad. Suppose I don’t know what I’m doing. Suppose I’m dead and somebody is pretending to be me. Never do that! Never accept something like preemptive war,” which luckily the Senate did not propose preemptive wars against places they didn’t like. But Mr. Bush has done that.
So this is a sort of Tiberius time without, basically, a good emperor, and he was a good emperor in the sense that he sent back this legislation, which was to confirm anything he wanted to have done automatically. And they sent it back to him again. And then he said, “How eager you are to be slaves,” and washed his hands of the Senate and went to live in Capri, a much wiser choice, just as we can send this kid back to Crawford, Texas, where he’ll be very, very happy cutting bushes of the leafy variety.
You know, it’s at a time when people say, ‘Well, it makes no difference what we do, you know, if we march and we make speeches, and this and that.’ It makes a lot of difference if millions of Americans just say, “We are fed up! We don’t like you. We don’t like what you’re doing to the country and what you have done to the country. We don’t like to live in a lawless land, where the rule of law has just been bypassed and hacks are appointed to the federal bench, who will carry on and carry on and carry on all of the illegalities which are so desperately needed by our military-industrial corporate masters.”
I think a day dedicated to that and to just showing up here and there around the country will be a good thing to do. And so, let the powers that be know that back of them, there’s something called “We the people of the United States,” and all sovereignty rests in us, not in the board rooms of the Republicans.

Gore Vidal is the author of more than twenty novels and five plays. His recent national bestsellers are Dreaming War and Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace. His latest book is called Imperial America: Reflections on the United States of Amnesia.
Democracy Now’s transcript of Gore Vidal speaking

I am confused by the Bush Administration. It seems really strange to come out with such strong support for the takeover of the major ports in the USA by a company based in the United Arab Emirates (Bush Defends Port Deal With Middle East Firm) on the basis that it poses no risk. Sounds like the special flights arranged to evacuate Saudi friends of the Bush family on September 12. No risk also doesn't seem to be a valid criteria coming from Bush - Saddam was no risk but it didn't stop the Bush Administration from claiming he was. Seems that "risk" is based on personal friendship with Bush - or not. Talk about High School Confidential - and this guy is the Leader of the Free World! - see "Terror fears, stoked by Bush, now bite him" and "President George W. Bush did not know about a deal to hand over operations at six major U.S. ports to an Arab company until after his administration approved it."
For another viewpoint see "Arabs see phobia behind uproar over ports deal".