"Just as last year we moved from combat to 'overwatch', we would expect a further fundamental change of mission in the first months of 2009." -- British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, July 22


Britain's Brown is the latest foreign leader to re-arrange his Iraq portfolio to accommodate views of the next U.S. president, Barack Obama who will visit London later this week. A political chameleon who has adapted the facade of his politics toward Iraq to Bush's every plea for cover, Prime Minister Brown is prepared to follow Iraq's PM in endorsing the level of withdrawal of American soldiers from Iraq that Sen. Obama has promised, by signaling the pullout of most of Britain's 40,000 or so troops by early 2009.

Following an earlier cave-in to Bush by Brown, squashing a plan to reduce the British force in Iraq to 2,500 troops, this move will signal a rejection of support from London for any of the plans by Obama's republican presidential rival, McCain to perpetuate the Bush quagmire.

In line with the goals of Sen. Obama to reduce the pressure on the U.S. military by shelving the commitment in Iraq to provide more support for the effort in Afghanistan against the al-Qaeda resistance, PM Brown is responding to his own military advisers who have been complaining about the strain on British forces.

It's no coincidence that the world leaders are responding with such unanimity to the reason and rationale of the U.S. Democratic presidential aspirant. These reluctant allies of the dominating and vindictive Bush administration have a clear choice between his would-be successors. One candidate, John McCain, would continue and deepen the U.S. military interference in Iraq which has strained economies here and abroad and threatened the readiness of military forces for contingencies and initiatives beyond the opportunistic nation-building the Bush administration and their republican lackeys are so enamored with.

The other candidate, Democrat Barack Obama, would bring back the traditional balance of cooperation with those whose lives are directly affected by the inflated political and military whims of the American political class. It will be in Britain's interest to engage in a more diplomatic approach to countries like Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan as the economic interests of Britain and most of Europe favor a decidedly less confrontational approach to foreign affairs than the Bush administration has insisted on in their self-serving intimidation, manipulation and undermining of governments who won't bend to their bullying across sovereign borders.

The impetus to withdraw from Iraq by both Obama and Brown also reflects their need to free some of the resources which are pouring into Iraq's black hole for their respective domestic initiatives they've designed to address their faltering economies. Today, Sen. Obama asserted the primacy of his future administration over those military considerations as he put the reluctance of commanding U.S. general Petraeus to endorse a timetable for withdrawal in perspective.

"Not surprisingly he wants to retain as much flexibility as possible," Obama said in Jordan. "I think he wants maximum flexibility to be able to do what he believes needs to be done inside of Iraq . . . But keep in mind, for example, one of Gen. Petraeus' responsibilities is not to think about how could we be using some of that $10 billion a month to shore up a U.S. economy that is really hurting right now . . . If I'm president of the United States, that is part of my responsibility."

That comprehensive focus from the Democratic presidential aspirant is the measure of realism and pragmatism that world leaders are responding favorably to on this Mideast tour. It is, in fact welcome cover for their own desire to pressure the lame-duck Bush administration into conceding ground on their legacy commitments abroad.

As they continue to balance their cautious patronage of Bush's reflexive need for face-saving pronouncements with their endorsement of Obama's progressive plans for re-ordering the administration's blundering imperialism, it will fall to McCain to try and separate himself from his lip-locked embrace of the lame-duck obstinacy he's been promoting on behalf of his republican president, so far.

John McCain is jealous of Barack Obama. He's frustrated by the attention the Illinois senator and Democratic presidential aspirant is receiving on his tour of combat zones in Afghanistan and Iraq.

McCain is envious of the images of Sen. Obama engaging the country's leaders and coalescing with our military commanders and their troops. He wonders, spitefully, how this man can be taken seriously by voters without the benefit of having even served in the military which McCain so regularly associates himself with as he promotes his own service as an integral facet of his opportunistic campaign for the presidency.

"It is what it is," McCain said of the spotlight on Obama's trip, as he visited the home of President Bush's father on Monday.

The contempt just bleeds from every defensive attack McCain has launched against his Democratic rival this week as he's traveled abroad. Sen. Obama's trip to Iraq, McCain insisted, wouldn't even be possible if the "surge" the Democrat opposed hadn't been the success he claims it is. Without spelling out just what he believes we've won in Iraq, McCain argued that, "The fact is, if we had done what Senator Obama wanted to do, we would have lost."

"And we would have faced a wider war," he said. "And we would have had greater problems in Afghanistan and the entire region. And Iran would have increased their influence."

The question for McCain, however, is how could things be any worse with regard to Iraq, Afghanistan, and the results of any more influence Iran might have gained than they already enjoy in their deep, close relationship with Iraqi PM Maliki? Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in the sectarian fighting that centered in Baghdad from 2005 to 2007. How much wider a 'war' would there need to be for McCain to acknowledge the futility and folly of our continued occupation of Iraq?

Some three hundred Americans were killed during the period of the increase in troops and the escalated assaults on the Iraqi communities at the height of the "surge," adding to the 900 or so killed in the entire year. Iraq Coalition Casualty Count reported that more U.S. troops died in Iraq during June, July, and August 2007 than the same three-month period in 2003, 2004, 2005, or 2006.

Iraqi civilians were subjected to the increased U.S. assaults from the air and land and were not the beneficiaries of any success McCain imagines from the increased occupation. AP reported 1,809 civilians were killed across the country in August of that year compared with 1,760 in July.

The American casualties naturally subsided when the bulk of the American offensives against the resisting Iraqi communities were discontinued. The ability to hunker down in conquered territory with enough force to protect and maintain their occupation has never been a goal that any reasonable observer would use to judge the success or efficacy of such a nebulous military mission. It's the effect of that increased occupation on the Iraqi population which should be the measure of success or failure, not the relative calm that develops when the airstrikes and commando raids on resisting communities subside.

Iraq Body Count, in 2006, reported that the U.S. was directly responsible for 394-434 deaths in Iraq; in 2007 the U.S. directly caused between 669 and 756 deaths., not including non-combatants killed in firefights In 2006, between 544 and 623 were reported killed; in 2007, between 868 and 1,326 were reported killed by U.S. military offensive action.

In Afghanistan, which McCain believes benefited from the surge, Human Rights Watch has reported that in 2007 non-combatant deaths at U.S. and NATO hands grew approximately 74 percent. They estimate that in 2006, NATO and U.S. forces killed approximately 230 non-combatants there. In 2007, about 400 Afghan non-combatants -- mostly from the increased airstrikes.

As for the effect of the increased occupation and assaults on the influence of Iran, it shouldn't be forgotten that the evil axis member actually helped broker ceasefire in Iraq between the government and forces aligned with radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr which unquestionably contributed to the decrease in the violence McCain celebrates.

It's clear that John McCain is pining for the day when he returns for a "peaceful stroll" through the Iraqi markets -- this time "walking freely", as he claimed he could during his last visit to the war-zone -- without the benefit of a bulletproof vest, 100 American soldiers, three Blackhawk helicopters, and two Apache gunships providing cover overhead.

He's in no hurry. If he had his way, he'd have our troops there to cover for him for "maybe 100" more years.

Anticipating an impending yank away from the U.S. military teat, the Iraqi regime struck a note of independence this week by embracing presidential aspirant Barack Obama's plans for the withdrawal of forces within two years. In an interview with Der Spiegel, Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki endorsed Sen. Obama's 16-month withdrawal plan. "That, we think, would be the right time frame for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes." Maliki told the German magazine.

It wasn't long, however, before the Bush administration had the opportunistic Iraqi autocrat suckling on their unique brand of lame-duck denial as they offered up a scheme to tie the next U.S. administration to the same open-ended commitment of forces and resources that has allowed the Maliki regime to assume and maintain power and authority. In a cynical attempt to appeal to the potential U.S. voters who've soured on the Iraq quagmire, the administration has replaced the language of a timeline for withdrawal -- which most Americans have supported for years -- with a codification of their refusal to relinquish their Iraqi prize.

According to news reports, they've labeled their new obstinacy, a "time horizon." Wiki defines a time horizon as "a fixed point of time in the future at which point certain processes will be evaluated or assumed to end." Under that definition, Bush would exercise the same judgment in the deployment of our forces to Iraq that he's used to justify their continuing mission there, with a rationalization to remain, no matter if in an escalating conflict or in the face of a redundancy of military repression of the Iraqi resistance. Good times, bad times; we never leave. 100 years, ala the MCCain doctrine.

Americans shouldn't expect any better from these two usurpers of power. Bush advantaged himself of a stacked Court to assume the power of the presidency, and, the exiled Maliki advantaged himself of the intimidation of our military forces as he was 'elected' under an increased occupation of Iraq by the forces which invaded the country and overthrew their sovereign government.

"The agreement will look at goal dates for transition of responsibilities and missions," a White House spokesman was quoted in WaPo yesterday. The article said the two autocracies were looking for another 'bridge' in funding commitments which would extend into next year.

Yet, there's no need to wait until some time 'over the horizon' to assess the effect of Bush's occupation on the "success" or "progress" of the Maliki regime. We have evidence enough of the destabilizing effect of the original imposition of the new regime on Iraqis -- with the new regime's coercive violence waged behind the intimidation of the American occupying forces -- to judge the likely outcome of even more of the same repressive militarism cosseting new edicts handed down to Iraqis from Maliki's puppet authority.

There will be the same predictable waves of resistance from Iraqis who have, unfortunately, taken on the moniker and tactics of Bush's most successful nemesis, al-Qaeda. There will be even more resistance from unaffiliated Iraqis who will look to settle their differences outside of the corrupt and compromised government. We won't need any perpetual, prevaricating assessments of the progress of his imposition of the Maliki regime. The awful failure of his increased and continuing militarism will be as evident as the inevitable increases in casualties which he admits will be a direct result of his pressing our troops forward; and he and his would-be successor McCain know this.

Bush is trying to run out the clock and pass his failure off to the next presidential bunch who will inherit the messes he's made abroad. Despite his vain attempts to define his fiasco, this far, as some progress towards democracy -- and despite Bush's last ditch attempt to consolidate the new regime's U.S.-enabled predominance over them -- he's content to sacrifice our nation's defenders each month in Iraq. He's satisfied to sacrifice those troops -- acting above and beyond the will of the American people and Congress expressed in the November elections, and in the withdrawal legislation which has passed his desk without his fickle signature.

Somewhere, over the horizon, our next president will work to lessen the burden of Bush's occupation on their own presidency. It's an established fact that Sen. McCain intends to keep the prospect of an Iraqi withdrawal over the "horizon," instead of squaring with the will of the American people that our open-ended commitment comes to an end.

The Iraqis may well put their faith in the lame-duck administration's attempts to bequeath to them the unending support of the U.S. military. But, they should know that, if there is a Democratic president elected in the fall, they will need to prepare to quickly assume whatever responsibility for their own security and well-being that they are able while there is still care and attention to the needs of the beleaguered Iraqi regime.

Within the Iraqi inner-circle, there appears to be an anxiousness to get on with the separation, despite whatever amends they are making to satisfy Bush's opportunistic expressing of support he can't ultimately guarantee. The WaPo reports that Sadiq Rikabi, a senior political adviser to Maliki, said in an interview that the Iraqi government still wants specific timelines for a full U.S. withdrawal of combat forces -- contradicting the cynical efforts of the administration to counter Maliki's earlier embrace of Sen. Obama's 16-month timetable with another mind-numbing Bushism.

"There are two principles that determine the military relationship: no permanent bases and no permanent existence," Rikabi said. "In such a way, there should be a timetable for withdrawal."

"Whenever there’s a big war coming on, you should rope off a big field. And on the big day, you should take all the kings and their cabinets and their generals, put ‘em in the center dressed in their underpants and let them fight it out with clubs. The best country wins." --Maxwell Anderson


With one sweeping declaration this past week, presidential hopeful Barack Obama brought truth and reality to the Iraq debate and stripped bare the blundering excuses and lies of the Bush administration and their lackey-in-waiting, John McCain, and left them to wallow in their own inanity and ignorance.

"As should have been apparent to President Bush and Senator McCain," Sen. Obama declared, "the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was. That's why the second goal of my new strategy will be taking the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan." he said.

"This war distracts us from every threat that we face and so many opportunities we could seize. This war diminishes our security, our standing in the world, our military, our economy, and the resources that we need to confront the challenges of the 21st century. By any measure, our single-minded and open-ended focus on Iraq is not a sound strategy for keeping America safe."

As Sen. Obama has done, Democrats and others opposed to the Iraq occupation who continue to acknowledge Bush's 'terror war' should oblige him and aggressively tie it to the quagmire in Iraq and his wallowing failures elsewhere in the world. Bush 'cut-and-ran' from the hunt for bin-Laden in Afghanistan to invade and occupy Iraq. As critics have repeatedly pointed out, Bush has far more military and other resources in Iraq than he does in Afghanistan where al-Qaeda was based.

And, if Iraq has been the center of their 'terror war', than Bush and McCain should know that effort has been hopelessly bogged down in the bloody civil war that surrounds the troops hunkered down in the U.S. Green Zone. The administration has worked to conflate legitimate concerns about the occupation and the brutality and oppression surrounding our country's involvement there with al-Qaeda in an attempt to paint opposition to their bloody imperialism as akin to terrorism and terrorists.

Bush spent most of the last presidential and congressional election seasons flying around the country, with his cohort Dick close behind playing the War president to Cheney's messianic campaign of fear and smear. This election will be no different, except in the substitution of his own ambition to continue his bloody quagmire with the political zealotry of John McCain in his opportunistic bid to be the one to continue to commit our men and women in uniform to deadly sacrifices in Iraq.

The Bush regime, backed by all of his republicans, 'cut and ran' from Afghanistan and let bin-Laden and his accomplices get away. That's why our nation is still at risk; not from 'terrorists' in Iraq, but from an al-Qaeda organization and network which was emboldened by bin-Laden's escape, and is further encouraged to act against the US, our allies, and our interests by Bush's failure to catch them years after he promised to apprehend them, "dead or alive."

The Bush regime has told their embattled, unpopular Iraqi junta that they will accept "alternatives to democracy" in Iraq. That's a far stretch from the rhetoric that Bush used to get us into this occupation and will keep us there while he looks for some 'victory.' If our troops are now going to be fighting and dying to protect and defend anything less than democracy there, that's yet another definition of proper use of the defensive forces of our nation's military by this dissembling administration.

It was a huge admission that they were willing to compromise on the most basic of principles that our defensive forces operate under. It's one thing to muckrake with our military under the guise of a threat to our nation's security, but that excuse went out the window years ago. The most salient excuse Bush has used is the defense of Iraq's 'democracy'. Now, it seems, they have abandoned this last lie as Iraqis continue to throw off any product of Bush's imperialism he repeatedly claimed was in the Iraqi's interest.

By his own declaration, Bush has framed the continuing failure in Iraq as a referendum on his handling of issues of national security and foreign affairs. And, despite his devastating failures, he and McCain are still demanding more time to fit the square peg of terrorism into the circular hell-hole in Iraq. Nobody 'stays the course' in the face of failure as consistently as Bush does. But, John McCain is making a bid to better Bush on that score.

It should be clear to most everyone by now that Bush has absolutely no intention of doing anything the American people have demanded of him. After his veto of the Iraq withdrawal legislation earlier this year, Bush took pains to explain the reasons for his obstinacy which centered almost exclusively on Iraqi concerns instead of any American interest. Apparently, the political success of the regime installed and maintained behind the sacrifices of our soldiers is more important to Bush than anything the American people are telling him with their votes in November, and more important than their response to almost every poll they've answered insisting that he bring our troops home.

There are glaring, anti-democratic aspects of his escalation of the occupation of Baghdad - like the decision to construct a 'wall' isolating the Sunni community from whatever amenities and opportunities the residents there would expect to be entitled to avail themselves of from a "free and democratic" Iraq. The building of walls meshes perfectly with the apparent decision of the Bush regime to throw their support behind the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government and to cast all of the Sunnis as "enemies" akin to those in their community who took on the moniker of Bush's nemesis, al-Qaeda, in their resistance to the new regime.

All talk of reconciliation between the warring sects in Iraq has given way to a notion that some amount of legislative maneuvering by the Maliki regime and his fractured parliament will satisfy for the democracy which was promised Iraqis who were privileged to vote in the elections held under the increased U.S. military occupation of the sovereign nation. Talk of the Shiite majority reconciling with the Sunnis who were driven from power and opportunity by the U.S. invasion has been replaced with the generic goal of passing legislation reversing the de-Batthification of the military and the government which was zealously ordered after the initial invasion by Bush and Rumsfeld.

Still, Bush and McCain insist that their "top priority is to help the Iraqi leaders," who, they say, "were elected by nearly 12 million of their citizens -- secure their population." And that the "young democracy needed some time to make important political decisions to help reconcile the country."

It's a no-brainer for most Americans, steeped in the broad history and tradition of our own democracy, that one election held years ago under the supervision of the U.S. military -- which invaded and overthrew the existing regime -- is no substitute for the checks and balances an accountable government provides by enabling a continuing process where average citizens can actually participate and influence their rulers and their elevated edicts.

There is no democratic process of accountability of the new regime to the Iraqis they intend to govern. Indeed, there has been a sustained effort to intimidate and stifle the influence of those communities who have actively opposed the imposition of the Maliki authority and the new regime's support for the U.S. invaders. Along with their U.S. benefactors, the Maliki regime has directed their new army to assist the U.S. military in re-occupying these opposition communities to intimidate them from their active opposition of the new government's political initiatives and actions.

It's ludicrous -- for most Americans and most Iraqis -- that there's an expectation that the Iraqi regime would engineer some legislative machinations behind the intimidating influence of our occupying army and call it democracy. Yet, that's what Bush and the supporters of his bloody occupation are telling us they expect to achieve from this deadly escalation; a political victory in Iraq's compromised legislature.

It's no matter to Bush and his cabal that the Sadr coalition, who enabled the new regime to power with their support for the Maliki regime -- walked away from their positions within the new parliament to oppose the U.S. enabled regime; they'll just appoint more compliant ones. It's of no consequence to those who are zealously packing our soldiers into the middle of Iraq's civil war that there is no reliable effort from the new regime to bend to the will of the Iraqis they lord over in the majority's insistence that our forces leave their country.

In fact, the Bush administration's support for the continuation of the manufactured authority of the Maliki regime -- in the face of the continuing resistance and opposition to Bush's continued occupation -- is a direct reflection with the president's spurring of the will of the majority of Americans that he end the fiasco and exit.

The most pernicious ignorance of the will of those Bush seeks to dominate with his manufactured authority here at home and in Iraq has to be his continuing insistence that the 'Iraqi al-Qaeda' he's motivated with his diversion from the hunt for the original perpetrators in Afghanistan, threaten more than his pathetic attempts to consolidate power in Iraq. The notion that they'd 'follow us home' is nothing more than Bush's own paranoid fear of the backlash of his own indiscriminate aggression against innocent Iraqis.

Bush's 'Iraqi al-Qaeda' are becoming as important and elevated as the original 9-11 orchestrators have been as a result of his rhetoric raising the combatants to a level of importance reserved for nation-states which actually threaten our defenses with substantial armies and weaponry. While the original al-Qaeda continue to influence recruits and supporters by the mere fact of their Bush-enabled freedom from prosecution, Bush is satisfied to regard the 2% or so Iraqis our intelligence agencies identify as al-Qaeda sympathizers as the most important threat our country faces which deserves the bulk of our nation's defenses and the continuing and escalated sacrifice of our nation's defenders in Iraq.

It should be clear to most everyone by now that Bush has absolutely no intention of doing anything the American people have demanded of him -- and his would-be republican successor holds the same opportunistic reticence. After his veto of the last Iraq withdrawal legislation passed by Congress, Bush took pains to explain the reasons for his obstinacy which centered almost exclusively on Iraqi concerns instead of any overriding American interest. Apparently, the political success of the regime installed and maintained behind the sacrifices of our soldiers is more important to Bush and McCain than anything the American people are telling them with their votes last November, and more important than their response to almost every poll they've answered insisting that he bring our troops home.

While the real al-Qaeda 'threat' to America still looms somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan - emboldened and empowered by their freedom from prosecution resulting from the attention Bush is giving to the Iraqi pretenders -- the president is satisfied with creating and posturing against even more "enemies," over there, in Iraq, that he says would threaten us here at home.

We're not far at all from having to address a world of 'al-Qaeda' wannabes assuming they'll be as successful in antagonizing America as the 9-11 specters Bush and his partners have so recklessly elevated. That's exactly what the American people and the legislators they elected to office have been warning against. Those are precisely the warnings that Bush and his republican cohort, John McCain are determined to ignore as they push our troops even further toward provoking Iraqis and others into even more attacks on our troops; on our allies,and our interests at home and abroad as he picks a fight against a world of 'enemies' who would resist these republican militarists swaggering advance and their bloody expansionism waged behind the sacrifices of our nation's defenders.


by, Ron Fullwood
http://www.opednews.com/articles/Barack-Ob...

Looking Good DU!

On July 5, 1852 fugitive slave Frederick Douglass gave a speech he titled: "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? To Douglass, young America needed to heed the fine declarations that he felt were rightly used against the tyranny of England, and apply them to the country's own conduct and attitude toward Blacks who were, at the time, legally enslaved by white Americans.

It's difficult for me to reflect on the beginnings of our great nation and not feel conflicted about the way that slavery was allowed to continue, even as our founders were ratifying the Declaration of Independence with their signatures. To me, the celebration of that important document is incomplete without including the 14th and 15th amendments which promised citizenship for Blacks and the right to vote, as well as the Voting Rights Act and Civil Rights Act which backed up the laws with the force of the federal government.

"Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us." said Douglass in his speech to the women in the anti-slavery group, "The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is yours, not mine." he spoke.

Douglass' wasn't condemning the American people as much as he was admonishing them to remember that the nation hadn't yet applied their fine words about liberty, freedom, and justice to the negroes they allowed its white citizens to hold in permanent servitude without any rights of citizenship at all.

"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine," he said "You may rejoice, I must mourn. What to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelly to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy - a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour"

It is, in fact, this very contradiction that many Americans ignore as they both celebrate our nation's independence from tyranny and oppression, and continue to tolerate the tyranny and oppression that our nation has fostered in Iraq with our invasion and occupation.

How can we continue to boast of the genius of our own past liberty from the imperialism of the British monarchy while our nation's military is actively oppressing the citizens of Iraq with tightened occupations in Baghdad and Ramadi? How can some Americans be so sanguine about our nation's revolutionary past, even as they blindly accept the repression of those in Iraq who are at the mercy of the false authority we fostered under the heavy hand of our military?

As Americans celebrate here at home with flags and fireworks, where is the freedom to be found in Iraq? Where is the freedom in our deadly checkpoints restricting free movement of Iraqis in their own country? Where is the freedom to be found in the face of our weapons that are pointed directly at the heart of the Iraqi community in the continuing, U.S. led, search and destroy missions?

Where is liberty to be found under our perpetual occupation? Where is liberty's refuge from the 'collateral' killings of innocent Iraqis that our government and military obscures behind talk of 'rolling back the insurgency' and 'defeating terrorism? Where is the liberty in the massive round-ups and detentions of innocent Iraqi men, women and children?

Where is the justice in the summary executions in the field by our soldiers of 'suspected' insurgents? Where is the justice in the indefinite imprisonment of Iraqis (many for years) without charges, without access to evidence, and without access to counsel?

Over 4100 American soldiers' lives have been sacrificed for Bush's illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, and another 30,000 wounded. Thousands of innocent Iraqis were killed in the initial U.S. led invasion which promised "shock and awe' for the television warriors who watched the spectacle unfold. Hundreds of thousands more would lose their lives as a result of the chaos and unrest the Bush regime had initially encouraged with taunts of "bring them on", and the bluster that "we're fighting them over there, so we won't have to fight them over here."

The world was witnessed to the installation of a U.S. interim puppet authority, and a sham election overseen by our invading military forces. That led to yet another sham authority, using the influence of our occupying army to lord over Iraqis and parcel their resources out to the highest bidder.

Now Americans are being held hostage to an occupation that they are saying (in a clear majority), must end by a date certain. Until they relinquish or are stripped of power, the Bush regime is determined to 'stay the course' and keep the America's jack-boot planted firmly on the Iraqis' necks. But, despite their increasing opposition to the occupation, many Americans will still celebrate our own nation's independence, mindless of the contradiction.

Imagine America under occupation from a foreign power; foreign troops controlling movements, overseeing elections, muckraking, marauding.

"To say now that America was right, and England wrong, is exceedingly easy." Douglass spoke. "Everybody can say it; the dastard, not less than the noble brave, can flippantly discant on the tyranny of England toward the American Colonies. It is fashionable to do so;" he continued, "but there was a time when to pronounce against England, and in favor of the cause of the colonies, tried men's souls."

They who did so were accounted in their day, plotters of mischief, agitators and rebels, dangerous men." he said. "To side with the right, against the wrong, with the weak against the strong, and with the oppressed against the oppressor! here lies the merit, and the one which, of all others, seems unfashionable in our day. The cause of liberty may be stabbed by the men who glory in the deeds of your fathers. But, to proceed.

Like Douglass then, Americans are challenged today to make the bold principles of liberty, freedom, and justice embodied in the Declaration mesh with our actions abroad, especially in Iraq.

"You declare, before the world, and are understood by the world to declare," Douglass said in his July 5th address, "that you "hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; and that, among these are, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness;" and yet, you hold securely, in a bondage which, according to your own Thomas Jefferson, "is worse than ages of that which your fathers rose in rebellion to oppose."

Those who are satisfied to celebrate the signing of the Declaration as a reflection of our nation's rejection of England's tyranny, yet, continue to support and justify the invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq cannot be taken seriously. In our occupation, we contradict the most basic of our nation's values of freedom, liberty, and democracy.

With our theft of the industry and resources of Iraq, our country has joined the long line of oppressors and brutal opportunists who have sought to dominate that region for greed and power. History will wonder at our arrogance, and at our inability to restrain our military and its agents from pursuing ambitions far outside of the mandate of our constitution or conscience.

Until our government releases their grip on Iraq, this Fourth of July is theirs, not mine.



by Ron Fullwood

reposted from July 4, 2006

With less than a year left in office, George Bush is scrambling to tie up the loose ends of his presidency and cobble together something he can point to as his legacy, before he leaves town. Faced with the distraction of the election and squeezed by the limited time left in his term, Bush has decided to deploy every available staffer and appointee out into the nation to effect a 'surge' of accomplishments which he can highlight in his presidential library.

All set to give his State of the Union Address Monday night, Bush is already prepared to report 'progress' and successes stretching from his continuing occupation of Iraq, to his reinterpretation of the Constitution and abuse of our democracy back home in the name of 'national security', and in his ability to hold on to the tax breaks the nation's affluent 2% have enjoyed during his presidency, at the miserly expense of the needs of the rest of the nation.

"I will report that over the last seven years, we've made great progress on important issues at home and abroad," Bush said in his radio address this weekend, telegraphing the highlights of his address. "In my speech, I will lay out a full plate of issues for Congress to address in the year ahead," he said.

Undoubtedly, Bush will lead his appeal with a defense of his stewardship of the economy. 'This economy of ours is on a solid foundation," Bush told reporters days before he admitted to himself that immediate action was needed to prop up the declining markets. What the White House and the Emperor's Democratic tailors agreed to was a package of petty bribes to American taxpayers (funded by our foreign debt-holders in countries like Saudi Arabia and China) and a pacifying lump of cash for their corporate benefactors.

Nothing, however will be broached by Bush or his congressional cohorts to address the exploding budget deficit which is forecast to rise to $219 bln in 2008, well over last years deficit total of $163 bln.. Their election year band-aid will only increase pressure on the stifled economy, promising a flood of negative effects for the next presidency as the departing administration removes their finger from the economic dike.

Bush will also be looking to orchestrate a 'surge' of activity surrounding his defense and perpetuation of autocratic occupation of Iraq. His hapless lackey in the Iraqi regime, Prime Minister Maliki, has been openly preparing for over a week for a massive, staged military assault against Sunni communities in Mosul which government leaders have identified as 'al-Qaeda strongholds.' Obviously under Bush's direction, the new Iraqi dictator intends to demonstrate for Americans looking on that his army is capable of the same 'My Lai' type assaults on his countryfolk his U.S. military protectors have conducted; all for the presumed 'political progress' of the Iraqi regime, or for the furthering of Bush's politics back home.

Look at the grand army he's recreated with soldiers originally disbanded by the invaders. Look at how well they strike out at the specter of Bush's al-Qaeda. "We know there's been 'progress' in Iraq because we have a body count of 'insurgents' we killed in our contrived raids."

Lastly, Bush wants to keep a tight lid on the evidence of his illegal domestic surveillance, by pressuring Congress to give his telecommunication accomplices immunity from prosecution for their illegal assistance to an administration which refused to follow the law as they trolled through private phone and e-mail records. The administration insists that no laws were broken, yet, is loath to allow any of the FISA judges to review their handiwork. Bush wants Congress to waive him on as he does his predictable end run around the law, without even showing them the product of the surfing his people did through thousands of confidential records and proving their innocence.

Like the administration's torture bill -- which reached back and granted immunity from prosecution for those who engaged in administration approved torture, in defiance of clear law and regulation prohibiting the actions -- Bush wants a clean slate of approval for the wiretapping abuses his administration arrogantly engaged in, clearly defying the law and their obligation to open their activities for congressional review. All Bush has to do to continue to use wiretapping in his 'terror war', is follow the original FISA law which saw over 90% of the requests which were brought before the panel approved outright.

But, this administration, obviously, has a great deal of their activities they feel a need to conceal from the scrutiny of the American people. All they have left as a defense is Bush in his little, lame, bully pulpit. And, very few Americans are buying the arguments from an administration which has sacrificed over 4000 U.S. service-folk overseas for their political agenda; fostered and fueled a previously non-existent al-Qaeda presence in Iraq with their invasion and occupation; has been caught, red-handed, rifling through our private communications; and has destroyed the nation's economy for average Americans struggling to survive . . . Yet, Bush will try Monday night.

"When I go before Congress on Monday, I will speak more about how we can keep our economy strong and our people safe," Bush said in his weekend address.

I expect very little from Bush about his own responsibility in the decline in all of that. One of the extraordinary initiatives Bush will reportedly announce is an Executive Order directing federal agencies to "ignore" earmarks included in reconciling conference report language, but not in the actual wording of spending legislation. Once again, Bush is set to assume a privilege to ignore the intent of Congress as they do their job of appropriating money from the Treasury. Bush, in typical fashion, will attempt to dictate the intent of laws established by Congress to conform them to whatever he couldn't achieve through the normal legislative process.

That's as good as a legacy as Bush can demonstrate tonight. Bush has achieved an autocratic administration which was able to amass assumed authority through the inability or ineptness of Congress to counter his power-grabs with their own constitutional levers of accountability and justice. Whatever anti-democratic or anti-constitutional constructions he's managed during his tenure will either collapse by attrition in the wake of a change in parties in power, or, will provide a platform for the next generation of corporatist republicans to build their own petty autocracy.

Whatever Bush manages to express in his legacy address Monday night, one thing will be clear. The problems which Bush will claim to be responsive to are results and consequences of his own arrogant disregard of the will of the American people that he put aside his opportunistic militarism abroad and focus on the needs and concerns of Americans at home. The irony of a landmark presidential election to replace Bush -- drowning out his legacy appeal -- should not be lost on even one so ignorant as to escalate and highlight the agenda millions will mass together to oppose with their votes on election day.


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...

"As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master. This expresses my idea of democracy." --Lincoln


Bush lectured the world from his privileged perch in the United Arab Emirates Sunday, in the middle of his self-orchestrated victory lap around a transformed Middle East which has been disrupted, and its alliances distorted, by the lame-duck imperialist's own meddling militarism. Schooling the Arab leaders who gathered at the luxurious Emirates Palace hotel about democracy, Bush cast himself as a crusader for liberty and freedom in his invasion, overthrow, and occupation of Iraq; and in his installation of the propped-up Iraqi regime behind the intimidation and force our military.

"A great new era is unfolding before us," Bush told the crowd. "This new era is founded on the equality of all people before God. This new era is being built with the understanding that power is a trust that must be exercised with the consent of the governed," he declared.

The "great new era" Bush spoke of, was, undoubtedly, a pat on his own back for successfully erecting a Potemkin government behind his military aggression in Iraq, which he's been able to point to as a fledgling democracy. Yet, the great crusader was seemingly oblivious to the fact that he was speaking from a country, an emirate, which is ruled by a royal family which has no use or desire for democratic reforms which would allow its subjects to directly challenge the autocracy's ultimate authority to enact those reforms.

In the Emirates, foreigners are allowed in the country to work, but are not allowed citizenship or any of the rights and protections which would go with the denied privilege. The tiny group of 'voters' who were chosen by the regime to decide the makeup of a new government advisory panel in 2006 hardly indicate a leap forward for democracy in the UAE, but Bush, nonetheless, praised their tepid moves as an "advance of freedom."

It really made little difference to the royalty and the autocrats gathered that the nation Bush is attempting to 'build' in Iraq is the product of a bloody, military takeover. Indeed, their own power was assumed after their own violent upheavals and maintained by their iron-handed dictatorships which crush any dissent that could be the impetus for democratic change. It is this very U.S. administration which has followed a long line of presidencies who have tolerated, encouraged, and sponsored these anti-democratic elements into assumed authority as the lesser-of-(decidedly more)evil influences they oppose.

The new Iraq has all of the requisites for the type of autocratic rule these Arab autocrats have grown accustomed to dealing with as they work to maintain their own heavy-handed regimes. There are the sectarian divides which keep the ruling power in a constant campaign for alliances which Iraq's neighbors will advantage themselves of. And, there are many opportunities to undermine the central authority in Iraq by supporting insurgent elements bent on armed, destabilizing resistance.

Bush, though, is satisfied that all of the constructions of his nation-building in Iraq are incorruptible and enduring. In his mind, Iraq is to be emulated as an example of a "free and just society" which has been liberated, in his mind, from the 'dangers' of the Saddam years. With hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed since the initial invasion -- despite the fighting and deaths of almost 4000 of our nation's defenders -- it's a curious boast that Bush's invasion has liberated anyone.

And, with the refusal of the Shiite-dominated regime to enact those levers of real democracy, which the country's new constitution promised Iraq's Sunni minority communities would bring balance to the lopsided rule, there is no functioning democratic government which would offer any example or blueprint for others in the region.

"We know from experience that democracy is the only system of government that yields lasting peace and stability,'' Bush told his Arab hosts.

It's a wonder though, in the face of all of the rhetoric about democracy from Bush, why his administration is set to, once again, feather the military arsenal of one of the most firm dictatorships in the region. The lame-duck militarist is heading to Saudi Arabia, Monday, with a $20 billion gift basket of advanced weaponry for the anti-democratic, royal regime. That's how much this administration cares about democracy. It makes no difference at all to Bush whether nations adhere to his fine words about 'freedom' and 'liberty', so long as they're "with us" and not "against us" in his contrived terror war.

In the new "axis of evil" Bush identified Iran, al-Qaeda, and Hamas as "threats" he intends for countries to mobilize against. More to the point, these elements he's identified are to be scapegoats for the inevitable and (many times) understandable, violent consequences of his military expansionism. They're also intended to serve as justification for each and every autocratic military maneuver and meddling Bush can manage in the year he has left in office.

Bush has signaled he's not quite ready to give up his Iraq prize. He said last week that, the "U.S. could 'easily' be in Iraq for 10 years." But, he's also declared that he'll bring "peace" to the region in the 12 months he has left. He can't have both, no matter how he casts his imperialism. It shouldn't have escaped the notice of Arab leaders that it's Bush, himself, with his tortured constructions, who is best positioned to protect and preserve their dictatorships, and help them sell their facades of democracy to the gullible among us. All tyrants, hail the master of faux-democracy. What a perfectly apt place to celebrate his fraud.


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...

Walking where Jesus walked, Bush visited Christ's second home Friday, not far from where the religious figure was said to have fed 'multitudes' with a few fish and a loaf of bread. Bush is traveling in the Mideast, seeking to craft a miracle of his own out of empty, confrontational rhetoric and produce "Mideast peace" for a region which is awash in violence; much of it perpetrated by a growing number of martyrs and militants in resistance to his own bloody, military expansion into Iraq and Afghanistan. "I'm on a timetable," Bush told reporters. "I've got 12 months."

"I believe it's possible - not only possible, I believe it's going to happen - that there be a signed peace treaty by the time I leave office," Bush said, despite his failure during the visit to secure any agreement between the Israelis and Palestinians on the issues and concerns raised in November, in Annapolis.

In an interview in Jerusalem with NBC News, Bush was asked if he endorsed the view of republican presidential candidate John McCain that the U.S. would be in Iraq for 100 yrs.. Bush offered that the U.S. could be in Iraq for a decade.

"It could easily be that, absolutely," he said.

If you're left to wonder just what the U.S. military would be doing in Iraq during that decade, you can be excused for imagining that the U.S. is actually concerned with reducing its presence in Iraq. You can be excused, as well, for thinking that the recent report of a U.S. military pull-out from Iraq's previously violent Anbar province meant that the administration's final justification for remaining and continuing the occupation, -- defending against 'Iraqi al-Qaeda' -- has been fulfilled and will enable us to withdraw and leave Iraq to the Iraqis. There is still the Iran hook he's used as a fall-back, despite his indifference and inattention at the beginning of his term.

While on his Mideast 'peace' mission, Bush took time out to lash out at his favorite nemesis, as he predictably, but ironically declared the sovereign government of Iran which he's waged a war of intimidation and propaganda against since 9-11, a "threat to world peace."

No matter to Bush that the very Iraqi regime he helped install -- and our troops sacrificed their lives and their livelihoods to defend -- has repeatedly declared their neighbor, Iran, to be a friend and ally, even crediting the Iranians for their cooperation in reducing Iraq's violence by controlling the flow of weapons and weapons material across their border. But, to Bush, Iran represents the only nemesis he can use to justify the continuing, aggressive presence of U.S. troops in the region -- apart from highlighting the original 9-11 terror suspects in Afghanistan/Pakistan which he refuses to apply the bulk of our military resources to capture.

"I want to remind people," Bush said Wednesday in Jerusalem in a press availability with Palestinian Authority President Abbas, "I said then that Iran was a threat, Iran is a threat, and Iran will be a threat," he declared, in reference to a 'nuclear weapons program' that he insists Iran is developing, but, has yet to produce a modicum of proof to counter Iran's denials.

Americans don't need any reminding, at all, about Bush's trumped-up insistence before he invaded Iraq, that the sovereign nation he ultimately overthrew and occupied, "was a threat, is a threat, and will be a threat." We've all been witness to the shifting justifications the administration has used to explain away the lack of any threat to America's national security from Iraq which could remotely be considered credible. Not until his heavy-handed military occupation had fostered and fueled a brand new generation of combatants pledged to resistant violence against the U.S., our interests, and our allies -- who identified and aligned themselves with the fugitive 9-11 suspects -- did Iraq, or the Saddam regime tolerate such chaos and sectarian unrest.

Bush deliberately invited and attracted terror to Iraq with his calls for any and all comers to "bring it on" and "fight us there," far from where the original suspects were allowed safe haven from the bulk of our military forces he diverted to capture his imperialistic prize. In an amazingly revealing moment, during a tour of Israel's Holocaust memorial Friday, Bush, with tears welling up in his eyes, Bush was reported to express his wish that Auschwitz concentration camp was attacked by the allies.

"We should have bombed it," Bush reportedly told the memorial chairman, Avner Shalev, apparently unaware that it was the railroad tracks which should have been targeted, and not a camp full of prisoners, however horrendous the activities in that camp were at the time. Targets around the camp were eventually bombed -- one errant bomb accidentally finding its way into the camp and killing dozens. But, Bush obviously knows better now than Churchill did at the time.

It doesn't pass notice that a World Health Organization study, released this week, estimates that between 104,000 and 223,000 civilians in Iraq died from violence between March 2003 and June 2006. The very act of 'liberating' Iraqis from his manufactured 'threat' to the U.S., the region, and the Iraqis themselves, produced enough violence and death of innocents to seriously undermine any administration claim of 'victory' or 'success' in their nation-building fiasco. Yet this administration still insists to America and the world, that their efforts and posture have been a catalyst for some sort of emancipation from terror, when, the only thing we've been liberated from is the relative goodwill around the world that we enjoyed for decades preceding Bush's assent to office.

As our lame-duck militarist returns home and goes back to work -- deepening our military commitments in the Mideast and ensuring that Iraq always has cause for our troops to stay, for a decade or more -- he'll undoubtedly try and ramp-up the rhetorical attack he's already advantaged himself of after he directed his administration to exploit fears surrounding the hyped 'confrontation' of one of our warships he sent to intimidate the Iranians and some speedboats which didn't warrant even a targeting from the commander of the U.S. vessel.; much less an order to fire on them.

Bush, insisted, though, on labeling the confrontation (which took almost 3 days to filter to the top of their agenda and not-so-coincidently dovetailing with his rhetorical assault on Iraq) a "provocation."

Bush is a warmonger. There really is no initiative for 'peace' abroad which Bush intends to manage without using his own threat of military force to back up his strident declarations. After standing on the same ground that Jesus, his "favorite philosopher," once stood and (is assumed to have) declared that, "On this rock (Peter?) I will build my Church," Bush may well be tempted to assume that ecclesiastic mission himself, in his own imperialistic design. After all, Bush once, reportedly confided to President Abbas in 2003, that, God had told him to go to war.

"According to Abbas, Bush had said, 'God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them.''

"I'm on a timetable," Bush told reporters Friday. "I've got 12 months."



http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...

IT'S the beginning of January, and, this month finds the U.S. commanding general in Iraq satisfied that the Iraqis are going to fill the gaps left by retreating Americans and carry on with the last remaining hook the administration has used to justify their continuing occupation; the routing of 'Iraqi al-Qaeda' which had no foothold in the country at all before Bush invaded.

General David Petraeus (and the White House) has planned the withdrawal of five military units from Iraq, to be completed by July. That withdrawal would only represent the troops numbers of troops provided to effect his "surge." One hundred and thirty-thousand American troops will remain in Iraq indefinitely, stranded without any action by Bush to actually end the occupation. What was really gained by the 900 or so American deaths which occurred in Iraq almost a year after Americans removed Bush's republican majority and replaced them with Democrats pledged to end the occupation?

Petraeus apparently feels the 30,000+ additional troops deployed earlier in the year -- against the demonstrated will of the vast majority of Americans in the November 2006 congressional elections -- weren't as significant a force in the increased military assaults on resistant Iraqi communities as were the Iraqi recruits who make up the new army and police.

"It is very important to remember that our surge is dwarfed by the Iraqi surge that is taking place," Petraeus said during a PR tour for a pool of reporters. ""The official Iraqi security forces has increased by something like 110,000 or so in the past year -- during which (time) our surge was 30,000," along with "70,000 plus concerned local citizens." he claimed.

There is no acknowledgment from the administration of the role of the leader of one of the main militant groups of combatants in Iraq, al-Sadr, earlier in the year, in successfully urging his followers to refrain from attacks and violence. The sectarian divisions which erupted in Iraq following the removal of the controlling rule of Saddam,

Anyway, despite Petraeus' optimism, the numbers of Iraqis who have been trained, equipped, and are regularly reporting for duty has long been in dispute. The WaPo reported Monday, that the U.S. will now allow the Iraqi government to 'set the size' of its army and police forces -- and do the counting and accounting of those Iraq forces, as well.

"While previous reports have listed numbers authorized by the Coalition and provided estimates of numbers on the payroll, the GoI (Government of Iraq) is now responsible for determining requirements and counting personnel," the Pentagon reported, according to the Post. "Therefore, reporting will now reflect GoI statistics."

Yet, the same Pentagon report admits that the Iraqi Interior Ministry hasn't a clue about the actual state of their own military, and doesn't know "how many of the approximately 376,346 employees on the payroll are regularly reporting for duty." Nonetheless, the administration is set to allow the Iraqis to account for the local forces they say we've been waiting for them to muster before our own troops leave.

No matter. No one really believes that this administration was actually concerned with the activities of the 'Iraqi al-Qaeda,' to the extent of the hyperventilated fear-mongering from Bush and his minions throughout last years election season. There wasn't any more than 2-3 percent of the sectarian violence in Iraq which was attributed to al-Qaeda. But, Bush and his White House minions repeatedly conflated the presence of copycat combatants in Iraq who took on the 'al-Qaeda' moniker, with the original terror suspects they've allowed safe haven in Afghanistan since their escape from Tora-Bora some six years ago.

Now, with reports from the Iraqi government this month that over 70% of the 'Iraqi al-Qaeda' have been eliminated, it stretches belief to accept any assertion by the U.S. military or the White House that the al-Qaeda in Iraq -- which Bush repeatedly encouraged to "fight our soldiers there" -- poses any threat at all to the U.S. beyond Iraq's borders. Iraq is nothing but a diversion from the administration's failure to capture and prosecute the 9-11 suspects Bush claimed he wanted "dead or alive."

Few (outside the administration) have actually accepted that the occupied ground the military has gained and held following their "surge" is a valid substitute for their propped-up Iraqi regime's lack of any political progress, which the administration claimed, at the outset, was integral to the increased deployment.

What appears to be shaping up in Iraq is an administration attempt to push off some of the function of our occupying forces to the Iraqis -- which is a good thing for those who want our troops to take on less. But, there hasn't been the same shift in priorities for our forces to Iraqis from those who intend to keep the bulk of them bogged down there, playing nation-builders. Even as Deputy Commander Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno is forging an agreement to hire even more 'volunteer' Iraqis to fill the roles of our occupying forces, there is still the prospect of 130,00+ American troops remaining in Iraq through the inauguration in January 2009.

There were 45 Iraqis killed, 56 wounded, just this Tuesday, reminding of the prevalence of violence and it's inevitable persistence in Iraq, despite the best efforts of our military to intimidate and eliminate those who would commit such acts. It was reported this week that over 16,232 Iraqi civilians were killed in 2007. All of that violence and unrest can be laid directly at the foot of Bush and his decision to manufacture a conflict in Iraq and declare (along with his enabling militarist, bin-Laden) the sovereign nation to be the "center" of his terror war.

Now his generals and the administration's minions want Americans to put aside their concerns and outrage over the trillion dollars and the over 3900 U.S. lives lost in Iraq, and focus on the 'success' of their efforts to undo the damage they've done and quell the chaos and resistance they've unleashed with their blustering and blundering imperialism.

"We cannot let up -- they (al-Qaeda) are much more on the defensive right now than they have been in years and that is where we have to keep them," Petraeus told reporters.

Speaking from the unstable ground our nation's soldiers hold, with dubious intent, in Iraq, the general must have been reflecting, more, on the prospect of a shift in focus -- away from the Iraq diversion -- to a return to the actual 'hunt' for the "perpetrators" the original congressional authorization for the use of military force mandated his military to pursue and capture, than he was reflecting on any actual importance in continuing to play whack-a-terrorist with individuals ironically fostered and fueled by the very presence and operation of his occupying army.

He'll continue to hold that gained ground, as long as his commander-in-chief tells him to. But, even as Petraeus develops new justifications and rationales for advancing the gradual, grudging changing of the guard in Iraq, he'll be challenged in his drawdown by the political motivations of the Bush administration to remain engaged in their manufactured conflict until some other administration can assume the responsibility.

It remains to be seen whether the willing architect of the "surge" -- the open defiance of the expressed American will concerning Iraq -- is more interested in defending against any actual threat to the U.S. from the al-Qaeda terror suspects they've allowed freedom in Afghanistan/Pakistan than he is in feathering and cosseting his destabilizing Iraq prize. We'll know, though, just how committed he is to keeping al-Qaeda "on the defensive" by how much he's willing to urge a more rapid exit of our nation's defenders from Iraq.



http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...

"Democracy don't rule the world, You'd better get that in your head; This world is ruled by violence. But I guess that's better left unsaid."--Dylan


Democracy in Pakistan doesn't exist, any more than it does in Iraq. It hasn't existed in Pakistan since the 1999 coup by Musharraf. Yet, the Bush administration is calling for the 'democratic process' to be 'restored' in Pakistan after the killing of the leader of the most popular opposition to the U.S. supported dictator there -- much like their insistence that an end to their occupation of Iraq and restrictions on U.S. assistance to the installed and propped-up Maliki regime would threaten 'democracy' in the sovereign nation Bush invaded and overthrew.

For the Bush regime, democratic government is defined, more by an ability to seize and hold onto power, than by any recognized and accepted instigations of actual democracy. For Bush in Iraq, the 'elections' which brought the Maliki regime to power -- and, were held under an increased military occupation and widely boycotted by many of Iraq's population which wasn't aligned with the Shiite majority who voted in overwhelming numbers -- were enough to justify any and all actions by the U.S. enabled regime; including military assaults on rival communities before, during, and after the voting took place.

In Pakistan, the Bush administration sees the unelected dominance of Musharraf -- who came to power in a 'bloodless' coup, but maintained that assumed authority through the brutal, heavy-hand of the military he heads and controls -- as the ultimate representation of a working government, despite the widespread opposition to his rule from those who would cast a vote if a free and fair election were to occur.

It was the Bush administration who urged Benizar Bhutto to return to Pakistan in a 'power-sharing' deal with Musharraf which would allow the dictator to retain the office and position which he had stolen. Musharraf, however, chose, instead, to demonstrate his autocratic intentions for Bush with his anti-democratic crackdown -- canceling the scheduled election, arresting and jailing all of his political opposition, and dissolving and replacing the Pakistani Supreme Court to avoid a ruling against his presidential appointment -- including the arrest and detention of Bhutto and her supporters.

Those blatantly, anti-democratic actions by Musharraf, essentially disqualified him as a legitimate representative of any instigation of democracy; much less, a legitimate representative of the will of Pakistanis. Yet, the Bush administration's response to his tyranny was as tepid and enabling of Musharraf's autocratic rule as was the billions they had gifted the Pakistani dictator for his dubious promise to be a responsible steward of Pakistan's nukes and his promises to pursue and prosecute the original suspects in the 9-11 killings.

Where was the fight against 'extremism' and 'turmoil' in Pakistan, which Gen. Musharraf used to justify his 'emergency' decree, actually being waged? Other than a handful of assaults and mass killings by his military forces against communities he claimed were 'insurgent' and 'terrorist', the bulk of Musharraf's actions were clearly aimed at suppressing and intimidating his political opposition, even as he pressed forward with his own campaign for the presidency.

It's perfectly legitimate for Americans (and Pakistanis) to expect that the military dictator the administration has tolerated for so long -- with Musharraf's repeated promises to 'take off his uniform' and allow democratic elections -- would be required to, at least, adhere to basic democratic principles which would foster the 'free and fair' elections they say they want for Pakistan. But, the administration's tepid response to Musharraf's tyranny was a clear signal to the rogue dictator that they would regard the mere posturing and pretense of democracy that he was offering as a true representation of a legitimate democratic process -- as long as their dictator prevailed.

There has been no suggestion from the administration that they intend to tie the billions in taxpayer dollars that flow to Musharraf to his adherence to basic human rights for his own countrymen. Even Japan announced that they needed to "stop and think" about the large increase of aid they had planned to provide Musharraf after they received the news of Ms. Bhutto's initial detention.

Now, in the wake of the Bhutto assassination, the Bush administration seems more than satisfied with their anti-democratic autocrat to approve of and urge an immediate resumption of the Potemkin election he had planned. Bush disregarded Ms. Bhutto's very activism against Musharraf's pretense of democracy as he called for 'continuing' that corrupt process she sacrificed her life to oppose.

"We stand with the people of Pakistan in their struggle against the forces of terror and extremism," Bush said in a statement after her killing. "We urge them to honor Benazir Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life," he said.

If that 'democratic process' includes Musharraf as a candidate, it will be nothing more than a sham of democracy; a prop, like in Iraq. As in Iraq, the 'people of Pakistan' are mere footstools to elevate and give an air of legitimacy to those who have already been enabled into their assumed authority behind the intimidation of military forces.

"There are not a lot of alternatives out there," an administration official was quoted in the AP. "We have an interest in seeing Pakistan be stable and seeing that the government there has a reasonable level of legitimacy and popular support," he said. According to the AP report, the officials quoted "did not see new restrictions on $300 million in assistance for Musharraf's government in 2008 beyond those Congress just imposed in an aid budget."

In other words, the administration will be satisfied when Pakistan's government settles back into a political posture which they can claim has the legitimacy of an election -- no matter how compromised or corrupted that election may be. As in his own Supreme Court-enabled ascent to office, Bush is ready to crown Musharraf a 'democratically' elected leader of Pakistan.

The Bush administration recognizes the opportunity they now have -- in the wake of the assassination of Musharraf's main political rival -- to muscle their dictator into 'elected' office; albeit, behind a contrived electoral process which would benefit from the anti-democratic actions by the dictatorial regime and by those outside of the process who would disrupt and manipulate it through violence and intimidation.

"We believe it's important that the political process, the process of developing Pakistan's democracy, continue," deputy administration spokesman Tom Casey was quoted.

It's more than evident, however, to anyone who has witnessed this administration's interpretation of democracy in Iraq, and their tacit support for the dictator of Pakistan since his 1999 coup, that there is nothing more important to them then the preservation of any appearance of democracy which preserves their fellow autocrats in power.

In an interview with ABC News (http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Story?id=3818161... ), shortly before her killing, Bhutto condemned Musharraf's "political power grab . . . which has cost the nation our constitution. "

"Gen. Musharraf needs to be told very plainly that it's important for Pakistan that the constitution be restored, that the judiciary be respected, that political prisoners be released, and that fair, free, and independent elections be held under an independent election commission," she said.

"I'm very, very concerned because I feel that the radicals are gaining in strength," she continued. "And I feel they are trying to take advantage of the dictatorship, to spread their extremism and militancy. Extremism feeds off dictatorship and dictatorship feeds off extremism. Dictatorship needs the extremists to tell the rest of the world, "We're the good guys; support us or the extremists will take over." And in the meantime, the extremists need the dictatorship, which neglects the rights of the people, the wants of the people, the needs of the people. And by exploiting that they advance."

And, by exploiting that dictatorship the Bush administration also intends to advance, as well.


http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...

BHUTTO is dead in Pakistan, and there's going to be a flurry of accusations of blame from her supporters and from her detractors as well. But, for Americans who are left to witness the reactions and retaliations, there should be no doubt that the assassination is a direct hit on the Bush administration's blundering attempts to shape their foreign policy around their manufactured aggression in Iraq.

The Bhutto assassination also reflects on the administration's reliance on Pakistan's dictator to manage and suppress the forces of opposition to U.S. expansionism in the region and restrain the forces in his country who have been inspired in their resistance by the example and influence of the 9-11 terror suspects who've been gifted with over six years of safe haven from prosecution by Bush's Iraq diversion.

"Certainly, we condemn the attack on this rally," deputy State Department spokesman Tom Casey said after the news broke. "It demonstrates that there are still those in Pakistan who want to subvert reconciliation and efforts to advance democracy," he said.

But, that sentiment of Bush's would directly apply to Musharraf's latest assault on his country's democratic process with his suspension of the constitution and the upcoming election, his disbanding and replacement of the Supreme Court justice with one who would not question his dubious appointment as president, and his arrest and jailing of thousands of his political opposition and their leaders.

In the dictatorial fashion in vogue these days with his friends in the White House, Musharraf claimed he was defending against 'extremist' elements in his country as he directed his police and military forces to violently put down the protests which inevitably erupted in the wake of his crackdown. Villages were attacked and scores were killed by government forces and labeled as 'insurgent' or terrorist, to justify the anti-democratic attempt to disrupt Pakistan's political process of free and fair elections.

The arrival of Bhutto, herself, was orchestrated by the U.S. in an attempt to allow their dictator to continue in power through some sort of power-sharing agreement. The assassination attempt which greeted Bhutto's initial arrival back in Pakistan, however, sparked a direct opposition from the former prime minister to Musharraf and his autocratic moves against her campaign and others. The response and attitude from the Bush administration was a predictable, but uncharacteristic, timidity in directly denouncing Musharraf as the enemy to democracy he demonstrated he was with his reliance on his imposed authority to maintain his unpopular position.

'Look, see . . . he's taking off his uniform. Look, he's promised to hold the elections he unilaterally suspended. See, he's released the political prisoners he unilaterally arrested and detained. And, he's still holding on to the nuclear weapons we pay him to maintain . . . Did we say that out loud?

Listening to this administration is like relying on a bad weatherman. They can tell you when it's finally raining, but they can't seem to acknowledge, after the deluge, that they've been predicting sunshine and blue skies all along. They refuse to acknowledge the folly of their mindless militarism in Iraq and the negligence of their abandonment of the hunt for the original 9-11 suspects in Afghanistan while they isolate the consequences of that neglect and blame the ensuing chaos and unrest on the fugitives they refuse (and their Pakistani dictator refuses) to capture.

Now, Bhutto is dead. Al-Qaeda will undoubtedly be blamed. Perhaps they are involved in her killing. The inevitable response from Bush will be his insistence that 'terrorists' are threatening democracy. But, there is no greater example of a threat to democracy than the invader and occupier of sovereign Iraq, Bush, and his unwavering support for the dictator of Pakistan. Certainly, Bush has done nothing to stem the anger toward the U.S. which has flowed freely from opposition to the occupation of Iraq to those abroad who would threaten violence to our interests or allies. The evidence from his own intelligence agencies is that the Iraq occupation is a conduit for resistant violence.

Bush, predictably, condemned the assassination and called for 'justice.'

"The United States strongly condemns this cowardly act by murderous extremists who are trying to undermine Pakistan's democracy," he said, from his ranch in Crawford, Texas. "Those who committed this crime must be brought to justice . . . We urge them to honor Benazir Bhutto's memory by continuing with the democratic process for which she so bravely gave her life," he said.

Bush's 'war on terror' is a disaster; both for the U.S. and for those abroad he pretends to defend with his reactive, opportunistic militarism he's toying with for political gain at home. His PNAC cronies who backed him in to power used to be fond of pushing their un-democratic 'domino' strategy, where Iraq would be a catalyst for the fall of regimes in Iran, Syria and anywhere else where Israel's interests are remotely threatened. But, as in Pakistan, not all of the falling dominoes are lined up behind the interests of America or Americans. And, as Bush continues to press forward with his disruptive, distracting, anti-democratic aggression in Iraq, we're all left to wonder together where the next dominoes will fall.



http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...

Change

SOMETIMES, when after spirited debate
Of letters or affairs, in thought I go
Smiling unto myself, and all aglow
With some immediate purpose, and elate
As if my little, trivial scheme were great,
And what I would so were already so:
Suddenly I think of her that died, and know,
Whatever friendly or unfriendly fate
Befall me in my hope or in my pride,
It is all nothing but a mockery,
And nothing can be what it used to be,
When I could bid my happy life abide,
And build on earth for perpetuity,
Then, in the deathless days before she died.

--William Dean Howells


In loving memory of my dynamic and beautiful sister and the only remaining member of the family I grew up with. To Maria, who suddenly died last week at the young age of 48.

It's 'mission accomplished' all over again for the British in Iraq as the pull their troops out of Basra. Hailing their relinquishment of authority to the 'provincial Iraqi control' as a "significant achievement," British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, in an interview Sunday with Sky News sought to distinguish their exit as a success, much like the U.S. declarations of victory as they eventually withdrew their own forces from several of the Iraqi regions they had occupied. Asked whether Britain would have been more successful in reigning-in what is an arguably more violent and unstable Basra than the one which existed under Saddam by deploying more troops like the Americans, and whether the withdrawal represented a 'defeat' for Britain in Iraq, Miliband held up the fact of their exit as some seemingly obvious measure of the success of their occupation of the Iraqi province.

"We have been able to draw down our forces because the Iraqi security force has been built up - point 1," Miliband said. "Point 2 - the rules for our draw down are exactly the same as those that are applied to the Americans in other provinces. And remember, just as we have handed over a security responsibility in four provinces, the Americans have done so in seven according to the same rules that apply," he argued.

Despite the increase in civilian killings in Basra over the Saddam era; despite the re-arming and rehabilitation of the Shiite militia death squads by the British, despite the emergence of an oppressive and dominating theocratic rule in the province which threatens the freedoms and civil liberties of Iraqi residents in ways much more pernicious than anything Saddam was responsible for there, British authorities are willing to move aside and let the sectarian chips fall where they may.

It's a tragic reality that Britain has, long ago, relinquished any chance of being some sort of 'honest broker' for democratic principles and democratic rule in Iraq by their own arrogant disregard of Iraq's sovereignty in their initial, manufactured invasion. To assert that their occupation of Basra was a success because Iraqis there have managed to organize and put in place some local military protectorate is nothing but a self-serving deception crafted for those who know and care little about the lives lost and disrupted as the cost for their reckless, imposed interference.

For Britain's beleaguered and overdrawn military forces, the withdrawal itself is bound to be seen as progress over the open-ended commitment of their country folk their leaders have sacrificed for Bush and Blair's "line in the sand." But, it's also the apparent view of the fugitive 9-11 suspects, who've been gifted by Bush's invasion and occupation, with a safe haven and a propaganda platform for over six years, that the British withdrawal from Basra (and the dwindling of the British forces to just over 2,000 troops in Iraq) actually represents a victory for al-Qaeda.

This weekend, we were subjected to yet another taunt from Bush's enabled specter of terror from his protected perch somewhere in Afghanistan/Pakistan. Al Qaeda's assumed second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahri, in a web site video, said the British decision to "flee" represented the "increasing power of the mujahideen and the deteriorating condition of the Americans."

To some extent, Zawahri is correct. The decision by Bush and Blair to abandon the active 'hunt' for the 9-11 suspects in Afghanistan and invade Iraq as some intimidating demonstration of their collective military strength, and the administration strategy of characterizing Iraq as the "center" of their terror defense as they openly invited attacks on our soldiers there, has actually fueled and fostered even more individuals pledged to violent reprisals against Americans, our allies, and our interests.

The ritual parroting of the fugitive 9-11 suspects' taunts and threats by the Bush administration and their British cohorts as they promoted their open-ended occupation, elevated the al-Qaeda thugs (and everyone who associated themselves with the al-Qaeda moniker) to an unearned and false position of virtual parity with the preeminence and authority of our respective nations. The perpetuated industry of militarism, employed by both al-Qaeda and their Western opponents alike, has also provided a means for the assumed leaders of this manufactured conflict to elevate their own contrived positions of power and influence over their subjects; over both the hapless resisters to their rule and the willing defenders.

Despite the inherent risks of any move by any of the players in the deadly Iraq deception to end their cynical folly, it is, without a doubt, the wisest choice for our aggravating forces to end their involvement. As Britain has just demonstrated - and as our own forces in Iraq have repeatedly demonstrated with their own retreat from provinces in Iraq they had so wantonly defended for so long with the lives of thousands of our nation's defenders - there will be no measure of 'success' or 'victory' from Bush's occupation to be found, no matter how long we stay or how many resistant Iraqis our soldiers manage to kill.

When we do leave Iraq, there will still be a taunting specter from the 9-11 era of attacks urging us to return to the destructive and senseless propelling of Iraqis and Americans at each other, to one day declare ourselves victorious and leave Iraq in the shambles our respective 'leaders' designed and orchestrated to the mindless destruction of the innocent; and to the devastation of the lives of those abroad who would actively resist Bush's and al-Qaeda's self-serving militarism.

As the fugitive 9-11 suspects propagandize their own 'victories' over the U.S., our leaders are just as free to declare their own successes and walk away; perhaps to turn to the original mandate to capture the 'perpetrators of the 9-11 attacks' which the original authorization from Congress, to use military force, was predicated on. The WaPost reported today that "some Pentagon officials are "urging" a faster drawdown of forces in Iraq than the administration wants, to accommodate commanders in Afghanistan who want additional forces to move against a "resurgent" Taliban.

After the loss of over 3800 American defenders in Iraq, and the loss of countless tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis to the deliberate unrest and chaos created by Bush's invasion, a re-declaration of 'mission accomplished' (followed by a hasty withdrawal) is the best result in Iraq that anyone can expect to come out of the colossal blunder. Fortunately, for the British, that moment of acceptance and resolve to move on has arrived for their leaders. For our own lame-duck commander-in-chief and for our own nation, that same resolved epiphany cannot arrive too soon.



http://journals.democraticunderground.com/...

"It don't mean nothing to me for you to show up tomorrow morning with your head blown off." --Frank Lucas, from the movie, 'American Gangster


THIS generation's 'American Gangsters' are imminently more dangerous and pernicious than the pimps, drug dealers, and thieves who roam and rule over our nation's most vulnerable and malleable citizens. This generation's ruling class of gangsters have been elevated to the highest levels of our government by Bush and his corporatist cronies.

No Don or Godfather has ever enjoyed a more effective illusion of clean hands than Bush Cheney, or any of the cabal of military and oil executives who've been allowed to occupy the most influential offices of authority and power in America, or in the world. Operating a nationwide and global protection scheme behind the front of the American presidency, Bush has used our military and our own involuntary contributions to government as enforcers for whatever ambition he or his peeps in crime imagine they're entitled to commit with impunity.

Their standard method of exercising their assumed power and authority is the shakedown; effected in their early diversion of tax dollars to their rich corporate benefactors, to their theocratic opening of the Treasury to 'faith-based' evangelists; from their perpetual feathering of secret Defense accounts and the erection of new 'intelligence' bureaucracies with unaccountable budgets exploiting the 9-11 killings and American fear of another attack, to the hijacking of the bulk of our nation's defenses to support and defend their Iraqi coup.

The Bush administration began their term tearing down the budget surplus the Clinton administration had achieved and talking the nation into a recession. The 'solution' (championed by their Fed chairman Greenspan) was to give the bulk of the surplus money in the Treasury, which was being used to pay down our national debt, to the top 2% of taxpayers, warning the rest of America that their now-stressed lives would get even worse if they didn't allow their wealthy employers and their lackeys to skim their take off of the top of the kitty.

The 9-11 killings were used as cover for the predicted, calculated shortfall in tax revenue as programs and services Americans rely on for survival and well-being were threatened by the Bush administration with extinction or severe reduction to make up the difference as he embarked on his manufactured assault on Iraq. At the same time, he embarked on a dual campaign of fear and intimidation at home, warning Americans of another devastating attack on the nation from terror suspects allowed to escape into the mountains of Afghanistan as Bush used the bulk of the pursuing forces to secure his coup of Kabul.

Throwing out the only effective wedge against Iranian expansion in the Mideast when he overthrew Saddam, Bush destabilized the entire region and inflamed the very forces of opposition to U.S. expansionism he was busy feigning concern about as he expanded the scope of his cynical 'terror war." It was a perfect crime. He let the most pernicious fear of Americans run free for over six years since the 9-11 killings, while he waged predictably and deliberately inflammatory attacks against Iraqis, taunting 'terrorists' to attack our soldiers there.

As he perpetuated the initial wreck of lives and livelihoods in America with his deliberately reckless militarism, Bush unilaterally expanded his assumed authority and influence under the guise of 'protecting' the nation from the explosive effects of his own violent constructions abroad. It's no accident that none of the initiatives or mechanizations of this administration have produced any of the security or insulation from some outside aggression. Bush deliberately ensured that there would be some sort of backlash against any one of the military intimidations he instigated abroad. Americans are to sacrifice their entire lives and livelihoods to defend the nation against the spawns of Bush's calculated violence.

So it was, this week, that the Bush administration set out to shake the country down once more to enable them to continue their discredited, rejected occupation of Iraq without the pesky interruption of democracy. Over 200,000 civilian military workers jobs were threatened with furlough by the Pentagon -- mechanics, support personnel, medical; the most vulnerable Americans among their military enterprise -- as Bush was threatened by Congress with their refusal to continue funding his fiasco.

This is some gangster shit, make no mistake about it. Targeting vulnerable Americans for job cuts right before the holidays as blackmail for their Iraq money is a vicious and ruthless act.

This is from an administration which has had no compunction at all about promoting the taunts and threats of the very terrorists the pretend to be pursuing. This is from an president who, today, said that Pakistani dictator Musharraf hadn't yet "crossed the line" in jailing all of his political opponents before his country's election, citing a threat from "terrorists" as he unilaterally suspended their constitution, unilaterally disbanded and replaced their Supreme Court (al