Is the US planning a coup in Iraq?

Is the US planning a coup in Iraq?

Most americans don't like american policy! Not since DUH-bya.

On August 16, an extraordinary article appeared in the New York Times providing details of a top-level private meeting on US strategy in Iraq at the Pentagon last week. President Bush, who was present along with his war cabinet and selected “outside experts”, voiced his open dissatisfaction that the new Iraqi government—and the Iraqi people—had not shown greater support for US policies. Based on what you have truly accomplished there-NOTHING, I don't blame them. Little baby can't stand not getting his way.

“More generally, the participants said, the president expressed frustration that the Iraqis had not come to appreciate the sacrifices the United States had made in Iraq, (You destroyed their country- for WHAT?) and was puzzled as to how a recent anti-American rally in support of Hezbollah in Baghdad could draw such a large crowd,” the newspaper reported. The angry protest on August 4 against the US-backed Israeli war in Lebanon drew more than 100,000 people from the capital and other Iraqi cities.

The New York Times article, which had all the hallmarks of a planted story, did not of course speak openly of a coup against Maliki.

Nevertheless it constituted an unmistakable threat to the Baghdad regime that its days were numbered if it did not toe the US line. Prior to his trip to Washington last month, Maliki publicly condemned the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

While his comments were just a pale reflection of popular sentiment in Iraq and throughout the Middle East, they soured the Bush administration’s plans to use the visit as a much-needed boost prior to mid-term US elections.

The New York Times followed up the report with a further article on August 17 on the latest Defence Department indices of the catastrophe in Iraq: the number of roadside bombs aimed mainly against American forces reached an all-time high of 2,625 in July as compared to 1,454 in January.

“The insurgency has gotten worse by almost all measures, with insurgent attacks at historically high levels. The insurgency has more public support and is demonstrably more capable in numbers of people active and in its ability to direct violence than at any point in time,” a senior Defence Department official told the newspaper. Its called self defense, not insurgency.

Buried at the conclusion of the article, however, was the astonishing admission by one of the participants in the Pentagon meeting that Bush administration officials were already beginning to plan for a post-Maliki era. “Senior administration officials have acknowledged to me that they are considering alternatives other than democracy,” an unnamed military affairs expert told the New York Times. “Everybody in the administration is being quite circumspect, but you can sense their own concern that this is drifting away from democracy.”

The Bush administration’s attempts to dress up its illegal occupation of Iraq as “democratic” have always been a fraud. Ever since the 2003 invasion, US officials have had a direct hand in drawing up constitutional arrangements, steering elections and forming cabinets. Maliki was only installed as prime minister in May after a protracted White House campaign to force his predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari to stand aside. To speak of “considering alternatives other than democracy” can only have one meaning—that the Bush administration is contemplating plans to ditch the constitution, remove Maliki and insert a regime more directly amenable to Washington’s orders.

This would not be the first time that US imperialism has ousted one of its own puppets. In 1963, as American strategy in Vietnam was floundering, the Kennedy administration gave the green light to army plotters to overthrow South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem. While loyal to Washington, Diem’s autocratic methods had provoked popular opposition and undermined US efforts to strengthen the South Vietnamese army in its war against the National Liberation Front.

On November 1, 1963, rebel army units mutinied and marched on the presidential palace in Saigon. Diem, who had escaped, rang the US ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, who assured the Vietnamese president that the US had no hand in the coup and expressed concern for his safety. A few hours later, the reassured Diem surrendered, only to be shot dead along with his notorious brother Ngo Dinh Nhu, and replaced by a military junta.

The Bush administration has plenty of reasons to get rid of Maliki. In launching its invasion of Iraq, Washington never wanted an independent or democratic government in Baghdad. Its aims were to transform the country into a pliable client state that would function as a base of operations to further its designs throughout the region, particularly against Iran. But the White House has become increasingly dissatisfied with the political results of its military adventure. Because of its own disastrous miscalculations it has been forced to rely on a coalition government dominated by Shiite parties with longstanding connections to Tehran.

Inside Iraq, the Bush administration’s calculations that Maliki’s “government of national unity” would quell anti-American resistance and halt the descent into civil war have already proven worthless. Far from scaling back, the Pentagon has had to maintain troop levels and dispatch thousands of extra soldiers to Baghdad in a desperate effort to reconquer the capital. With Congressional elections looming, the defeat of the pro-war senator Joseph Lieberman in the Democratic Party primary on August 8 raised fears in the White House that widespread antiwar sentiment would decimate the Republican Party at the polls amid US debacles in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle East as a whole.

The removal of Maliki and the imposition of a subservient military regime would, at least in the short term, solve a few of the Bush administration’s political problems by removing any objections in Baghdad to a ruthless crackdown in the country and to US plans for new provocations against Iran and Syria.

Significantly, the New York Times’ accounts of discussions in the White House and Pentagon have been paralleled in Baghdad by persistent rumours of a coup. On July 29, the Washington Post reported the remarks of prominent Shiite politician Hadi al-Amiri, who warned that “some tongues” were talking about toppling the Maliki coalition and replacing it with a “national salvation government”. It would mean, he said, “cancelling the constitution, cancelling the results of the elections and going back to square one... and we will not accept that.”

Having pursued a policy of reckless militarism in the Middle East for the past five years, the Bush administration is more than capable of toppling an Iraqi regime that no longer suits its immediate purposes. However, far from stabilising the American occupation, a coup in Baghdad would no more extricate the White House from its political crisis than the ousting of Diem did in 1963. As in Vietnam, the US is sinking deeper and deeper into a political and military quagmire in Iraq.

Bush press conference on Iraq: "We're not leaving so long as I'm the president."

Bush press conference on Iraq: "We're not leaving so long as I'm the president."

and you wonder why we HATE you. You wonder why THEY hate you- I think its almost even score.

President Bush’s press conference Monday gave a glimpse of the deepening political crisis of the US administration over the failure of its policies in Iraq and the broader Middle East. Bush was on the defensive throughout the session, struggling with questions which, if not overtly hostile, focused attention on the contradictions in his shifting rationale for the Iraq war.

Although Bush gave an opening statement on Lebanon, the press returned again and again to the Iraq war, both to the deteriorating security situation in the country and the dwindling public support for the war within the United States.

So great has been the turn in public opinion against the war that Bush himself was compelled to admit the extent of the mass opposition. He made several comments on this theme, clearly rehearsed ahead of time, acknowledging the opposition while declaring it mistaken:

“There’s a lot of people—good, decent people—saying: Withdraw now. They’re absolutely wrong. It’d be a huge mistake for this country.”

“There are a lot of good, decent people saying: Get out now; vote for me; I will do everything I can to, I guess, cut off money is what they’re trying to do to get the troops out. It’s a big mistake.”

“And there’s a fundamental difference between many of the Democrats and my party. And that is: They want to leave before the job is completed in Iraq. And again, I repeat: These are decent people. They’re just as American as I am. I just happen to strongly disagree with them”

“I will never question the patriotism of somebody who disagrees with me. This has nothing to do with patriotism. It has everything to do with understanding the world in which we live.”

This evidently was one of the main talking points Bush’s handlers had rehearsed with him before the press conference. It reflects concerns that the McCarthy-style baiting of Iraq war opponents in recent statements by Vice President Cheney, chief Bush political aide Karl Rove and other Republican spokesmen has backfired, provoking even greater popular antagonism towards the administration.

At one point Bush was directly asked about the comments of Cheney, who said that Connecticut voters who denied renomination to Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman because of his support for the Iraq war were “emboldening Al Qaeda-types.”

Bush reiterated the mantra that “leaving Iraq before the mission is complete will send the wrong message to the enemy and will create a more dangerous world.” He sought to soften the slur against opponents of the war, adding, “Look, it’s an honest debate, and it’s an important debate for Americans to listen to and to be engaged in.”

This shift in public posture is purely cosmetic. Despite the conciliatory rhetoric Monday, the White House and the Republican National Committee are seeking to whip up right-wing support in the November election by suggesting that opposition to the Iraq war is treasonous.

For that reason, Bush grossly exaggerates the “antiwar” credentials of the congressional Democrats, who support the goals of the war—conquest of Iraq to obtain oil resources and strategic dominance in the Middle East—but have criticized the Bush administration’s incompetent execution of this neo-colonial exercise.

The hollowness of Bush’s statements about the necessity and legitimacy of political debate over the war is revealed in his refusal to actually engage the arguments of those opposed to the war. His version of “debate” was to repeat, in almost robotic fashion, his other main talking point of the day, the necessity to “finish the job” in Iraq.

Bush dismissed a question about whether the US invasion and occupation had made matters worse in Iraq, repeating for the thousandth time his administration’s long-discredited claim that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world and was on the brink of building weapons of mass destruction.

He refused to address seriously the growing Sunni-Shia conflict in Iraq, despite the statements by top American generals that the country may be on the brink of civil war, and that sectarian killings, not the attacks of terrorists, are the principal threat to the establishment of a stable US occupation regime.

This unwillingness to face reality has become the target of criticism in much of the mainstream press. Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson, for instance, cited Bush’s comments about the mounting death toll among civilians and asked: “Does he believe it would be a sign of weakness to admit that the flowering of democracy in Iraq isn’t going exactly as planned? Does he believe saying everything’s just fine will make it so? Is he in denial? Or do 3,438 deaths really just roll off his back after he’s had his workout and a nice bike ride?”

At one point, asked what Iraq had to do with the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush blithely admitted, “Nothing.” Then he added, “Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.”

In fact, virtually every top administration spokesman made that connection, including Vice President Cheney, who peddled the claim, long after it had been discredited, that alleged 9/11 plot leader Mohammed Atta had met with Iraqi agents in the Czech Republic before the attack. Condoleezza Rice warned that the next 9/11 would be “a mushroom cloud” if Saddam Hussein was not dealt with.

Bush also distorted the basis of the opposition to the war, suggesting it was simply the result of squeamishness over the bloodshed in Iraq. “You know, nobody likes to see innocent people die,” he said. “Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists.”

The opposition to the war is fueled, however, by popular revulsion to the havoc wrought by the United States, along with its allies Britain and Israel, in the region. More fundamentally, the most politically conscious elements in the popular opposition to the Iraq war reject not only the methods employed by the imperialists, but their goals, which are not to “democratize” the Middle East, but to reduce Iraq, Lebanon, Syria, Iran and other countries to the status of semi-colonies, completely subordinated to the interests of American capitalism.

While Bush repeatedly claimed that the goal of the United States in Iraq was to foster democracy, he made it clear that he felt no accountability to the democratic will of the American people. Whatever the popular sentiment in the US, he declared, “We’re not leaving so long as I’m the president.”

This contradiction was spelled out in two comments made by Bush in the course of the press conference. He declared that the “war on terror” was directed against an ideology opposed to democracy: “And the only way to defeat this ideology in the long term is to defeat it through another ideology, a competing ideology, one that—where the government responds to the will of the people.”

But towards the end of the press conference, asked whether he still hoped to convince the American people, or whether “this is the kind of thing you’re doing because you think it’s right and you don’t care if you ever gain public support for it,” Bush replied bluntly: “Look, I’m going to do what I think is right and if, you know, if people don’t like me for it, that’s just the way it is.”

Nor is Bush’s policy accountable to the “will of the people” of Iraq, since he has declared the US troops will remain, no matter what, until he leaves office.

Such assertions inevitably beg the question, what will Bush do if the majority of the Iraqi people or the majority of the American people seek to bring an end to the bloodbath prior to January 20, 2009?

Bush’s categorical statements imply that his administration recognizes no limits on its war powers, and would be prepared to defy Congress in the unlikely event that it imposed a deadline for the withdrawal of US troops. As for the political situation in Iraq itself, if the supposedly democratically elected and sovereign regime attempted to cut its strings and respond to popular sentiments by demanding the removal of American forces, the US would have no compunction in organizing a coup and installing a new government.

Truthdig - Reports - Robert Scheer—Afghanistan: High on Opium, Not Democracy

Truthdig - Reports - Robert Scheer—Afghanistan: High on Opium, Not Democracy

Good since its become a daily staple in my own daily medicine regime for several disabling health issues.
Don't even tell me that the US is not going to find a way to make a profit, or utilize this particular natural resource of Afghanistan for our own use.

The good news, for drug fiends, is that Afghanistan has just harvested its biggest opium crop ever, up a whopping 59% from last year and big enough to cover 130% of the entire world market. The street price for illegal heroin, 92% of which now comes from Afghanistan, should be way down from Bangkok to London, and for those shooting up in the back alleys of Chicago. The bad news, for the rest of us, is that in Bush-liberated Afghanistan, billions in drug profits are financing the Taliban. As I suspected.

Remember them, the guys who harbored the Al Qaeda terrorists, who gifted us with the 9/11 attacks five years ago, that President Bush promised to eliminate? Well, it turns out that while he was distracted with Iraq, the patrons of terrorism were very much in business back where the 9/11 attack was hatched, turning Afghanistan into a narco-state that provides a lucrative source of cash for the “evildoers” Bush forgot about.

The Bush administration has, for half a decade, celebrated its overthrow of the Taliban and subsequent national elections in Afghanistan, but if this is democratic nation-building then the model must be Colombia, the narco-state where the political process masks the real power held by drug lords and radical insurgents. Afghanistan is dominated not by the government in Kabul but by a patchwork of warlords, terrorist groups and drug traffickers completely addicted to the annual poppy harvest’s profits.

Or perhaps the model is post-invasion Iraq, because Afghanistan is now statistically as deadly for American soldiers, according to The New York Times, while in both countries suicide bombings and roadside bombings are on the rise and women are retreating to the burka to avoid persecution by armed zealots. In any case, reported the United Nations this week, “opium cultivation in Afghanistan is out of control” despite the expenditure of billions by the West to fight it. Intelligence estimates of the Taliban’s cut of this lucrative trade, which represents over a third of the entire Afghan economy, range up to 70%, according to ABC News.

“The political, military and economic investments by coalition countries are not having much visible impact on drug cultivation,” reported the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in its authoritative annual survey. “As a result, Afghan opium is fueling insurgency in Western Asia, feeding international mafias and causing 100,000 deaths from overdoses every year.” “The southern part of Afghanistan [is] displaying the ominous hallmarks of incipient collapse, with large-scale drug cultivation and trafficking, insurgency and terrorism, crime and corruption,” added Antonio Maria Costa, the agency’s director.

Yet on Tuesday, the White House was once again trumpeting that “we have deprived Al Qaeda of safe haven in Afghanistan and helped a democratic government rise in its place.” Considering that Osama bin Laden himself is still reputed to be hiding somewhere along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and Afghan President Hamid Karzai is desperately dependent on the support of drug lords and warlords to prevent renewed civil war, such claims are a blatant fraud. The senior British military commander in Afghanistan recently described the situation in the country as “close to anarchy” and said NATO forces were “running out of time” to salvage the situation. “The narcotics industry accounts for over one-third of Afghanistan’s gross domestic product and poses a threat to that country’s stability and emerging democracy,” carefully admits a recent U.S. State Department fact sheet.

What the Bush administration will not confront in Afghanistan, or in Iraq, is that its ill-conceived and disastrously executed nation-building schemes are sinking into the swamp of local and historical realities. Enamored of American military might but having little understanding of the world beyond, Bush and his team have ignored Gen. Colin Powell’s reported “you break it, you own it” warnings, floundering after initial military victories and ultimately strengthening the hand of local and international terrorists. Rather than take care of business in Afghanistan after 9/11, Bush and clueless U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld allowed bin Laden to slip out of the Tora Bora caves to plan more attacks and the Taliban to regroup. Instead, Bush and Co. threw the bulk of our military and aid resources into a disastrous attempt to remake oil-rich Iraq, which had nothing to do with 9/11, into an American puppet state.

With U.S. midterm elections around the corner, embattled Republicans are now desperately claiming to be the only thing standing between us and a bogeyman they are calling “Islamo-fascism,” and ridiculously comparing the “war on terror” to the fight against the Nazis. Fortunately, if belatedly, two-thirds of the American electorate now recognize that our president is all hat and no cattle, as they say in Texas, a leader much better at starting wars than winning them.

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NBC/WSJ Poll: U.S. Pessimism on Increase

NBC/WSJ Poll: U.S. Pessimism on Increase

Doubts about children’s future and concerns about wars weigh heavily

by Mark Murray

WASHINGTON - With congressional midterm elections less than four months away, the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that candidates will be facing a public that has grown increasingly pessimistic, as nearly two-thirds don't believe life for their children's generation will be better than it has been for them, and nearly 60 percent are doubtful the Iraq war will come to a successful conclusion. And there's more pessimism: Among those who believe the nation is headed on the wrong track, more than 80 percent say it's part of a longer-term decline. "This is just a horrendous set of numbers," says Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican Bill McInturff. The mood is "as dank and depressing as I have seen." According to the poll, 65 percent say they feel less confident that life for their children's generation will be better than it was for them. In December 2001, the last time this question was asked, respondents — by a 49-42 percent margin — said they were confident life would be better for their children. In addition, only 27 percent think the country is headed in the right direction, while 58 percent say they are less confident the Iraq war will come to a successful conclusion. And among those who believe that the nation is headed on the wrong track, a whopping 81 percent believe it's part of a longer-term decline and that things won't get better for some time. Just 12 percent think the problems are short-term blips. War Concerns Deepen The NBC/Journal poll — which was conducted from July 21-24 of 1,010 adults, and which has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points — comes amid a new wave of escalated violence in Iraq. Just Tuesday, President Bush announced that the United States would strengthen the U.S. presence in Baghdad by moving additional soldiers to the city. The poll also comes as Israel battles the group Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the survey, 45 percent approve of Bush's handling of that conflict, while 39 percent disapprove. Moreover, regarding the recent violence there, 54 percent of respondents say they sympathize more with Israel, while just 11 percent side with Arab countries.

Indeed. Concerns for our future under the gross errors of the current US regime is very real.

Requiem for Bush's Unipolar Dream?

Requiem for Bush's Unipolar Dream?

WASHINGTON - A week before the Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, U.S. President George W. Bush finds his power and authority -- both at home and abroad -- at their lowest ebb.

With his approval ratings falling back into the cellar after a brief bounce following last month's death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, escalating violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and between Israelis and Palestinians, and shows of defiance by the two surviving members of the "Axis of Evil", Iran and North Korea, Bush's stature is much diminished compared to his previous G-8 appearances.

For [Bush and Cheney], a 'multi-polar world' in which all countries do not simply defer to the U.S. is as repulsive as a political system in which they must compromise not only with Congress as a co-equal branch of government, but even with Democrats.

The man whose efforts to install a national order based on the dominance of the executive and a compliant Congress and a global order based primarily on U.S. military power and compliant "coalitions of the willing" now finds both under unprecedented challenge -- from the Supreme Court to Somalia.

The latest and boldest challenge, of course, was this week's launch by North Korea of at least seven missiles -- on the Fourth of July, no less -- despite the president's explicit warning less than a week before that such a move was "unacceptable".

But, now that the deed is done, it remains unclear what, if anything, Bush can do about it, particularly without strong support from Russia, China, and South Korea, the three members of the Six-Party Talks that have been urging him to lift financial sanctions against Pyongyang as a way to get it back to negotiating a rollback of its nuclear arms programme.

Pyongyang's "in-your-face" defiance came as Washington, in this case backed -- albeit somewhat uncertainly -- by its European allies, demanded that Iran agree to indefinitely suspend its uranium-enrichment programme before the G-8 summit or face sanctions at the U.N. Security Council.

But most analysts believe Tehran will offer at best an ambiguous reply by Washington's deadline, sufficiently ambiguous to ensure that Moscow and Beijing will continue opposing sanctions, and that, ultimately, Washington will have to compromise on key positions that it has so far refused to concede.

These challenges come just a week, of course, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the president lacked the power to create military tribunals for detainees in the "global war on terror" whose procedures did not conform to U.S. military law or the Geneva Conventions without Congress' explicit approval.

In a sweeping decision that appeared to destroy the administration's legal defence of its controversial domestic spying programme, among other efforts to expand presidential power, the court "lectured Mr. Bush like a schoolboy on constitutional checks and balances, and on the dangers of an omnipotent executive," according to conservative constitutional analyst Bruce Fein.

That, of course, is not a lecture Bush -- or his eminence grise and long-time advocate of an "imperial presidency," Vice President Dick Cheney -- wanted to hear, just as they both despise the idea that the United States should have to rely on the backing of feckless Europeans, let alone on Russia and China, to deal with "evil-doers" like Iran and North Korea.

For them, a "multi-polar world" in which all countries do not simply defer to the U.S. is as repulsive as a political system in which they must compromise not only with Congress as a co-equal branch of government, but even with Democrats.

Yet, after striving mightily to avoid multi-polarity both at home and abroad, that is the world Bush now faces, a fact that is likely to be on vivid display in St. Petersburg next week.

In order to cope with what Thursday's Washington Post called a "world of crises", Bush badly needs the help, or at least the acquiescence, of other major powers, including those like Russia and China that have been the most wary about his unipolar positions.

This was not how it was supposed to turn out, of course.

Just as the administration's post-9/11 will and determination were supposed to -- and mostly did -- overwhelm critics in Congress and the courts, so its lightning military successes in Afghanistan and Iraq were designed to "shock and awe" local populations and potential rivals near and far into passivity and compliance, if not active cooperation.

"Power is its own reward," wrote neo-conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer -- a long-time advocate of a U.S.-led "unipolar" world and Cheney favourite -- after the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan. "Victory changes everything, psychology above all. The psychology in the region is now one of fear and deep respect for American power."

Indeed, after the U.S. conquest of Iraq, both Syria and Iran took steps to assure Washington of their cooperation and goodwill, offering concessions on a range of issues rejected by administration hawks who asked why they should settle for changes in "regime behaviour" when, with just a little effort, they could get "regime change" in both countries, and perhaps in North Korea, too.

Bush himself naturally dominated that year's G-8 summit at Evian-les-Bains, where pre-war critics German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and host French President Jacques Chirac were graciously received -- if only briefly -- by a triumphant but forgiving president.

Three years later, that triumphant image has faded rather dramatically due to a ragtag Sunni insurgency, for which the administration was totally unprepared, that has effectively punctured the notion of U.S. invincibility and, with it, the "fear and deep respect for American power" on which the new unipolar order was supposed to be based.

Iran and Syria -- not to mention North Korea -- are now openly defiant; the Taliban in Afghanistan are now resurgent; Islamist parties throughout the region have been strengthened; Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts have fallen apart; the U.S. military prepares to abandon Iraq to civil war; China and Russia are seeking the expulsion of U.S. military bases from Central Asia; and public approval of Bush's performance has fallen to the lowest sustained levels since disgraced U.S. President Richard Nixon.

The G-8 leaders in St. Petersburg, representing Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain and the United States, will be dealing with a multi-polar world.

Requiem for Bush's Unipolar Dream?

Requiem for Bush's Unipolar Dream?

WASHINGTON - A week before the Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, U.S. President George W. Bush finds his power and authority -- both at home and abroad -- at their lowest ebb.

With his approval ratings falling back into the cellar after a brief bounce following last month's death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, escalating violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and between Israelis and Palestinians, and shows of defiance by the two surviving members of the "Axis of Evil", Iran and North Korea, Bush's stature is much diminished compared to his previous G-8 appearances.

For [Bush and Cheney], a 'multi-polar world' in which all countries do not simply defer to the U.S. is as repulsive as a political system in which they must compromise not only with Congress as a co-equal branch of government, but even with Democrats.

The man whose efforts to install a national order based on the dominance of the executive and a compliant Congress and a global order based primarily on U.S. military power and compliant "coalitions of the willing" now finds both under unprecedented challenge -- from the Supreme Court to Somalia.

The latest and boldest challenge, of course, was this week's launch by North Korea of at least seven missiles -- on the Fourth of July, no less -- despite the president's explicit warning less than a week before that such a move was "unacceptable".

But, now that the deed is done, it remains unclear what, if anything, Bush can do about it, particularly without strong support from Russia, China, and South Korea, the three members of the Six-Party Talks that have been urging him to lift financial sanctions against Pyongyang as a way to get it back to negotiating a rollback of its nuclear arms programme.

Pyongyang's "in-your-face" defiance came as Washington, in this case backed -- albeit somewhat uncertainly -- by its European allies, demanded that Iran agree to indefinitely suspend its uranium-enrichment programme before the G-8 summit or face sanctions at the U.N. Security Council.

But most analysts believe Tehran will offer at best an ambiguous reply by Washington's deadline, sufficiently ambiguous to ensure that Moscow and Beijing will continue opposing sanctions, and that, ultimately, Washington will have to compromise on key positions that it has so far refused to concede.

These challenges come just a week, of course, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the president lacked the power to create military tribunals for detainees in the "global war on terror" whose procedures did not conform to U.S. military law or the Geneva Conventions without Congress' explicit approval.

In a sweeping decision that appeared to destroy the administration's legal defence of its controversial domestic spying programme, among other efforts to expand presidential power, the court "lectured Mr. Bush like a schoolboy on constitutional checks and balances, and on the dangers of an omnipotent executive," according to conservative constitutional analyst Bruce Fein.

That, of course, is not a lecture Bush -- or his eminence grise and long-time advocate of an "imperial presidency," Vice President Dick Cheney -- wanted to hear, just as they both despise the idea that the United States should have to rely on the backing of feckless Europeans, let alone on Russia and China, to deal with "evil-doers" like Iran and North Korea.

For them, a "multi-polar world" in which all countries do not simply defer to the U.S. is as repulsive as a political system in which they must compromise not only with Congress as a co-equal branch of government, but even with Democrats.

Yet, after striving mightily to avoid multi-polarity both at home and abroad, that is the world Bush now faces, a fact that is likely to be on vivid display in St. Petersburg next week.

In order to cope with what Thursday's Washington Post called a "world of crises", Bush badly needs the help, or at least the acquiescence, of other major powers, including those like Russia and China that have been the most wary about his unipolar positions.

This was not how it was supposed to turn out, of course.

Just as the administration's post-9/11 will and determination were supposed to -- and mostly did -- overwhelm critics in Congress and the courts, so its lightning military successes in Afghanistan and Iraq were designed to "shock and awe" local populations and potential rivals near and far into passivity and compliance, if not active cooperation.

"Power is its own reward," wrote neo-conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer -- a long-time advocate of a U.S.-led "unipolar" world and Cheney favourite -- after the ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan. "Victory changes everything, psychology above all. The psychology in the region is now one of fear and deep respect for American power."

Indeed, after the U.S. conquest of Iraq, both Syria and Iran took steps to assure Washington of their cooperation and goodwill, offering concessions on a range of issues rejected by administration hawks who asked why they should settle for changes in "regime behaviour" when, with just a little effort, they could get "regime change" in both countries, and perhaps in North Korea, too.

Bush himself naturally dominated that year's G-8 summit at Evian-les-Bains, where pre-war critics German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and host French President Jacques Chirac were graciously received -- if only briefly -- by a triumphant but forgiving president.

Three years later, that triumphant image has faded rather dramatically due to a ragtag Sunni insurgency, for which the administration was totally unprepared, that has effectively punctured the notion of U.S. invincibility and, with it, the "fear and deep respect for American power" on which the new unipolar order was supposed to be based.

Iran and Syria -- not to mention North Korea -- are now openly defiant; the Taliban in Afghanistan are now resurgent; Islamist parties throughout the region have been strengthened; Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts have fallen apart; the U.S. military prepares to abandon Iraq to civil war; China and Russia are seeking the expulsion of U.S. military bases from Central Asia; and public approval of Bush's performance has fallen to the lowest sustained levels since disgraced U.S. President Richard Nixon.

The G-8 leaders in St. Petersburg, representing Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain and the United States, will be dealing with a multi-polar world.

Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Diplomat Critical of Iraq Policy

Bush Told Cheney to Discredit Diplomat Critical of Iraq Policy

Vice-president told to put out classified information · No instruction to out CIA agent, says president

by Suzanne Goldenberg

President George Bush directed his vice-president, Dick Cheney, to take personal charge of a campaign to discredit a former ambassador who had accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence on Iraq, it emerged yesterday. The revelation by the National Journal, a respected weekly political magazine, that Mr Bush took a personal interest in countering damaging allegations by the former ambassador, Joe Wilson, reveals a White House that was extraordinarily sensitive to any criticism of its prewar planning. It also returns the focus of the criminal investigation into the outing of a CIA agent to the White House only weeks after the senior aide Karl Rove was told he would not face prosecution. The Journal said Mr Bush made the admission in a July 24 2004 interview in the Oval Office with the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, who is leading the investigation into the outing of the CIA agent, Valerie Plame. Ms Plame is married to Mr Wilson, who says her cover was broken in retaliation after he accused the administration of knowingly using false information on Saddam Hussein's weapons programme. According to the National Journal, Mr Bush told prosecutors he directed Mr Cheney to disclose classified information both to defend his administration and to discredit Mr Wilson. Elsewhere, the magazine quotes other government officials as saying that Mr Bush was very anxious to use classified information to counter Mr Wilson's charges, telling the vice-president: "Let's get this out." However, the president told investigators that he never directed anyone to disclose Ms Plame's identity. He also said that he was unaware Mr Cheney had directed his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to covertly leak the information, rather than formally declassify it. Mr Libby faces prosecution for lying to investigators about his role in the outing of Ms Plame. There was no immediate comment from the White House. The office of the special prosecutor also declined to comment yesterday. The revelation that Mr Bush instructed Mr Cheney to personally oversee the campaign to discredit Mr Wilson arrives at an inconvenient time for a White House vehement in criticising leaks. But I told you so. Last month it condemned as "disgraceful" a report in the New York Times that agents from the CIA and treasury departments had been secretly monitoring international wire transfers without court oversight.

Truthdig - Reports - Robert Scheer: What Bush’s Open Mike Revealed

Truthdig - Reports - Robert Scheer: What Bush’s Open Mike Revealed

By Robert Scheer

Editor’s note: In the midst of a Middle Eastern crisis that threatens to destabilize the entire region and perhaps beyond, it was unnerving that what most seemed to interest President Bush at the G8 summit is that China is a long flight from western Russia.

Bombs were exploding and innocents dying, from Beirut to Haifa to Baghdad, and yet George Bush managed to pose for yet another photo op, smiling as he gave the thumbs up at the close of the G8 summit. Thanks to an unsuspected open mike, however, we could also glimpse the mind-set of a leader unaccountably pleased with his ignorance of the world.

What seemed to interest him most at that farewell get-together of leaders bitterly divided over a disintegrating Mideast was not some last-minute proposal for peace but rather the fact that it would take China President Hu Jintao eight hours to fly home from St. Petersburg to Beijing.

Bush had started the exchange by noting, absurdly, that, “This is your neighborhood, doesn’t take you long to get home.” Uh, yeah, incurious George, sure thing. Never mind that St. Petersburg is in Europe, on Russia’s northwestern corner, due north of Turkey, and Beijing is on the eastern edge of mainland Asia.

“You, eight hours? Me too. Russia’s a big country and you’re a big country,” he said when corrected, sounding for all the world like an earnest kindergartner, processing new information. “Russia’s big and so is China.”

Unfortunately, Bush’s private remarks to British Prime Minister Tony Blair several minutes later also revealed a cluelessness about more important matters: Israel’s bloody assault on Lebanon, its causes and possible solutions.

“See, the irony is what they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit, and it’s over,” he said, apparently referring to the guerrilla force’s firing of rockets into Israel. “I felt like telling Kofi to get on the phone with [Syrian leader Bashir] Assad and make something happen.”

While it is refreshing to note that our president employs language that would earn a radio shock jock a fine from his own rabid obscenity-sniffers at the FCC, his profound ignorance is appalling.

Israel, Hamas and Hezbollah all have their own hard-core agendas—Syria is just one player in the tortured region. Furthermore, Bush’s complete disinterest in the Mideast peace process—especially as an “honest broker” between Israel and the Palestinians—since the Supreme Court handed him the job in 2000 has paved the way for this moment.

But should we be surprised at Bush’s poor grasp of the world he supposedly leads? After all, the blundering of the Bush administration has seriously undermined secular politics in the Mideast and boosted the religious zealots of groups like Hezbollah to positions of preeminence throughout the region, from savagely violent Iraq to the beleaguered West Bank and Gaza.

But what is truly “ironic” is that the Bush administration, having overstretched our militarily and generated no foreign policy ideas beyond the willy-nilly “projection” of military force, has become a helpless bystander as the entire region threatens to burn.

Responding to Bush, Blair at least sounded somewhat constructive, offering to go directly to the Mideast and pave the way for a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. In this, he seemed to be unwittingly aligned with former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who expressed on Sunday frustration with her successor for not leaving the conference to engage in emergency shuttle diplomacy in the Mideast.

Where Albright was critical of the “disaster” in Iraq for distracting from the dormant Mideast peace process, Rice was shrilly defensive.

“For the last 60 years, American administrations of both stripes—Democrat, Republican—traded what they thought was security and stability and turned a blind eye to the absence of democratic forces, to the absence of pluralism in the region,” she said Sunday. “That policy has changed.”

While this is certainly a dramatic sound bite, the words have no logical meaning: The U.S. continues to embrace the dictatorships of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, as has been the case for 60 years. In fact, Bush has added Libya to the “approved” list. Meanwhile, Israel is attacking elected governments in the Palestinian Authority and Lebanon with U.S. support.

As for the democracy in Iraq that Bush wants Russia to emulate, things haven’t worked out as neocons like invasion architect Richard Perle had hoped when he fantasized about Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi leading Baghdad to recognize Israel. On Sunday, according to Reuters, the notoriously divided Iraqi parliament unanimously passed a motion condemning the Israeli offensive and urging the U.N. Security Council and the meeting of the Group of Eight leaders to intervene “to stop the ... Israeli criminal aggression.”

Instead of creating a malleable U.S.-Israel ally, the overthrow of the secular Sunni leader Saddam Hussein has extended a fiery arc of Shiite-dominated religious fanaticism blazing across the Mideast skyline that betrays Bush’s claim to be bringing democracy and stability to the region.

COULD I INTEREST YOU IN A NEW WORLD WAR?

CALL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS NOW AND DEMAND THEY CALL FOR AN IMMEDIATE CEASE-FIRE IN LEBANON

TOLL-FREE NUMBERS: 888-355-3588 and 800-828-0498
ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/peaceteam/cease-fire.php

I'm writing this piece from a secret location far underneath a mountain in Colorado. There is everything here to sustain life just about indefinitely, a source of nuclear power, extensive underground farming facilities, of course a tap right to one of the purest aquifers of them all.

[POP]

Hey, I thought I was Dick Cheney for a second. Actually, my butt is hanging out exposed on the surface too, just like yours.

But in case you hadn't noticed, the marketing of World War III is already in high gear.

You can't turn on a cable news channel now without encountering a product placement ad for World War III. It's not just Gingrich. It's Gibson, and O'Reilly, and Hanity, and Woolsey and Ledeen, and every other prominent right wing operative who has been positioned to spit out synchronized talking points about starting a new world war. Actually, Ledeen was talking about World War IV, but they'll get him on the exact same message as everyone else before he makes another appearance.

And it's not just in our own media, Israeli prime minister Olmert made the accusation yesterday that the kidnapping of the two soldiers by Hezbollah was timed to distract from scrutiny of Iran's nuclear progam by the G8. The charge is ludicrous on its face. It is only Israel's extreme over-reaction to the kidnappings that gave them so much attention. But it represents just one more synaptic connection they are trying to plant in our minds, until like one of Pavlov's dogs they can ring the bell to attack Iran.

Former CIA Director James Woolsey just said this about the crisis in Lebanon:

"The last thing we ought to do is start talking about cease-fires and the rest."

And why is he so dead set against a cease-fire? Because they are working overtime to escalate this thing just fast as they can. And the LAST thing they want is to lose their momentum of insanity. And that is why a cease-fire is PRECISELY what we must all demand immediately. Call your members of Congress right now and demand an emergency sense of congress resolution that

1) There be an immediate cease-fire in Lebanon, and that
2) Israel and Hezbollah cease all hostile operations against each other

TOLL-FREE NUMBERS: 888-355-3588 and 800-828-0498
ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/peaceteam/cease-fire.php

Let's take a body count so far shall we? From three kidnapped soldiers we are now up to 25 dead Israelis and about 230 dead Lebanese, mostly civilians. And do you know how many Hezbollah militants are included in those numbers? Not one that they know of. NOT ONE!

Hezbollah is firing wildly unguided rockets into Israel. Israel is attacking civilian infrastructure, and civilian settlements on unfounded suspicions that Hezbollah is nearby. How long can the slaughter of innocents go on before Syria feels threatened enough to act, or Bush feels he can get away with acting directly against it. Gibson was speculating openly on his show with Woolsey about which particular Syrian targets the United States ought to be hitting, to the point of egging him on about striking Iran simultaneously.

Both sides are doing absolutely everything they can to provoke the other into further escalations. And why? Because George Bush lost his shirt (and ours) in his WMD-less Iraq gamble, and is driven to double down and bet the farm with an even bigger war to try to win it all back.

At the same time, Islamic militants buoyed by the chaos they have created in Iraq and our entanglement there, believe the more war crimes they can get Bush to commit, the more power they will be able to seize themselves. A world war is an opportunity for radical changes in country boundaries. And every innocent Muslim raped or slaughtered allows them to further whip up their own populations for war.

And so the sales job is on full bore. It's going to be relentless, you'll hear the word Iran until it is coming out of your ears. And there is very little time to stop it. By the time you hear the words World War III and "done deal" in the same breath on your cable TV, it may be too late.

The last world war ended with the use of nuclear weapons. That is how they are planning to start this one. It was all the joint chiefs of staff could do to constrain Bush and Cheney from locking in plans to hit Iran with nuclear bunker busters a couple months ago. The escalation through Lebanon scheme may have been their primary plan all along. And Bush and Olmert are absolutely in sync on this. Bush's brain implant quote from yesterday was, "Syria is trying to get back into Lebanon, it looks like to me."

Please, folks. Even if you have never called a member of Congress in your life. You must do it now. Your life, and the lives of your children depend on it. The president and his whole administration are complicit in this. The mainstream media is complicit in this, especially because for them a world war has blockbuster entertainment value, just as sick as that sounds.

TOLL-FREE NUMBERS: 888-355-3588 and 800-828-0498
ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/peaceteam/cease-fire.php

And then when you hear the pitch man on your cable TV talking about how great it would be to have new World War, and how quickly we'd kick their butts . . . take a long, hard look at the product performance of the last two world wars.
How they dragged on for years and years.
Millions of people dead. Countries utterly destroyed. And understand that their new improved model (with more nukes) could put an end to all human civilization. And then yell at the TV as loud as you can, "I ain't buying it!"

Profile of US Senator Joseph Biden, Jr of Delaware

Profile of US Senator Joseph Biden, Jr of Delaware

Liberal Politics: U.S.

US Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware

United States Senate: Senator Joseph Biden, Jr. of Delaware was first elected to the US Senate in 1972 when 29 years old. He was the 5th youngest Senator in US history. He's serving his 6th consecutive 6-year term, and will be up for reelection in 2008.

Biden is a gifted negotiator who helped shape US security and foreign relations policies. He's a moderate Democrat who often bridges the bipartisan gap, and is an ebullient campaigner with loads of authentic charm.

Recent Notoriety & Declaration to Enter 2008 Presidential Race: On June 19, 2005, Senator Biden declared his intention to seek the 2008 Democratic nomination for the presidency.

Other recent notoriety came during Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings when he vehemently objected to the nomination of John Bolton to be US Ambassador to the UN. As a result, Democrats prevented Republicans from fast-tracking the Bolton nomination through Congress without proper due diligence investigation.

Major Areas of Interest: Senator Biden is one of the most respected Senate voices on foreign policy, civil liberties, crime, Amtrak and college aid/loan programs. He's a leader in fighting drug use and deterring drugs from entering the US. Biden has crafted many landmark federal crime laws, including the Violent Crime Control Act of 1994 and the Violence Against Women Act of 2000

Senate Committees:

Committee on Foreign Relations, ranking Democratic member

Committee on the Judiciary, chair from 1987 to 1995

Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Victims' rights, ranking Democratic member

Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, co-chair

Senate NATO Observer group, co-chair

Senate National Security working group, co-chair

Congressional Firemens Caucus, co-chair

Congressional International Anti-Piracy caucus, co-chair

Congressional Air Force and National Guard caucuses

Prior Experience: After earning a law degree in 1968, Biden worked as a fledgling attorney in Wilmington, Delaware for 4 years until his 1972 election to the US Senate. From 1970 to 72, Biden was a member of the New Castle County, Delaware council. Senator Biden has been an adjunct professor of Constitutional law at Widener University School of Law since 1991.

Personal Data: Birth - November 20, 1942 in Scranton, Pennsylvania

Education - BA in history and political science from University of Delaware; JD from Syracuse University Law School.

Family - Married, 3 children, 4 grandchildren

Faith - Roman Catholic

He lives in his home state, and commutes daily to Washington DC by Amtrak.

Young Joe Biden was a stutterer and was terrified to read aloud in class. He would memorize pages of books before class, to minimize stuttering in front of his peers.

Interesting Personal Notes: Joseph Biden is one of the most charismatic members of the Senate. He's described as friendly, outspoken, colorful, informal and yet, distinguished. Reality is that he's a loyal Democrat with strong, informed ideological views, but who seeks bipartisan solutions. He talks a lot.

The 1988 Presidential Race: Senator Biden ran for the presidency in 1988, but aborted his effort when the rival Dukakis campaign found that Biden had delivered an Iowa speech in which part was taken from a British politician. Biden defended the speech, arguing (to no avail) that he had credited the Brit on an earlier occasion. Biden is also alleged to have once exaggerated his law school achievements. The ego of politics

"Memorable Quotes: About six months ago, the president said to me, 'Well, at least I make strong decisions, I lead.' I said, 'Mr. President, look behind you. Leaders have followers. No one's following. Nobody."
~Rolling Stone magazine, June 2004. Well said and GOOD point.

"You Europeans use George Bush's excesses as an excuse for your own lack of commitment. You've been reluctant to do anything apart from criticize America---get over it." reported on a blog, on the subject of the 2004 Davos conference in Switzerland- Easy now, don't bite the hand of the Union that could save our ass.

Talking about the Bush 2006 budget proposal to shut Amtrak and force it into bankruptcy, Senator Biden said "This is absolutely bizarre that we continue to subsidize highways beyond the gasoline tax, airlines...and we don't want to subsidize a national rail system that has environmental impact....This is the ultimate in being penny-wise and a pound-foolish." Is that like saying Bush is a capitalistic Dipsh**? NBC News "Meet the Press" on February 27, 2005

"I was in the Oval Office the other day, and the President asked me what I would do about resignations. I said, 'Look, Mr. President, would I keep Rumsfeld? Absolutely not.' And I turned to Vice President Cheney, who was there, and I said, 'Mr. Vice President, I wouldn't keep you if it weren't constitutionally required.' I turned back to the President and said, 'Mr. President, Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld are bright guys, really patriotic, but they've been dead wrong on every major piece of advice they've given you.That's why I'd get rid of them, Mr. President---not just Abu Ghraib.' They said nothing. Just sat there like big old bullfrogs on a log and looked at me." Rolling Stone interview, June 2004. How eloquent.

Look we don't need an ego serving self centered president, we need one who isn't afraid to call an ace an ace, and a Bullfrog a bullfrog. He has enough clarity, and has shared with me that he agree's the war in Iraq was wrong.
At least he know's the difference between right and wrong. That simple fact can make all the difference.