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Post by Moses on Jan 21, 2005 4:12:45 GMT -5
Fear societies' the target of new Bush administrationBy Guy Dinmore in Washington Published: January 20 2005 20:59 | Last updated: January 20 2005 20:59Liberty overcoming tyranny was the main theme on Thursday of President George W. Bush's inauguration address, one that Condoleezza Rice also stressed in her Senate hearings this week in listing six “outposts of tyranny” where the US “cannot rest” until freedom reigns. This new category follows the 2002 “axis of evil” trio of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, the long-standing seven “state sponsors of terrorism”, and the flexible but no longer in vogue “rogue nations” tag. Diplomats and analysts--not to mention the tyrants--are wondering what it means. US officials could not or would not explain the genesis of the new list, which lumps together Belarus, Burma, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Zimbabwe. One said it was “representational, not exclusive”. However, the grouping was clearly well thought out, given prominence as it was in Ms Rice's prepared statement to the Senate foreign relations committee, which is considering her nomination as secretary of state. “This doesn't mean we are going to bomb them tomorrow,” said Patrick Clawson of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He stressed Ms Rice's background as a scholar of the former Soviet bloc. The cold war is the frame of reference for the president and Ms Rice, who share a long-term view of what they call the defining “generational” struggle. Being on the list did not exclude the possibility of making “geo-strategic deals” with these governments, and diplomatic relations were not ruled out, Mr Clawson said. But it was not detente, meaning that the US would not confer legitimacy on these regimes and would continue to support their opposition movements. The approach is a mix of national interests and ideology. “The neoconservatives can live with it,” Mr Clawson said. Diplomats said it was obvious why Uzbekistan and Pakistan were not included, being important partners in the “war on terror”. More striking were the absence of Syria and Sudan, both involved at critical moments of war and peace, with the US juggling threats and inducements. A senior analyst at a government defence institute saw Ms Rice's speech as reflecting a strategic move to take a regional approach in using US leverage. The ultimate focus, he said, was less the six “outposts” than the major powers of Russia, which the administration sees in decline, and China, which is viewed as the main rival of the future to US domination of a unipolar world. “If you can turn these particular countries,” the analyst said, referring to Burma and North Korea, “then that would have a ricochet impact on China, to get it moving in the direction of a more democratic, market-oriented player.” [Expansion, not re-evaluation, of the neocon ideology] In a recent interview, Mr Bush said that if people wanted to understand how he thought about foreign policy they should read The Case for Democracy by Natan Sharansky. “It's short and it's good,” Mr Bush said. In presenting her list of target tyrannies a few days later, Ms Rice also referred to the former Soviet dissident Mr Sharansky, now an Israeli politician. “The world should really apply what Natan Sharansky called the town square test,” she said. “If a person cannot walk into the middle of the town square and express his or her views without fear of arrest, imprisonment and physical harm, then that person is living in a fear society. And we cannot rest until every person living in a fear society has finally won their freedom.”
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Post by Moses on Jan 22, 2005 8:29:52 GMT -5
American Terror
By Chris Floyd01/21/05[/color] "Moscow Times" -- More than two years ago, we wrote here of a secret Pentagon plan to foment terrorism by sending covert agents to infiltrate terrorist groups and goad them into action -- in other words, committing acts of murder and destruction. The purpose was two-fold: first, to bring the terrorist groups into the open, where they could be counterattacked; and second, to justify U.S. military attacks on the countries where the terrorists were operating -- attacks which, in the Pentagon's words, would put those nations' "sovereignty at risk." It was a plan that countenanced -- indeed, encouraged -- the deliberate murder of innocent people and the imposition of U.S. military rule anywhere in the world that U.S. leaders desired.This plan is now being activated. In fact, it's being expanded, as The New Yorker's Seymour Hersh revealed last week. Not only will U.S.-directed agents infiltrate existing terrorist groups and provoke them into action, but the Pentagon itself will create its own terrorist groups and "death squads." After establishing their terrorist "credentials" through various atrocities and crimes, these American-run groups will then be able to ally with -- and ultimately undermine -- existing terrorist groups. <br> Top-level officials in the Pentagon, the U.S. intelligence services and the Bush administration confirmed to Hersh that the plan is going forward, under the direction of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- just as we noted here in November 2002. Through a series of secret executive orders, George W. Bush has given Rumsfeld the authority to turn the entire world into "a global free-fire zone," a top Pentagon adviser says. These secret operations will be carried out with virtually no oversight; in many cases, even the top military commanders in the affected regions will not be told about them. The American people, of course, will never know what's being done in their name. The covert units -- including the Pentagon-funded terrorist groups and hit squads -- will be operating outside all constraints of law and morality. "We're going to be riding with the bad boys," one insider told Hersh. Another likened it to the palmy days of the Reagan-Bush years: "Do you remember the right-wing execution squads in El Salvador? We founded them and we financed them. The objective now is to recruit locals in any area we want. And we aren't going to tell Congress about it." Indeed, we reported here last summer that Bush has already budgeted $500 million to fund local paramilitaries and guerrilla groups in the most volatile areas of the world, a measure guaranteed to produce needless bloodshed, destruction and suffering for innocent people already ravaged by conflict. The activation of the Pentagon terrorist operation is part of Bush's second-term expansion of the "war on terror." Despite some obfuscating rhetoric about "diplomacy," the Bush regime is pressing ahead with a hard-line strategy aimed at opening new military fronts in the "global free-fire zone." Any dissenting voices within the government are being ruthlessly purged. The Pentagon's secret forces are set for operations in at least 10 countries, and Bush insiders "repeatedly" told Hersh that "Iran is the next strategic target."Iran has long been a focus of the small clique of "global dominationists" -- led by Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and their acolytes -- who engineered the invasion of Iraq. This group is determined to "whack Iran," as one insider put it, and they're not at all discouraged by the debacle in Iraq; indeed, to them it's a rousing success. Their first objective -- openly stated years ago, before Bush took office -- was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime and the planting of a U.S. "military footprint" in Iraq. This has now been done. The fact that it has plunged the Iraqi people into a hell of violence, chaos, terror and extremism is of no real concern to the clique. Their lofty rhetoric about "freedom" and "liberation" is meaningless sham, shuck and jive for the rubes. By the admission of the clique's own publications, they seek strategic control over the world's energy resources in order to preserve and expand American geopolitical and economic hegemony in the new century. Everything else -- including the security of the American people, put at increasing risk by the clique's reckless policies -- is of secondary importance. <br> U.S. forces are already conducting military reconnaissance inside Iran in preparation for strikes on alleged nuclear weapons facilities, Hersh reports. The Pentagon is feverishly updating war plans for a "maximum ground and air invasion of Iran," incorporating the new staging areas now available in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, while employing an Iranian terrorist group, MEK, to launch covert ops and terrorist acts against Tehran. MEK was once given sanctuary by Hussein, who used the group as a brutal enforcer against Kurd and Shiite insurgents. Now Bush, "riding with the bad boys," has embraced the MEK murderers as his own. <br> In their ignorance and arrogance, the Bushists will almost certainly strike at Iran -- despite the fact that even Iranian dissidents support the effort to make their nation a nuclear power and would join the mullahs in retaliation. The result will be a conflict far surpassing the horror and magnitude of the Iraq disaster. In our original report on the Pentagon's terror scheme, we wrote: "Bush and his cohorts are plunging the world into an abyss, an endless night of murder and terror -- wholesale, retail, state-sponsored, privatized; of fear and degradation, servility, chaos, and the perversion of all that's best in us." Now the night has come. Now the United States stands openly -- even proudly -- for terrorism, torture and the Hitlerian principle of aggressive war. America has fallen into the pit -- and the hopes of the world go with it.
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Post by Moses on Jan 22, 2005 8:49:32 GMT -5
The emperor of vulgarityBy Mike Carlton January 22, 2005George Bush's second inaugural extravaganza was every bit as repugnant as I had expected, a vulgar orgy of triumphalism probably unmatched since Napoleon crowned himself emperor of the French in Notre Dame in 1804. The little Corsican corporal had a few decent victories to his escutcheon. Lodi, Marengo, that sort of thing. Not so this strutting Texan mountebank, with his chimpanzee smirk and his born-again banalities delivered in that constipated syntax that sounds the way cold cheeseburgers look, and his grinning plastic wife, and his scheming junta of neo-con spivs, shamans, flatterers and armchair warmongers, and his sinuous evasions and his brazen lies, and his sleight of hand theft from the American poor, and his rape of the environment, and his lethal conviction that the world must submit to his Pax Americana or be bombed into charcoal.Difficult to know what was more repellent: the estimated $US40 million cost of this jamboree (most of it stumped up by Republican fat-cats buying future presidential favours), or the sheer crassness of its excess when American boys are dying in the quagmire of Bush's very own Iraq war. Other wartime presidents sought restraint. Abraham Lincoln's second inaugural address in 1865 - "with malice toward none, with charity for all" - is the shortest ever. And he had pretty much won the Civil War by that time. In 1944, Franklin Delano Roosevelt opened his fourth-term speech with the "wish that the form of this inauguration be simple and its words brief". He spoke for a couple of eloquent minutes, then went off to a light lunch, his wartime victory almost complete as well. But restraint is not a Dubya word. Learning nothing, the dumbest and nastiest president since the scandalous Warren Harding died in 1923, Bush is now intent on expanding the Iraq war to neighbouring Iran. Condoleezza Rice did admit to the US Senate this week that there had been some "not so good" decisions. But the more I see of her gleaming teeth and her fibreglass helmet of hair and her perky confidence, the more I am convinced that back in the '60s she used to be Cindy Birdsong, up there beside Diana Ross as one of the Supremes of Motown fame. I don't think it's a good idea to let her make a comeback as Secretary of State. THE war in Iran is under way already, if we believe Seymour Hersh, the distinguished investigative writer for The New Yorker magazine. Hersh reported this week that clandestine US special forces have been on the ground there, targeting nuclear facilities to be bombed whenever Bush feels the time is ripe. "The immediate goals of the attacks would be to destroy, or at least temporarily derail, Iran's ability to go nuclear," he wrote, quoting reliable intelligence sources. "But there are other, equally purposeful, motives at work. The government consultant told me that the hawks in the Pentagon, in private discussions, have been urging a limited attack on Iran because they believe it could lead to a toppling of the religious leadership." Naturally, Pentagon flacks rushed out to deny all. But then they did that when Hersh broke the story of the My Lai massacre in Vietnam in 1968, and again when he revealed the torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib. A tussle for the truth between Hersh and the Pentagon is no contest. What terrifies me most is the people planning this new war. The CIA professionals have been frozen out: too weak and wimpy for the Bushies. The Defence Secretary, the incompetent Donald Rumsfeld, has seized control, aided by two Pentagon under-secretaries. One is Douglas Feith, a mad-eyed Zionist largely responsible for the post-invasion collapse of order in Iraq, a civilian bureaucrat memorably described by the former Centcom commander, General Tommy Franks, as "the f---ing stupidest guy on the face of the Earth".The other is army Lieutenant General William G. (Jerry) Boykin, whose name also rings a bell. Jerry is a born-again Christian evangelical, a three-star bigot who, in his spare time, stumps the country in full uniform, preaching that America's enemy is Satan, Allah is a false idol, and that George Bush has been ordained by the Lord to rout evil."He's in the White House because God put him there for a time such as this," Jerry told a prayer meetin' in Oregon just a while back. Be very afraid.
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Post by Moses on Jan 22, 2005 9:05:52 GMT -5
Bring out the artillery ... Bush wants more libertyJanuary 22, 2005So President George Bush has committed to liberty and freedom in his second term. How does the invasion of Iraq, and possibly Iran in the future, constitute liberty or freedom? Surely international liberty and freedom are dependent on nations working together peacefully to eliminate poverty and suffering, rather than unilateral actions by a wealthy country such as the United States against predominantly poorer nations. Denis Goodwin, Gosford, January 21. George Bush has pledged in his second inauguration address to spread liberty and freedom to "the darkest corners of the world". There was clearly no room in his address for these immortal words of the late Reverend Martin Luther King: "The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. "Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars." King warned that "if America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam". Today, that autopsy could very well read Iraq. The Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin, Rivett (ACT), January 21. After seeing the spectacular job the US has done of bringing "liberty" and "freedom" to Iraq, I bet the "darkest corners of the world" can't wait. Brian Johnstone, Leura, January 21. One can now observe with confidence that not only does George Bush repeat "liberty" and "freedom" so many times because they camouflage an avoidance of challenging words, let alone the conceptual analysis that lies within them, but that he is particularly and unnervingly proud of the fact. David Jordan, Dee Why, January 21. While watching the news yesterday morning, I saw part of Bush's motorcade on the streets of Washington complete with black limousines and slowly walking secret service agents. My wife walked into the room and immediately asked: "Is it a funeral?" If only. John Larkin, Figtree, January 21. Reading the inauguration address of George Bush, one can only wonder whether his actions will remotely resemble his speechwriters' words. It seems he has a Congress firmly in the majority, the world's greatest arsenal and God by his side. Simultaneously, he will bring freedom, liberty and dignity throughout the world, while bringing the US the highest schooling standards, home ownership, a freedom from want and fear and a society more prosperous, just and equal. I hope that Bush lives up to his words, truly valuing the lives of others everywhere as much as he values his political donors. Otherwise, we'll know that he and John Howard have just been standing around the barbecue, serving each other hot-button platitudes. David Cumming, Mosman, January 21. George Bush has pledged to spread liberty and freedom "to the darkest corners of the world". And where, pray, might those corners be? I really can't think of a darker spot than occupied Iraq: it was subjected to a lethal, long-lasting naval blockade, tens of thousands of Iraqi troops were obliterated as though they were characters in a video game, and vital infrastructures were smashed to smithereens from the air and the ground by the world's best-equipped army and air force. However, the Americans' massive arsenal of high-tech lethal gadgets just cannot prevent the almost daily ritual of suicide bombings by some of the locals who have access only to home-made explosives and pre-loved cars. Was President Bush whistling in the dark? Henk Verhoeven, Beacon Hill, January 21. Just clarifying: did Condoleezza Rice include Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib as "outposts of tyranny"? Did Bush mean "spreading freedom" like that enjoyed by Iraqi citizens under US occupation? Mike Clear, Penrith, January 21. President Bush has pledged to spread liberty to those living in tyranny in "the darkest corners of the world". A good starting point would be his own office. The only problem is there aren't any corners. Terry Cominakis, Mosman, January 21.
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Post by Moses on Jan 22, 2005 19:02:56 GMT -5
www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-worldreax22jan22,1,5845695.story?coll=la-headlines-world Focus on Iran Causes Unease
Reaction in Tehran is stern, but analysts abroad see Cheney's warning of a possible Israeli strike as a way to prod Europe. Bush's speech is criticized.By John Daniszewski Times Staff Writer
January 22, 2005LONDON — The Bush administration's warning that Iran might face military action from Israel raised the ire of Tehran, but politicians and analysts said Friday that it could bolster European efforts to get the Islamic Republic to end its suspected nuclear weapons program. Israeli politicians were quick to say they had no imminent plan to attack Iran, even as some commentators elsewhere expressed unease at the sweeping and "messianic" tone in President Bush's inaugural speech marking the start of his second term. Tehran did not respond directly to Vice President Dick Cheney's comments Thursday about a possible Israeli strike against Iran. Cheney's remarks brought into focus comments Bush made in his address, in which the president said the United States stood ready to defend itself and protect its friends "by force of arms if necessary." At Friday prayers in Tehran, a forum that often reflects the thinking of Islamic hard-liners who wield power, a leading cleric sounded a defiant note. Saying he was speaking to "Americans and Zionists," Mohammed Emami Kashani said: "The world will catch you red-handed. If you ask the people in the world, everyone will tell you how despised you are…. People will become increasingly aware of your plots and hopefully you will not achieve anything." The conservative Tehran Times accused the Bush administration of "belligerent, unilateralist policies [that] brought about nothing but crisis and insecurity for the world." Israeli and U.S. analysts share the view that Iran is secretly working to acquire or build nuclear weapons and is moving to build longer-range missiles capable of delivering them, a charge the Iranian authorities dispute. On Sunday, the New Yorker magazine reported that U.S. forces had already gone into Iran seeking to verify targets for a possible military strike. Bush administration officials disputed the accuracy of the report but did not categorically deny it. Israel has said it will allow negotiations, led by Britain, France and Germany, to try to bring about a verifiable halt in the alleged weapons program. In October, the Europeans won an agreement from Iran to temporarily suspend its efforts at enriching uranium. Enriched uranium can be used to make nuclear weapons. The U.S., which has no direct relations with Iran, also has given its backing to the European efforts for now. A senior Israeli official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Cheney's remarks were intended to spur European countries to get tougher with Tehran. What Cheney said "was not intended to warn Iran, or caution Israel, as much as to encourage the Europeans to take a much stronger stance on imposing a more rigid regime of inspection on Iran with regard to its nuclear program," the official said. "In effect, Cheney was telling the Europeans, 'Hurry up and get your act together, or we can't be responsible.' " Israel has said that it regards Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program, if unchecked, as a threat to its existence. But the Jewish state also says it would consider military action against the country only if all other options had been exhausted. "We are not going to initiate an attack against Iran at this stage," said Raanan Gissin, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. "We don't believe that the diplomatic measures and sanctions that can be imposed have been fully tried yet." Bush's inaugural speech was directed to a world community that remains largely disenchanted with the U.S. president. A BBC World Service Poll of 22,000 people in 21 countries showed this week that 58% of respondents, and a majority in 16 countries, considered the world more dangerous because of Bush's reelection. But in France, some commentators expressed confidence that Bush's second term would start with a new emphasis on diplomacy and cooperation, even with regard to Iran. The U.S. and Europe are pursuing a logical "good-cop-bad-cop" approach toward Iran, with British, French and German negotiators trying to persuade Iran to dismantle its weapons programs or face American military might, said Bruno Tertrais of the Foundation for Strategic Research, a Paris think tank. "We are not on the eve of a large military operation against Iran," Tertrais said in an interview on Europe1 radio. He said U.S. leaders wanted "to keep the pressure on Iran. They trust the Europeans to conduct negotiations … but they need to threaten at the same time." But in Germany, the parliamentary foreign policy spokesman for the opposition Christian Democrats was irked by the comments from Bush and Cheney. "It would be sensible if the Americans would think not only about potential military strikes. It would be good if they would participate more constructively in the diplomatic efforts of the European Union," Friedbert Pflueger told a Berlin radio station. Commentators in various regions chided Bush for what they said was his aggressive projection of American power and questioned whether the president was sincere about backing freedom fighters and not dictators, as they say the U.S. does now in the Middle East and Asia. "The U.S. president issued a blood-curdling cry yesterday" warning America's enemies to expect "an untamed fire of freedom," wrote London's Daily Star. It's up to British Prime Minister Tony Blair to use his influence to make sure the U.S. defends freedom "with a cool head," the Star said. "Super-Zero Mr. Un-Credible Goes on the Warpath," said the irreverent Daily Mirror, a British tabloid, calling the president's speech "bizarre." "There is a sense of a man who considers the whole world as his own parish," said Italy's left-leaning La Repubblica. Belarusian President Alexander G. Lukashenko, the leader routinely referred to as Europe's last dictator and one seen as being in the sights of the Bush administration, was sardonic in his reaction to Bush's call for an expansion of freedom. "Suppose someone or other didn't really want such 'freedom,' soaked in blood and smelling of oil?" he asked his National Security Council on Friday. (Belarus thumbed its nose at Bush two days earlier when its state television aired "Fahrenheit 9/11," the anti-Bush documentary by U.S. director Michael Moore.) Britain's conservative Daily Telegraph, generally supportive of Bush, was also skeptical, fearing that Bush would be too bogged down in Iraq to deal with any of the other six "outposts of tyranny" recently mentioned by Secretary of State-designate Condoleezza Rice: Belarus, Myanmar, Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Zimbabwe. "With a much strengthened mandate for his second term, Mr. Bush has vaulting ambitions for liberty," the paper said. "The president's ambitions are admirable, but he has got to get Iraq right if they are to have a hope to be realized. That is the unfinished business of his first term, and will doubtless preoccupy him throughout the second." French officials such as Foreign Minister Michel Barnier have taken the inauguration as an opportunity to declare "a new era" in U.S.-French relations that will put the Iraq-related tensions in the past. Nevertheless, Bush's rhetoric struck some editorialists in France as short on substance. "No mention of the situation in Iraq was made, nor about the role of the United Nations or Europe," Swiss journalist Richard Labeviere said in an editorial on Radio France International. "His repeated incantations for world freedom do not provide any manual, any program, any policy … only moral values based on a spiritual revival that has overwhelmed America." L'Union newspaper in eastern France said the speech was "messianic," and the Sudouest regional newspaper may have best expressed the typical French view. "With this president, the world feels like it's dancing on a volcano," wrote columnist Bruno Dive. "We're not only talking about his foreign policy, which set Iraq on fire, worsened the situation in the Middle East and loosened the link with European allies. "We also think about his economic policy based on abysmal deficits which put the USA (and therefore the rest of the world) on the edge of a financial crash." Alexander Konovalov, president of the Institute for Strategic Assessment, a think tank in Moscow, said Bush's ambitions exceeded the reality of U.S. power. "The words that all the oppressed can count on America's help are just a declaration," Konovalov said. "It has been shown quite explicitly that, in reality, not all the oppressed can count on America's stepping in." Although he doubted that the U.S. or Israel could attack Iran, Viktor A. Kremenyuk, deputy director of the USA-Canada Institute in Moscow, said he felt that Bush's remarks did not bode well for Russia. "The U.S. is claiming the right to sit in judgment and decide whether Russia conforms to the standards of democracy. And since it is clearly understood that there is less and less democracy in Russia … it is possible to predict that Russia will be getting plenty of dressings-down in the near future."
Times staff writers Megan K. Stack in Cairo, Laura King in Jerusalem, Sebastian Rotella in Paris, Bruce Wallace in Tokyo, Ching-Ching Ni in Beijing, Maria De Cristofaro in Rome, Petra Falkenberg in Berlin and Alexei V. Kuznetsov in Moscow contributed to this report.
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Post by Moses on Jan 23, 2005 19:42:06 GMT -5
Sunday, Jan. 23, 2005 10:22 a.m. EST
Neocons See Bush Speech As VictoryPresident Bush's Inaugural address may have bothered traditional conservatives but it brought joy to the hearts of the neoconservative wing of the Republican party, the Los Angeles Times reports. Described by the Los Angeles Times as "that determined band of hawkish idealists who promoted the U.S. invasion of Iraq and now seek to bring democracy to the rest of the Middle East," the neocons couldn't have been more enthusiastic about the policy enunciated by the President. In one dramatic gesture, the President speech revived what had been seen as the sagging fortunes of the neocons who had virtually disappeared from the political scene during the presidential campaign as a result of continuing problems with the U.S. role in Iraq - a role frequently blamed on the neocons. As noted by the Times, for at least a year now the neocons have kept low profiles and toned down their rhetoric. During the campaign, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, one of the leading and most coherent voices for invading Iraq and a prominent neocon, virtually disappeared from public view. He has reemerged with the announcement that he will keep his top Defense Department post. So also with other well known neocons gathered around the President who had been rumored to be disillusioned with the group. Once Bush proclaimed in his inaugural address that the central purpose of his second term would be the promotion of democracy "in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world" - a key neoconservative goal, the Times reported that "suddenly, the neocons were ascendant again."
"This is real neoconservatism," Robert Kagan told the Times. Kagan, a foreign policy expert and a leading exponent of neocon thinking, had sometimes criticized the administration for not being neocon enough. Now he says "It would be hard to express it more clearly. If people were expecting Bush to rein in his ambitions and enthusiasms after the first term, they are discovering that they were wrong." Not everybody saw it that way. "If Bush means it literally, then it means we have an extremist in the White House," Dimitri Simes told the Times. Simes, president of the Nixon Center, a conservative think tank that espouses the more pragmatic policies of Richard Nixon. "I hope and pray that he didn't mean it[and] that it was merely an inspirational speech, not practical guidance for the conduct of foreign policy." A top administration insider who met with reporters Friday to explain the meaning of the speech sidestepped a question whether it represented endorsement of neoconservative ideas. "I've never understood what that neoconservative label means, anyway," he said, refusing to be identified by name because, he said: "We should be focusing on the president's words, not mine." He added that Bush's words making democratization of other countries the center of his foreign policy was the administration's job one. "It is a top priority for his second term," the aide said. "He's raised the emphasis. He's raised the profile. He's made it clear that he's going to turn up the pressure a bit. He's going to try to accelerate the process." Another senior administration official and prominent neoconservative told the Times Bush's theme reflected several "lessons learned" in the last 30 years. Chief among them, he said, was an argument that neoconservatives often made about the Soviet Union and, more recently, Iraq: that a central goal of the United States should be "systemic change" - changing hostile states' regimes, not merely their policies.But he also warned, "A policy promoting democracy also has to be a realistic policy. We have to consider what are the risks of overly rapid change? What's the downside?" According to the Times Irving Kristol, considered by many to be one of the grandfathers of the neoconservative movement, defined the movement as "forward-looking, not nostalgic. cheerful, not grim." In domestic affairs, he wrote, neocons tend to accept the need for a strong federal government, not a weak one. In foreign policy, he insisted they believe in a broad definition of the national interest, not a narrow one; they are more willing than most traditional conservatives to commit American power, including military power, to such causes as democracy and human rights. [sic-- this is Newsmax] "Barring extraordinary events, the United States will always feel obliged to defend, if possible, a democratic nation under attack from nondemocratic forces," Kristol wrote in 2003. "No complicated geopolitical calculations of national interest are necessary." Last year The Christian Science Monitor defined neoconservatives as those who "envision a world in which the United States is the unchallenged superpower, immune to threats. They believe that the U.S. has a responsibility to act as a "benevolent global hegemon." In this capacity, the U.S. would maintain an empire of sorts by helping to create democratic, economically liberal governments in place of 'failed states' or oppressive regimes they deem threatening to the U.S. or its interests. [with the concommitant economic & political control and military bases and equipment] {b]In the neocon dream world the entire Middle East would be democratized[/b] [sic] in the belief that this would eliminate a prime breeding ground for terrorists. This approach, they claim, is not only best for the U.S., it is best for the world. In their view, the world can only achieve peace through strong U.S. leadership backed with credible force, not weak treaties to be disrespected by tyrants." [uh--- which tyrant has been disrespecting treaties at the behest of the neocons? -- oh, yeah the neocons are the ones who disrespect treaties] Giving more credence to the idea that the Inaugural address was essentially a restatement of neocon policy, there were echoes of much of the above, except for the inherent bellicosity, in the President's speech. Among the other signs of a neocon resurgence, the Times cited a two-hour pre-speech seminar assembled by White House political aide Karl Rove and chief speechwriter Michael Gerson that included several leading neocons - newspaper columnist Charles Krauthammer, Fouad Ajami of Johns Hopkins University and Victor Davis Hanson of Stanford's Hoover Institution. Another sign of the administration's bent cited by the Times: the departure of several of the leading realists of the first term, notably Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and his closest aides while leading neoconservatives, including Wolfowitz, are staying. And at least one, National Security Council aide Elliott Abrams, is said to be in line for a more prominent job at the State Department or NSC.
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Post by Moses on Jan 23, 2005 23:33:07 GMT -5
www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/pnoonan/The inaugural address itself was startling. It left me with a bad feeling, and reluctant dislike. Rhetorically, it veered from high-class boilerplate to strong and simple sentences, but it was not pedestrian. George W. Bush's second inaugural will no doubt prove historic because it carried a punch, asserting an agenda so sweeping that an observer quipped that by the end he would not have been surprised if the president had announced we were going to colonize Mars. A short and self-conscious preamble led quickly to the meat of the speech: the president's evolving thoughts on freedom in the world. Those thoughts seemed marked by deep moral seriousness and no moral modesty. No one will remember what the president said about domestic policy, which was the subject of the last third of the text. This may prove to have been a miscalculation. It was a foreign-policy speech. To the extent our foreign policy is marked by a division that has been (crudely but serviceably) defined as a division between moralists and realists--the moralists taken with a romantic longing to carry democracy and justice to foreign fields, the realists motivated by what might be called cynicism and an acknowledgment of the limits of governmental power--President Bush sided strongly with the moralists, which was not a surprise. But he did it in a way that left this Bush supporter yearning for something she does not normally yearn for, and that is: nuance. The administration's approach to history is at odds with what has been described by a communications adviser to the president as the "reality-based community." A dumb phrase, but not a dumb thought: He meant that the administration sees history as dynamic and changeable, not static and impervious to redirection or improvement. That is the Bush administration way, and it happens to be realistic: History is dynamic and changeable. On the other hand, some things are constant, such as human imperfection, injustice, misery and bad government. This world is not heaven. The president's speech seemed rather heavenish. It was a God-drenched speech. This president, who has been accused of giving too much attention to religious imagery and religious thought, has not let the criticism enter him. God was invoked relentlessly. "The Author of Liberty." "God moves and chooses as He wills. We have confidence because freedom is the permanent hope of mankind . . . the longing of the soul." It seemed a document produced by a White House on a mission. The United States, the speech said, has put the world on notice: Good governments that are just to their people are our friends, and those that are not are, essentially, not. We know the way: democracy. The president told every nondemocratic government in the world to shape up. "Success in our relations [with other governments] will require the decent treatment of their own people." The speech did not deal with specifics--9/11, terrorism, particular alliances, Iraq. It was, instead, assertively abstract. "We are led, by events and common sense, to one conclusion: The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands." "Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self government. . . . Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time." "It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in the world." Ending tyranny in the world? Well that's an ambition, and if you're going to have an ambition it might as well be a big one. But this declaration, which is not wrong by any means, seemed to me to land somewhere between dreamy and disturbing. Tyranny is a very bad thing and quite wicked, but one doesn't expect we're going to eradicate it any time soon. Again, this is not heaven, it's earth. There were moments of eloquence: "America will not pretend that jailed dissidents prefer their chains, or that women welcome humiliation and servitude, or that any human being aspires to live at the mercy of bullies." "We do not accept the existence of permanent tyranny because we do not accept the possibility of permanent slavery." And, to the young people of our country, "You have seen that life is fragile, and evil is real, and courage triumphs." They have, since 9/11, seen exactly that. And yet such promising moments were followed by this, the ending of the speech. "Renewed in our strength--tested, but not weary--we are ready for the greatest achievements in the history of freedom." This is--how else to put it?--over the top. It is the kind of sentence that makes you wonder if this White House did not, in the preparation period, have a case of what I have called in the past "mission inebriation." A sense that there are few legitimate boundaries to the desires born in the goodness of their good hearts. One wonders if they shouldn't ease up, calm down, breathe deep, get more securely grounded. The most moving speeches summon us to the cause of what is actually possible. Perfection in the life of man on earth is not. Ms. Noonan is a contributing editor of The Wall Street Journal and author of "A Heart, a Cross, and a Flag" (Wall Street Journal Books/Simon & Schuster), a collection of post-Sept. 11 columns, which you can buy from the OpinionJournal bookstore. Her column appears Thursdays.
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Post by Moses on Jan 25, 2005 2:47:28 GMT -5
Protesters Make Strong Showing on Inauguration Day January 20, 2005 03:41 PMDespite tight security and restrictions through the Pennsylvania Ave. parade route, protesters of George W. Bush turned out to make a vocal and memorable appearance along the inaugural parade route. While restricted to certain areas, protesters were pooled together for only a short distance. The parade route, in keeping with pro-business policies of the Bush administration, was largely sold to the highest bidders. Few public areas remained and much of the public was forced to pay for admission to the national and traditionally public parade. Protest groups were forced to file a lawsuit for space more space along the route while no additional space was granted. The strong showing by the protesters left the Bush motorcade in a full sprint in many areas, assumable to protect Bush's false sense of support across the nation. At one point within the parade, Secret Service officers mounted vehicles for a fast transition through a protest area after fruit was thrown at the presidential limousine. Signs held by anti-Bush crowds ranged from "Worst President Ever," "Impeach Bush" to "Pro-Life – No War" while several upside-down flags (a sign of distress) were seen along the parade route. Angry chants were heard from the crowd including those of "f**k Bush" broadcast by CNN. The shouts of the protesters greatly outweighed the cheers of Bush lovers in many areas of the route. President Bush pledged to be a "united not a divider" upon his first term in office.Tthe reality has turned out to be the complete opposite as evidenced by his inauguration parade.
Comments: (No profanity, or inappropriate remarks.) What parade was this writer at? Certainly not the one in Washington, DC. What a load of propaganda crap.... Posted by: hunt at January 20, 2005 05:09 PM Poor old hunt. You must be blind and unable to watch the parade (do you have to use a screenreader for the Internet?). That's exactly what I saw along the route. I would say that vocal bush supporters were few and far between. The author was on the money and I would say even downplayed it a bit. No mention of the coffins, or other protests around the city. Posted by: Sprut at January 20, 2005 05:12 PM Maybe he's just blind to reality. Posted by: JMT at January 20, 2005 05:28 PM Oh, and speaking about propaganda. I though it was the Bush guys paying off hosts to spout their propaganda? Idiot. Posted by: JMT at January 20, 2005 05:29 PM Bush, or Shrub which is one of my favorite nicknames, is the worst President we have ever had. What a sham. I cannot believe that he was re-elected. People are dying for his lies about Iraq. The environment is getting raped. The poor are ignored and left to whither away. The rich (and only the very rich) get richer. Forget the protest, Bush should be run out of town on a rail. He is ruining this country. Posted by: Garin at January 20, 2005 07:06 PM Bush is the Greatest Divider in presidential history. Even Lincoln had more support on both sides. He's such a liar and all you stupid people who voted for your stupid leader should be in Iraq not wasting your "patriotism" cruising the internet! And stop hurting our troops by putting those "support the troops" bumper stickers on your gas-guzzling SUVS. Show some respect for them sucking it up and fulfilling their contracts! Think about this: Is there anything BUSH or CHENEY could do wrong that you would admit? Posted by: Alex at January 21, 2005 08:59 AM Why do the same southern racists who voted for Bush want Condi Rice to be the first black Secretary of State? Because she shuts up and does what her master says. This woman is a disgrace to blacks...to woman. She ignored the memo warning of the Twin Towers' attack but supported forged documents that lied about WMDs in Iraq. Bush's base is too ignorant to understand that Iraqis were too poor a country (due to U.S. sanctions) and Saddam too egotistical to want a war with the U.S. Maybe if we painted all Iraqis white Bush's base would understand that they aren't the Afghanis that bombed us. Most of the terrorists were from Saudi Arabia. We haven't even scolded the Saudis because they are the Richest of all the Arab countries. Posted by: John at January 21, 2005 09:10 AM Thanks for discussing the inaugural protests. It's really sad the road my republicans have taken. Even Newt Gingrich is alarmed at how President Bush won't admit his mistakes. Saw the interview tonight on PBS. He said you can't move forward until you admit your mistakes. Bush is taking away our rights. Women are furious about being groped at airports. Your library records are public property. You can be taken to Cuba without right to a lawyer. Raped women have to have their rapist's baby even if they die during childbirth. He's too radical and destroying the republican party. It seems like communism to me. I call it Christian communism. Brace yourself for impeachment. Posted by: Amy at January 21, 2005 09:18 AM Bush spends all day golfing and he wonders why we haven't won the war in iraq! Even a coporate tax benefitor like the donald would fire him! Posted by: The Don at January 21, 2005 09:21 AM You're right Amy, Communism is at our front door. Bush stresses that schools test their students successfully or the teachers lose pay. How crazy is it that a president who couldn't pass a third grade spelling test penalizes students and teachers who are smarter than him. I think there should be at least a 200 SAT score requirement to be prez so this nightmare doesn't happen again. (200 is what you get if you can fill in your name) Posted by: Andy at January 21, 2005 09:29 AM Just a couple of points to help make our anti-Bush arguments stronger: Bush is more like the worst president since Wilson (although he still has 4 more years to try for #1). Making the agument like this gives our misinfomed, pro-Bush friends something to go research. If they find a source that is history, rather than civil mythology, they'll find Wilson attacked domestic freedoms (Creel), served business interests (federal reserve), invaded many small nations, used the US millitary to create forced-labor camps, tried to invade Russia (a seed of the cold war) along with Britian and Japan, was an avid racist, (inspired the KKK and held his KKK induction ceremony in the White House). He created problems for America that lasted LONG beyond his presidency. (How long will the problems Bush has created in the middle east effect America?) Comparing Bush's vision for America to communism is a easily attackable position, and comparing to the Nazis will end a discussion with dismissal from the other party (along with some feigned offence). However, Bush's administration and direction are very similar to Mussolini. Fortunatly, most Americans don't know much about Mussolini other than he and Hitler were buddies, so they will allow you to tell them how the two administrations are similar, and the similar dangers. Posted by: Pat at January 22, 2005 06:37 PM Right on. Bush sucks. I guess we can thank him Green Day's American Idiot and BR's The Empire Strikes First! Bad times=good music. He's such an idiot...... Posted by: Future Voter at January 23, 2005 10:44 PM
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Post by Moses on Jan 28, 2005 0:15:40 GMT -5
The Speech Bush Should have GivenThis is the speech that I wish President Bush had given in fall, 2002, as he was trying to convince Congress to give him the authority to go to war against Iraq.My fellow Americans: I want us to go to war against Iraq. But I want us to have our eyes open and be completely realistic. A war against Iraq will be expensive. It will cost you, the taxpayer, about $300 billion over five years. I know Wolfowitz is telling you Iraq's oil revenues will pay for it all, but that's ridiculous. Iraq only pumps about $10 billion a year worth of oil, and it's going to need that just to run the new government we're putting in. No, we're going to have to pay for it, ourselves. I'm going to ask you for $25 billion, then $80 billion, then another $80 billion. And so on. I'm going to be back to you for money more often than that unemployed relative that you don't like. The cost of the war is going to drive up my already massive budget deficits from about $370 billion to more like $450 billion a year. Just so you understand, I'm going to cut taxes on rich people at the same time that I fight this war. Then I'm going to borrow the money to fight it, and to pay for much of what the government does. And you and your children will be paying off that debt for decades. In the meantime, your dollar isn't going to go as far when you buy something made overseas, since running those kinds of deficits will weaken our currency. (And I've set things up so that most things you buy will be made overseas.) We'll have to keep interest rates higher than they would otherwise have been and keep the economy in the doldrums, because otherwise my war deficits would cause massive inflation. So I'm going to put you, your children, and your grandchildren deeply in hock to fight this war. I'm going to make it so there won't be a lot of new jobs created, and I'm going to use the excuse of the Federal red ink to cut way back on government services that you depend on. For the super-rich, or as I call them, "my base," this Iraq war thing is truly inspired. We use it to put up the deficit to the point where the Democrats and the more bleeding heart Republicans in Congress can't dare create any new programs to help the middle classes. We all know that the super-rich--about 3 million people in our country of 295 million-- would have to pay for those programs, since they own 45 percent of the privately held wealth. I'm d**n sure going to make sure they aren't inconvenienced that way for a good long time to come. Then, this Iraq War that I want you to authorize as part of the War on Terror is going to be costly in American lives. By the time of my second inaugural, over 1,300 brave women and men of the US armed forces will be dead as a result of this Iraq war, and 10,371 will have been maimed and wounded, many of them for life. America's streets and homeless shelters will likely be flooded, down the line, with some of these wounded vets. They will have problems finding work, with one or two limbs gone and often significant psychological damage. They will have even more trouble keeping any jobs they find. They will be mentally traumatized the rest of their lives by the horror they are going to see, and sometimes commit, in Iraq. But, well we've got a saying in Texas. I think you've got in over in Arkansas, too. You can't make an omelette without . . . you gotta break some eggs to wrassle up some breakfast. I know Dick Cheney and Condi Rice have gone around scaring your kids with wild talk of Iraqi nukes. I have to confess to you that my CIA director, George Tenet, tells me that the evidence for that kind of thing just doesn't exist. In fact, I have to be frank and say that the Intelligence and Research Division of the State Department doesn't think Saddam has much of anything left even from his chemical weapons program. Maybe he destroyed the stuff and doesn't want to admit it because he's afraid the Shiites and Kurds will rise up against him without it. Anyway, Iraq just doesn't pose any immediate threat to the United States and probably doesn't have anything useful left of their weapons programs of the 1980s. There also isn't any operational link between a secular Arab nationalist like Saddam and the religious loonies of al-Qaeda. They're scared of one another and hate each other more than each hates us. In fact, I have to be perfectly honest and admit that if we overthrow Saddam's secular Arab nationalist government, Iraq's Sunni Arabs will be disillusioned and full of despair. They are likely to turn to al-Qaeda as an alternative. So, folks, what I'm about to do could deliver 5 million Iraqis into the hands of people who are insisting they join some al-Qaeda offshoot immediately. Or else. So why do I want to go to war? Look, folks, I'm just not going to tell you. I don't have to tell you. There is little transparency about these things in the executive, because we're running a kind of rump empire out of the president's office. After 20 or 30 years it will all leak out. Until then, you'll just have to trust me. posted by Juan @ 1/26/2005 06:35:41 AM <br>
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Post by Moses on Jan 28, 2005 2:02:18 GMT -5
www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2005/01/27/broken_army/print.html"A military in extremis"Still living in a fantasy world, the administration has no strategy for maintaining the current number of U.S. forces in Iraq for two more years. By Sidney BlumenthalJan. 27, 2005 | The most penetrating critique of the realism informing President Bush's second inaugural address, a trumpet call of imperial ambition, was made one month before it was delivered, on Dec. 20, 2004, by Lt. Gen. James Helmly, chief of the U.S. Army Reserve. In an internal memorandum, he described "the Army Reserve's inability under current policies, procedures and practices ... to meet mission requirements associated with Operation Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. The Army Reserve is additionally in grave danger of being unable to meet other operational requirements and is rapidly degenerating into a broken force." The memo continues: These "dysfunctional" policies are producing a crisis "more acute and hurtful," as the Reserve's ability to mobilize troops is "eroding daily." The U.S. force in Iraq of about 150,000 troops is composed of a "volunteer" Army that came into being with the end of military conscription during the Vietnam War. More than 40 percent are National Guard and Reserve members, most having completed second tours of duty and been sent out again. The force level has been maintained by the Pentagon only by "stop-loss" orders that coerce soldiers to remain in service after their contractual enlistment expires -- a backdoor draft. Reenlistment is collapsing, by at least 30 percent last year. The Pentagon justified this de facto conscription by telling Congress that it is merely a short-term solution that would not be necessary as Iraq quickly stabilized and an Iraqi security force filled the vacuum. But this week the Pentagon announced that the U.S. force level would remain unchanged through 2006. "I don't know where these troops are coming from. It's mystifying," Rep. Ellen Tauscher, a ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, told me. "There's no policy to deal with the fact we have a military in extremis." Bush's speech calling for "ending tyranny in all the world" was consistently abstract and uninflected by anything as specific as the actual condition of the military that would presumably be sent scurrying on various global missions. But the speech was aflame with images of destruction and vengeance. The terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001, appeared as a "day of fire," a trope combining the Dies Irae of the Roman Catholic Mass ("The day of wrath, that day which will reduce the world to ashes") with the Book of Revelation ("lake of fire"). Bush never mentioned Iraq, but he spoke of fighting fire with fire. "We have lit a fire as well -- a fire in the minds of men. It warms those who feel its power, it burns those who fight its progress, and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world." The phrase "a fire in the minds of men" is a quote from Dostoevski's "The Possessed," and Dostoevski meant it to describe the fanaticism of nihilistic terrorists. Bush twisted the reference to conflate "freedom" with retribution that "burns" our enemies with "untamed" fury. The neoconservatives were ecstatic, perhaps as much by their influence in inserting their Gnostic code words into the speech as by the dogmatism of the speech itself. For them, Bush's rhetoric about "eternal hope that is meant to be fulfilled" was a sign of their triumph. The speech, crowed neocon William Kristol, who consulted on it, was indeed "informed by Strauss" -- a reference to Leo Strauss, philosopher of obscurantist strands of absolutist thought, a mentor and inspiration to some neocons who believe they fulfill his teaching by acting as tutors to politicians in need of their superior guidance. But "informed" is hardly the precise word to account for the manipulation of Bush's impulses by cultish advisors with ulterior motives. Even as the neocons reveled in their influence, Bush's glittering generalities, lofted on wings of hypocrisy, crashed to earth. Would we launch campaigns against tyrannical governments in Pakistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia or China? No, the White House briefed reporters, of course Bush didn't mean his rhetoric to suggest any change in strategy. Unfortunately for Condoleezza Rice, such levels of empty abstraction could not glide her through her Senate confirmation as secretary of state without abrasion. With implacable rigidity, she stood by every administration decision. There was no disinformation on Saddam Hussein's development of nuclear weapons; any suggestion that she had been misleading in the rush to war was an attack on her personal integrity. The light military force for the invasion was just right. And it was just right now. Contradicting Sen. Joseph Biden of the Foreign Relations Committee, who stated that there are only 14,000 trained Iraqi security forces, she insisted there are 120,000. Why, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld had told her so. Then, implicitly acknowledging the failure to create a credible Iraqi army, the Pentagon announced that U.S. forces would remain at the same level for the next two years. Rice's Pollyanna testimony was suddenly inoperative. The administration has no strategy for Iraq or for the coerced American Army plodding endlessly across the desert. Rep. Tauscher wonders when the House Armed Services Committee, along with the rest of Congress, will learn anything from the Bush administration that might be considered factual: "They are never persuaded by the facts. Nobody can tell you what their plan is, and they don't feel the need to have one." On the eve of the Iraqi election, neither the president's soaring rhetoric nor the new secretary of state's fantasy numbers touch the brutal facts on the ground.
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