An Open Letter to Earthlink and the Public
by Kathryn Smith Page 1 of 1 page(s)
http://www.opednews.com
Hello Earthlink: I have to say that while I am satisfied with your email service, and have been a long-term customer, I am very unhappy and even maddened by your scam alert.
Hello Earthlink:
I have to say that while I am satisfied with your email service, and have been a long-term customer, I am very unhappy and even maddened by your scam alert.
The reason for my sincere upset has to do with who you are aiming your scam alert at. Shakespeare websites come up as "This could be a scam". Sybill Edmonds, a whistle blower for the FBI who is finally telling us the real truth which the mainstream press is obscuring, is a "scam. Proceed with extreme caution". Bloggers who are concerned with the real core truths: Don't look at them. Etc.....
Earthlink, whose side of the street are you on? Why would Shakespeareans be scammed out? Why discredit anybody who gives a damn about needless deaths to a war based on a lie, ie a mass murderous act? Is mass murder something which you support, Earthlink? Please don't deny it. Actions speak louder than words.
Because of my deep offense and outrage with your targets, I am going to switch carriers.
FYI more than 850 Guantanamo Detainee "terrorists" have been PROVEN innocent. FYI close to 1 million people are now on the terrorist watchlist, including infants and children and, selectively, only Democrats in the Senate. Yes, Senators are on the no-fly list, targeted according to partisanship and their outspokenness for the sake of the US Constitution. It would seem that you, Earthlink, are helping the cause along of ransacking this world-famous and freedom-preserving legal document. You apparently care very much about mass murder and random targeting of innocent Americans under the unconstitutional Patriot Act, side-stepping the power of the judiciary to put a "check" on runaway government power. Cooperating with the unconstitutional Patriot Act and ransacking the first and fourth amendments, you are helping to jail Americans who are doing nothing more than practicing their constitutionally protected free speech. By coopearting with the warrantless wiretapping program, you are helping to jail without habeas corpus and subject to torture all those innocents DUBBED as "terrorists".
To verify the facts above, please have one look at the ACLU's website.
I want no apologies from you. No free services. Nothing of the kind. That's not good enough, under the circumstances.
I only want a change of behavior and I only want you to stop warrantless wiretapping without probable cause. I want you to stop targeting innocent people as "Scams". Get Real, Earthlink: Wake up and smell the business losses.
I am going to post this letter to the public on-line, openly, for public viewing and comment. And I am carbon copying the request for a response from you to the head editor of Opednews, with a readership of 600,000 people. I am hereby requesting that he post this message to Opednews for public commenting, with the request that readers jump ship in protest, signing up with another on-line carrier.
Very sincerely yours,Kathryn Smith
Take action -- click here to contact your local newspaper or congress people:Please ask the public to switch to a green carrier who won't wiretap without probable cause. Qwest won't wiretap and Red Jellyfish is green.
The Republican National Convention in St. Paul has attracted the interest of protest groups across the country. The factions range from anti-war coalitions to conspiracy theorists who believe the U.S government had a role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
While most groups are calling for peaceful demonstrations, a number of anarchists are hoping to derail the convention entirely. Their differences are causing interesting frictions within the activist community.
St. Paul, Minn. — The RNC protest contingent is a big tent. Some will be marching for welfare rights, others for peace.
"We're hoping to form maybe the largest human peace sign, which would be really cool," said Coleen Rowley, a former FBI whistle blower and one-time Democratic Congressional candidate.
Rowley and her husband are planning a huge "Peace Island Picnic" on Harriet Island, where they plan to fly "peace kites" and offer free music. Rowley says folk legend Joan Baez is considering an appearance.
Another protester, Ben Plunkett of River Falls, Wis., has reserved a number of downtown parks for his performance art. Plunkett is a part-time college student and Pierce County board supervisor who wants to legalize medical marijuna and raise awareness of military spending and human rights.
Plunkett and Rowley are thrilled about the national spotlight that will soon shine on St. Paul during the RNC September 1-4. They'll use the event to denounce Republican policies.
"We're trying to get the message out that we want to everyone to gear towards peace rather than the wars that we've been seeing," Rowley said.
But Rowley and Plunkett are not the kind of demonstrators who are making St. Paul police nervous.
In a legal briefing filed in federal court last week, the city spelled out security concerns ranging from terrorist attacks to mass chaos. The briefing was in response to a lawsuit filed by attorneys on behalf of the Coalition to March on the RNC and Stop the War, a group challenging the march route the city has assigned it. The briefing mentioned known anarchist groups that are planning to "shut down the RNC."
A clearinghouse for those resistance groups, the RNC Welcoming Committee, runs a Web site that makes no secret of plans to block off the Xcel Energy Center. The Web site says the anarchists are also hoping to immobilize delegate buses and block a number of Twin Cities bridges.
The city's briefing cited the riots that surrounded the World Trade Organization conference in Seattle nearly a decade ago to illustrate the mayhem that unheeded threats could result in.
The Web site for the RNC Welcoming Committee doesn't directly answer the question of whether the group's allies will resort to smashing windows during the convention. But the site says that private property, or the power it represents, "is often used to exclude groups or classes of people from the basic necessities of life." Therefore, the group says it can't condemn damage to downtown businesses.
The RNC Welcoming Committee typically doesn't grant phone interviews with the media and did not immediately respond to an email requesting an interview.
Despite their differences, some of the largest protest coalitions have signed a pact agreeing not to interfere with each other's demonstration plans or sow divisions within the activist community. The agreement also prohibits them from publicly denouncing other groups.
"I've met a few of them and to be honest, they're all very nice people and hardly capable of throwing bricks," said Andrew Hine, a member of the protest group True Blue Minnesota. "It's the people we don't know that are the ones to worry about."
Hine and his friends have chosen what they hope will be a more effective approach to delivering their anti-war message. They've arranged for a Jumbotron to display text, movies and even cartoons in a park near the Cathedral of St. Paul.
But Hine recalled attending one anti-war protest meeting, where he said an organizer gave those in attendance a "you're-either-with-us-or-you're-against-us" ultimatum. Hine says she mentioned by name Assistant Police Chief Matt Bostrom, who is overseeing convention security.
"They said the people who trust Matt Bostrom are not to be trusted," Hine said. "And clearly I was in that group. We met with Matt Bostrom and had a good talk and believed him."
Hine says at a time when most Americans oppose the war in Iraq, using destructive tactics to challenge the Bush administration seems like overkill.
Five groups have applied for permits to march through downtown St. Paul. So far, the city has granted two of those requests. The largest will be the anti-war march on Sept. 1, the first day of the convention. The following day, a so-called "poor people's march" will circle downtown.
Air Force veteran David Harris of Red Wing has applied for permit to march on the day before the convention. Rather than going with loud chants and bullhorns, Harris says his parade will be solemn. Participants will march with cardboard tombstone cut-outs bearing the pictures of dead soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
Harris, a 73-year-old retired surgeon, says his group plans to march straight up to the Xcel, beyond the point where police officers will allow them. He has notified the police of his plans for nonviolent civil disobedience.
"We hope it may touch the hearts of people who watch, rather than create the kinds of discord that don't seem to get anywhere these days," he said.
Harris has reached out to other protesters who have shared their plans of street blockades. He says he gets the sense that some of them are eager to throw rocks through a window.
"I went to a couple meetings and tried to talk to them about my ideas of nonviolence. I don't know if anybody listened or not," he said. "There's a lot of kids, mostly young people, who really want to express their anger and their outrage at the injustices they see."
Harris said the problem with damaging property is that it can escalate into something much worse, including injuries to people.
And he says that would defeat his message of peace.
While many of the protesters represent liberal causes, one group says it will put on a patriotic display to support the troops in Iraq.
Merilee Carlson of Hastings, Minn., is with Families United for Our Troops and Their Mission, which will share park space with Hine's group on Sept. 1. Carlson lost her son, Army Sgt. Michael Carlson, in Iraq. Merilee Carlson said she knows that antiwar protesters will be turning out en masse at the convention.
"Therefore, we feel we must do what we can to make sure our heroes who are over there, who are deployed and risking their lives for us, know that at least one group is willing to ... stand beside them," Carlson said.
The city has granted 16 permits to groups or individuals that have reserved parks to demonstrate -- or throw parties -- during the convention.
Another group, Scholars for 9/11 Truth, wants to march from the Capitol to the Xcel on Sept. 3. The group is part of a larger movement that questions the mainstream account of the 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States.
"This was a crime scene that they hauled the debris away from. To haul it away was unconscionable," said Doug Devorak of Apple Valley, a member of the group. "They call us conspiracy nuts. Well, a conspiracy happens whenever you have two or more people. We're not nuts. We just want to take a scientific look at the facts."
Police say they'd like to accommodate every group's application to march during the RNC, but they may need to modify their requested routes because of security concerns. Sgt. John Lozoyza of the community services unit said his department will be meeting with the various groups to go over logistics, such as the need for staging areas and portable toilets.
September 12, 2008
By MICHAEL HUDSON
As a graduate of the University of Chicago (1959) and also of its Laboratory School (1955-56), I think my experience there confirms the picture portrayed by Henry Liu in his wonderful essay last week on Milton Friedman and the "Money Matters Controversy".
My introduction to the University of Chicago (UC) was via the Manhattan Project around 1948. I lived in Chicago neighborhood of Kenwood, just north of Hyde Park. We rented the top floor of our house to a physicist, Shuki Hayashi, who worked on the project at Stagg Field, under whose bleachers the project's atomic pile still continued. To bring me to the Lab School, he would put me on his bike (a Raleigh DL-1 28-incher) and drive me up to the field. Only much later in my life was I left to wonder what has been more dangerous to humanity: the A-bomb or Chicago School monetarism?
My father was a labor leader and we often had UC professors over to the house for discussions in the early 1950s. In contrast to today, the Chicago faculty from the 1930s through early 1960s included such men as Maynard Krueger (a vice presidential candidate on the Socialist Party ticket behind Norman Thomas), and Rexford Tugwell, a Roosevelt brain truster and former governor of Puerto Rico (and protege of Simon Patten). The post-Keynesian economist Hyman Minsky told me that it was Krueger who converted him to socialism. Minsky later became the godfather of the present post-Keynesian faculty providing an alternative to Chicago-style monetarism at the University of Missouri - Kansas City, where I now teach.
Today, the Chicago School is known for its censorial intolerance. The first thing the "Chicago Boys" did in Chile after 1974, for example, was to close down every economics and social science department in the country, except at the Catholic University where they had a foothold with "the brick", ie Friedmanite doctrine.
All this was foreshadowed at the Lab School in the 1950s. Its social science teacher Curtis Edgett posted a long banner up in his room saying "Give 'em all what the Rosenbergs got". I thought he meant communists, but on talking privately with him, some of my classmates and I discovered that he meant Jews.
In class, he regularly called me a "commie". (One of our texts was Mein Kampf.) There was a real Stalinist in the class. We always argued, and he called me a fascist. It was in fact at the Lab School that I recruited a number of leaders of the Young Peoples' Socialist League (Shachtmanites). It was the only time in my life where I was the voice of reason in the middle.
The Lab School at the time stopped at 10th grade, and students went directly to the college. However, I wasn't accepted in 1954 to the university on graduating from 10th grade. I was told that Mr Edgett had turned in the names of myself and a number of my friends to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI(as "commies" and sent copies to the college.
There was a ruckus, and the Lab School added on an extra grade to help resolve matters, and I was accepted to UC the following year, and took the "comprehensives" to skip the first two years, so no time really was lost. But one of my schoolmates chose to enroll in Shimer, a secondary college that UC set up. About a decade ago, when he managed to get his FBI file, it turned out that Shimer's dean continued to file regular FBI reports on him, his friends and classmates.
My own field changed from chemistry to history and German literature, and I never took an economics class there. I believe that professors Tugwell and Krueger were in the political science department, not the business school. Although I never went near the Business School in my four years at UC, although I subsequently took a PhD in economics elsewhere, I do remember that the business school students I met were about the only students who regularly wore suits and neckties on campus. They had the reputation for being somewhat dense. One encounter in particular is memorable. There was a party, and one of business school students was coming on to an attractive woman.
The next day or so, I asked him how things went. "She was so dumb," the guy said. "She even gave me the wrong phone number. It turned out to be the Fire Department."
"What was her name?" I asked.
"Martha Washington, she said," he replied.
To me, this was one of my first examples of GIGO (garbage in, garbage out): the unthinking acceptance of anything as a fact.
I was a music student at the time, and it says something about U/C’s philosophy that there was no practical musical performance or analysis taught at all. Only theory, forget practice. So even before registering as a freshman in 1955, I enrolled at DePaul and Roosevelt Universities in music at the graduate level (having completed the BA requirements while waiting to graduate from the high school).
U/C had the same philosophy of theory, not practice, for language. I learned to read and write French and Italian as well as German, but no practice in actually speaking the Romance languages. (My BA graduation orals were in German, to be sure.)
In the 1990s I sought to publish my history of international trade theory, and contacted the editor of University of Chicago Press, who had just come from Pantheon on New York, with which I was on good terms before the mass resignations in the late 1980s. The editor came back to me somewhat chagrined, and said that the entire board of the U/C Press had threatened to resign if they published my book. It was a critique of free-trade theory, especially of Jacob Viner’s censorial history of trade theory.
So I recognized that from the U/C’s vantage point, a “free market” in ideas was one where students were only free to choose the ideology that the U/C supported. Their teaching was like the Terminator. You can’t reason with it. It’s just there to kill the opposition.
After graduation, my only contact with the UC Business School occurred indirectly, after I became the balance-of-payments economist for Chase Manhattan in the mid-1960s. My boss, John Deaver, was a protege of Milton Friedman, who had recommended him to David Rockefeller. On one fateful Friday, I was having lunch with John Exter of Citibank, who told me that earlier in the day his bank had sold sterling short when Harold Wilson had said there was no way he would devalue. Deaver had advised Chase that Wilson had staked his reputation on preserving sterling's exchange rate. It turned out that Chase had bought the sterling that Citibank had sold, in effect.
In the aftermath, I was told that Rockefeller finally told Deaver over a golf meeting that he had a good future as an economics professor. Instead, Deaver went to work for GM, which quickly (in about three months, I think) fired him and put his assistant in charge; then, Deaver went to Philips Endhoven, where his tenure also was short.
Chase decided to merge the Economic Research department (where I worked) into "Public Relations and Publications" under John Wilson. As it adopted Chicago School economics, it was used only for rhetoric, not for actual internal bank decisions. The same thing happened at Citibank. Wall Street came to use Chicago monetarism only as lobbying rhetoric, not as real analysis.
One friend of mine who became a sociology instructor at Chicago told me that he began one class trying to explain whether there was such a thing as an ideology of the vested interests might be. "That's what we're here to learn," a student replied.
The upshot may help promote public relations and turn economic analysis into euphemism. But it is not much help in understanding how the real world works. Milton Friedman has said famously - perhaps infamously - that "There is no such thing as a free lunch." But the economy today is all about how to get a free lunch. That is what Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were all about, and what government bailouts of the financial sector tend to be about.
The most important reason why it is against business' true long-term interest to support a Friedman Center that supports economic euphemism is that it degrades economic thought into ideological rhetoric, not real analysis.
So I was glad to sign the petition that Professor Lincoln is circulating deploring the Friedman Center. And glad to read Henry Liu's article explaining how destructive a role it may play.
Michael Hudson is a former Wall Street economist specializing in the balance of payments and real estate at the Chase Manhattan Bank (now JPMorgan Chase & Co.), Arthur Anderson, and later at the Hudson Institute (no relation). In 1990 he helped established the world’s first sovereign debt fund for Scudder Stevens & Clark. Dr. Hudson was Dennis Kucinich’s Chief Economic Advisor in the recent Democratic primary presidential campaign, and has advised the U.S., Canadian, Mexican and Latvian governments, as well as the United Nations Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR). A Distinguished Research Professor at University of Missouri, Kansas City (UMKC), he is the author of many books, including Super Imperialism: The Economic Strategy of American Empire (new ed., Pluto Press, 2002) He can be reached via his website, mh@michael-hudson.com
When Gen. Musharraf submitted to U.S. pressure after 9/11 and ditched the Taliban in Afghanistan, he provided air bases as well as logistics support and shared intelligence with CIA. He allowed CIA and FBI to recruit agents in FATA and other places and to establish their outposts. The focus of ISI and other agencies was shifted towards hunting and nabbing so-called terrorists all over the country, in monitoring dissident elements within the army and in political wheeling and dealings. The CIA acquired all the links ISI and MI had both sides of the Pak-Afghan border and gradually took most agents on ISI payroll within its fold. By virtue of having better technology and means the CIA was able to take over intelligence acquisition and dissemination system. As a consequence the troops operating in FATA became entirely dependent upon CIA inputs. Taking advantage of complete liberty of action, CIA succeeded in buying the loyalties of many tribal chiefs and notables in FATA by doling out dollars in sacks since it knew that the Pashtun could not be crushed by force but could be purchased. Those not falling in line were got killed.
In FATA, Nek Muhammad was first cultivated and provided logistic support. When he entered into a peace deal with Pak Army in July 2005, he was killed using precision guided missile. Abdullah Mehsud, an Afghan war veteran who had also fought the Northern Alliance in October-November 2001 was captured and brainwashed during his two years internment in Guantanamo Bay. He was released after agreeing to work on terms dictated by CIA and he soon was able to takeover the leadership role. His death at Zhob at the hands of Pak security forces was a loss for CIA.
Baitulah Mehsud and Fazlullah had not taken part in Afghan jihad and do not qualify to head Taliban; yet 30 year old Baitullah has managed to create Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Fazlullah calls the shots in Swat. Mulla Omar had never shown interest in establishing any links with Pakistani Taliban and had warned Nek Muhammad not to operate under the brand name of Taliban. It is being questioned as to how come Baitullah, Fazlullah and their spokesmen desperately wanted by Pakistan security forces have escaped the hawk eye of USA, particularly after they have been seen giving detailed interviews to media and using their cell phones? ISI had once given six figure coordinates of Baitullah and yet no Hellfire missile was fired on his hideout by CIA. The TTP that has spread its influence in all the seven agencies of tribal belt and in neighboring settled districts of NWFP has succeeded in making inroads into Punjab, particularly southern Punjab. Large number has been recruited from Chiniot, Bahawalpur, Dera Nawab, Bahawalnagar, Faisalabad, Sialkot and other places.
After Shakai peace deal with the militants in South Waziristan in July 2005, Pakistan was subjected to a calculated slander campaign. Having pushed more than one hundred thousand troops into the furnace of FATA it was scoffed at for not doing enough to control militancy in FATA. Pakistan was also accused of nuclear proliferation and IAEA kept up the pressure to hand over AQ Khan for interrogation. Musharraf accepted the charge and forced AQ Khan to make a confession to defuse the heat. The religious extremist threat was blown out of all proportions and it was repeatedly stated that Pakistan’s nuclear assets had become unsafe. Musharraf accepted this charge as well and promised to fight extremism and terrorism with full force.
After declaring Pakistan as the most dangerous country, FATA was declared as the most dangerous place on earth. Pakistan was blamed for growing turbulence in Afghanistan since in the view of U.S. military leaders and Karzai Pak army was not doing enough to control militancy. The phenomenon of missile attacks by drones commenced in January 2006 when a suspected target in Damadola was attacked killing scores of innocent civilians. Another deadly missile attack was launched on a Madrassa in Bajaur in October that year killing 80 students. Ever since, this phenomenon continues unabated.
Once the ISI was freed from the wild goose chase of so-called terrorists and came under pressure on account of missing persons, it started to concentrate on its primary task in the troubled spots. To its horror it found far too many militant groups and criminal gangs operating under the guise of religious militants and cultivated by foreign agencies.
They were the ones involved in carrying out gruesome beheadings of security personnel and torching girls’ schools to defame the real Taliban who had a peaceful agenda. Besides CIA and RAW, even Iran and Uzbekistan had developed their tentacles in Balochistan, Swat and Kurram Agency. Most of the pro-Pakistan groups had been purchased or neutralized and those not coming to terms were eliminated by groups sponsored by CIA. Things had gone topsy-turvy and ISI found itself at a loss how to differentiate between friend and foe.
It is when the ISI began to recover the lost ground and renewed its old contacts in FATA and started to expose and block clandestine activities of CIA, RAW and RAM that all hell broke lose on ISI. Instead of feeling ashamed of what they were doing, USA had the cheeks to start making hue and cry that ISI was linked with the Taliban and that it must be emasculated. The three colluding partners lost their cool when the Indian Embassy in Kabul was subjected to a suicide attack on 7 July 2008. The trio fumed with anger and blamed ISI without even carrying out preliminary investigations. It was alleged that the perpetrator of suicide attack belonged to Gujranwala. Adm. Mike Mullen and Deputy Director CIA Stephen Kappes came huffing and puffing to Islamabad on 12 July and expressed their concern in strong words. Both Gen Tariq and Gen Kayani were told to bring the ISI to heel and to control militancy on their side of the border. The details of suicide bomber provided by the visitors proved false. It transpired later on that it was a bomb planted in a parked jeep which was detonated with the help of a remote control and was masterminded by Mossad.
The month of September saw intensification of missile attacks and each attack resulted in loss of innocent lives. The idea was to antagonize pro-government Waziris and also to force them to migrate as had happened in case of Bajaur. To further up the ante, Pakistan was declared as a battleground and a first ever ground attack was carried out by U.S. troops on the night of 3 September at Angoor Adda killing 15 men women and children. A deadly missile attack was conducted on pro-Pakistan Jalaluddin Haqqani house in North Waziristan on 8 September killing 25 inmates mostly women and children. He was blamed for carrying out attack on Indian Embassy.
The intruding drone was forced to beat a hasty retreat on 12 September when Pakistani jets got airborne and started to track it. A ground attack on 15th was also thwarted by the troops and locals. So far, 62 border violations have been carried out by U.S.-ISAF forces including 36 after the takeover by PPP government in March 2008. So far 30 missile attacks have been made killing innocent people. In none of the attacks any Al-Qaada operative or militant Taliban was killed.
The nexus in Kabul is working upon a scripted plan to make FATA lawless and beyond the control of security forces, push militancy into settled areas and then into major cities and thus create a civil warlike situation to prove their contention that Pakistan was the most dangerous country in the world and that the extremists were on the verge of taking over power and nuclear weapons. After inflaming South Waziristan, North Waziristan, Mohmand Agency, Khyber Agency, Darra Adam Khel, Kurram Agency, Hangu and Swat, Bajaur Agency was built into a stronghold of militants where huge cache of arms and ammunition was dumped. By virtue of being located at the crossroad of the tribal belt and also linked with Dir, Swat and Afghanistan, it was to act as bulwark and a launching pad to provide reinforcement to other areas.
10,000 Indian troops are stationed in Afghanistan under the garb of supervising construction of road Jalalabad-Port Chahbahar project that has now been completed. Whereas India has officially declared 14 Indian consulates in Afghanistan, on ground they have 107 in which 20 intelligence units are burning their midnight oil to destabilise Pakistan. Many mercantile shops run by Indians have an intelligence office in the rear. In Wakhan, a religious Madrassa run by Indian Muslim clerics is functioning since 2002 under the patronage of RAW and Mossad. Very young boys, mostly orphans, destitute or homeless are recruited. Recruits are mostly Afghans, Uzbeks, Tajiks and Caucasians. The latter being fair skinned and resembling Europeans are trained to hit targets in Europe or in USA to once again create a 9/11 like situation.
Reportedly, 10,000 ideologically motivated terrorist and suicide bombers have been trained. Besides receiving military training, they have also been made to learn Pashto and customs of the Pashtun. They are regularly infiltrated into troubled spots of Pakistan. Posing as volunteers they join the rank and file of militants to fight the army. They are the ones who are destroying schools, CD shops, bridges and other installations and carrying out brutal beheading of captured personnel. The idea is to create chaos and confusion and also to defame the real Taliban that have not come under their influence. They are also responsible for creating cleavages within the people of FATA and in disrupting peace deals. In Kurram Agency, Afghan officers and soldiers are actively involved in the sectarian conflict by way of providing arms and ammunition to Shias belonging to Tori tribe and physically participating in duels with Sunnis. In Swat, Fazlullah led militants are supplied with war munitions as well as fighters.
Likewise, dissident tribal chiefs in Balochistan including late Akbar Bugti were also taken on board. The CIA helped in reincarnating BLA and providing all sorts of war munitions to Baloch militants belonging to Bugti, Marri and Mengal tribes and establishing over 60 Farari camps in Balochistan. Shamsi airbase that was handed over to USA in October 2001, houses Blackhawk helicopters primarily engaged in monitoring the entire length of Iranian border. CIA has cultivated Sunni Iranian Baloch Jandullah group (not the one that had operated against 5 Corps commander). It is anti- Iranian regime and was utilized by CIA to carryout acts of sabotage in Iran through Zahidan. Iran has now constructed a stone wall all along its border to prevent cross border terrorism from Baluchistan. It has clouded Pak-Iran relations since the latter feels that such activities could not have been undertaken without the blessing of Pak government.
It is now clear that our so-called friends have been playing a double game. Now that USA has bared its teeth and let its intentions known, to pretend that it would stop short of achieving its objectives will be like living in fools’ paradise. It is simply degrading to unashamedly say that we cannot fight the Americans. It is also preposterous to assume that Pakistan may not survive without American support. Pro-American elements within Pakistan on U.S. payroll have been parroting this theme since creation of Pakistan to safeguard their vested interest. North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Iran, Somalia are living examples who have survived despite adopting hostile posture against USA. It is high time that we gird up our loins and put our act together to face up to the challenge boldly.
The army under Gen. Kayani has expressed its resolve to confront the threat and safeguard country’s sovereignty irrespective of the consequences. It is now up to our week-kneed rulers oblivious of the ominous threat and still busy in power game as to how they stand up to the test. It will be naive to expect that the threat will be warded off with diplomacy alone. We must make USA realize that it will become exceedingly difficult for U.S. led allied troops to operate in Afghanistan if Pakistan opts out of fighting U.S. war of terror and refuses to provide transit facility to carry oil and food supplies to its troops in Afghanistan. The magnitude of dependence can be gauged from the fact each day over 400 containers ply from Karachi and Quetta to Afghanistan transporting food, munitions and 300 million gallons of fuel for U.S.-Nato troops in Afghanistan. We may also consider bridling CIA’s unchecked activities and closing down four bases in control of USA.
¤ ¤ ¤ ¤ ¤
Asif Haroon Raja is a defence and a political analyst. This article was first published by the Asian Tribune.
Hi Joe,
I had to report today that I am now being targeted by the federal government for outrageous reasons related to a back payment that my mother owed for an "overpayment" from God knows when and they are targeting me to pay my deceased mother's debt. I am not her executor and my mother was as poor as people in Ethiopia no kidding. I am in no way responsible for a bill she had with Social Security. I didn't even live in the same state when this reportedly took place nor can they give me a definitive time "because it goes back to far for the computer to show." I was estranged from my mother for over thirteen years and only recently began a relationship with her again. What the hell is going on????
I reported it to the judge that is involved in the perjury trial (the special prosecutor) this weekend as they increased their heat on me to now target my defenseless brother who is Mentally Retarded and Autistic. Please do me a favor and document my email to you because I am not comfortable with things that are happening. On Labor Day weekend my car and house windows were severely damaged from full beer bottles thrown at the windows and breaking them. One of the windows is about 8ft x 8ft a very large window and very expensive to replace. My car windshield was also broken and had to be replaced.
This weekend they began the financial assault. At least five witnesses that testified or assisted with the prosecution of DeVecchio have all been targeted all starting around the same time. We are all getting hit by both financial and family concerns which is deterring us from our work and having us have to focus on collecting all the information to fight this nonsense.
When you email me back please email me to the email address of aclemente.forensics@gmail.com I rarely check this one anymore. Thank you...
At a news conference on October 22, 2008, U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama was asked about a comment by his Vice Presidential running mate Joe Biden that Obama could expect to be tested within six months of the new presidential term by a “generated” international crisis that will force him to make unpopular decisions. Obama said the Delaware senator has occasionally engaged in "rhetorical flourishes," but the essential point was that the new President could expect to be challenged no matter who wins.
Obama held the news conference following a meeting with his national security advisers, who include long standing globalist asset Zbignew Brezezinski. He denied the meeting with his advisors had been called because of political damage stemming from Biden's remarks, in my view a classic ploy for calling more attention to it. [1]
Colin Powell, former Secretary of State (2001-2005), echoed Biden’s warning by referring to an unknown crisis that will come a day or two after the inauguration:
I would start with talking to the American people and talking to the world and conveying a new image of American leadership, a new image of America’s role in the world. The problems will always be there and there's going to be a crisis which will come along on the 21st, 22nd of January that we don't even know about right now. So I think what the President has to start to do is to start using the power of the Oval Office and the power of his personality to convince the American people and convince the world that America is solid, that America is going to move forward, we are going to fix our economic problems, we're going to meet our overseas obligations. [2]
John McCain and Madeleine Albright added to the furor. Albright called Biden’s statement “a statement of fact,” in that one always has to be prepared “for something unexpected.” [3] McCain raised the specter of nuclear war as he resumed his attack against Obama’s judgment by warning that the next president "won't have time to get used to the office." [4]
Alternative news analysts speculated on the import of these simultaneous warnings by public figures, including their possible relation to a new false flag:
Albright, like Biden and Powell, is an insider minion, so she may know something is up. It is rather suspect that all these voices are saying basically the same thing: Obama will be “tested,” either by an [al-Qaeda] attack, a war or confrontation in the Middle East – read Iran, or Russia….Hopefully, the ACLU’s [Freedom of Information Act request regarding the combat unit deployed domestically as of 10/1/2008] will turn up more information on the emerging police state control grid going online. Unfortunately, we are but one “terrorist event” away from this system being used to identify, track, trace, and round up the opposition. If we are to believe Joe Biden, Colin Powell, and Madeleine Albright, this event may happen as soon as the end of January, 2009. [5]
There has also been wide speculation about an imminent false flag, to be blamed on al-Qaeda, as an “October surprise” designed to influence the outcome of the election. The two scenarios, a staged event before the voting and another manufactured crisis following inauguration, are not mutually exclusive. In this article I argue for both occurring, as part of a multi-phased shock and awe campaign designed to move us into full scale martial law with the help of Barak Obama as the new national savior in a time of peril.
In my view, an October surprise consisting of a staged event in Obama’s home state, such as a dirty nuke detonated in Chicago, is a hypothesis worth exploring. Such an attack would be designed in part to focus attention on Obama as the global elite’s U.S. President of choice. In a crisis such as urban “terrorism,” the propaganda machine could spring into action to spin Obama’s popular appeal in a time of crisis as well as his argument that the Republicans have failed miserably in not apprehending bin Laden seven years after 9/11.
I believe an urban attack would in fact be but step one in a broader psyop by the globalists to condition the public to accept Obama as a new protective father figure to replace George Bush as part of their final push for a full blown police state on a global scale. This possibility brings into bold relief Colin Powell’s reference (in answering fellow Council of Foreign Relations spin-meister Tom Brokaw’s query about how to respond to the post-inaugural crisis Powell had warned about) to the “power of the President’s personality to convince the American people that America is solid.” As Naomi Klein has revealed in her work on the shock doctrine of disaster capitalism, in the CIA’s basic interrogation manual declassified in 1963, a window of opportunity is highlighted in which torture reduces its victim to a state of traumatized disorientation and childlike regression, creating an opening for the interrogator to be transformed into a protective father figure. This is one of the classic tactics of tyrants across the planet. In the view of Klein and others, it was used after the shock of 9/11 to permit George Bush and others to offer a narrative on the shocking events allowing the profoundly disoriented victims to make sense of the trauma. Hence the extraordinary power of the mind control matrix known as the War on Terror. (See also my discussion of psychological control techniques in my two-part article “Deconstructing the Power of the Global Elite”). [6]
My core argument is that the globalists’ final battle plan for world dominance is as follows: the current economic implosion that they themselves engineered, its ongoing exploitation to advance their agenda for worldwide financial and economic control, and finally, additional engineered crises designed to enable full-blown martial law as part of an international police state under their power.
I do not believe the globalists want to see riots or other forms of protest on any major scale in the U.S. because of the huge number of guns still in the hands of the populace and because of their uncertainty about the ability (and willingness) of their forces to prevail in armed conflict with Americans. They worry, in my view, that things could become similarly messy in other parts of the globe. Another mass trauma on the scale of 9/11 – or several back-to-back mass traumas involving large numbers across the globe - would be far more efficient for implementing and justifying worldwide full scale martial law, with its attendant confiscation of guns and detention of dissidents.
There is growing recognition of the commonplace use of false flag operations as a cold-blooded tool, even in so-called democracies, for promoting agendas that serve the interests of the power elite at the price of massive suffering for the common man. The most recent evidence of this criminal culture of death was a revelation by renowned investigative journalist Seymour Hersh in July 2008 that Bush administration officials had recently held a meeting in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office to discuss ways to provoke a war with Iran. The discussion addressed the idea of disguising Navy seals to look like Iranians, put them on specially built boats that look like Iranian PT boats, and start a fake attack on them in the Straits of Hormuz.
Look, is it high school? Yeah. Are we playing high school with, you know, 5,000 nuclear warheads in our arsenal? Yeah, we are. We’re playing, you know, who’s the first guy to run off the highway with us and Iran. [7]
The prospect of an October surprise has already factored into the 2008 campaign, including warnings of another al-Qaeda terrorist attack both from U.S. intelligence sources and allegedly from al Qaeda itself. [8] An alternative press article on October 24 expresses its alarm as follows:
The chatter surrounding the probable entrance of Bin laden or Al-Qaeda to impact the election is widespread…. The fact that the media is hyping the inevitability of an “October surprise” should be a cause for concern, especially when allied to reports of police departments across the country â€preparing for possible civil unrest and riots’ [during the election]. [9]
The term “October surprise” stems from the 1980 election campaign between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter to refer to last-minute sensations with the potential to reshape a Presidential race. Such a sensation occurred in the last Presidential campaign in 2004. Going into the final weekend of the campaign, Democratic candidate John Kerry had a good chance of winning. Then an alleged Osama bin Laden videotape was issued: Bush went on to beat Kerry and both men attributed the result to the influence of the tape.
In adding my voice to the widespread speculation about the spate of warnings of coming crises, I again proffer the hypothesis of a staged terrorist attack as an imminent October surprise going into the final weekend of the current campaign. In Part II of this work, forthcoming shortly at my blogs and YouTube channel, I will offer specific arguments for my choice of Chicago as a likely location for this new 9/11.
NOTES
1. Jennifer Loven, “Obama brushes aside GOP criticism of his tax plans,” Yahoo! News, October 21, 2008: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081022/ap_on_el_pr/obama
2. Alex Johnson, “Powell endorses Obama for President, “ msnbc.com, October 19, 20008
3. CNN, October 22, 2008. Cf. “Albright Agrees with Biden: Terrorists Will Test Obama,” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WD_EAe1N9-M
4. Staff Writers, “McCain raises specter of nuclear war,” Moon Township, Pennsylvania (AFP), Oct 22, 2008
5. Kurt Nimmo, “ACLU Files FOIA On Brigade Deployed in U.S.,” Infowars, October 22, 2008 http://www.infowars.com
6. Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, Metropolitan Books, Henry Holt & Company, New York, 2007; Judith H. Young, Ph.D., “Deconstructing the Power of the Global Elite: Brute Force, the Power to Hurt, and Psychological Control,” Global Research, October 9, 2008 http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10493
7. Faiz Shakir, “EXCLUSIVE: To Provoke War, Cheney Considered Proposal To Dress Up Navy Seals As Iranians And Shoot At Them,” Think Progress, July 31, 2008 http://thinkprogress.org/2008/07/31/cheney-proposal-for-iran-war/
8. Eli Lake, “Spies Warn That Al Qaeda Aims for October Surprise,” The New York Sun, September 22, 2008; “Al-Qaida Threatens 'October Surprise' Attack,” Newsmax.com, September 22, 2008; “In video, al-Qaeda vows more US attacks,” 9/19/08, CNN.com/world; “Terrorist advocate endorses McCain: An al-Qaeda supporter has called for a pre-election attack in the US to help Republican candidate John McCain win the presidency,” Press TV, October 22, 2008; William Bratton & R.P. Eddy, “Osama Bin Laden wants a vote, so beware a late October surprise,” New York Daily News, Opinions, 10/21/08
9. Paul Joseph Watson, “Clarke: Bin Laden to Influence U.S. Election,” Prison Planet, October 24, 2008. infowars.comJudith H. Young, holds a Ph.D from Brandeis University. In the 1960s she was a published think tank researcher with a Top Secret security clearance in the areas of arms control, strategic studies and international aerospace activities. In 1973-74 she taught International Politics at Mount Holyoke University in Massachusetts. In the 1990s Judy became a practitioner and teacher in several venerable healing arts, including animal-assisted therapy and traditional Reiki. She founded a nonprofit animal and nature center dedicated to promoting the healthy development of children and youth, which she directed from 1994-2004, and she published widely in the field of equine-assisted activities and ecotherapy.
After the shocking events of 9/11/2001, Judy returned to her earlier vocation as a writer and educator in the field of International Politics, while also maintaining a professional practice in complementary and alternative healing.
Web site: http://freefalltofascism.homestead.com/
Blogs: http://freefalltofascism.wordpress.com/
http://earthrising.typepad.com/
YouTube: http://crisiscenterinfo.youtube.com/
It'd be easy to jump to quick conclusions about Tom Gabel's first solo EP: he's testing the waters for a post-Against Me career, he's going back to the one-man roots of his current band or he just needs a bit of me-time away from his band. Deep-six speculation, though, and Heart Burns makes one thing abundantly clear: Against Me evolved into a card-carrying band rather than simply being the vehicle for Gabel's songwriting.
The return to a one-man operation shows just how far Against Me's come in recent years. Gabel, freed of the ties and demands of the punk underground, plays loose and fast on Heart Burns in a way he'd have trouble pulling off with his full-time band. Usually coming in with a sound that's somewhere between the folk-punk of Against Me's debut and the reverb-crashing urban folk of Billy Bragg, Gabel's solo work isn't a replacement for or even an alternative to his full-time band's sound. It's just a footnote, which, in all but a few places, sounds like it's begging for Andrew, James and Warren to step in the studio and fatten things up.
Those few places are worth the price of admission, though. "Only Cowards Sing at Night," is nothing but an electric guitar clangy with reverb and Gabel's vocals. It is, of course, stupendously in debt to Billy Bragg's Talking with the Taxman About Poetry, which, naturally, diminishes its impact, though Gabel's songwriting and performance talents make it work on its own merits. "Random Hearts" drops the Bragg-isms entirely as Gabel sets out on his own path with programmed drums and muscular guitar parts; it's more pop than rock, sliding in vaguely in the same post-punk vein as She Wants Revenge or Interpol, though Gabel executes it with a lot more surface-level passion than either of those bands.
Thickening his acoustic-guitar toting sound with drums and harmonica for "Anna is a Stool Pigeon," a back-to-basics protest song written in support of Eric Davis, a Floridian activist serving time who claims he was set up by undercover FBI agents. It's a reminder of just how powerful Gabel's social commentary can be when he tackles issues outside the culture industry ones that dominated much of last year's New Wave (review) (Sire).
The rest of Heart Burns sounds either half finished or not strong enough to survive minimalist treatment. The canned hand-claps underneath "Conceptual Paths" don't hold the track together like, say John Cougar's "Jack and Diane." "A Hundred Years of War" props a lukewarm acoustic arrangement up with the faux dynamics of gang vocals and bongo drums. "Amputations" tries the same thing, swapping too-fuzzy guitar tones, backing vocals and phoned-in rhythms.
Gabel's done enough to deserve a solo EP now and then. Heart Burns is a nice detour from the increasingly powerful sound Against Me cooks up, but, without a band behind him, Gabel just isn't the monumental force we're used to seeing him as.
Source: TomDispatch.com (11-2-08)
[Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project, runs the Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com. He is the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of the American Age of Denial. The World According to TomDispatch: America in the New Age of Empire (Verso, 2008), a collection of some of the best pieces from his site and an alternative history of the mad Bush years, has recently been published. To listen to a podcast in which he discusses Bush's record abroad, click here. ]
They may have been the most disastrous dreamers, the most reckless gamblers, and the most vigorous imperial hucksters and grifters in our history. Selling was their passion. And they were classic American salesmen -- if you're talking about underwater land in Florida, or the Brooklyn Bridge, or three-card monte, or bizarre visions of Iraqi unmanned aerial vehicles armed with chemical and biological weaponry let loose over the U.S., or Saddam Hussein's mushroom clouds rising over American cities, or a full-scale reordering of the Middle East to our taste, or simply eternal global dominance.
When historians look back, it will be far clearer that the "commander-in-chief" of a "wartime" country and his top officials were focused, first and foremost, not on the shifting "central theaters" of the Global War on Terror, but on the theater that mattered most to them -- the "home front" where they spent inordinate amounts of time selling the American people a bill of goods. Of his timing in ramping up a campaign to invade Iraq in September 2002, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card infamously explained: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."
Indeed.
From a White House where "victory strategies" meant purely for domestic consumption poured out, to the Pentagon where bevies of generals, admirals, and other high officers were constantly being mustered, not to lead armies but to lead public opinion, their selling focus was total. They were always releasing "new product."
And don't forget their own set of soaring inside-the-Beltway fantasies. After all, if a salesman is going to sell you some defective product, it always helps if he can sell himself on it first. And on this score, they were world champs.
Because events made it look so foolish, the phrase "shock and awe" that went with the initial attack on Iraq in March 2003 has now passed out of official language and (together with "mission accomplished") into the annals of irony. Back then, though, as bombs and missiles blew up parts of Baghdad -- to fabulous visual effect in that other "theater" of war, television -- the phrase was constantly on official lips and in media reports everywhere. It went hand-in-glove with another curious political phrase: regime change.
Given the supposed unique technological proficiency of the U.S. military and its array of "precision" weapons, the warriors of Bushworld convinced themselves that a new era in military affairs had truly dawned. An enemy "regime" could now be taken out -- quite literally and with surgical precision, in its bedrooms, conference rooms, and offices, thanks to those precision weapons delivered long-distance from ship or plane -- without taking out a country. Poof! You only had to say the word and an oppressive regime would be, as it was termed, "decapitated." Its people would then welcome with open arms relatively small numbers of American troops as liberators.
It all sounded so good, and high tech, and relatively simple, and casualty averse, and clean as a whistle. Even better, once there had been such a demonstration, a guaranteed "cakewalk" -- as, say, in Iraq -- who would ever dare stand up to American power again? Not only would one hated enemy dictator be dispatched to the dustbin of history, but evildoers everywhere, fearing the Bush equivalent of the wrath of Khan, would be shock-and-awed into submission or quickly dispatched in their own right.
In reality (ah, "reality" -- what a nasty word!), the shock-and-awe attacks used on Iraq got not a single leader of the Saddamist regime, not one of that pack of 52 cards (including of course the ace of spades, Saddam Hussein, found in his "spiderhole" so many months later). Iraqi civilians were the ones killed in that precise and shocking moment, while Iraqi society was set on the road to destruction, and the world was not awed.
Strangely enough, though, the phrase, once reversed, proved applicable to the Bush administration's seven-year post-9/11 history. They were, in a sense, the awe-and-shock administration. Initially, they were awed by the supposedly singular power of the American military to dominate and transform the planet; then, they were continually shocked and disbelieving when that same military, despite its massive destructive power, turned out to be incapable of doing so, or even of handling two ragtag insurgencies in two weakened countries, one of which, Afghanistan, was among the poorest and least technologically advanced on the planet.
The Theater of War
In remarkably short order, historically speaking, the administration's soaring imperial fantasies turned into planetary nightmares. After 9/11, of course, George W. and crew promised Americans the global equivalent -- and Republicans the domestic equivalent -- of a 36,000 stock market and we know just where the stock market is today: only about 27,000 points short of that irreality.
Once upon a time, they really did think that, via the U.S. Armed Forces, or, as George W. Bush once so breathlessly put it, "the greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known," they could dominate the planet without significant help from allies or international institutions of any sort. Who else had a shot at it? In the post-Soviet world, who but a leadership backed by the full force of the U.S. military could possibly be a contender for the leading role in this epic movie? Who else could even turn out for a casting call? Impoverished Russia? China, still rebuilding its military and back then considered to have a host of potential problems? A bunch of terrorists? I mean… come on!
As they saw it, the situation was pretty basic. In fact, it gave the phrase "power politics" real meaning. After all, they had in their hands the reins attached to the sole superpower on this small orb. And wasn't everyone -- at least, everyone they cared to listen to, at least Charles Krauthammer and the editorial page of the Washington Post -- saying no less?
I mean, what else would you do, if you suddenly, almost miraculously (after an election improbably settled by the Supreme Court), found yourself in sole command of the globe's only "hyperpower," the only sheriff on planet Earth, the New Rome. To make matters more delicious, in terms of getting just what you wanted, those hands were on those reins right after "the Pearl Harbor of the twenty-first century," when Americans were shocked and awed and terrified enough that anything-goes seemed a reasonable response?
It might have gone to anyone's head in imperial Washington at that moment, but it went to their heads in such a striking way. After all, theirs was a plan -- labeled in 2002 the Bush Doctrine -- of global domination conceptually so un-American that, in my childhood, the only place you would have heard it was in the mouths of the most evil, snickering imperial Japanese, Nazi, or Soviet on-screen villains. And yet, in their moment of moments, it just rolled right out of their heads and off their tongues -- and they were proud of it.
Here's a question for 2009 you don't have to answer: What should the former "new Rome" be called now? That will, of course, be someone else's problem.
The Cast of Characters
And what a debacle the Bush Doctrine proved to be. What a legacy the legacy President and his pals are leaving behind. A wrecked economy, deflated global stock markets, collapsing banks and financial institutions, soaring unemployment, a smashed Republican Party, a bloated Pentagon overseeing a strained, overstretched military, enmired in an incoherent set of still-expanding wars gone sour, a network of secret prisons, as well as Guantanamo, that "jewel in the crown" of Bush's Bermuda Triangle of injustice, and all the grim practices that went with those offshore prisons, including widespread torture and abuse, kidnapping, assassination, and the disappearing of prisoners (once associated only with South America dictatorships and military juntas).
They headed a government that couldn't shoot straight or plan ahead or do anything halfway effectively, an administration that emphasized "defense" -- or "homeland security" as it came to be called in their years -- above all else; yet they were always readying themselves for the last battle, and so were caught utterly, embarrassingly unready for 19 terrorists with box cutters, a hurricane named Katrina, and an arcane set of Wall Street derivatives heading south.
As the supposed party of small government, they succeeded mainly in strangling civilian services, privatizing government operations into the hands of crony corporations, and bulking up state power in a massive way -- making an already vast intelligence apparatus yet larger and more labyrinthine, expanding spying and surveillance of every kind, raising secrecy to a first principle, establishing a new U.S. military command for North America, endorsing a massive Pentagon build-up, establishing a second Defense Department labeled the Department of Homeland Security with its own mini-homeland-security-industrial complex, evading checks and powers in the Constitution whenever possible, and claiming new powers for a "unitary executive" commander-in-chief presidency.
No summary can quite do justice to what the administration "accomplished" in these years. If there was, however, a single quote from the world of George W. Bush that caught the deepest nature of the president and his core followers, it was offered by an "unnamed administration official" -- often assumed to be Karl Rove -- to journalist Ron Suskind back in October 2004:
"He] said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors.... and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"
"We create our own reality… We're history's actors."
It must for years have seemed that way and everything about the lives they lived only reinforced that impression. After all, the President himself, as so many wrote, lived in a literal bubble world. Those who met him were carefully vetted; audiences were screened so that no one who didn't fawn over him got near him; and when he traveled through foreign cities, they were cleared of life, turned into the equivalent of Potemkin villages, while he and his many armored cars and Blackhawk helicopters, his huge contingent of Secret Service agents and White House aides, his sniffer dogs and military sharpshooters, his chefs and who knows what else passed through.
Of course, the President had been in a close race with the reality principle (which, in his case, was the principle of failure) all his life -- and whenever reality nipped at his heels, his father's boys stepped in and whisked him off stage. He got by at his prep school, Andover, and then at Yale, a c-level legacy student and, appropriately enough when it came to sports, a cheerleader and, at Yale, a party animal as well as the president of the hardest drinking fraternity on campus. He was there in the first place only because of who he wasn't (or rather who his relations were).
Faced with the crises of the Vietnam era, he joined the Texas Air National Guard and more or less went missing in action. Faced with life, he became a drunk. Faced with business, he failed repeatedly and yet, thanks to his dad's friends, became a multi-millionaire in the process. He was supported, cosseted, encouraged, and finally -- to use an omnipresent word of our moment -- bailed out. The first MBA president was a business bust. A certain well-honed, homey congeniality got him to the governorship and then to the presidency of the United States without real accomplishments. If there ever was a case for not voting for the guy you'd most like to "have a beer with," this was it.
On that pile of rubble at Ground Zero on September 14, 2001, with a bullhorn in his hands and various rescuers shouting, "USA! USA!" he genuinely found his "calling" as the country's cheerleader-in-chief (as he had evidently found his religious calling earlier in life). He not only took the job seriously, he visibly loved it. He took a childlike pleasure in being in the "theater" of war. He was thrilled when some of the soldiers who captured Saddam Hussein in that "spiderhole" later presented him with the dictator's pistol. ("'He really liked showing it off,' says a... visitor to the White House who has seen the gun. 'He was really proud of it.'") He was similarly thrilled, on a trip to Baghdad in 2007, to meet the American pilot "whose plane's missiles killed Iraq's Al Qaeda leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" and "returned to Washington in a buoyant mood."
While transforming himself into the national cheerleader-in-chief, he even kept "his own personal scorecard for the war" in a desk drawer in the Oval Office -- photos with brief biographies and personality sketches of leading al-Qaeda figures, whose faces could be satisfyingly crossed out when killed or captured. He clearly adored it when he got to dress up, whether in a flight suit landing on the deck of an aircraft carrier in May 2003, or in front of hoo-aahing crowds of soldiers wearing a specially tailored military-style jacket with "George W. Bush, Commander In Chief" hand-stitched across the heart. As earlier in life, he was supported (Karl Rove), enabled (Condoleezza Rice), cosseted (various officials), and so became "the decider," a willing figurehead (as he had been, for instance, when he was an "owner" of the Texas Rangers), manipulated by his co-president Dick Cheney. In these surroundings, he was able to take war play to an imperial level. In the end, however, this act of his life, too, could lead nowhere but to failure.
As it happened, reality possessed its own set of shock-and-awe weaponry. Above all, reality was unimpressed with history's self-proclaimed "actors," working so hard on the global stage to create their own reality. When it came to who really owned what, it turned out that reality owned the works and that possession was indeed nine-tenths of one law that even George Bush's handlers and his fervent neocon followers couldn't suspend.
Exit Stage Right
The results were sadly predictable. The bubble world of George W. Bush was bound to be burst. Based on fantasies, false promises, lies, and bait-and-switch tactics, it was destined for foreclosure. At home and abroad, after all, it had been created using the equivalent of subprime mortgages and the result, unsurprisingly, was a dismally subprime administration.
Now, of course, the bill collector is at the door and the property -- the USA -- is worth a good deal less than on November 4, 2000. George W. Bush is a discredited president; his job approval ratings could hardly be lower; his bubble world gone bust.
Nonetheless, let's remember one other theme of his previous life. Whatever his failures, Bush always walked away from disastrous dealings enriched, while others were left holding the bag. Don't imagine for a second that the equivalent isn't about to repeat itself. He will leave a country functionally under the gun of foreclosure, a world far more aflame and dangerous than the one he faced on entering the Oval Office. But he won't suffer.
He will have his new house in Dallas (not to speak of the "ranch" in Crawford) and his more than $200 million presidential "library" and "freedom institute" at Southern Methodist University; and then there's always that 20% of America -- they know who they are -- who think his presidency was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Believe me, 20% of America is more than enough to pony up spectacular sums, once Bush takes to the talk circuit. As the president himself put it enthusiastically,"'I'll give some speeches, just to replenish the ol' coffers.' With assets that have been estimated as high as nearly $21 million, Mr. Bush added, 'I don't know what my dad gets -- it's more than 50-75' thousand dollars a speech, and 'Clinton's making a lot of money.'"
This is how a legacy-student-turned-president fails upward. Every disaster leaves him better off.
The same can't be said for the country or the world, saddled with his "legacy."
Still, his administration has been foreclosed. Perhaps there's ignominy in that. Now, the rest of us need to get out the brooms and start sweeping the stables.
Reports indicate that President Elect Barack Obama has Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton under consideration for Secretary of State.Unfortunately, it seems that the incoming Obama administration is now shaping up to become the third Clinton term. American voters in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries and caucuses had decisively repudiated what appeared to be the overwhelming front-runner Senator Hillary Clinton in favor of Senator Barack Obama in order to avoid this result. Then in the November 2008 national elections, the American people voted decisively for "change" from the policies of the long-discredited Bush Jr. Administration. There is no evidence to believe they voted in order to return to the bad-old-days of the impeached and disgraced President Bill Clinton and his servitors. Yet it appears that is what the American people and the world at large are going to get. Far better than a third Bush Jr term under Senator John McCain with his Neo-Conservative advisors and Federalist Society lawyers. But certainly not what the American people voted for and deserve.
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