"I think the greatest threat to our future is our fiscal irresponsibility," warns David Walker, the comptroller general of the United States. I asked Mr. Walker about Paul Volcker's warning that within five years we face a 75 percent chance of a serious financial crisis. "If we don't get serious soon," Mr. Walker replied, "it's not a question of whether it'll come, but when and how serious."

James Bamford's book "Body of Secrets" gives particularly valuable insight into who was involved in Northwoods; how pervasive such thinking was in the Pentagon, and how incredible extremist and evil it was. Secretary of Defence McNamara's rejection of the plan in 1962, for the US to create terrorist acts and blame Cuba as a pretext for launching a war on Cuba, did not stop such thinking and planning.

US PLANNED FAKE TERROR ATTACKS ON CITIZENS TO CREATE SUPPORT FOR CUBAN WAR
...In [Joint Chief's chair] Lemnitzer's view, the country would be far better off if the generals could take over. [JFK assassination legend has it some general presided over the fudgy JFK autopsy. --Mk]
For those military officers who were sitting on the fence, the Kennedy administration's botched Bay of Pigs invasion was the last straw. "The Bay of Pigs fiasco broke the dike," said one report at the time. "President Kennedy was pilloried by the super patriots as a 'no-win' chief . . . The Far Right became a fount of proposals born of frustration and put forward in the name of anti-Communism. . . Active-duty commanders played host to anti-Communist seminars on their bases and attended or addressed Right-wing meetings elsewhere."
From BODY OF SECRETS, James Bamford, Doubleday, 2001, p.82 and following.
Scanned and edited by NY Transfer News.

Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency From the Cold War Through the Dawn of a New Century
Back in 1982 James Bamford published THE PUZZLE PALACE, the first book-length study of the National Security Agency, the U. S. Government's mammoth but super-secretive agency devoted to electronic eavesdropping on the rest of the world. That book caused some sharp tremors in military and government circles.
Now Bamford is back with an updated and much more exhaustive study of the same subject. BODY OF SECRETS is detailed history, description, critical assessment, editorial comment, and character study all rolled into one massively researched volume. It should cause an earthquake or two.     Read an Excerpt

When the public liars sat down together -- in Crawford, in the Pentagon, in the Oval Office, at 10 Downing Street -- and very deliberately, very guilefully and very knowingly devised their act of mass murder in Iraq, it is unlikely they gave any thought to the most vulnerable targets of their war crime: the children. So in considering this aspect of the bloodbath, we should give the liars the benefit of the doubt. Let's not make them more monstrous than they are. Let's stick to the facts.

Claims Neo Con Agenda Is As 'Insane As Hitler And Nazi Party When They Invaded Russia In Dead Of Winter'
A former high-ranking Republican official, also a well-respected author, tells the American people to stop listening to Bush administration lies about Iraqi war and claims the mainstream media will not publish anything he writes against Bush or his policies.

Before another War Breaks Out
The 9/11 terrorist attacks and the so-called threat from Iraq's non-existent WMD's was just an excuse-a smokescreen this administration used as a way to skirt international laws and to sell the war to a gullible media and a misinformed public-the president's cabinet used so they could execute a decades-old plan cooked up by hardcore Neocons to spread democracy throughout the Middle East by conquering "rogue" nations such as Iraq like some modern day Roman Empire. They call it Pax Americana, Latin for "American Peace."

Everyone should see this DU documentary on Sunday June 26 at 11.00 pm on TV1 in NZ.
Poisoning the Iraq people and neighbouring states with DU weapons and residue is bad enough. But with a half life of 4.5 billion years, eventually DU dust will drift around the planet and contaminate all life.
That's all of us regardless of where we live, including our children, grandchildren and future generations.
Unless we can stop manufacture and use of this evil weapon (already used by the USA and UK in four wars), the whole planet will be poisoned.
It's time the NZ government took a position on banning DU weapons. Concerned citizens and nations took a stand to ban land mines. It was successful. The same kind of concern can apply to DU weapons which are far worse.
Ban them

. . . . evidence that the 9/11 attacks were were not as portrayed by the Bush Administration and the mass media.
I suggest that this tragedy and its implications, and the actions that have flowed from it, be of the greatest concern to responsible people everywhere. Two wars have been justified - Afghanistan and Iraq - on the basis of the official story of the 9/11 attack. The centre piece of the Bush Administration is the enormously expensive and destructive so-called "war on terror". More wars (perhaps on Iran and Syria and others) have been suggested.

Likely A Controlled Demolition And 'Inside Job'
Highly recognized former chief economist in Labor Department now doubts official 9/11 story, claiming suspicious facts and evidence cover-up indicate government foul play and possible criminal implications.
"If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling," said Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D, a former member of the Bush team who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas, TX.

Lawmakers in the United States were scheduled to vote on Monday to approve $45 billion US in additional funding for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, making the recent Middle East foray more expensive than the entire Korean War.
Since the Sept. 11 attacks, Congress has approved $350 billion, mostly for combat and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The amount, which includes $82 billion approved last month, is equal to the total amount in today's dollars spent on the Korean conflict from 1950-53.

The Downing Street memos have created such a stir that even Congress is rubbing its eyes and awakening from its long slumber to ask questions about the Iraq war: a hearing convened by antiwar Democrats, chaired by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), has created quite a lot of buzz, generating headlines – and howls of outrage from all the usual suspects, as well as from the Washington Post's Dana Milbank and – surprise, surprise! – Howard "The Scream" Dean. Milbank snarks:
"In the Capitol basement yesterday, long-suffering House Democrats took a trip to the land of make-believe. They pretended a small conference room was the Judiciary Committee hearing room, draping white linens over folding tables to make them look like witness tables and bringing in cardboard name tags and extra flags to make the whole thing look official."

It is inescapable historical reality that leaders of nations will lie to their people to trick them into wars they otherwise would have refused. It is not "conspiracy theory" to suggest that leaders of nations lie to trick their people into wars. It is undeniable fact.    This brings us to the present case.
Did the government of the United States lie to the American people, more to the point, did President Bush and his Neocon associates lie to Congress, to initiate a war of conquest in Iraq?
This question has been given currency by a memo leaked from inside the British Government which clearly indicates a decision to go to war followed by the "fixing" of information around that policy. This is, as they say, a smoking gun.

It's bad enough that the Bush administration had so little international support for the Iraqi war that their "coalition of the willing" meant the U.S., Britain, and the equivalent of a child's imaginary friends. It's even worse that, as the Downing Street memo confirms, they had so little evidence of real threats that they knew from the start that they were going to have manufacture excuses to go to war. What's more damning still is that they effectively began this war even before the congressional vote.
The Lies of George W. Bush by David Corn

Welcome to Iraq… but call it Vietnam.
If we haven't all gone down the rabbit hole in Baghdad and come out in the Saigon of another era, you can't prove it by recent news from catastrophic Iraq. Eerie doesn't do it justice. In Washington, our leaders plead for patience; they insist, as they've been doing for a year or more, as the President has done recently, that this -- the latest bad news, whatever it may be, from the urban battlefields and bomb-implanted highways of Iraq -- is "progress." They swear that the most recent upsurge in violence and death (49 dead American soldiers in the first 14 days of this month and scores upon scores of dead Iraqis) represents, in Dick Cheney's recent phrase, "the last throes" of the insurgency which will, the Vice President predicted, end within the President's second term in office.

Bush and Blair connived to deceive their own people and the world, so as to make war on Iraq as the following article documents. Over 100,000 people were killed as a result of the deception of these two leaders, their staff and Ministers. Adding a new dimension of diabolical evil to their plot, they threatened to use nuclear weapons if Iraq resisted their invasion with any weapons which Bush and Blair classified as WMD. That could mean escalation to a nuclear WW III.

MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.
The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

It didn't take long for the war crimes to begin -- in Afghanistan, in Guantánamo, in Iraq. By November 2003, Mike Davis was writing about them for Tomdispatch. And in introducing his piece, "The Scalping Party," I suggested that the seeds of our future were well-planted and already beginning to sprout their monstrous crop. I wrote on that November 14th, over a year and a half ago:

It is 1962, at the height of the induced US paranoia over Cuba. Pentagon Hawks and their right-wing political allies
created a diabolically evil plan to covertly murder American citizens and blame Cuban agents in the US. The purpose was to provide a believable excuse that would anger Americans and the world, causing them to support a US war against Cuba. All top Pentagon generals approved this plan. The Kennedy Administration did not approve it.

In his new exposé of the National Security Agency entitled Body of Secrets, author James Bamford highlights a set of proposals on Cuba by the Joint Chiefs of Staff codenamed OPERATION NORTHWOODS. This document, titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba” was provided by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13, 1962, as the key component of Northwoods.

...It is a war designed to alienate a large part of the global population - Islam - and turn them into enemies. It is a war designed to put the US on a continuing war footing, to facilitate further wars, and feed the US military/industrial complex

The gap between the United States’s words and deeds in Iraq and Afghanistan is sowing bitter seeds that George W Bush’s successors will harvest.

For years, Saddam was one of our government’s propped up and militarily supported puppets. Many people have seen the famous footage of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam. I suppose the two are smiling so big for the cameras because they are kindred spirits. After all of the hand-shaking and weapon brokering, when did Saddam become such a bad guy to Bush, Cheney, Halliburton and Co.?

Although this article was first published on Jan 1, 2004, it applies today.
It shows how a more moderate approach by the Bush Administration "to pull the plug on Iraq" was over-ruled
by the neoconservatives and Pentagon, who installed a diabolically evil 3 billion dollar fund to establish "a radical new counterinsurgency program."

Tucked away in the Iraqi appropriation was $3 billion for a new paramilitary unit. Vietnam similarities?
With the 2004 electoral clock ticking amid growing public concern about U.S. casualties and chaos in Iraq, the Bush administration’s hawks are upping the ante militarily. To those familiar with the CIA’s Phoenix assassination program in Vietnam, Latin America’s death squads or Israel’s official policy of targeted murders of Palestinian activists, the results are likely to look chillingly familiar.

Where is the Iraqi oil money?
.....Iraqi officials cannot explain what happened to $69 million worth of fuel oil produced in the second half of 2004,

It is an inspiration to read how Chavez is ploughing oil profits into benefits for the poor majority in Venezuela.
The Bush administration has supported the rich power elite in Venezuela and supported attempts to overthrow him.
For the benefit on Venezuela, Chavez will need support in the face of US efforts to replace him with their usual US-sponsored dictatorship or quisling regime. The US will claim that they are spreading democracy and freedom and liberation to Venezuela, as they invade, slaughter, torture and imprison - just as they continue to do in Iraq.
However, the people of Venezuela, having been given a taste of real democracy, power and wealth will have strong motivation to rally behind their leader and resist further US attempts at subversion.

In using oil wealth to help the poor, Venezuela's leader is an example to Latin America

Increasingly I am coming across articles that shows the US masquerading as terrorists and causing a terrorist act, and then blaming Iraqi terrorism. The purpose seems to be to create a chaotic situation they can use as an excuse to stay in Iraq indefinitely. It is part of the neocon plan to dominate the middle east and expand the war to neighbouring states.

What was coined as a discussion on real patriotism sounded more like a case for why the Bush administration has failed in foreign policy.
“I will not stand by and watch an appointed president send our sons and daughters around the world to kill terrorists for the oil companies,” Robert Bowman said.

What fury and outrage, especially when one considers the source! I mean, that Newsweek report about American soldiers flushing the Holy Koran down the crapper. Not only did the Pentagon brass get really bent out of shape, but even resident White House white washer and Mighty Mouth, Scott McClellan, conveyed the Bush administration’s anger and outrage, almost losing it himself! Clearly, the issue couldn’t be the absurdity that falsehoods and lies kill people – the Bush administration has demonstrated its total contempt for human life since it maneuvered itself into power. This outrage is about its sensing of rebellion and disloyalty to the state!

Amnesty International USA urged foreign governments Wednesday to use international law to investigate Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and other alleged American "architects of torture" at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay and other prisons where detainees suspected of ties to terrorist groups have been interrogated.

To justify staying in Iraq, it is appears that the US is committing acts of terrorism and blaming those they describe as "terrorists" for committing these acts. If the US starts a civil war between religious factions, it provides further reasons to stay on as "peacemakers".

and Accuses US Troops of Detonating Car Bombs and Falsely Accusing Militants
Al-Qaeda in Iraq issued a refutation on Saturday May 14th, 2005 of western claims “about the weakening of the mujahideen [in Iraq]”. The organization claims that, despite Western statements that the mujahideen are “weakened and stagnant” the militants are “continuing until the day of final judgment”. The message states that “the mujahideen did not weaken and did not become stagnant, but they are transforming with the prosperity of the almighty and the grace of their creature. They are enjoying the composure and the jihad and seeking martyrdom.”

First Consider The Evidence, Then Draw Your Own Conclusions
Let us consider the possibility that the USA has become addicted, in an economic sense, to war. While the evidence offered below is by no means exhaustive, it is directly relevant and highly probative. Therefore, the reader should consider ALL of the evidence in Exhibits A through D before judging whether or not a prima facie case has been made that America is economically addicted to war.

In 1987, the sociologist Alex Carey, a second Orwell in his prophesies, wrote "Managing Public Opinion: the corporate offensive". He described how in the United States "great progress [had been] made towards the ideal of a propaganda-managed democracy", whose principal aim was to identify a rapacious business state "with every cherished human value". The power and meaning of true democracy, of the franchise itself, would be "transferred" to the propaganda of advertising, public relations and corporate-run news. This "model of ideological control", he predicted, would be adopted by other countries, such as Britain.

Is the CIA Behind the Iraqi "Insurgents"--and Global Terrorism?
The requirement of an ever-escalating level of social violence to meet the political and economic needs of the insatiable "anti-terrorist complex" is the essence of the new US militarism. What is now openly billed as "permanent war" ultimately serves the geo-political ends of social control in the interests of US corporate domination, much as the anti-communist crusade of the now-exhausted Cold War did.   See: http://ww4report.com/

In what may be the largest expansion of covert action by the armed forces since the Vietnam era, the Bush administration has turned to what the Pentagon calls the "black world" to pursue the War on Terrorism, defense analyst William M. Arkin wrote in the LA Times Oct. 27.

Once NZ again becomes a nuclear warship host nation, as National wants, we also become a potential target. National wants the nuclear warship ban lifted, so allied warships may again visit us and we can help our allies - the US and UK - in their illegal wars such as the Iraq war.
A general nuclear war can destroy involved nations and some others; perhaps all others eventually; in an afternoon according to all the expert studies I have seen during the last 50 years.

This is a very powerful indictment of Bushism by an angry American lady. With great eloquence and insight she sees where Bush is leading the American people and the consequences for the world.
His poisoning of people with D.U. weapons, not just in Iraq, but eventually everywhere, means extinction for humanity - sooner for some, later for others. With a half life of 4.5 billion years, D.U. Microscopic particles drift around the world, poisoning, causing crippling diseases, and killing forever. There is no doubt whatsoever, that those using these insidious weapons, and those who order them to be used, are mass murderers, guilty of the most heinous war crimes and violations of international law. George Bush and Tony Blair know this - that they are war criminals - but they are willing to take any risks - multiple risks.

Getting the attention of the American people is, for the most part, a futile exercise -- like screaming into the wind. One wonders how many birth defects, such as babies born with no internal organs, fused organs, no brains, no eyes in empty sockets, will it take before Americans join their international counterparts and cry, "Enough!" When will we realize we are the terrorists, and our *weapon of mass destruction is Depleted Uranium?

Blair deliberately suppressed UK Attorney-General's advice that the war was illegal. He also ignored Hans Blix's report to the UN that "no weapons of mass destruction had been found so far".

The Iraq war has erupted as a major Election issue after legal advice warning Tony Blair that the conflict breached international law was sensationally leaked.
The Government's refusal to disclose the advice has been one of the most controversial issues since the war ended, but The Mail on Sunday can now reveal for the first time exactly what counsel Mr Blair received.

• We support UN Secretary/General Kofi Annan’s statement that the US invasion of Iraq is illegal and without any justification.
  
• Therefore it was resolved that all foreign military forces cease hostilities and withdraw from Iraq immediately.
  
• That the invading nations pay reparations to the people and state of Iraq for the killing, torturing and injuring over 100,000 people (as found by the October, 2004 Lancet study) and for their destruction of Iraqi property.
  
• That the UN help rebuild and rehabilitate Iraq with major reparation payments from the invading nations.
  
• That a statement incorporating these resolutions be circulated to various governments, to the UN and to the media.

Monday April 11, 2005
7.30pm - WEA Centre - 59 Gloucester St, Chch, NZ
Members of Christchurch's Iraqi community speak out about their counrty and the American-lead occupation

The most damning indictment of the following article is that "Wolfowitz authorised a sole source contract to Halliburton for Operation Restore Iraqi Oil (RIO) before the war began."
Now that he is rewarded by Bush with the World Bank position for a job well done on Iraq, he can continue his favouring of US corporate interests but on a much grander scale.

What did Wolfowitz know with regard to Halliburton's inside advantage in gaining Iraq contracts, and when did he know it? If the World Bank's board had applied the same kind of "due diligence" to Paul Wolfowitz that they purport to apply to major development projects, they might have uncovered a significant conflict of interest that could have led them to rethink their embrace of the architect of the Iraq war.

To justify the war on Iraq and everything since, Bush's neocons wrote in their pre-9/11 Iraq war plans that "we need another Pearl Harbour". 9/11 gave it to them, and they were keen to start the pre-planned Iraq war from the day 9/11 happened. They did not have a shred of real evidence to support this war, so they created a litany of justifying lies. Other articles on this site under "US Elections" and "9/11 Questions" show US election fraud and doubt the 'official' story on the origins of 9/11.

This article below is particularly important because it reveals that the US itself creates many of the terrorism incidents and then blames other for these actions. Thus they are creating the excuse they need for increasing their military action.

The Pentagon Plan to Provoke Terrorist Attacks
This column stands foursquare with the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, when he warns that there will be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large. We know, as does the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, that this statement is an incontrovertible fact, a matter of scientific certainty. And how can we and the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense, be so sure that there will be more terrorist attacks against the American people and civilization at large?
Because these attacks will be instigated at the order of the Honorable Donald H. Rumsfeld, U.S. Secretary of Defense.

The US never had any valid reason for invading, killing, imprisoning and torturing Iraqis. Even less reason today, as more and more US lies become further exposed as lies the Bush Administration created to justify war. Yet the US goes on piling up its record of horrible war crimes and pledging to continue and do more of these same crimes, both to the Iraqis and to others. They justify all crimes under the umbrella of "war on terrorism". Are Americans that dumbed down, that they actually believe this transparent series of lies?

A newly released memo shows that US General Ricardo Sanchez authorized illegal interrogation techniques in Iraq just months before the Abu Ghraib abuses. Colin Powell, meanwhile, regrets misinforming the UN about Iraq WMDs.
Also, imagine being typecast as Hitler.
Iraq: New Memo from Abu Ghraib, New Words from Powell

Step by step, Bush's 'US' is building its new Empire
Every nation not supportive of the continuing US crusade is a possible candidate for US assault.
Evan documents the insane doctrines of pre-emptive US war against anyone, anytime, anywhere the US unilaterally decides to attack. War policies are decided by a small coterie of un-elected, psychopathic neocons selected by President Bush. He has promoted them to the highest ranks of the US government. Bush does not listen to any criticism or alternative advice. They have been planning war against Iraq and other states for many years - long before the 9/11 attack.

Pentagon Confirms That Unilateral Preemptive Strikes Are Now US Policy
The Pentagon has released a new strategic plan, blandly titled "The National Defense Strategy of the United States of America," that explicitly endorses unilateral preemptive strikes.
This is yet another indication that the Bush administration is dramatically accelerating away from longstanding doctrines that are upheld by both general international law and seemingly-important transatlantic coalitions like NATO.

Was formed by individual Unitarians from Australia and New Zealand, at the biennial ANZ UA conference at the Christchurch Arts Centre
Purposes
1.To publicise the various threats to world peace and survival from wars, threatened wars and environmental degradation
2. To uphold the UN Charter and any threats to the Charter
3. To research and publicise the real causes of various wars
4. To propose just and peaceful solutions to conflicts

But these war crimes are only a beginning. Bush has threatened to widen the war to Iran and Syria. The famous anti-war campaigner, Dr Helen Caldicott says the re-election of Bush means endless wars and the probable use of nuclear weapons as Bush pursues his imperial crusade under the camouflage of “war on terror”
Nelson Mandella calls Bush the most dangerous man in the world. This madman and his crackpot neoconservative regime must be stopped before they destroy the world

Chossudovsky is one of the world's leading analysts of US foreign and military policies.
The following paper proves that. His forte is determining where the US is really headed, and what strategy it intends to use to get there. He does not cover the potential dire consequences of US strategy, at least in this article.
But the consequences are huge. We are looking at the rapid militarization of US society as a whole, and harnessing the resources of the state and the people, to achieve bizarre, even paranoid, and exceedingly dangerous military objectives.

The Pentagon has released the summary of a top secret Pentagon document, which sketches America's agenda for global military domination.
This redirection of America's military strategy seems to have passed virtually unnoticed. With the exception of The Wall Street Journal (see below in annex), not a word has been mentioned in the US media.
There has been no press coverage concerning this mysterious military blueprint. The latter outlines, according to the Wall Street Journal, America's global military design which consists in "enhancing U.S. influence around the world", through increased troop deployments and a massive buildup of America's advanced weapons systems.

.......And besides, someone has to keep the press honest. In recent weeks Krugman's column has focused heavily on the flaws in the president's Social Security proposal—flaws the media have downplayed, he says, because the press seems "extremely hostile to Social Security as it is" and "really buys into the notion of a crisis."
This might be because Social Security is an issue that is clearly important but that few in the media really understand. To the press, "it became a badge," Krugman says. "You needed to learn about two paragraphs of stuff and then you could go on a panel and sound like a grave, serious person concerned about the problems of the United States."

In February 2003 - a few weeks before the invasion of Iraq - President George W. Bush declared that "[r]ebuilding Iraq will require a sustained commitment from many nations, including our own: we will remain in Iraq as long as necessary, and not a day more. America has made and kept this kind of commitment before - in the peace that followed a world war."
However, Bush never addressed the question of cost. From the start, the administration has been, and continues to be, evasive about the costs of war in Iraq. But these costs cannot be ignored and must be weighed by the American public, particularly taxpayers, to determine whether they are willing to pay the price and make the necessary sacrifices to create a stable and peaceful democracy in Iraq - if that goal can be achieved at all.

Dr Roberts analysis is brilliant and spells out the true situation briefly and with clarity. However I don't think the neocon's want to "remake the Middle East in the American image". I think they want to make a barbarous wasteland and call it "freedom and democracy" in order to fool Americans into giving support for the slaughter.
I agree that the neocons want "to provoke a Pearl Harbour" and "may orchestrate a scenario that will suck the US into a wider war". That certainly coincides with my analysis based on years of studying the situation.

President Bush's invasion has turned Iraq into a recruiting and training ground for anti-U.S. terrorists, according to CIA Director Porter Goss in testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Feb. 16. Goss' report was supported by Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, director of the the Defense Intelligence Agency. Jacoby told the committee that "our policies in the Middle East fuel Islamic resentment." The Iraq insurgency, Jacoby reported, has grown "in size and complexity over the past year" with daily attacks increasing 240 percent.
The situation, in other words, is out of control. One hundred fifty thousand American troops are tied down by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents. The recent Iraq election was won by Shi'ites allied with Iran. U.S. casualties continue to mount, and our troops can seldom tell friend from foe.
Why isn't Bush looking for a way out of the greatest strategic blunder in American history? Why, instead, are Bush and his government doing all they can to spread the conflict into Syria and Iran?

How the US creates a new dependant market and destroys a local industry that has proven successful methods, - almost like a new form of economic enslavement, is well described in the following article by Jeremy Smith.
The US created a very rich bonanza for US construction corporations by massive bombing of Iraq before they illegally invaded it. Chosen US corporations, who support Bush, were then given contracts to rebuild it. Similarly US military corporations who supply materials and food to US troops, make weapons, supply military 'contracted' personnel to act as US mercenaries etc, are given a vested interest in the Iraq war and colonial occupation.

Of Militarism, Fascism, War And National Consciousness:

Iraq Elections A Fraud

Our website under "US Elections" shows that Bush, as he did in 2000, got another term as US President in 2004, due to 'fixed' electronic voting machines and other frauds.

Elections’ Aftermath

It is true that millions of Iraqis have participated in the “elections”, but by international standard, the turnout was very low. On the day of the elections Iraq was in a state of siege, cut off from all directions. Journalists were also limited to areas of higher turnout, and the international monitors stayed in Jordan, 1200 km from Iraq. The elections were designed to provide legitimacy to US Occupation.

On Iraqi People, Resistance and Oil versus American bases

Israel occupies Palestine, builds an apartheid wall, kills civilians, uproots trees, and destroys homes and villages while at the same time they demand a ‘reasonable’ Palestinian leadership to negotiate with, while Sharon imposes armed violence with impunity and support from the US.
The US (with the UK tagging along) occupies Iraq illegally and under false pretences, destroys its fragile infrastructure, drives the alien civil strife wedge deep into Iraqi society and yet demands to have ‘reasonable’ representatives of the Iraqi people (with the blessings of Negroponti and his 3000 embassy staff members) to negotiate with on its own (US) terms, laws and conditions that were illegally put in place by Bremer and Feldman, as it hugs the Iraqi oil and economy.

Life under the Bombs in Iraq

There is something thoroughly inspiring when people, under the threat of death, turn out to vote in a country that has become an armed camp. The urge of a long oppressed people to take back their lives, to act, is always moving and powerful. Certainly, the Iraq vote, as presented in the media here in the U.S., has also provided a boost to the Bush administration at home at a useful moment.
When you read Dahr Jamail's account below and meet the people under the bombs, imagine what sort of an Iraq they might actually be voting for. Tom

CIA changes tune on Iraq WMD

A January 18 report, titled "Iraq: No Large-Scale Chemical Warfare Efforts Since Early 1990s," concludes that Saddam Hussein abandoned major chemical weapons programs after the first Gulf War in 1991.

The Global Descent of America

The mentality that the Americans brought into their attack on the people of Falluja was well indicated by the commanders who said on record that Falluja was ' a house of Satan'.

Rice Arrives Just in Time to Oversee U.S. Decline

The first Black female U.S. Secretary of State will inevitably preside over a general and dramatic decline in American influence in the world, a process that accelerates with each passing week. So bizarre is American behavior – so disconnected from objective facts and from international conversation and evolving human standards of conduct – that Condoleezza Rice cannot escape becoming a caricature of diplomacy.

DOES BUSH MEAN IT? - YES THEY DO

Look at Dr. Roberts background (at end)consider his experience, and then read his analysis.
In "Does Bush Mean It?, Craig warns us, and shows his concern and reasons for believing "Yes they do"
Everyone should be as concerned as everyone wished Germans had been in 1938.
Except now the predictions are for far, far worse.

Does Bush Mean It?

Readers in numbers beyond my ability to reply individually have challenged me whether President Bush’s inaugural speech is a statement of his intentions or merely a celebration of himself and American democracy. Surely Bush doesn’t believe America has the power to remake the world in its own image other than by being an example for others to follow?
...The answer is that it doesn’t matter whether Bush believes, or even understands, what he said. The neoconservatives believe it, and they control the Bush administration.

Trends Toward a Fascist Warfare State Seen In

Condoleezza Rice's Confirmation
President Bush has been been able to lead America into a phoney war based on his, and Condoleezza Rice's litany of lies. The war has proved to be disastrous, claimed 1,368 U.S. lives (as of Jan 250, and continues with increased violence and intensity at a cost of over $US200 billion so far. It was all done with Senate approval, including new laws that push the U.S. toward a U.S. brand of fascism.

"Standing for the Founding Principles of the Republic"

This doctrine of preemptive strikes places the sole decision of war and peace in the hands of the President and undermines the Constitutional power of Congress to declare war.

Democracy - It's not God's gift

. . .For Bush, as for Zarqawi, political principles come from God. In his "God-drenched" inauguration speech (as Ronald Reagan's former speechwriter, Peggy Noonan, described it), Bush explained that people have inalienable rights because they "bear the image of the Maker of heaven and earth," and that America's mission to spread democracy around the globe comes directly from "the Author of liberty."

Bush's Inauguration Speech Promises

Death and Destruction for 'Freedom and Democracy'
In his inauguration speech, Bush equates American ideals of freedom, liberty and democracy to the Founding Fathers and to what Bush claims are his ideals and objectives....
He did not mention that the US, since World War II, has a long history of selecting oppressive dictators including Saddam, to install and support in different countries. Rather than liberate, Bush has authorised the killing of over 100,000 Iraqis, maiming, imprisoning, torturing and murdering many more and laying waste to the country. He continues to do this, including stepping up his mass destruction of cities like Fallujah. All this wanton killing and destruction, he continues to claim "is liberating the oppressed and giving them freedom, liberty and an elected government".

President Sworn-In to Second Term

Salvador Option Part of Plan?

The US is blaming Iran and Syria for helping and causing the increasing resistance in Iraq. They may spin that into excuses to make war on the two countries and perhaps others, thus fulfilling Bush's Jan 20th promise to bring "freedom and democracy" to the "oppressed people under totalitarian regimes" in the middle east and what US spin doctors call "regime change". If successful Bush will install selected personnel as "transitional governments" (as in Iraq). The US can call their new puppets "democratic" (as in Iraq) and continue as overlords who control and price most of the world's oil resources in the middle east.

Salvador Option

By any standard, the ongoing American occupation of Iraq is a disaster.
The highly vaunted US military machine, laurelled and praised for its historic march on Baghdad in March and April of 2003, today finds itself a broken force, on the defensive in a land that it may occupy in part, but does not control.
The all-out offensive to break the back of the resistance in Falluja has failed, leaving a city destroyed by American firepower, and still very much in the grips of the anti-American fighters.

Mass Murdering Iranians: Nearly Half of All Americans Agree

I have big problems with opinion polls, especially those conducted by the corporate news industry, but a recent survey by the Washington-based Opinion Research Corporation for the nonprofit and nonpartisan Results For America, which is a project of the Civil Society Institute, makes perfect sense, considering the mindset of at least half of all voting Americans, especially those in the Deliverance states. “A major new national opinion survey of 1,608 American voters released this week shows that only 42 percent would support the U.S. invasion of Iran to stop its nuclear program,” writes Anwar Iqbal for the World Peace Herald. “Nearly half—47 percent—of U.S. voters would oppose such a move and 11 percent are unsure.”

Why Terrorists May Be Coming Soon to a Mall Near You

If you live near a military base or installation, as I do here in New Mexico, you shouldn’t be surprised if terrorists attack, drive a suicide truck through the front gates and kill a whole lot of people.
Fair is fair, as they say, in love and war, especially war.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise because the Pentagon is now attacking the “military infrastructure” in Iran, as crack investigative journalist Seymour Hersh reports. Of course, when the Pentagon says “military infrastructure,” it means not only missile sites, ammo depots, etc., but also humans, the largest and most crucial part of any “military infrastructure.”

THE COMING WARS     What the Pentagon can now do in secret.

“Rumsfeld will no longer have to refer anything through the government’s intelligence wringer,” the former official went on. “The intelligence system was designed to put competing agencies in competition. What’s missing will be the dynamic tension that insures everyone’s priorities—in the C.I.A., the D.O.D., the F.B.I., and even the Department of Homeland Security—are discussed. The most insidious implication of the new system is that Rumsfeld no longer has to tell people what he’s doing so they can ask, ‘Why are you doing this?’ or ‘What are your priorities?’ Now he can keep all of the mattress mice out of it.”

Shredding The Law Ushers in US Fascism

Gonzales as US Attorney-General, would be a giant step toward a "1984" US Fascist state, under Bush and his Neo-con administration. This would have a profound effect on the world and facilitate, with a legal facade, anything and any crime the Bush Administration decided to commit. US torture of prisoners is a good example of how Gonzales tramples on the US Constitution and International Law to suit the Bush Administration. Bush and Rumsfeld authorised the torture. It was not just a few army rogues acting on their own. They were under orders that came from the top.

Action Alert: Vote On Gonzales Appointment Coming Soon...

....Ms. Aron stated that two issues have delayed the SJC's vote: (1) Mr. Gonzales' evasive  testimony during the SJC's 1-6-05 hearing -- he "failed to answer critical questions about whether the president has the power to authorize his subordinates to violate U.S. criminal laws and torture detainees [which is a blueprint for a dictatorship], and he did not explicitly repudiate waterboarding and other interrogation techniques that amounted to torture"; and (2) Bush administration stonewalling -- "...the White House has still not released documents necessary to evaluate Gonzales' role in formulating policies relating to the treatment of detainees and the applicability of the Geneva Conventions."

Israel's Nuclear Arsenal

Patrick Seale's article is brilliant, but does not take into account that Israel's nuclear weapons may be the cause of Arab reluctance to resist Israel aggression - such as the recent attack on Syria. Also, there is the massive US nuclear arsenal that can be used to intimidate Arab states. With Bush lowering the nuclear barrier and changing the nuclear rules of engagement to allow him to pre-emptively use nuclear weapons, the US is preparing for the possibility of using them, or threatening to use them, to impose US-Israeli plans to reorder the Middle East. Already the US and UK threatened to use nuclear weapons if they encountered WMD resistance to their illegal and unjustified attack on Iraq. If the US launches a new war against Syria or Iran as is threatened, they may place US forces in a an impossible situation, where the US will use nuclear weapons to avoid defeat.

...The new imperialists are paying a heavy price for their arrogant overreach. Iraq is proving the graveyard of the US army, and also the graveyard of US-Arab relations. Israel, in turn, has been brutalised by its occupation, turning it into a racist, quasi-fascist state, in the grip of religious fanatics. But the problems which the oppressors have brought upon themselves offer little consolation to their Arab victims.

Converting America to Fascism

An important component of a state that is being manipulated to become fascist, is to progressively diminish civil liberties. This is happening with startling speed, and ease in the USA.

They Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial

On Sunday, Jan 2, Dana Priest, writing in the Washington Post, described the plans of the Pentagon and the Justice Department to imprison indefinitely, perhaps for life, persons it wants "removed" from society. Having committed no crime, but believed to be associated with "terrorism" however that is defined at any given moment in time "the people will live in prison camps modeled on American prisons.

WAR CRIMINAL FOR US ATTORNEY-GENERAL?

. . . . is that it is an indication to people about the real Bush, and that the domestic legal machinery to authorise torture emanated from Bush himself. US tortures come from the top. That is is no surprise.There are many other reports that Bush and his neocons are using torture as part of their plan to create more hatred of the US, leading to more resistance, which they can call "terrorism". That helps them create another phoney reason to stay and increase their military aggression in Iraq, blame others for "the increase in terrorism", and carry the war to other countries.

Confirming Bush's Appointee is Unthinkable Because Confirming Gonzales Is Confirming Torture
Readers might recall that White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales wrote an infamous "torture memo," dated 25 January 2002, in which he erroneously advised President Bush that he could: (1) use his "commander-in-chief authority" to
override the "quaint and obsolete" Geneva Conventions, the UN Convention Against Torture, and the US War Crimes Act, during his so-called "War on Terror"; and (2) authorize the use of interrogation methods which are tantamount to torture on prisoners held in Guantanamo Bay and other US military prisons.
Mr. Gonzales' legal opinion was meritless but highly consequential, for it ultimately lead to the US military's scandalous use of torture tactics on war prisoners and detainees -- including at least 40 who were tortured to death -- at Abu Ghraib and other prisons. Now the entire world regards Alberto Gonzales as complicit in these war crimes.

The Bush administration's New Year's resolution should be to pull out of Iraq.
Already, the United States has lost 1,300 soldiers, and 10,000 U.S. soldiers have been wounded, at a rate now of almost 1,000 a month. The explosion in the mess hall in Mosul shows how vulnerable our troops remain.
That is too high a price for us to pay in American blood.
Then there is the price in American dollars. The United States has spent $160 billion so far on this war, and the yearly pricetag is rising to almost $100 billion. This is draining our Treasury of much-needed revenue.
Then there are the Iraqi civilians who have died. The war has killed between 15,000 (according to Iraqbodycount.net) and 100,000 (according to an article in the British medical journal The Lancet). Most of these have been the result of U.S. attacks.
That is an intolerable moral price to pay.

Bush Plans Long Escalating Wars

As Robert Parry points out, Bush plans long wars, is purging any doubters like Colin Powell and installing sycophants who will support his every wish. So rather than have a more moderate second term, Bush plans on more wars. I think he will decide to use nuclear weapons and believe that nuclear weapons use has been built into the neocon middle-east plan. Otherwise why would he lower the nuclear barrier in his new preemptive war doctrines, make new nuclear weapons and plan to resume testing?

George W. Bush’s vision for America’s future is coming into clearer focus following Election 2004: For the next generation or more, it appears the American people will be asked to sacrifice their children, their tax dollars and possibly the remnants of their democracy to what a top U.S. commander now candidly calls the “Long War.”

Will Bush Empire Go Nuclear in 2005

The US will not accept defeat in Iraq, and is likely to militarily over extend itself there, and with their other neocon-planned conquests in the Middle East. That will place them in what I believe is a pre-planned position: of either accepting defeat, or using nuclear weapons "to avoid defeat of freedom and democracy". The mass media in the US has demonstrated that it can be relied on to back Bush - and deliver a propagandised US public, that will mainly support nuclear weapons use to avoid defeat in "the war on terrorism".

The Empire in the Year 2005

The Iraqi resistance has proven that the US Empire is not invincible. With over 1500 combat deaths, close to 25,000 disabled soldiers and over 35,000 suffering severe "mental illnesses", the US occupation army is incapable of bringing the colonial war to a victorious conclusion.
...The logic of Washington for 2005 is that the War must continue, victory must be secured – no matter what the cost in human lives, Iraqi or US. The treasury and the budget is hostage to the Logic of War: to defend the image of imperial invincibility, the empire will be brought to its knees.

New Israeli/US Offensives in Mid-East

Uri Avnery is one of the leading Israeli writers opposing Sharon's murderous actions, exposing his lies and real plans. The following is an excellent example of Avnery's work.
See: http://www.globalresearch.ca for more excellent articles by top journalists and writers.

When the fruit sellers at the Tel Aviv market shout "the boss has gone crazy!" they mean that they are selling their merchandise at ridiculously low prices.
In the world’s capitals, a similar cry is now being heard: "The boss has gone crazy!" – but it is not about the price of tomatoes.
It refers to the new situation, after the reelection of George W. Bush for four more years.