Disarm: The Lesson of the Georgia Fiasco

George Bush, with the clock ticking down the last months of his presidency, nearly started yet another war that might have escalated in the manner of World War I: a diplomatic failure backed by arms that resulted in a superpower clash.

It is a wonder that the world has survived his "war on terror," which turned out to be a war on American liberty and anyone in the world who got on his nerves. His confrontation with Russia in defense of a belligerent little client state of the US could have sealed his fate and ours too.

We need to examine Bush's actions and see how the US nearly stumbled into a calamity. For in the last weeks, we have gained a picture of the future with this continued push for a secure American world empire with its endless webs of payments, relationships, jockeying for power and treasure, and a diplomatic corps honeycombed with belligerents and lobbyists for foreign governments. The peace, such as it is, can be shattered through small screwups that will end in massive death.

Make no mistake about it: the flare-up was caused entirely by US diplomatic failures. You wouldn't know this, however, if all you did was watch television news. Fox and CNN have portrayed Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili as a benevolent leader of a "young democracy" struggling in the shadow of the mighty bear Russia.

In fact, Saakashvili was elected on a "National Movement" ticket with a centralizing, revanchist platform of retaking the autonomous provinces in the Caucasus, and he has ruled this country the size of South Carolina with an iron fist under a state of emergency for years. He had every intention of ruling these non-Georgian peoples who do not want to be ruled by him, as even the CIA admits.

Who's to blame for the Russian Georgian conflict?

Georgian troops launched an aerial bombardment and ground attack on its separatist province of South Ossetia on Thursday. South Ossetians want to join up with their ethnic brethren in North Ossetia, an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation. Seeing this as an act of aggression Russia launched bombing raids against Georgia, vowing to defend its citizens. More than half of South Ossetia's citizens are said to have taken up Moscow's offer of a Russian passport. Pepe Escobar believes that "the hypocrisy of the international community knows no bounds for if the West forced the issue of Kosovar independence then the independence of South Ossetia should also be on the cards."

They don't want independence; they want to unite with North Ossetia. The last referendum in the region was in November 2006. Ninety-one percent of attendance. Ninety-nine percent, they voted for union with North Ossetia and Russia. And the referendum was totally ignored by Georgia, the US, and in Europe. Once Saakashvili decided to attack South Ossetia last week, he was applying Pentagon tactics. US troops had just finished teaching Georgians how to ethnically cleanse an area. That was part of the so-called, I quote, "Georgian-US Immediate Response 2008 Military Exercises." This whole thing ended less than two weeks ago, on July 31. Saakashvili's game was to smash South Ossetia. In fact, his troops killed more than 2,000 civilians, destroyed the capital, Tskhinvali, killed 10 Russian peacekeepers, at least, provoked an exodus of 35,000 people to North Ossetia.

I have been watching the coverage of this conflict in the Amerikan corporate media. Amazing. They are all reporting it as if the Russians invaded Georgia, when Georgia, in fact, was the aggressor in the situation. These days you have to go to foreign news sources to get past the propaganda and political spin. Insane...free press my a**. The link to the entire story is in the title.

Is the Fourth Estate a Fifth Column? Corporate media colludes with democracy’s demise

Our media institutions, deeply embedded in the power structures of society, are not providing the information that we need to make our democracy work. To put it another way, corporate media consolidation is a corrosive social force. It robs people of their voice in public affairs and pollutes the political culture. And it turns the debates about profound issues into a shouting match of polarized views promulgated by partisan apologists who trivialize democracy while refusing to speak the truth about how our country is being plundered.

Our dominant media are ultimately accountable only to corporate boards whose mission is not life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for the whole body of our republic, but the aggrandizement of corporate executives and shareholders.

These organizations’ self-styled mandate is not to hold public and private power accountable, but to aggregate their interlocking interests. Their reward is not to help fulfill the social compact embodied in the notion of “We, the people,” but to manufacture news and information as profitable consumer commodities.

Democracy without honest information creates the illusion of popular consent at the same time that it enhances the power of the state and the privileged interests that the state protects. And nothing characterizes corporate media today more than its disdain toward the fragile nature of modern life and its indifference toward the complex social debate required of a free and self-governing people.

Let’s look at what is happening with the Internet. This spring the cable giant Comcast tried to pack a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) hearing on network neutrality by hiring strangers off the street to ensure that advocates of net neutrality would not be able to get a seat in the hearing room.

SaveTheInternet.com — a bipartisan coalition — and its supporters helped expose the ruse. Soon after, there was a new hearing, this time without the gerrymandering seating by opponents of an open Internet.

Excellent article on the consequences of allowing a handful of big media corporations to decide what the people should know. The link to the entire story is in the title.

Black Clouds Continue to Gather

Central bank body warns of Great Depression

The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the organisation that fosters cooperation between central banks, has warned that the credit crisis could lead world economies into a crash on a scale not seen since the 1930s.

In its latest quarterly report, the body points out that the Great Depression of the 1930s was not foreseen and that commentators on the financial turmoil, instigated by the US sub-prime mortgage crisis, may not have grasped the level of exposure that lies at its heart.

RBS Says Switch to Cash to Avoid 'Nasty' Selloff

The Royal Bank of Scotland issued a stark warning to investors Wednesday, stating global stock and credit markets could be on the verge of a steep market sell-off as central banks have their hands tied by soaring inflation, the Telegraph reported. "A very nasty period is soon to be upon us - be prepared," Bob Janjuah, credit strategist at RBS, told the UK daily paper.

Morgan Stanley warns of 'catastrophic event' as ECB fights Federal Reserve

The clash between the European Central Bank and the US Federal Reserve over monetary strategy is causing serious strains in the global financial system and could lead to a replay of Europe's exchange rate crisis in the 1990s, a team of bankers has warned.

Not many reports about these things in the American mainstream media, nor are they reporting much about the growing food crisis. How many Americans will be caught totally off guard when the depression hits? Most I think, and it is going to be a horribly ugly situation. So much information available today, right at our fingertips, and yet so many of the sheeple are oblivious to the real world. How very sad, as intellectual laziness will likely be the downfall of this country. Suicide by willful ignorance.

Study: False statements preceded war

A study by two nonprofit journalism organizations found that President Bush and top administration officials issued hundreds of false statements about the national security threat from Iraq in the two years following the 2001 terrorist attacks.

The study concluded that the statements "were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanized public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretenses."

The study was posted Tuesday on the Web site of the Center for Public Integrity, which worked with the Fund for Independence in Journalism.

White House spokesman Scott Stanzel did not comment on the merits of the study Tuesday night but reiterated the administration's position that the world community viewed Iraq's leader, Saddam Hussein, as a threat.

"The actions taken in 2003 were based on the collective judgment of intelligence agencies around the world," Stanzel said.

The study counted 935 false statements in the two-year period. It found that in speeches, briefings, interviews and other venues, Bush and administration officials stated unequivocally on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to produce or obtain them or had links to al-Qaida or both.

"It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaida," according to Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith of the Fund for Independence in Journalism staff members, writing an overview of the study. "In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.

Done with a complicit Congress and corporate press. And, most of all, a huge number of complacent sheeple.

Find the Truth About Bush's Wars Nancy Pelosi, You Must Impeach!

Speaker Pelosi, President Bush could have achieved his goal of "regime change" in Iraq quickly and without the violence of war. Saddam Hussein offered, weeks before his country was invaded, to leave Iraq and go into exile. President Bush withheld this offer from public view-and refused it. Nor did the President need to invade Afghanistan to apprehend Osama bin Laden. On five different occasions, George Bush refused a standing offer from the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden-three times before 9/11 and twice thereafter, again without public disclosure.

No, the military engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan are not directed against terrorism. They are territorial in nature. Mr. Bush intended from his first days in office to invade the two countries: as early as late January, 2001, his Administration was developing the decisions and beginning the preparations for both military incursions. 9/11 was in the distant future, so the conflicts cannot be exercises in counter-terrorism, as the Bush Administration frequently and dishonestly insists. They are premeditated wars of unprovoked conquest and occupation.

Madam Speaker, if you know this, and if you continue refusing impeachment, then you are a criminal accomplice in violating the trust of the American people-and in violating both U.S. and international law.

If you do not know this truth about the wars, Madam Speaker, you must learn its details and embrace it, and then you must seek with dispatch and justice to impeach George Bush and Richard Cheney.

You claim you don't have the votes. But to say that is to canvass the jury before the trial begins, before the evidence is presented and scrutinized. When the hideous truth of these wars is finally exposed-as it will be in the impeachment process-you will have the vote of every honest and patriotic member of the House of Representatives, Democrat and Republican alike.

Why isn't the truth already widely known? There are two reasons. The Bush Administration is infamous for its pathological lying and secrecy: they have done everything in their power to distort or suppress the truth. And the mainstream press has become an engine of entertaining, not informing the American people: it is indifferent to the truth.

But the truth is always there, and it can be discovered in foreign news outlets, in the domestic alternate press, in book-length treatises, and in the passion for truth and unconstrained inquiry displayed by people posting to the Internet. These are the sources for the exposition to follow.

Madam Speaker, if you will not impeach, then you must refute this history, if you can.

She will not impeach. She is complicit in the insanity that our government has become. She clearly must know the facts, as do the rest of those elected to "serve the people" in Congress. She has made her deal with the devil to sell OUR freedom for money and power, and she's sticking to it. Very good article...you can read it in its entirety by hitting the link in the title.

Official Version of Naval Incident Starts to Unravel

Despite the official and media portrayal of the incident in the Strait of Hormuz early Monday morning as a serious threat to U.S. ships from Iranian speedboats that nearly resulted in a "battle at sea", new information over the past three days suggests that the incident did not involve such a threat and that no U.S. commander was on the verge of firing at the Iranian boats.


The new information that appears to contradict the original version of the incident includes the revelation that U.S. officials spliced the audio recording of an alleged Iranian threat onto to a videotape of the incident. That suggests that the threatening message may not have come in immediately after the initial warning to Iranian boats from a U.S. warship, as appears to do on the video.


Also unraveling the story is testimony from a former U.S. naval officer that non-official chatter is common on the channel used to communicate with the Iranian boats and testimony from the commander of the U.S. 5th fleet that the commanding officers of the U.S. warships involved in the incident never felt the need to warn the Iranians of a possible use of force against them.


Further undermining the U.S. version of the incident is a video released by Iran Thursday showing an Iranian naval officer on a small boat hailing one of three ships.


The Iranian commander is heard to say, "Coalition warship 73, this is Iranian navy patrol boat." He then requests the "side numbers" of the U.S. warships. A voice with a U.S. accent replies, "This is coalition warship 73. I am operating in international waters."


The dramatic version of the incident reported by U.S. news media throughout Tuesday and Wednesday suggested that Iranian speedboats, apparently belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard navy, had made moves to attack three U.S. warships entering the Strait and that the U.S. commander had been on the verge of firing at them when they broke off.


Typical of the network coverage was a story by ABC's Jonathan Karl quoting a Pentagon official as saying the Iranian boats "were a heartbeat from being blown up".


Bush administration officials seized on the incident to advance the portrayal of Iran as a threat and to strike a more threatening stance toward Iran. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley declared Wednesday that the incident "almost involved an exchange of fire between our forces and Iranian forces". President George W. Bush declared during his Mideast trip Wednesday that there would be "serious consequences" if Iran attacked U.S. ships and repeated his assertion that Iran is "a threat to world peace".


Central to the depiction of the incident as involving a threat to U.S. warships is a mysterious pair of messages that the sailor who heard them onboard immediately interpreted as saying, "I am coming at you...", and "You will explode after a few minutes." But the voice in the audio clearly said "I am coming to you," and the second message was much less clear.


Furthermore, as the New York Times noted Thursday, the recording carries no ambient noise, such as the sounds of a motor, the sea or wind, which should have been audible if the broadcast had been made from one of the five small Iranian boats.


A veteran U.S. naval officer who had served as a surface warfare officer aboard a U.S. Navy destroyer in the Gulf sent a message to the New York Times on-line column "The Lede" Wednesday pointing out that in the Persian Gulf, the "bridge-to-bridge" radio channel used to communicate between ships "is like a bad CB radio" with many people using it for "hurling racial slurs" and "threats". The former officer wrote that his "first thought" was that the message "might not have even come from one of the Iranian craft".


Pentagon officials admitted to the Times that they could not rule out that the broadcast might have come from another source.


Ah...but the propaganda has already served its purpose...trumpeted in hysterical headlines to the ten second soundbite American Sheeple...who will surely not be tuned in to hear the tall tale debunked....especially if Dancing with the Stars, American Idol or some other such mind numbing drivel is on the idiot box.

The Bush Legacy: Journey to the Dark Side

As a people, we Americans have not faintly come to grips with how centrally the Bush Administration has planted certain practices in our midst--at the very heart of governmental practice, of the news, of everyday life. Many of these practices were not in themselves creations of this administration. For instance, the practice of kidnapping abroad --"rendition"--began at least in the Clinton era, if not earlier. Waterboarding, a medieval torture, was first practiced by American troops in the Philippine insurrection at the dawn of the previous century. (It was then known as "the water cure.")

Torture of various sorts was widely used in CIA interrogation centers in Vietnam in the 1960s. Back in that era, the CIA also ran its own airline, Air America, rather than just leasing planes for its torture capers from various corporate entities through front businesses. Abu Ghraib-style torture and abuse, pioneered by the CIA in the 1950s and 1960s, was taught and used by American military, CIA, and police officials in Latin America from the 1960s into the 1980s. If you doubt any of this, just check out Alfred McCoy's still shocking book, A Question of Torture. Even offshore secret CIA prisons aren't a unique creation of the Bush Administration. According to Tim Weiner in his new history of the Central Intelligence Agency, Legacy of Ashes, in the 1950s the Agency had three of them--in Japan, Germany and the Panama Canal Zone--where they brought double agents of questionable loyalty for "secret experiments" in harsh interrogation, "using techniques on the edge of torture, drug-induced mind control, and brainwashing."

And yet, don't for a second think that nothing has changed. Part of the Bush legacy lies in a new ethos in this country. In my childhood in the 1950s, for example, we knew just who the torturers were. We saw them in the movies. They were the sadistic Japanese in their prison camps, the Gestapo in their prisons, and the Soviet Secret police, the KGB, in their gulags (even if that name hadn't yet entered our world). As the President now says at every opportunity, and as we then knew, Americans did not torture.

Today, and it's a measure of our changing American world, a child turning on the TV serial 24dotermed a "no-brainer," a "dunk in the water" in the torture chamber. There is no deniability left in the movies --and little enough of it in real life. or heading for the nearest hot, new action flick at the local multiplex knows that Americans torture and that torture, once the cultural province of our most evil enemies, is now a practice that is 100 percent all-American and perfectly justifiable (normally by the ticking-bomb scenario). And few even blink. In lockdown America, it computes. The snarl at the border fits well enough with what our Vice President has termed a "no-brainer," a "dunk in the water" in the torture chamber. There is no deniability left in the movies --and little enough of it in real life.

For those who thought true bi-partisanship was a impossible, our descent into fascism is surely a model of seamless cooperation between the repuglinazis and demofascists capable of convincing the most stubborn skeptic. The rest of the article is well worth your time...just hit the link in the title.

You’re Damn Right I’m Angry. Why Isn’t Everybody?

I’m furious because the Bush administration and its ideological allies have shredded the Constitution at every turn, destroying the institutional gift of those they pretend to revere (but only when it’s convenient to upholding their own depredations). This president, who has gotten virtually everything he has ever wanted throughout his life and his presidency, once privately exclaimed in frustration at not getting something he wanted when he wanted it, “It’s just a goddam piece of paper!”, and that is precisely how he has treated America’s founding document. His signing statements - probably over a thousand in count now - completely obliterate the checks and balances principle of the Constitution, its most central idea. His admitted spying on Americans without warrant smashes the Fourth Amendment. His fiasco in Guantánamo and beyond mocks due process and habeas corpus guarantees. His invasion of Iraq against the international law codified in the UN Charter, to which the United States is a signatory, violates the Constitutional requirement to hold such treaties as the highest law of the land. Altogether, Americans have never seen a presidency with such imperial ambitions, and anyone who cares about the Constitution should be furious. A year from now, it is quite possible that Hillary Clinton will be president of the United States (ugh). Would our conservative friends silently countenance, let alone viciously support, such a monarchy in the White House if it belonged to Queen Hillary rather than King George? I think not.

We could go on and on from here. This administration and the movement it fronts at least gets high marks for consistency. Everything they touch turns to stone. There’s Pat Tillman and Terri Schiavo. There’s the politicization of the US Attorneys and the corruption of DeLay and Abramoff. There’s North Korea, Pakistan and the Middle East. There’s the shame of torture and rendition. There’s the wrecking of the American military and of the country’s reputation abroad. There’s Afghanistan and the failure to capture bin Laden. And much, much more. But above all, and driving all, there’s the kleptocracy - the doing of everything in every way to facilitate the looting of the national fisc.

What an unbelievable record of deceit, destruction, hypocrisy, incompetence, treason and greed. What a tragic tale of debt, lost wars, stolen elections, environmental crises, Constitution shredding, national shame and diminished security.

All done by the very most pious amongst us, of course. Merry Christmas, eh? I guess those are our presents, all carefully wrapped in spin, contempt, and preemptive attacks on any of us impertinent enough to say “No thanks, Santa”.

So, yeah, you’re goddam right I’m angry about what’s been done to my country, and what’s been done by my country in my name.

How could anyone who claims to care about America not be?

How indeed.

We Are All Prisoners Now, By Paul Craig Roberts

Excerpts:

Americans are also imprisoned by fear, a false fear created by the hoax of “terrorism.” It has turned out that headline terrorist events since 9/11 have been orchestrated by the US government. For example, the alleged terrorist plot to blow up Chicago’s Sears Tower was the brainchild of a FBI agent who searched out a few disaffected people to give lip service to the plot devised by the FBI agent. He arrested his victims, whose trial ended in acquittal and mistrial.

Many Europeans regard 9/11 itself as an orchestrated event. Former cabinet members of the British, Canadian and German governments and the Chief of Staff of the Russian Army have publicly expressed their doubts about the official 9/11 story. Recently, a former president of Italy, Francesco Cossiga, said in an interview with the newspaper, Corriere della Sera (November 30, 2007), that “democratic elements in America and Europe, with the Italian center-left in the forefront, now know that the 9/11 attack was planned and executed by the American CIA and Mossad in order to blame the Arab countries, and to persuade the Western powers to undertake military action both in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

....Cossiga’s statement has not been reported by a US newspaper or TV channel. Raising doubts among Americans about the government is not a strong point of the corporate media. Americans live in a world of propaganda designed to secure their acquiescence to war crimes, torture, searches and police state measures, military aggression, hegemony and oppression, while portraying Americans (and Israelis) as the salt of the earth who are threatened by Muslims who hate their “freedom and democracy.”

Americans cling to this “truth” while the Bush regime and a complicit Congress destroy the Bill of Rights and engineer the theft of elections.

Freedom and democracy in America have been reduced to no-fly lists, spying without warrants, arrests without warrants or evidence, permanent detention despite the constitutional protection of habeas corpus, torture despite the prohibition against self-incrimination--the list goes on and on. http://www.truthnews.us/?p=1115]

In today’s fearful America, a US Senator, whose elder brothers were (1) a military hero killed in action, (2) a President of the United States assassinated in office, (3) an Attorney General of the United States and likely president except he was assassinated like his brother, can find himself on the no-fly list. Present and former high government officials, with top secret security clearances, cannot fly with a tube of toothpaste or a bottle of water despite the absence of any evidence that extreme measures imposed by “airport security” makes flying safer. http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071221/us_nm/security_airports_dc;_ylt=ApzEobAIQMfiX02LTvKbk1UXIr0F

Elderly American citizens with walkers and young mothers with children are meticulously searched because US Homeland Security cannot tell the difference between an American citizen and a terrorist.

All Americans should note the ominous implications of the inability of Homeland Security to distinguish an American citizen from a terrorist.

An article well worth reading in its entirety...just hit the link in the title...The condition this country is in is clear to so many, but apparently not enough to stop the noose from slowly tightening, as the oblivious majority slowly hang us all. We have merely been given the rope to do it ourselves...which we have cheerfully done. What a shame it is to see...sometimes I just barely resist the impulse to shake people, or scream at them...as they fret about nonsense like who is winning American Idol or how their kids will be sniveling if they don't get the latest $500 video game system...I can't stand it...

Pelosi Makes Excuses on Fox "News"

The United States appears to be illegally torturing terror suspects contrary to denials by President George Bush, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi said on Sunday.

The country's highest ranking Democrat also said she still hoped to get most US troops out of Iraq by the end of next year, despite the party's repeated failure to win over enough Republicans in Congress to an exit strategy.

Interviewed on Fox News Sunday, Pelosi said reported interrogation tactics such as simulated drowning, head slapping and exposure to extreme temperatures all amounted to banned torture.

"There is a legal definition of torture that I believe this would fit. The president says it is not," she said.

But the House speaker said she had received only limited briefings from the Bush administration on its interrogation tactics, and had not seen a controversial memo issued in 2005 by the Justice Department.

She didn't get the memo...ha ha ha .....It is her job to know what the executive branch is doing...checks and balances and all that....these spineless democrats have turned a blind eye to these issues willfully...after all, the fear mongering helps keep the sheeple subservient, which will be to their benefit when the reins of power over the American dictatorship pass to them in 2008, with the added benefit of being able to blame Bushco for it all...let us not forget that every one of these people in Congress has allowed these abuses to go on, complicit in them by direct action in some cases and by inaction in others...therefore, they are just as guilty as the Bush/Cheney cabal for each and every one.

The State Dept.’s Murderous Guardians

But this is not yet another story about payoffs to the GOP faithful who have predominated in the occupation and are totally untrained for their assigned tasks in the restructuring of a country that they know nothing about. The Blackwater guards know their job all too well, which is to guard top U.S. officials by any means necessary—including the casual extermination of innocent Iraqis.

Clearly, paid contractors are better for this task than American military personnel, since contractors operate outside of the restraints imposed on ordinary troops by law and by their own consciences. Many Blackwater contractors have been recruited from the U.S. military at much higher pay than direct service to their country afforded them. Whereas a top Army sergeant is paid $51,100 to $69,350 a year in salary, housing and other benefits, a Blackwater contractor (often a retired sergeant) receives six to nine times as much. The U.S. government pays Blackwater $1,222 per day for one Blackwater “Protective Security Specialist,” which, the congressional report notes, “amounts to $445,891 per contractor” per year. In an unusual display of disapproval aimed at Blackwater from the right side of the aisle, Rep. John J. Duncan Jr., R-Tenn., noted Tuesday that Army Gen. David H. Petraeus’ annual salary amounts to less than half of what some high-ranking Blackwater security officials in Iraq earn.

Of course they’re worth it, along with the Iraqi deaths they cause, if your own life is on the line and that’s all that matters. This is clearly the position of the State Department employees in Iraq and their bosses in Washington who have covered up for Blackwater for years. As the House committee majority staff states: “There is no evidence in the documents that the Committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater’s actions, raised concerns about the number of shooting incidents involving Blackwater or the company’s high rate of shooting first, or detained contractors for investigation.”

No better evidence that the Iraqis are the Indians, attempting as imperfectly as they may to protect their ancestral terrain. But this time the imperial majesty of the United States, represented by American Ambassador Ryan Crocker, is established not by the U.S. cavalry but by a band of hired gunslingers.

Unfortunately, too many people here don't care what happens to Iraqi civilians....having been conditioned by propaganda and their own ignorance to think of these fellow human beings...mothers, fathers, sons and daughters ...as somewhat less than human. But, the reality of the situation is that sooner or later Bushco's private gestapo will be set loose on American soil...as they were in New Orleans once already...and they will bring that murderous attitude home with them. The next "terrorist attack" could bring them home to shoot down our friends and neighbors in the streets...or perhaps mow them down like dogs in the street with their SUVs as they routinely do to Iraqi civilians.

Bush may bypass UN with tough sanctions against Iran

Tom Baldwin in Washington
President Bush is prepared to bypass the United Nations and instead work with European allies on imposing tougher sanctions against Iran’s defiant stance on its nuclear programme.

He is understood to be increasingly frustrated by the snail-pace progress of four months-long talks with Russia and China over punishing Tehran for failing to comply with successive Security Council resolutions. The west fears that Iran’s avowed determination to secure nuclear energy is cover for pursuit of a military programme.

But, even as officials from the US, Russia, China, France Britain and Germany met in Washington today to consider the next steps, diplomats admitted that America and the three European powers might be forced to “go it alone”.

Such a decision would represent a significant crack in the united front the world has so far presented to Iran. It would also be seen as evidence of the tensions within the Bush administration over how far the US will follow the diplomatic route rather take a military option - which hawks have determinedly kept “on the table”.
Here we go again..the same old script recycled from the propaganda blitz that preceded the last invasion. Just remove the Q on the end of Iraq and replace it with N...and the short attention span of the sheeple will handle the rest...Paint by numbers propaganda...I love it....

Bush, senators blast MoveOn.org ad against Gen. David Petraeus - cleveland.com

Bush, senators blast MoveOn.org ad against Gen. David Petraeus - cleveland.com:

Republican support for the war in Iraq turned to declarations of disgust as President Bush and a Senate majority Thursday condemned MoveOn.org, the liberal activist group, for accusing the war's top general of betrayal. But 25 Democrats, including Sherrod Brown of Ohio, refused to support the amendment condemning MoveOn's recent ad, which called Gen. David Petraeus 'General Betray Us.' Brown instead voted for a pre-emptive measure that condemned criticism of all military officers - past and present."

My my, that ad managed to get past the Ministry of Truth....Rather reminiscent of the time when we had a free press, doing their part to keep government honest. Interesting that such demonstration of our quaint and antiquated first amendment rights has raised such an uproar in Congress...certainly a sign of the fascist times we live in.

Democrats Lie to Prolong Iraq; Reporters Go Along

Media Views
TedRall.com: The War Party (9/11/07) by Ted Rall
The media-savvy cartoonist and commentator lists examples of how, "rather than set the record straight, the media continues to spread the Democrats-can't-stop-the-Republican-war meme this week":

Michael Duffy, Time magazine: "If Democrats had more votes—particularly in the House—they might be able to force Bush to change course. But Bush will fight any resolution fencing him in with a veto that, as things stand now, the Democrats cannot override. But the president's critics will continue to try, hoping to attract moderate Republicans who are fearful of losing their seats next year." Occasionally Time invites me to its Christmas party. If I score an invite this year, my present for their fact-checkers will be a copy of the Constitution.

Marcella Bombardieri, the Boston Globe: "In the Senate, Democrats have only a 51 to 49 majority, far from the 60 votes needed to prevent a filibuster and the 67 needed to override a presidential veto. All efforts to force a troop withdrawal have failed, and the party will have to count on substantial Republican defections to make any further progress this fall." I'll be checking the Globe for a retraction.

As FAIR has explained time and again, "Congress does not have to pass legislation to bring an end to the war in Iraq—it simply has to block passage of any bill that would continue to fund the war. This requires not 67 or 60 Senate votes, or even 51, but just 41."

See our latest Media Advisory: Media Misrepresent Dems' Options on Iraq War: Confusing 'Can't' and 'Won't' (9/13/07).

Well, so much for the idea so many folks had about the Democrat majority riding in on white horses to save us from the insanity of the fascist Bushco regime….there are no politicians that represent the people and no two party system….just one group of power hungry, self serving career criminal politicians. (Please forgive the redundancy in those terms). There are no real differences between the Demofascists and the Republinazis, they just claim so to feed the popular delusion that we have some sort of choice, a delusion that the so called “free press” happily supports with their drivel.

Bush's War Without End, By Robert Parry

Let it be noted that the morning after George W. Bush announced an open-ended – possibly permanent – military occupation of Iraq the premier U.S. newspapers ran headlines about the President ordering “troop cuts,” itself a troubling reminder of how the American people got into this mess.

The New York Times’ lead headline read: “Bush Says Success Allows Gradual Troop Cuts.” The Washington Post went with: “Bush Tells Nation He Will Begin to Roll Back ‘Surge.’”

In a subhead, the Post highlighted a tidbit from its own interview with Gen. David Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq: that he projected “sustainable security” in that country by mid-2009 (which would fall shortly after the sixth anniversary of Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech).

Granted, the news stories did include some reasons for skepticism about Bush’s latest happy talk, including references to the assassination of the U.S.-allied Sheik Abdul Sattar Abu Risha earlier in the day in Anbar Province and the apparent collapse of Iraqi negotiations over how to divvy up the country’s oil revenues.

Yet, despite Bush’s long history of wishful thinking – or delusions – about Iraq, the major newspapers still gave Bush the headlines he wanted.

No wonder “major” newspapers are losing readership at an amazing rate…intelligent people know they are just propaganda rags for the State these days, while the sheeple could care less what’s going on in the world beyond what they can gather in the ten second sound bites between TV commercials….not that actually watching the news would do any good…the Ministry of Truth has the network lapdogs well trained also, spewing nothing but propaganda and mindless drivel.

"The Pentagon has deployed the media and we have to take it back."

The Power of Trickle-Up Journalism
by Amy Goodman

It is absolutely critical that we have an independent media. The media are the most powerful institutions on earth, more powerful than any bomb, than any missile. The Pentagon has deployed the media and we have to take it back.

My brother David Goodman and I have written Static: Government Liars, Media Cheerleaders, and the People Who Fight Back. Why the title Static? Because in this high tech digital age, with high definition television and digital radio, all we get is ever more static, that veil of lies, misrepresentations, half-truths, and omissions that obscure reality.

What we need is a different kind of static. The media should be giving the dictionary definition of static, and that is “criticism, opposition, unwanted interference.” We need a media that covers power, not covers for power. We need a media that is the fourth estate, not for the state. And we need a media that covers the movements that create static and make history.

She’s right; the corporate media has become the State’s own Ministry of Truth. For those that have not read George Orwell’s 1984(a MUST read these days), that means a state run propaganda machine, rewriting the facts to suit the government’s purpose of the day. Anyone who uses the mainstream media as their only source of news and information is clueless to the realities of the world today. To get accurate news about our country, you must turn to foreign or alternative news sources. Our press has voluntarily given up their freedom…or rather sold it away.