/by Andy Thomas

Tá ai um exemplo de um ser humano de péssimo caráter!

HUGO CHAVEZ

By Karen Northon

In Hollywood, it all comes down to how well you can deliver a line, which is perhaps why so many in the land of make-believe adore the dictatorial drama queen Hugo Chavez. The whole world truly is a stage. The man is a compelling orator to those whose ideological cataracts prevent them from seeing through Chavez’s persuasive rhetoric to the underlying persecution complex that directs his every move.

Hollywood is flooded with such visually-impaired, self-proclaimed foreign policy experts who believe Chavez just wants to hold hands with everyone and sing We Are the World.  Socialist-dictator groupie Sean Penn spent some quality time with Chavez in 2007 and again in 2008, calling him “a fascinating guy.” In Penn’s defense, I will admit I find documentaries about serial killers fascinating – though I don’t think I’d care to spend time cozying up with one and waxing intellectual about the politics of their brutality.

Then we have everyone’s favorite conspiracy-theory movie director, Oliver Stone, who undoubtedly steps up the controversial aspect of his projects as he feels the limelight fading on him. (By the way, Oliver – Girl Scout cookie sales funding coup to oust Castro? Could be.)

Stone recently premiered his poor-misunderstood-dictator commumentary about Chavez, remarking of the Venezuelan dictator, “[he] is an extremely dynamic and charismatic figure. He’s open and warmhearted and big, and a fascinating character.”

Yes. Fascinating. Got that.

It gets better/worse. Rumor has it former rocker and former(?) drug addict Courtney Love has a crush on the big, cuddly socialist dictator. She thinks he’s a “sexy dawg.” Now THAT is your brain on drugs.

Beyond the bizarro adoration of the Hollywood subculture, Chavez made an appearance on Larry King Live while in New York City for last month’s meeting of the U.N. General Assembly – kicking off King’s dictator trifecta that included interviews with Chavez’s BSFs (Best Socialist Friends) Muammar Qadhafi and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Once again, Chavez performed his dictator Two-Step, answering every question with a jab at U.S. foreign policy. He accuses the United States of backing a coup d’état to oust him, apparently having forgotten that he had organized and attempted a military coup to overthrow the Venezuelan government in 1992.

Why can’t we be friends? Why can’t we be friends?

There is no doubt – Chavez is a shrewd strategist. He understands that more power and influence are gained by appealing to the poor, restless masses and celebrities. And he knows just how to manipulate them into unquestioning devotion to him. As for world leaders, Chavez has extended his unwavering loyalty and support to every dictator and despot who presents any sort of threat to the United States.

And to the rest of the world, the peace-loving Chavez slings insults, openly calling George W. Bush a “donkey” and “the devil,” Condoleezza Rice an “illiterate,” former Mexican President Vicente Fox a “lapdog of imperialism,” Peruvian President Alan Garcia a “rotten thief” and a “crybaby.” More recently, he called President Obama an “ignoramus” and said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is “just lost.” My six-year-old could explain to him why he’s not making many friends.

Of his frequent verbal attacks against the United States, Jerrold M. Post, Director of the Political Psychology Program at George Washington University, says “his [Chavez’s] outrageous and confrontational rhetoric” increases in frequency and rancor “during times of internal instability” in his home country, and when he feels he’s put on the defensive.

Post wrote of Chavez in a 2007 analytical report for the U.S. Air Force Counterproliferation Center:

“Chavez is an authoritarian narcissistic leader who has dreams of glory, and can be overly sensitive to criticism. The arrogant certainty conveyed in his public pronouncements is very appealing to his followers. But under this grandiose facade, as is typical with narcissistic personalities, is extreme insecurity. When under stress, his defiance becomes more pronounced, as does his tendency to blame others for his own shortcomings.”

Chavez is like the boyfriend/girlfriend/spouse you just couldn’t confront, because as soon as you questioned or expressed negative feelings about something they did or said, they turned it back on you – questioning, in that defensive, incredulous tone, something you did x number of years ago that they didn’t like.

Despite his appeal to the impoverished of Venezuela, his fiscal policy has had a devastating effect on his country’s economy – though he finds ways to blame the United States for that as well, citing the North American Free Trade Agreement or some other policy of which he was not key in devising.

If failing economic policy doesn’t bring about his fall from power, his attempts to squash dissent may. Chavez recently ordered the permanent closing of 29 more radio stations that have been critical of his administration. And in response to a student protest/hunger strike, Chavez ordered the imprisonment of a 22-year-old college student for “attempting to incite civil war.”

In an editorial last month for The Huffington Post, Robert Amsterdam (an international Lawyer on emerging markets, politics of business, and rule of law) wrote:

“…the existence of more than 50 hunger striking students on the steps of the OAS [Organization of American States] headquarters [in Caracas] blows the smoke off the myth that Chávez is still some sort of social democrat who cares about his people.”

The question is, how long will it take for his base supporters to see Hugo Chavez for what he is – a malignant narcissist clinging to power?

It is, god help me for saying this, a quiet day. The President is scampering off to Denmark, weapons inspectors are being invited to Iran, and autumn has chosen to assert its presence over my city with the fickleness of a middle schooler. Rain, sun, rain, grim rainless clouds, rain again, and then sun.

A couple links have kept me entertained despite a complete lack of movement on the military-political issues of the day. First off, Andrew Bentley (who seems to be a civilian contractor for KBR) posted a nifty guide at Instructables: How to Grow Flowers on a Military Base in Iraq. The more you know.

KOW has some thoughts on the inter-related goals of COIN tactics and humanitarian aid:

What is particularly disliked by parties who claim to represent humanitarian ideals is aid conditionality–using aid as a carrot either based on ‘good behaviour’ or to encourage such good behaviour. This is a contradiction of ‘humanitarian principles’ which state the aid should be given on the basis of need, rather than political appropriateness.

Obviously, in terms of COIN, there is an immediate desire to achieve a certain effect, to reward certain behaviour, not necessarily to act according to more lofty principles.

I’m in the process of nailing down my thoughts, because this topic in particular is one of great interest to me. But initially my response is that, whatever your politics are, food should not be used as a weapon, though it can be used as a tool. Cooperation is not dependent upon hunger–a starving person will strike out just as a fed person will–but by employing a methodology that relies on compliance to receive the most basic of human needs, we run far closer to being prison guards than partners.

Still working on that.

Ricks makes a false comparison of Bush 43 to Obama that’s raising some interesting critique in the comments section. I agree that it doesn’t necessarily instill great confidence in me that the Obama administration issued the results of its review of Afghanistan, requested a document that would indicate what was needed to accomplish what was laid out in that March review, and then finds itself reviewing again based on the results of that document. But at the same time, I agree with Ricks–I’d rather he be reviewing than baldly making choices with no critique.

Coming at the same question from a different angle, Stratfor’s George Friedman published his review of Obama and current foreign policy. And Informed Comment has a guest post from Haggai Ram on Israel and Iran that’s worth your time.

Finally, I’m keeping my eye on the SWJ thread on the Army Capstone comment. Still haven’t had time to review my annotations, but I hope to get to that tonight. There’s never any shortage of reading, that’s certain.

WAR and RUMORS of WAR

Not since Watergate and Nixon has so much been said about the bald lies and active criminality of our rulers.  There’s no hero or other path to save us.  We were already in a twilight phase of our greatness when befuddled Ronald Reagan declared “morning in America.”  Twenty years later, the “boy emperor” George W. Bush, took us fully into the Dark Ages, pursuing shortsighted goals accelerating our decline.  We see signs of the West after Rome’s fall: religion triumphant over reason; education and critical thinking decayed; religion, state, and the apparatus of torture integrated – the central horror of the pre-Enlightenment; and our culture politically and economically marginalized.  It’s a process no society can undergo and still remain free.  Yet the capitalists, Republicans, and neoconservative fundamentalist Christian American population are aggressively proud of it.

Bush believed he was on a mission from god, and faith trumps fact.  Yet, if a nation can’t see reality correctly and persists in acting upon faith-based delusions, its ability to hold its own in the world is pretty much foreclosed.  We survey a cultural death valley: secondary schools with teachers afraid to teach evolution to un-evolved students; pervasive hostility toward science from benighted legislators; religion used to explain terror as a cosmic conflict between good and evil rather than in terms of political process.  In a New York Times poll, 59% of Americans believe that the faithful will be taken up into heaven in the ‘Rapture’ (perhaps, in blue jackets and tennis shoes?  I propose straitjackets).

Fundamentalism and democracy are foes.  The opposite of Enlightenment is tribalism, groupthink, and blind obedience.  Detention without trial, denial of attorneys, years of interrogation in isolation are now standard American practice, and many Americans don’t care.  The Bush administration discussed canceling the 2004 presidential election citing possible terrorist attack!  Since it wasn’t done, it was obviously safer and easier (for them) to rig electronic voting (see John Conyers’ D-Ohio report).  In the 2003 University of Connecticut “State of the First Amendment Survey,” 34% of Americans said the amendment went “too far;” 46% thought there was too much press freedom; 28% felt newspapers shouldn’t publish without government approval; 31% wanted public protest of war outlawed during war; and 50% thought government should infringe the freedom of “certain religious groups” in the name of the war on terror.

Advertisers and politicians assure us we’re the richest, most envied people on earth and that’s why rag-tag bombers want to blow us up.  We’re not actually people in the eyes of national ownership; we’re unreliable consumers comprising an overworked, underpaid work force not in the best of health (we’re 37^th behind Saudi Arabia, the former Texas Whitehouse’s Best Friend).  Despite Halliburton’s boom profits, Bush’s wars of aggression made us broke.  We borrow $4 billion per day to keep afloat.  Who finally pays this massive debt?

How eager we are to be slaves.  Bush said he was a “wartime president,” but there’s no war, despite all his murder and destruction, “terror” is an abstract noun like “liar”.  Bush’s illegal unilateral ravaging of Iraq isn’t moral or legal because he appeared to be elected twice.  He’s done things we’d impeach him for under the old republic, but corrupt Republicans at all levels of government, including the judiciary, protect him by not doing their duty to impeach him, let’s say, for his incompetence in Louisiana.  “Nice job, Brownie,” my ass.

Our founders thought two-year terms for congress was as much democracy as we’d need, so they didn’t provide recall legislation in the event a president wasn’t up to the job and lost the people’s confidence between elections.  Thus, since “all things come to pass,” as Ecclesiastes has it, we had to wait until enough citizens were hurt to persuade him to go back to his second Eden in Crawford.  We’re paying interest on his awful debts, and the troops not killed or maimed have to settle for just being alive and in one piece.  Or, would, if Obama wasn’t now abusing them.

Iraq debate – personal historical view

Date: Wednesday, February 14, 2007 8:25 PM

Colin Powell said, “Don’t get into war unless it’s absolutely necessary, and when we do, go to win, no half measures,” but it doesn’t apply very much in real life.

As a Vietnam era veteran, I know Johnson’s phony Gulf of Tonkin Incident fished us into war (I was drafted).  He bought into the radical right’s communist containment scare.  The Committee of Concerned Asian Scholars wrote:

      “In part, the process of deception has also been unintentional.  Much of the rhetoric and many of the actions that have accompanied our… involvement have been ad hoc responses to situations of stress: a cumulative series of reflex moves and lunges produced by deepening executive anxiety, defensiveness, alarm, desperation, and even a sensed state of siege.  Similarly in rhetoric, our ‘national honor,’ ‘[enemies] with nuclear weapons,’ and the goal of ‘peace with honor’ – all have misled the public.  At the root of executive deception is a vast amount of executive self-deception – or, .to put it bluntly, stupidity.”

America blithely ignores offers of friendship and makes enemies as fast as we can throw the first sucker punch.  This is not military sense; it’s a bad case of ideology and invention over reason and fact.  But, Americans don’t run out when the fight’s tough – see: Khe San.  We stood nearly twenty years while our military-industrial complex ruined Vietnam.  Our prolonged stay, and side invasions of Cambodia and Laos, generationally disrupted and destabilized Southeast Asia, distorted America’s rule of law, and led directly to the Bush neoconservative leadership miasma.

We are now fighting a war for the health and life of the republic.  Look at how the radical right Republicans have warped the nation they want us to fight for, die for, and honor.  The self-destructive insanity of the radical right Republican way of war makes it looks as if the bad guys have already won.

NEWS LINKS: 

Published on Friday, September 11, 2009 by TomDispatch.com

How 9/11 Should Be Remembered.  The Extraordinary Achievements of Ordinary People by Rebecca Solnit.  Eight years ago, 2,600 people lost their lives in Manhattan, and then several million people lost their story. The al-Qaeda attack on the Twin Towers did not defeat New Yorkers. It destroyed the buildings, contaminated the region, killed thousands, and disrupted the global economy, but it most assuredly did not conquer the citizenry. They were only defeated when their resilience was stolen from them by clichés, by the invisibility of what they accomplished that extraordinary morning, and by the very word “terrorism,” which suggests that they, or we, were all terrified. The distortion, even obliteration, of what actually happened was a necessary precursor to launching the obscene response that culminated in a war on Iraq, a war we lost (even if some of us don’t know that yet), and the loss of civil liberties and democratic principles that went with it. Only We Can Terrorize Ourselves

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/11

Published on Friday, September 11, 2009 by The Nation

Afghanistan and the Wages of Empire by John Nichols.  It is amusing, if remarkable, that there are still some players in Washington who try to maintain the fantasy that Afghan President Hamid Karzai governs with anything akin to legitimacy. Karzai, an alleged oil-industry fixer awarded control of his country by occupying powers, has always served with strings attached.

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/09/11-8

Posted September 11, 2009.

Obama’s Quagmire Looks a Lot like Vietnam by Robert Scheer, Truthdig.

The way he’s headed on Afghanistan, Barack Obama is threatened with a quagmire that could bog down his presidency.  True, he doesn’t seem a bit like Lyndon Johnson, but the way he’s headed on Afghanistan, Barack Obama is threatened with a quagmire that could bog down his presidency. LBJ also had a progressive agenda in mind, beginning with his war on poverty, but it was soon overwhelmed by the cost and divisiveness engendered by a meaningless, and seemingly endless, war in Vietnam.

http://www.alternet.org/world/142565/obama%27s_quagmire_looks_a_lot_like_vietnam/

Victory is a state of mind.

NÖJE: Söndagar är till för att titta på gamla TV-klassiker.

Varför inte titta på en gammal episod av The Golden Girls i ny tappning. Huvudrollerna “spelas” av Barack Obama, John McCain, George W. Bush, Sarah Palin samt Hillary Clinton.

De inklippta citaten är tagna från valkampanjen 2008.

The following article was written by Clive Hamilton, a Visiting Professor at Yale University, and sent by a reader.

Note, this article was originally published at counterpunch.org and is mirrored here. By printing this article MSRB does not tacitly endorse counterpunch.org as its principal operators have failed the “9/11 test” by accepting the government conspiracy theory thus misleading their readers.

Years of unfettered consumption of Southern Comfort and cocaine can bend the mind of any man! —The Book of Google MaGoogle [Gog and Magog,] Chapter II, Verse XXI

Biblical Prophesy and the Iraq War

Bush, God, Iraq and Gog

By CLIVE HAMILTON

http://www.counterpunch.org/hamilton05222009.html

The revelation this month in GQ magazine that Donald Rumsfeld as Defense Secretary embellished top-secret wartime memos with quotations from the Bible prompts a question. Why did he believe he could influence President Bush by that means?

The answer may lie in an alarming story about George Bush’s Christian millenarian beliefs that has yet to come to light.

In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France’s President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated.

In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy [No questions asked!]:

“And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle … and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.”

Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac:

“This confrontation is willed by God [syn: Wealthy Jewish merchants,] who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins”.

The story of the conversation emerged only because the Elysée Palace, baffled by Bush’s words, sought advice from Thomas Römer, a professor of theology at the University of Lausanne. Four years later, Römer gave an account in the September 2007 issue of the university’s review, Allez savoir. The article apparently went unnoticed, although it was referred to in a French newspaper.

The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France in March, by journalist Jean Claude Maurice. Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush’s invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and “wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs”.

In the same year he spoke to Chirac, Bush had reportedly said to the Palestinian foreign minister that he was on “a mission from God” in launching the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and was receiving commands from the Lord [syn: State of Israel.]

There can be little doubt now that President Bush’s reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam’s Iraq was the fulfilment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord [syn: State of Israel.]

Many thousands [at least 1.5 million] of Americans and Iraqis have died in the campaign to defeat Gog and Magog. That the US President saw himself as the vehicle of God whose duty was to prevent the Apocalypse can only inflame suspicions across the Middle East that the United States is on a crusade against Islam.

There is a curious coda to this story. While a senior at Yale University George W. Bush was a member of the exclusive and secretive Skull & Bones society. His father, George H.W. Bush had also been a “Bonesman”, as indeed had his father. Skull & Bones’ initiates are assigned or take on nicknames. And what was George Bush Senior’s nickname? “Magog”. [Emphasis and remarks were added.]

Copyright: Clive Hamilton is a Visiting Professor at Yale University He can be reached at: mail@clivehamilton.net.au.

Notes:

Jocelyn Rochat, ‘George W. Bush et le Code Ezéchiel’, Allez Savoir!, No. 39, September 2007

http://www.rue89.com/2007/09/17/un-petit-scoop-sur-bush-chirac-dieu-gog-et-magog

http://www.plon.fr/ficheLivre.php?livre=9782259210218

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=14890

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/oct/07/iraq.usa

Related Links:

• Lord, What about their Moose and Polar Bear?
• “Apocalypse”: A “Biblical,” or a self-fulfilling prophecy?

La Voz del Interior, Sábado 28 de marzo de 2009     

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La luna de miel tiene fecha de vencimiento

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Por Nelson Gustavo Specchia

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Nicolás Maquiavelo recomendaba al Príncipe aprovechar al máximo los primeros 100 días de gobierno. Durante ese tiempo, decía Maquiavelo, todo será halagos, felicitaciones, vítores. Es el momento de la máxima confianza, de la renovación del sueño de la política, de la esperanza.

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Por eso Maquiavelo le recomendaba al Príncipe usar ese tiempo de gracia, esos primeros 100 días de luna de miel entre el gobernante y el pueblo, para tomar las decisiones fuertes y dolorosas que necesitaría a lo largo de su período de gobierno. Es posible, razonaba el florentino, que te perdonen en estos primeros 100 días, luego las críticas perderán indulgencia.
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¿Vivimos aún los 100 primeros días de la era Obama, o ese simbólico tiempo de gracia empezó a terminar, y los actos y proyectos del líder norteamericano comienzan a mirarse con ojos menos complacientes?
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Quizá algo de esto haya. Obama lanzó su cuarto plan de rescate financiero para empresas y bancos, y los grandes popes del análisis político y económico –incluidos dos premios Nobel– dicen que sus planes no son más que un refrito de los manotazos de los últimos días de Bush, y que no resolverán nada.
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Para colmo, desde los organismos multilaterales los diagnósticos de la crisis se hacen cada día más duros.

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Esta semana le tocó el turno nada menos que a una vocera del Banco Mundial, la nigeriana Ngozi Okonjo-Isweala, quien, frente a la tan esperada reunión del G-20, que comenzará el 2 de abril en Londres, advierte a los países ricos sobre una oleada de disturbios sociales y crisis políticas que podría desencadenarse en los países pobres del mundo si no se los ayuda.
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Según la señora Okonjo-Isweala, cientos de miles de trabajadores pierden sus empleos en los países en desarrollo y las redes de protección social no responden, por lo que es preciso aportar más recursos financieros al “fondo de vulnerabilidad” del Banco Mundial, habida cuenta de que la crisis podría causar 90 millones de muertes y elevar a casi mil millones las personas que pasan hambre en el mundo. Cuando este tipo de advertencias vienen de una directora gerente del Banco Mundial, encienden una alarma más que notoria.
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Redistribución. La postura de los organismos multilaterales, al parecer, es advertir a los países grandes que la estrategia no pasa –al menos exclusivamente– por poner dinero en efectivo en los paquetes de medidas fiscales y en planes dirigidos a la banca y a las grandes empresas, sino que debería haber una parte de esa masa de dinero orientada hacia la asistencia directa a los pobres, a ese enorme conjunto de países que no tienen un escaño en la mesa del G-20.
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El propio Barack Obama se dirigió esta semana a los líderes del G-20. De una manera bastante insólita para un presidente norteamericano, mediante una nota periodística publicada en el International Herald Tribune, urgió a los países más desarrollados a acordar una estrategia para reflotar la economía mundial.
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Su columna coincidió con las primeras reacciones del nuevo programa para salir de la crisis, que se asienta en la persuasión a inversores privados para que compren hasta un billón de dólares en “activos tóxicos”, esos bonos que, en gran medida, son los responsables del colapso financiero que vivimos.
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Pero los dulces 100 primeros días parecen terminar. Como respuesta al plan de rescate, el premio Nobel de economía Joseph Stiglitz opinó que difícilmente funcione; que el “plan Geithner”, como lo llama, está lleno de defectos, y que tiene “incentivos perversos”. Esto último, porque el gobierno utiliza al contribuyente para asegurar el riesgo de pérdidas en el valor de esos activos, al tiempo que ofrece potenciales beneficios a inversores privados. O sea, otra vez el orden es: primero la banca y los empresarios, y en segundo término, la gente común.
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Incluso si el plan lograra limpiar las masivas “deudas tóxicas” de los bancos, eso no implicaría que las firmas estén dispuestas a conceder nuevos préstamos, mientras que una mayor carga impositiva para financiar estos planes del gobierno podría debilitar aún más a los consumidores estadounidenses, razona Stiglitz.
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El otro premio Nobel tan escuchado en estos días, Paul Krugman, se expresó en el mismo sentido: “No va a funcionar, es más que decepcionante”, fueron sus duras palabras. Se acabaron los primeros 100 días.
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El “plan Geithner” tiene riesgos. Si fracasa, como advierten las grandes voces del análisis económico, ¿estaría Obama dispuesto a nacionalizar las empresas y la banca?

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President Obama will try to convince the American people on Tuesday night that he is going to “cut” the deficit in half while he actually increases it. Even if you put all the blame for last year’s deficit ($454 billion) on President Bush, ignoring the fact that Democrats controlled Congress, it is dishonest to blame him for the deficit projected for this year ($1.3 trillion).

Yet that is exactly what President Obama plans to do. He will tell the American people that he “inherited” a $1.3 trillion deficit even though he has pushed for and won $350 billion for Wall Street and $1.1 trillion for the stimulus bill.

We won’t hold our breath waiting for the media to hold President Obama accountable but if he truly wants to cut the deficit in half, he needs to find a way to get it down to $227 billion, which is half of what he actually inherited. And he should do it by reducing spending, not raising taxes. Raising taxes is the last thing our economy needs right now.

THE REAL NUMBERS

Here are the federal budget deficits for the past eight years and the projected deficit for this year under President Obama. As you can see, the deficit was coming down toward the end of President Bush’s second term before it shot back up. Not only did Democrats take over Congress and write the spending bills for Fiscal Year 2008, they also worked with President Bush to spend $350 billion on the Wall Street bailout. The massive deficit in FY08 is a bipartisan failure, but the deficit in FY09 is a direct result of President Obama’s policies and his unwillingness to control big spending Democrats in Congress.

FY2001 — Bush / GOP House / Dem Senate = $128.2 billion
FY2002 — Bush / GOP House / Dem Senate = -$157.8 billion
FY2003 — Bush / GOP House / GOP Senate = -$377.6 billion
FY2004 — Bush / GOP House / GOP Senate = -$412.7 billion
FY2005 — Bush / GOP House / GOP Senate = -$318.3 billion
FY2006 — Bush / GOP House / GOP Senate = -$248.2 billion
FY2007 — Bush / Dem House / Dem Senate = -$160.7 billion
FY2008 — Bush / Dem House / Dem Senate = -$454.8 billion
FY2009 — Obama / Dem House / Dem Senate = -$1.3 TRILLION (estimate)

Ten Foreign Policy Questions for the Next President Introduction)

Ten Foreign Policy Questions for the Next President (1 of

Ten Foreign Policy Questions for the Next President (2 of

Ten Foreign Policy Questions for the Next President (3 of

Ten Foreign Policy Questions for the Next President (4 of

Ten Foreign Policy Questions for the Next President (5 of

Ten Foreign Policy Questions for the Next President (6 of

Ten Foreign Policy Questions for the Next President (7 of

Ten Foreign Policy Questions for the Next President (8 of

Background Articles and Videos

Michael F. Scheuer

“…Michael F. Scheuer is a former CIA employee. In his 22-year career, he served as the Chief of the Bin Laden Issue Station (aka “Alec Station”), from 1996 to 1999, the Osama bin Laden tracking unit at the Counterterrorist Center. He then worked again as Special Advisor to the Chief of the bin Laden unit from September 2001 to November 2004.

Not much is known about his personal history, though Scheuer was an analyst at the CIA and not a covert field operations officer. Scheuer graduated from Canisius College in 1974, and went on to earn an M.A. from Niagara University in 1976 and another M.A. from Carleton University in 1981.^[1] He also received a Ph.D. in British Empire-U.S.-Canada-U.K. relations from the University of Manitoba in 1986.^[2]

Scheuer is now known to be the anonymous author of both Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror and the earlier anonymous work, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes: Osama bin Laden, Radical Islam, and the Future of America.^[3]

Osama bin Laden stated in his September 7, 2007 message:

“If you want to understand what’s going on and if you would like to get to know some of the reasons for your losing the war against us, then read the book of Michael Scheuer.” [3][4]

Scheuer’s latest book, Marching Toward Hell: America and Islam After Iraq was released on February 12, 2008.

In the 9/11 Commission Report, Scheuer is featured in Chapter 4, where his name is given only as “Mike”. He is portrayed as being occasionally frustrated with his superiors’ failure to aggressively target bin Laden.

Scheuer resigned in 2004. He is currently a news analyst for CBS News and a terrorism analyst for The Jamestown Foundation’s online publication Global Terrorism Analysis.^[4] He also makes radio and television appearances and teaches a graduate-level course on Al-Qaeda at Georgetown University. He also participates in conferences on terrorism and national security issues, such as the New America Foundation’s December 2004 conference, “Al Qaeda 2.0: Transnational Terrorism After 9/11.” [5]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HIQ6AInzmhE

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Why immigration will be the number 1 political issue in the 2008 Presidential Election! — Gum Balls

Presidential Candidates on Illegal Immigration, Criminal Alien Removal and Social Service Benefits

The Cost of Comprehensive Immigration Reform–McCain and Obama Are Hopeless–It is the Economy Stupid!

John McCain’s Position on Illegal Immigration and Criminal Alien Removal? 

Presidential Election 2008: American Elites Vs. American People

Alan Keyes on Immigration

US Immigration Videos 

Two pieces here on lessons learned from the Bush years. First, Bob Woodward has a list of 10 takeaways that paint a grim picture of dysfunction, dischord and incompetence. And second, more advice from GOP insider and former Bush speechwriter, David Frum. He too picks up on the issue of incompetence.

There’s actually a lot that President-elect Barack Obama can learn from the troubled presidency of George W. Bush.

Yourdailynanners.com has learned (from the tattered monkey puppet himself) that Nanners was the angry journalist who flung a shoe at President George W. Bush last week. When asked why he would throw a shoe, he simply replied, “Because I didn’t have any poo, so I picked an object that rhymed and threw it.” That’s monkey logic for ya!

Nanners personally doesn’t have anything against the President, unless of course, you count the current economic crisis, the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan –or lack of, the lead-up and events following 9/11, budget cuts, torture, the complete lack of competence, the failure to find Osama Bin Laden, higher taxes, the deterioration of the U.S. global image and reputation in the world spectrum, the slow response to Katrina, the massive loss of innocent life under his watch and the fueling of Islamic terrorism–but who’s counting. Rather, Nanners just loves hurling insults in the shape of insoles, so he figured, why not. Can you blame him?

Here’s the raw video…I love that he laughs it off and even cracks a relatively funny joke! –

He’s wavering….

President George W. Bush said on Monday an announcement on a auto industry rescue was not imminent, leaving the industry’s fate clouded in uncertainty for a little longer.

“We’re not quite ready to announce that yet,” Bush told reporters on Air Force One during a flight from Baghdad on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan.

He had been asked when he might make an anticipated announcement about tapping a $700 billion financial industry bailout fund to aid General Motors Corp, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC.

Asked whether he was leaning toward using financial bailout funds, Bush said: “I signaled that that’s a possibility.”

Bush said a decision would not take long. White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said earlier that she had no timetable for a decision.

For the love of everything, just tell them no so they can get on with filing for bankruptcy.

My Flag Flies Everyday

Today, I saw another interesting news bit. This time it was a map of the US showing the states that are asking for a bailout. Of course, my home state of Illinois is up there with its hand out too. We have good company though; New York, Ohio, California, Arizona, and a few others. All of these states share a common trait. Their political populations are Democratic.  What is it about Democrats? Why are they lined up with their hands out? Do they know any other way to live?

I can only speak for Illinois,  but I’m sure the other states have similar problems. The biggest problem in Illinois is that our leaders have never heard of the concept of a balanced budget. They do, however, know how to spend, raise taxes, and raid pension funds. Recently, Cook County President, Todd Stroger instituted a sales tax increase which makes the residents of Cook County among the highest tax payers in the country. The ink isn’t even dry on the law yet, and he is asking for a bailout. When is enough, enough?

Without a curb on spending and learning to live within our means, the deficit grows, and grows, and grows. Each of the states listed in the bailout demographic has a long time penchant for spending except Arizona. These states have never learned to say “no.” I was surprised to see Arizona included in this demographic, until I realized that they too have become democratic in recent years. At one time, Arizona was a very conservative state. They are now faced with shortfalls, and debt that is beyond their means to pay. Is this what appeals to Democrats? 

Our Federal  Government is no different, except it owns the printing press, and the plates for making money. Each Democratic government from Lyndon Johnson to Bill Clinton supported spending beyond the means to pay back. They invented social programs which caused the banking system to fail, and legislated laws governing everything from fuel mileage to drilling  for oil.

Democrat Bill Clinton brags about his balanced budget and a predicted budget surplus. It is my thinking that the government should have lowered taxes to give the surplus back before the temptation to spend it went into high gear. Our representatives in Washington only saw it as an opportunity to spend it all before we figured it out.

Along comes Barack Obama who for the past two years has been brainwashing the country into believing life is really bad. He created the concept of “failed economic policies,” and turned the idea into a “self fulfilling prophecy.” In very eloquent rhetoric he hypnotized the populace into believing the failure was real. Then, very cleverly, he blamed it on George Bush. I am not a big supporter of W, but give me a break. He is not the reason the banks failed. He did stretch us with the war, but not the subprime loan curse. Had he found WMD in Iraq, things might be different. We didn’t find them, so we have a huge expenditure we don’t need. 

Now, we are faced with a prophecy that is becoming reality. Barack was so good at brainwashing the country, he is being called upon to correct his largest problem, i.e. keeping the country from going into a full blown depression. The number of states lined up with a hand out is a glance into the near future of “Change We Can Believe In.” He never did define what the change would be, did he?.

Really the whole week boiled down to the Fiddle-off on Monday.

and new graphics fancy DG graphics to boot! Change be good?

Another one of the things I’m going to miss when W is gone; Barney.

I think that’s the treatment any media person would get right now if they tried to pet a Republican. Good thing that guy was with Reuters though, if he was with the AP Barney might have tried to maul him.

Step aside, Muntadar al-Zeidi.

Jarnail Singh is here.

Singh, a journalist with the world’s largest selling newspaper Dainik Jagran hurled at shoe at India’s home minister, P. Chidambaram (in picture), at a media conference in New Delhi on Tuesday.

And like with George W. Bush, the missile missed the intended target.

While Dubya ducked in time and recovered to say it was a “Size 10″, the Harvard-educated Indian victim didn’t have to do much. He lent back to avoid it as the shoe (size unknown) whizzed past him to his right.

“Please take him away,” Chidambaram said.

While Muntadar’s shoe was a gift “from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq,” Singh, a defence correspondent described by friends as a “silent” type, directed his ire at the minister of the Congress party which presided over a grisly genocide against Sikhs, following the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi, in 1984.

India’s premier investigation agency, the Central Bureau of Investigation CBI), recently gave a clean chit to Jagadish Tytler, a politician accused of leading the mobs against Sikhs 25 years ago. Tytler is a Congress candidate for the coming general elections from the national capital, Delhi.

According to the The Times of India, the incident occurred when theturbaned journalist persisted with his line of questioning. Chidambaram told him “no arguments, you are using this forum…,” following which the journalist hurled his shoe.

An unapologetic Singh said he will not apologise for his action, though his manner of protest might have been wrong.

“My manner of protest might have been wrong, but I did not intend to hurt anyone,” he said.

Asked if he could have used some other manner to protest, he said, “for the last 25 years this has been happening. So what other method is left (to protest)”.

Also read: ‘A kiss from the widows and orphans killed in Iraq’