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The article is in English, more stuff on Bush administration, by Bernstein of Woodward and Bernstein fame
http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/59/19158
Bush and Cheney have been hardly less succinct about the president's duty and right to assume unprecedented authority nowhere specified in the Constitution. "[E]specially in the day and age we live in … the president of the United States needs to have his Constitutional powers unimpaired, if you will, in terms of the conduct of national-security policy," Cheney said less than four months ago.
Is incompetence an impeachable offense? The question is another reason to defer the fraught matter of impeachment (if deserved) in the Bush era until the ground is prepared by a proper fact-finding investigation and public hearings conducted by a sober, distinguished committee of Congress.
We have never had a presidency in which the single unifying thread that flows through its major decision-making was incompetence - stitched together with hubris and mendacity on a Nixonian scale. There will be no shortage of witnesses to question about the subject, among them the retired three-star Marine Corps general who served as director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the war's planning, Gregory Newbold.
Last week he wrote, "I now regret that I did not more openly challenge those who were determined to invade a country whose actions were peripheral to the real threat - Al Qaeda. I retired from the military four months before the invasion, in part because of my opposition to those who had used 9/11's tragedy to hijack our security policy." The decision to invade Iraq, he said, "was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions - or bury the results." Despite the military's determination that, after Vietnam, "[W]e must never again stand by quietly while those ignorant of and casual about war lead us into another one and then mismanage the conduct of it.… We have been fooled again."
Since I am posting these in English, I can only do this from my home computer. So not as often as before.
I wonder who thought of this wall? Sounds just like in Israel
The wall is designed to prevent Shiite death squads from launching attacks to drive out the Sunnis, and to prevent Sunni insurgents from using the pocket as a base for raids and bombing runs into Shiite areas.
Eleven days after the project began, the highway dividing Adhamiyah from its Shiite neighbours is lined with tall concrete barriers. A US military statement issued on Tuesday said troops would work nightly until it is completed.
Mr Bush apparently was not fully aware of all these hatreds. The people had Saddam to hate. Now they have the US and each other.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/Gulf/Sunnis_angered_by_security_barrier/articleshow/1935627.cms
This is all fun POLITICS now, good fight.
"Mr. President, we sincerely hope that you change your mind, that you understand that this is a responsible bill to change policy and move in a new direction — a successful direction for our efforts internationally to defeat terrorism. Sign this bill," added House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer alongside Pelosi and other top House Democrats.
And if Reid refrained from any name-calling, Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., had no problem directly attacking Cheney, saying he misled the country over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and Saddam Hussein's links to terrorists, and has sugar-coated the situation in Iraq.
"It is Vice President Cheney who has been wrong, and deadly wrong in Iraq. Even more, Vice President Cheney is the last person in the administration who should accuse anyone of making uninformed and misleading statements," Kennedy said, speaking Tuesday from the Senate floor.
But with scant Republican support for the timetable provisions and heavy criticism of the domestic spending items, Democrats will not be able to overcome the two-thirds majority needed to override the veto. Democrats then would be forced to rework the bill into something that could pass both chambers.
Republican opposition began ramping up Tuesday. Radio ads were expected to begin running that would attack Reid, D-Nev., in the words of an Iraq veteran.
According to a transcript, an Iraq veteran identified as Capt. Trip Bellard says, "Senator Reid's remarks undercut the morale of our soldiers and undermine our troops on the ground."
And GOP party officials on Tuesday hoped to use words from one of the chief withdrawal proponents, Rep. Jack Murtha, D-Pa., against the Democratic cause. The RNC distributed a clip of Murtha being interviewed on a cable news show answering a question about how to respond to Bush saying that Congress "shouldn't be micromanaging the war."
"That's our job," Murtha said, adding that the White House has been unaccountable with contractors and spending in Iraq. "It's time for [Bush] to get a redeployment plan. If he doesn't do that, we're going to have the disaster he predicts. ... I think the surge has failed."
Just a minute Giuliani
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0407/3684.html
it was in a REPUBLICAN presidency that Bin Laden attacked. A Democrat might not have brought the desired effect: invasion of the middle east, toppled Saddam, and produced the new Muslim state that Iaq will be.
Giuliani's comments were similar to arguments used by President George W. Bush and other Republicans during the 2004 and 2006 elections.
Obama and Clinton said Americans had moved beyond Republican rhetoric about September 11.
"Rudy Giuliani today has taken the politics of fear to a new low and I believe Americans are ready to reject those kind of politics," Obama, an Illinois senator, said in a statement.
"The threat we face is real, and deserves better than to be the punch line of another political attack," he said.
Clinton, a New York senator, said the last six years of the Bush administration have showed "political rhetoric won't do anything to quell those threats. And that America is ready for a change."
"We have to protect our country from terrorism -- it shouldn't be a Democratic fight or a Republican fight," she said in a statement.
In 2004 Bush was re-elected after questioning Democratic Sen. John Kerry's ability to fight terrorists, and Vice President Dick Cheney said a Kerry vote could lead to another terrorist attack.
The tactic was less effective during the 2006 congressional elections, when Democrats swept to power in both houses of Congress despite Republican warnings that Democratic candidates had a "pre-9/11 mind set" that would put the country at risk.
And we can go right back to Göring again:
"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
-- Herman Goering at the Nuremberg trials
Zzeus11
26 April 2007, 13:43
...if the Democrats win, that is. Giuliani says, however, that if a Republican is elected another terrorist attack can be anticipated and stopped because, he says, Republicans will remain on the offense. "I listen a little to the Democrats and if one of them gets elected, we are going on defense. We will wave the white flag on Iraq. We will cut back on the Patriot Act, electronic surveillance, interrogation and we will be back to our pre-Sept. 11 attitude of defense."
Giuliani also says that the Democrats do not understand the threat of the "terrorist war against us." Uh oh ... did you notice a bit of PC in that statement? How about the "Islamic terrorist war against us"?
Giuliani has much of this right. Democrats will absolutely go on the defense as soon as they can .. and a defensive posture before these Islamic murderers is suicide. Simply put ... we have identify them and go kill them over there before they come and kill us over here. But why allow political correctness play such a role here? The enemy is radical Islam. How can we say we are serious about fighting the enemy if we won't even speak its name?
It is mostly a security issue, authorize all domestic measures needed. Homeland Security, wiretapping, whatever it takes. We have good intelligence people. War is not needed.;)
All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."
more: the PRESIDENT is not accountable
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/26/opinion/main2730556.shtml
This President has been denied nothing by Congress in the way of financial underwriting for this boondoggle, yet he seeks to cast even the mildest attempt to hold him accountable for the results as unpatriotic. That is all that the Democratic Congressional leadership has proposed with its timetable — marks to measure progress on the ground in a war that, as Hawaii Sen. Daniel Inouye pointed out, has lasted longer than World War II. It is a very limited, nonbinding attempt to hold the President accountable, for it does not ban him from using any portion of the whopping $124 billion in new funds; it requires only that he publicly and specifically defend his claims of progress.
Show down in Egypt? Or more of the same?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/04/29/ap/politics/main2739275.shtml
Bush anxious to veto bill even before it arrives.
The $124-billion war funding bill passed last week by Congress includes a timetable for withdrawal, and will be vetoed shortly after it arrives at the White House, perhaps as soon as Tuesday.
The next day, attention will shift to a replacement bill. Top Democrats have indicated this second version of the legislation could drop the withdrawal timetable, and include benchmarks ordering the Iraqi government to move the process of national reconciliation forward.
Strong anti-war members of the House and Senate are urging the party leadership to ensure this new bill will put sufficient pressure on the Iraqis to take action that would enable American troops to come home.
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200704/200704300024.html
new minimum wage bill all in danger due to angry Bush. Bush not ready to get a Veto-George tattoo on chest, though.
Thursday's vote was 51-46. Republican Sens. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and Gordon Smith of Oregon joined Democrats in supporting the bill. Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman, who caucuses with the Democrats, voted with Republicans opposing it.
Two supporters of Bush's Iraq policy -- Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina -- did not vote.
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/42856000/jpg/_42856129_bush1_ap203b.jpg
"Ultimately there will be some effort to achieve a compromise of sorts and the question is, who will blink first?" says Mr Sides.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6597545.stm
NY TImes leftist propaganda
The Democrats’ ceremony, featuring the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, is part of the elaborate political theater at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue surrounding the Iraq spending bill, which is destined to produce only the second veto of Mr. Bush’s presidency.
But with Mr. Bush planning to spend Tuesday in Florida talking to military commanders, the White House was being coy on Monday about what kind of theatrics of his own — if any — he might stage. Democrats, however, said they expected the veto to come on Wednesday.
Mr. Bush’s spokesman, Tony Snow, said, “We’ll make clear what we intend and how we intend to do it at the proper time.”
Mr. Bush, speaking to reporters in the Rose Garden after meeting with leaders of the European Union, expressed optimism that the two sides could reach a compromise after his veto, which Democrats concede they will not be able to override.
"A few minutes ago I vetoed the bill", says prez. I want to see exactly what his scribble looks like.
http://www.abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=3119320
something like this
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/07/images/20040715-3_hp8c1446-515h.html
Now it is all political games. We will give you something if you give us minimum wage. Those lehmäkaupat. On going, in DC.
"If the president thinks by vetoing this bill he will stop us from working to change the direction of the war in Iraq, he is mistaken," Reid said. "Now he has an obligation to explain his plan to responsibly end this war."
The fight has been brewing for nearly three months, ever since Bush sent Congress his request for emergency financing for operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, including money to support a surge in the number of troops in Iraq.
Congressional leaders were scheduled to meet with Bush on Wednesday at the White House to open negotiations on a new bill. They were expected to look for ways to preserve the benchmarks for progress in Iraq that were included in the initial bill while eliminating the timetables for troop withdrawal that Bush has emphatically rejected.
Several Republican leaders said Tuesday that they were likely to support such benchmarks, and White House aides said Tuesday that Bush, who has supported goals and benchmarks for the Iraqi government, might back such a measure - but only if the benchmarks are nonbinding.
"There are a number of Republicans who do think that some kind of benchmarks, properly crafted, would actually be helpful," said Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader in the Senate.
It is coming to gridlock:
Bush - who vetoed the Iraq funding bill on the fourth anniversary of his infamous ''Mission Accomplished'' speech that declared an end to combat in Iraq on an aircraft carrier off San Diego - seems ever more divorced from reality as he heads into the final 20 months of his time in office.
http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_5820784
Bush vetoed 140 billion, now he is offered 40 billion, but no guarantees past July
House Democratic leaders briefed party members Tuesday on new legislation that would fund the Iraq war through July, then give Congress the option of cutting off money if conditions do not improve.
If members agree to back the plan as expected, a vote on the new war spending bill could come as early Thursday. The proposal, pitched last week by Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., was first disclosed last week by The Associated Press.
Democrats told reporters the plan is likely to provide more than $40 billion for the war and other high-priority projects, then vote "mid summer" on whether to release more money for military operations.
In an incredibly telling story just out on the Associated Press wire, we find out that after House Democrats agreed to push a proposal to fund the Iraq War for 60 days in order to exert ongoing oversight and not grant the White House yet another blank check, "several Senate Democrats said they would oppose a short-term funding bill because it leaves open the question of whether troops will get the resources they need after July." These unnamed "several Senate Democrats" were joined by Republican House leaders who attacked the proposal in the same way.
No matter what happens, it seems likely that Feingold-Reid will be added as an amendment in the Senate. Also, right now it seems virtually impossible for Democrats to lose this battle politically and electorally since, as diarist Robert Naiman points out, there is more than a veto-proof majority in favor of withdrawal among congressional districts. I don't know how much we can actually force Bush to de-escalate the war while he is still in the White House, but I do like the fight we have put up so far.
http://www.mydd.com/story/2007/5/8/184540/0544
The strategy was correct, to have Bush veto the first bill. If he vetos the second bill, that has no timeline, HE is holding up the money.
Bush practicing veto signature again!
WASHINGTON -- The White House threatened yesterday to veto a proposed House bill that would pay for the Iraq war only through July -- a limit that Defense Secretary Robert Gates said would be disastrous.
The warnings came as Gates also told reporters that his evaluation of force levels in Iraq in September will not lead to a rapid troop withdrawal, and that at least some US forces are likely to be in Iraq for a protracted period of time.
He said he didn't know whether it will take 25,000 troops or another number, but it would probably include intelligence officers, logistical support, and air power, and they would be needed to maintain stability in the war-wracked country.
School's out soon, I mean congress. They are anxious to pass omething before summer.
Later on Thursday, Democrats passed another bill — by a veto-proof 302-120 and with sizable Republican support — that would provide supplemental funding for agriculture disaster relief and combating wildfires (HR 2207). The money was included in the first version of the emergency supplemental bill vetoed May 1; it was not requested by Bush and the measure has separately drawn a veto threat.
There were growing signs Thursday that the pressure on the war that Democrats — as well as some Republicans — seek to impose was being felt in the White House. Bush, after a visit to the Pentagon for a private briefing on the war’s progress, indicated he was prepared to negotiate with Democrats in Congress on setting benchmarks to measure progress in the conflict.
Republicans looking ahead to the 2008 U.S. presidential election, after losing control of the U.S. Congress in November, are publicly sharing doubts about the president's war strategy.
"The American people are war-fatigued. The American people want to know that there's a way out. The American people want to know that we're having success," Illinois Republican Rep. Ray LaHood told CNN on Thursday.
LaHood was among 11 moderate Republicans who met privately with Bush at the White House on Tuesday. Most, if not all, could face stiff Democratic challenges to their re-election.
They told Bush that by September the troop buildup he ordered for Iraq three months ago must show progress.
Particularly frustrating to members of the U.S. Congress are plans by the Iraqi parliament to take a two-month summer vacation, a subject raised by Vice President Dick Cheney on his visit to Baghdad on Wednesday.
"Members really told the president, in I think the most unvarnished way that they possibly could, that things have got to change, that we're going to hang with him until September, but we need an honest assessment in September and people's patience is running very, very, very thin," LaHood said.
--Reuters
Our armed forces are up to 150,000 troops; we're over $600 billion appropriated for this, lost 3,300 lives, 25,000 wounded fellow citizens. ... And the Iraqi answer? We're taking a summer off. Goin' fishing," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (news, bio, voting record), D-Ill.
Saleh said he expects the vacation to be shortened by at least a month, although nothing had been decided. He added that Iraqis value being independent and do "not take kindly of (U.S. officials) telling us when to recess."
Democrats seemed to consider these meetings with Iraqi officials as beneficial — if only to convey their frustration to Iraqi officials in person.
Reid's spokesman Jim Manley said the senator told Saleh that "U.S. patience, blood and treasure were not unlimited and that the Congress would be taking a more decisive role in the coming weeks and months."
"Salih understood the point, and said he would deliver the message to the Iraqi cabinet," Manley added.
Bush joined ceremonies to celbrate what he called freedom at Jamestown
http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/POLITICS/05/13/jamestown.ap/vert.bush.ap.jpg
In fact Jamestown was just the beginning of exploiting the new world and stealing land from natives. Of course, that pretty much is the same as "freedom" in capitalism, colonialism.
Here we go, daddy was right.
Iraq Study Group's advice gets 2d look
May 21, 2007
After an initially tepid reception from policy makers, the recommendations of the Iraq Study Group are getting a second look from the White House and Congress as officials look for bipartisan solutions on the Iraq war. With negotiations continuing this week on a new war funding bill, the administration is strongly signaling that it would accept the idea of requiring the Iraqi government to meet political benchmarks or else risk losing some aid. (Washington Post)
Iraqi government has no clue how to run their own country alone, yet
Bush, at his ranch in Texas, called al-Maliki to mark the one-year anniversary of his inauguration.
"The president reaffirmed his confidence in the prime minister and noted the courage that he has shown in a challenging and difficult year," Bush spokesman Tony Fratto said.On Sunday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (news, bio, voting record) said Bush has a "tin ear" when it comes to Iraq and should compromise with majority Democrats on a spending bill with a timetable for U.S. troops to leave. Both sides hope to get a new bill to Bush before the Memorial Day weekend.
The White House and Congress failed to come up with a deal last week after exchanging offers and Bush's chief of staff said after a Capitol Hill meeting Friday that "timelines for withdrawal are just not the right way to go."
McConnell spoke of the need for legislation that would pass both the House and Senate, where Democrats hold a slimmer edge. He mentioned a proposal advanced by Sen. John Warner (news, bio, voting record), R-Va., and other Republicans that would set standards for the Iraqi government to meet and condition reconstruction funds on progress toward achieving the goals.
"It's what can pass the Senate," McConnell said.
To Pelosi, however, "This is too little, too late. This would have been an appropriate measure maybe three or four years ago. But the accountability is very meager in the bill," she said in an interview broadcast Sunday.
Yahoo news.
"We know from the intelligence community that al-Zarqawi welcomed the tasking and claimed he already had some good proposals," Townsend said.
She said that in the spring of 2005, bin Laden instructed Hamza Rabia, a senior operative, to brief al-Zarqawi on Al Qaeda planning to attack sites outside Iraq, including the United States. She did not disclose where in the United States those attacks were being plotted.
Around the same time, Abu Fajah al-Libi, a senior Al Qaeda manager, suggested that bin Laden send Rabia to Iraq to actually help al-Zarqawi plan the external operations, Townsend said. It is unclear whether Radbia went to Iraq, she said.
She said the information was declassified because the intelligence community has tracked all leads from the information.
Townsend disclosed the information to The Associated Press and other news agencies in advance of Bush's commencement speech Wednesday at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy. Bush is expected to emphasize the continuing threat of terrorism and recount steps taken by his administration to prevent attacks.
foxnews
How is it none of this stuff was happening in Iraq before the US invaded?:paranoid:
End of thread. Nobody played.
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