Shoes hurled at Bush

My God, what on earth could have incensed this Iraqi journalist - Muntadar al-Zeidi - to hurl his shoes at the world's greatest defender of freedom and democracy, namely President George W Bush? Said Bush, moments later: "I dunno what the guy's cause is." Hmmm, maybe the 1.3 million dead Iraqis since Bush authorized an invasion of Iraq on behalf of US oil interests? Its a toughie. Jeez, some reporters are just so damned unappreciative

Nonchalantly, Bush said that all he knew was that it was a size 10. I also take a size 10 and have a penchant for Dr Marten boots, and I know I'd not have missed. Seriously though, how many people on this planet would have just loved to see that first shoe hit Bush straight in the mouth, dislodging a row of teeth and sending them hurtling down his throat.? That figure must run into at least 5 billions. Bush also said: "This doesn't represent the Iraqi people". What? Well...er...not if 10 million of them regret the shoe was not filled with dynamite, Mr Bush. A shoe in the mouth for this merchant of death and destruction? Nothing compared to what should be done to the gloopy, blood-soaked bastard.

The journalist screamed as he threw shoes: "This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog!! This is from the widows, orphans, and those killed in Iraq!" No doubt this poor journalist will now be banged up for kissing Bush thus. I'd give the guy a medal and a horseshoe to throw next time. Meanwhile this and similar videos on Youtube will be the most viewed and shared in years (as I write, this one had 245 hits).

There are compulsive liars, pathological liars, lying bastards and then there is the Bush administration...

You're gonna love this one. It exposes downright, blatant lying at the very highest level and a lot of really angry Americans sounding off at the powerful, including Sean Penn.

PEACE WOULD WRING THEIR NECKS

How the hell do you interpret this interview, clearly heavily edited? Note again Bush speaking about those “awfully difficult decisions”, previously mentioned here, and the nonchalant reference to “World War III”, suggesting its a term Bush and his ilk bandy about a lot.

Me, I just can’t help anticipating another Gulf-of-Tonkin-type* incident, doubling as another Reichstag fire, providing the neocons with an excuse to launch an attack upon Iran and at the same time use the mass protests against it – which I imagine it would spark – as a means to impose some form of martial law.

I’m just so mindful of that incident in the Straits of Hormuz, on the eve of Bush’s trip to the Middle East to drum up support for tougher action against Iran, a move to create another “alliance of the willing”. And I’m mindful, too, that he went there with the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) fresh off the press and dismissing Washington’s line that Iran was an inch away from a nuclear capability. He told Israel that he doubted the report’s reliability and Israel concurred, cautioning that they could go it alone, launching an Osirak-like attack against Iran’s fledgling nuclear installation - and which brought no condemnation from Congress.

And if Bush doesn’t attack Iran, then his successor will.

Many US “liberals” I’ve argued with in recent weeks (in chat rooms and via emails resulting from posts I've made on Yahoo Answers) seem to think presidential hopeful Barack Obama signifies the changing tide of US politics, that he’ll not be the war monger Bush is. However, in a speech delivered before AIPAC lobbyists in Chicago, his language was clearly jingoistic. He stands, like the neocons in Washington, on a strong pro-Israel platform. He argued that the US must preserve ‘total commitment to a unique defence relationship with Israel’, that it must work to stop Iran’s nuclear program even if military action is necessary. He said that “no option, including military action, (should be taken) off the table” in the effort to stop Iran gaining a nuclear capacity. The world must work to stop Iran's uranium enrichment program and prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. It is far too dangerous to have nuclear weapons in the hands of a radical theocracy.”

On the Sunday before the Florida primary, John McCain sounded off just like Bush: “It’s a tough war we’re in. It’s not going to be over right away. There’s going to be other wars. I’m sorry to tell you, there’s going to be other wars. We will never surrender but there will be other wars.”

Prior to the the New Hampshire primary, January 3rd, McCain was asked how he felt about Bush’s remarks that the US would be in Iraq for 50 years. His reply: “make it 100 [years]".

McCain, himself a veteran of the Vietnam War, shot down after a murderous bombing run over Hanoi, has, for many years argued for unleashing hell on countries from Serbia to Iraq and Sudan to Iran. Indeed, Matt Welch , in his new book The Myth of a Maverick, argues McCain “envisions a more militaristic foreign policy than any US president in a century."

Not only would he let loose the US war machine on large parts of the world, he’s all for the militarization of US society too. Check out this piece of writing from The Washington Monthly, back in 2001, entitled Putting the “National” in National Service.

In the meantime, Bush is making sure that if he doesn’t flatten Iran and similar defiers of US hegemony, then whoever succeeds him as president has the weaponry at their disposal to pursue US interests for a few years to come. His demand for $515.4 billion for the Defence Department is minus the expenditure of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which accounted to nearly $200 billion over the last budget year and which is estimated to cost $140 billion in 2009. Then append to those sums $17.1 billion for the Department of Energy's weapons program and over $40 billion for the Department of Homeland Security and other national security initiatives spread throughout the federal government, and you begin to realise just how obsessed with militarism, at home and abroad, the forces of reaction are in the US. This is one huge amount!!

Remember also that the $3 trillion budget, released Monday, includes $2.55 billion in defence assistance for the US Middle East satellite Israel and which increases in increments until 2013, when it will settle at $3.1 billion a year until 2018.

Call me a panic merchant, but maybe it’s because I’m all too aware of the nature of the beast! What was that line from Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage, the one where the protagonist, who traipses her family around with her, as she makes a living from trading with Europe’s war machines of the 1600s, despairs at the cessation of hostilities? Oh yes, “Peace will wring my neck.”

__________

* The Gulf of Tonkin incident was an alleged attack by North Vietnamese ships upon American boats. As a result of this alleged aggression, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Johnson permission to expand the Vietnam War.

F*** the constitution - there's profits to be had

A few years back, when Bush signed the annual National Defence Authorisation Act, he not only increased the funding for the already bloated shadow government, but increased the powers of the executive branch and formally announced it was preparing for domestic insurrection, pre-emptively stripping state governors and legislatures of their powers. The federal government was openly stating that it is the only authority – screw the people, we do what we want, where we want, when we want.

Then on May 9th 2007 President Bush signed the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, unlawfully granting himself further powers. The presidency officially became a dictatorship Whereas In the past, continuity of government has been shared between the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government, now all power was invested in the president. For the smallest of reasons, according the document’s own text, any incident in the world, regardless of location that affects population, infrastructure, environment, economy or government function, can trigger, at the president’s will, total martial law.

This week, signing the National Defense Authorization Act 2008, Bush declared that he has power to circumvent four more laws, including a ban against using federal funds to establish permanent US military bases in Iraq. He declared that four sections of the bill unconstitutionally infringe on his powers, and so the executive branch is not bound to obey them.

Bush has inadvertently admitted that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was aimed primarily at seizing major influence over its oil by establishing military bases. One section Bush targeted created a statute that forbids spending taxpayer money "to establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq" or "to exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq."

We learn also this week that Washington is negotiating a long-term agreement with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, that includes the basing of US troops in Iraq after 2008, as well as security guarantees and other economic and political ties between the United States and Iraq.

Every time Bush or a senior administration official has been questioned about permanent US military bases in Iraq, they argue that it is not their intention to construct such facilities, that the object is the democratisation of Iraq priot to a US departure.

Bush did not explain the specific basis for his objection to the prohibition on establishing permanent military bases in Iraq, but last year, the White House told Congress that a comparable condition in another bill "impermissibly infringes upon the president's constitutional authority to negotiate treaties and conduct the nation's foreign affairs."

The incessant signing of statements to advance executive power has been a trademark of his presidency. Presidents have done this in the past, but Bush has contested more sections of bills than all of his predecessors combined – including the ban on torture.

Clearly, the White House is determined to establish that the commander in chief can defy laws limiting his options in national security matters. to determine how and when US force will be used abroad, and which is widely perceived as a snub to the American constitutional. Or, fuck the constitution, there’s profits to be had.

Antonia Juhasz of the group Oil Change International argues that the issues of oil and permanent military bases are related.

"We've got the Bush administration pushing aggressively for an (Iraqi) law that would give oil companies 20- to 25-year contracts for oil in Iraq and if they were to be at work for an extended length of time, they would need security…If the U.S. military is going to stay in Iraq for 20 or 35 years, they're going to need bases….The bottom line has to be in the willingness to give the money. The budget for the war this year has reached 170 billion dollars for just the next year."

And meanwhile we learn from Akhbar Alkhaleej , a Bahraini daily (translation here) :

“An Iraqi member of parliament said secret talks have been opened by parties representing American oil companies, that include an American offer to give deputies who vote in favor of the Oil and Gas Law money amounting to five million dollars.

”The Iraqi deputy, who preferred his name not be mentioned, said the amount of money that could be paid for passage of the Oil and Gas Law [thus] doesn't exceed $150 million, if the $5 million figure is specified for each deputy, and this will be an insignificant amount compared to the concessions these American companies will obtain. He was referring to the fact that the Oil Law needs 138 votes to pass, and this is what the American parties are trying to obtain by several different methods, including the buying of votes, and blandishments, and threats.

“The deputy said he thinks the Americans will adhieve their aim with some deputies who will promise to vote for the bill in exchange for the mentioned amount of money, but he said others will not be selling their votes for any price, or under any type of pressure.

”The Iraqi deputy said these talks, which are being kept in the highest degree of secrecy, are centered on the leaders of parliamentary blocs, and on persons with influence in Parliament, so as to obtain the biggest number of votes possible. He said the Americans already had the votes of the Kurdish lists assured, but what they are trying for is to get sufficient votes to pass the bill and enact it at the earliest possible time.

”Recall that there are still parliamentary blocs that are firmly against voting for the Oil and Gas Law, and that there are others that say this should be put to a popular referendum, since it is something that concerns the fate of Iraq's oil wealth, and the sustenance of the Iraqi people."

Looks like the anti-war movement had better invest in a sturdy banner. US capitalism's blood for oil programme looks sent to continue until the last barrel of black gold is extracted from beneath the sands of Iraq. And it looks, too, as if average Americans are in for a tough future, with Bush giving himself increasingly more powers that will enable him to crush dissent. Makes sense though - if you're gonna pull of something big, like annex Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran and bog down US forces in a lengthy war for oil - and personally I think this is coming - then you're gonna need someone with dictatorial powers to quell opposition at home for, as any ruler knows, sometimes your own people can be the biggest obstacle to your profits overseas

Bush's Bullshit the Union Address

Just spent the last half-hour reading President Bush’s State of the Union Address from last night in anticipation of writing something significant here. Cutting through all the US political jargon – much different from Labour Party speak which I’m more familiar with – it was pretty much predictable. As expected, he again defended the Iraq invasion, hyped up the troop ‘surge’ as a great success and sent a warning to Iran saying how the US will continue to defend its “vital interests” – he means oil, but somehow never managed to get the word out.

Centrepiece was the Economic Stimulus package, which is supposed to be a short term measure to stave off recession. It involves a $150 billion bribe to 170 American citizens in the shape of rebate cheques. Nothing like buying your way out of recession! Oh yeah, and there was tax cuts for the rich. Well if you’re gonna give the low-paid something, you gotta keep the wealthy sweet.

As far as this blog is concerned, with its penchant for news on the increasing global surveillance society we live in, Bush also urged lawmakers to endorse a new surveillance bill that would grant immunity to telecom companies that aided warrantless spying on U.S. citizens.

Said Bush:

“One of the most important tools we can give them is the ability to monitor terrorist communications. To protect America, we need to know who the terrorists are talking to, what they are saying, and what they are planning. Last year, the Congress passed legislation to help us do that. Unfortunately, Congress set the legislations to expire on February the 1st. That means if you don’t act by Friday, our ability to track terrorist threats would be weakened and our citizens will be in greater danger. Congress must ensure the flow of vital intelligence is not disrupted. Congress must pass liability protection for companies believed to have assisted in the efforts to defend America. We have had ample time for debate. The time to act is now.”

In light of what happened on Monday - when Democrats in the Senate temporarily defeated an effort by Republicans to pass a bill that also expands the government’s authority to conduct warrantless spying powers – this reeks of emotional blackmail. Here’s Bush bullshitting at its best, and it’s got naff all to do with terrorist threats, defending America or to protect telecom companies from lawsuits from irate customers who have been spied upon. In truth, this “immunity” he hankers after is all about concealing the true level of state snooping on American citizens for the past seven years. Existing laws make it a felony for telecom companies to spy on customers on behalf of the government, handing over customers’ records, without a warrant, and which has been the case in recent years. Bush’s proposal not only saves telecom companies $billions, saves his administration embarrassment if people knew the degree to which they were mistrusted and spied upon, but also allows the Bush regime to continue with its plan for a surveillance state unmolested.

As I write, the fate of the surveillance legislation is uncertain. Though the Democrats blocked a Republican-led effort to end debate on the issue, they lost a measure that would have granted a thirty-day extension to continue discussion. But a dozen or so Democrats have joined Republicans in backing telecom immunity and from what I can make out the big vote on the issue is tonight. And it looks like the repukes are gonna have it their way. The totalitarian global state edges nearer.

Me, I prefer Bush when he told it like it is, no bullshit. Below is Bush as we best remember him and here presenting a previous State of the Union Address.

Meet the Bush Family - Nazis, crooks and murderers

As I’ve spent most of the day answering political questions via Yahoo Answers, this evening, Class Warfare takes time out for brief a diversion into the realms of conspiracy theory. Yeah, I know, socialists are not supposed to be into conspiracies – seeing it as safer to analyse things from the official version, thus, in my view, helping to maintain the official version. One thing I just will not swallow, though, is the official “Warren Commission” report of the Kennedy assassination, that Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone gunman who fired three shots at the president. Jeez, anyone looking at Kennedy getting his brains blown out can see that the bullet comes from the front

Anyway, I digress. This film looks at the Bush family connection to the assassination. It's only 22 minutes in length and is actually part of a longer film up on Google Video here

Strange coincidences

Prescott Bush, banker to the Nazis and grandfather of George W. Bush, sponsored the rise of an obscure California right-wing politician who socialized extensively with Nazi sympathizers: Richard M. Nixon.

Richard Nixon hired a "gofer" to assist him with his campaigning and other matters: Mob - connected Jack Ruby who later moved to Dallas.

Just days after the Kennedy assassination, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover pointedly mentioned "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency" in a memo discussing the reaction of right-wing Cubans to the assassination. Two of the boats used in the infamous Bay of Pigs invasion were coincidentally named "Barbara" (the name of Bush's wife) and "Zapata" the name of his oil company.

Bush Sr. claims he was not in the CIA before becoming Director, but evidence shows that he was not only in the CIA, but also actively involved in the Bay of Pigs invasion

Richard Nixon and George Bush are distinguished as being among the only prominent people in America who later claimed they could not remember where they were the day Kennedy was assassinated. (Fast forward to the 45 minute mark.)

And that's just the tip of the iceberg...

The Bush Administration - lie mongers extraordinaire

The ”tell a big lie and more people will believe it” quote, first used by Hitler in his autobiographical Mein Kampf, was made famous by Joseph Goebbels, propaganda minister for the Third Reich. It could not be easier – if you’re gonna lie to the people, make it damned big, reiterate it as often as you can, and the people will perceive it as the truth, believing no government could tell them such horrid lies.

The OSS (Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the modern CIA) described how, during World War Two, the Nazis used the Big Lie: "[They] never allow the public to cool off; never admit a fault or wrong; never concede that there may be some good in your enemy; never leave room for alternatives; never accept blame; concentrate on one enemy at a time and blame him for everything that goes wrong; people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one; and if you repeat it frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it."

Fast foreword more than 60 years…

The non-profit Centre for Public Integrity has been busy lately with their lie detector. President George W. Bush and seven of his administration's top officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condi Rice and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, made an estimated 935 brazen and bare faced lies in the two years after the attack on 9/11, and relating to the threat to the USA posed by Saddam Hussein. Needless to say, the continual bombardment of official porkies upon a largely gullible public had the desired effect, namely in whipping up support across the US for the invasion of Iraq.

On at least 532 separate occasions (in speeches, briefings, interviews, testimony, and the like), Bush and his trustworthy sidekicks, along with Secretary of State Colin Powell (remember his speech to the UN?) , Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and White House press secretaries Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan, assured us unambiguously that Iraq had WMDs and was intent on using them.

The same arguments were promoted by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, famously with the support of a secret dossier he presented to the British public as his reason for a war with Iraq, and which turned out to be a student’s thesis, written ten year earlier, that MI5 found on the internet. Remember all those stories about Saddam being able to lob a missile at Britain within 45 minutes? Maybe the same people who came up with the lies mouthed by the Bush team can now start adding up the same for the Blair clique. Check out the list of hundreds of links to the articles from the mainstream media on that secret dossier/Iraqgate on the Labour-Watch site.

What is now 100% certain is that Saddam had none of the WMD’s claimed by the Bush administration and neither did he have any links to Al Qaeda. This was the conclusion of numerous cross-party investigations, including those by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2004 and 2006), the 9/11 Commission, and the multinational Iraq Survey Group, whose "Duelfer Report" established that Saddam Hussein had halted Iraq's nuclear programme over ten years earlier and had made no attempt since to restart it.

On a lie, over 1,168,000 Iraqi civilians have been put to death and at the cost of $hundreds of billions. On a lie, Iraq was mercilessly bombed back into the Stone Age, its infrastructure and culture decimated, and still the bombardment continues. Tens of millions marched and demonstrated throughout the world on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, including an estimated 2 million in London. From the moment Bush and Blair announced their case for the attack on Iraq, Socialists and the left wing, even die hard Labour Party supporters, penned tens of thousands of articles, gave hundreds of lectures, held numerous debates and rallies and vigils and all to no avail. I myself took part in an evening rally in Newcastle that was bombarded with eggs by disgruntled, patriotic workers who had been hooked by the Bush-Blair spiel.

Socialists have been truly vindicated. We argued the WMD case was a lie, along with the crap about Saddam’s links to Al Qaeda. We argued the war was about oil and profits for contractors and about how it fitted in with the profit laden weltanshaung of the Bush administration, that this was part and parcel of the US move to control the oil and gas reserves of the Middle East and Central Asia and at a time when India and China were sizing up the US corporate elite.

There is a lot of truth in the socialist joke: “Q - How can you tell when a politician is lying?; A- when their lips move” . They will lie at every opportunity, indeed, are on record as boasting that they have to tell lies sometimes (sometimes?!). Which is understandable considering the con trick they have to pull off daily and on behalf of the master class. To be kept in a permanent state of subjection, workers have to be lied to at every opportunity, from the cradle to the grave, by our parents, teachers, spiritual leaders, you name it – all of them take part in the lie-mongering business; the bigger, the better the results.

Socialists don’t batter the workers with lies. Our message is simple. Don’t trust leaders and don’t look to us to lead. Question everything! The most dangerous weapon you have is your ability to think, to ask questions, to debate, to refute the official line. You tune this weapon and you can join a movement that no army could stop with all the weapons of murder at its disposal, a movement that will settle the big issue – the one about the ownership of the word – on the battlefield of ideas, where a class-conscious majority will not tolerate bullshit from on high.

Bush the warmonger? Yup, just like his fascist forbears!

Speaking to some of his Saudi cousins at a sword dance in Riyadh the other day, George W Bush said: “I’m sure people view me as a warmonger and I view myself as peacemaker.”

Just where the hell did this man of god get this notion? Maybe he’s been peeking at the side bar of this page and that little thingamajig that totals, by the second, the cost of the war in Iraq so far, and which currently says it has cost nigh on $ half a trillion. Maybe after seeing that he clicked on the piece I posted not so long ago about parts of the US having third world conditions and pondered if it was better to spend money on wars or health food and housing for Americans? ”

Hmm, warmonger? Could it be the speed at which Bush mobilised US forces for the invasion of Afghanistan. Maybe the lengths he went to whip up support for the invasion of Iraq - an illegal, immoral and barbaric act of aggression he ordered against a broken, defenseless country disregarding international law? Maybe the threats to Syria and North Korea? Perhaps even the fact that he has spent two years arguing the case for a nuclear attack on Iran?

Maybe because he defended India and Pakistan’s right to have nuclear weapons?

Maybe people have in mind US arms sales in recent years, not least the $20 billion deal with Saudi Arabia. Or maybe the amount the US spend on its war machine each year. Last year it was $439 billion

Could well be the US record on human rights lately; the renditions to torture, Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, the torture facilities in Afghanistan, maybe even the official Canadian government document that has put both the United States and Israel on a watch list of countries where prisoners run the risk of being tortured.

Maybe people remember such war mongering phrases as: "My answer is bring 'em on,” which was Bush’s response to news that Iraqi insurgents were attacking U.S. forces (Washington, D.C., July 3, 2003).

Maybe because his father was a warmonger, as president, and that his grandfather supported Germany’s Nazi regime and even threw his weight behind an attempt to pull of a nazi-coup in the US in 1933 (see below, for instance)?

Beats the hell out of me, George. Why on earth would anyone presume you were a war monger?

The Bush-Hitler Connection

(video below courtesy of Brasscheck TV)

The references to the Illuminati aside (in the video below), the parallels between Bush and Hitler are obvious and impossible to deny despite the whining of the right wing lunatic fringe.

* Hitler engaged in intimidation and fraud to "win" elections

* Hitler's office had an "open door" policy for any corporate criminal who was willing to support him financially.

* Hitler used fabricated evidence to justify attacking and occupying other countries.

* Hitler looted the wealth of other countries, German government resources and classes of German citizens to finance his operations.

* Hitler manufactured terrorist threats and used these threats to rationalize the development of a police state including the loss of fundamental citizen rights and the build of a vast interment camps.

And on and on it goes.

There's a reason these similarities between Bush and Hitler that go far beyond the predictable patterns of human psychopathology...

The Bush family had a long and deep involvement with the Nazi movement. Since then, the Bush family has surrounded itself with allies, advisors and agents who emulate Nazi values.

See also the Guardian report: How Bush's Grandfather helped with Hitler's rise to power.

Friends Reunited

"The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia recognizes the principle of freedom upon which the United States was founded, including the freedoms enshrined under the first amendment of the United States Constitution. (Joint Statement by President Bush and Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, 25th April, 2005)

I wrote yesterday about Bush and his “awfully difficult decisions.” Today we learn of another Bush decision which is more imbecilic than ”awfully difficult.” In his two day trip to Saudi Arabia, a country already armed to the teeth courtesy of Britain, Bush announced plans to sell Saudi Arabia £120 million of 'sophisticated' missiles as part of a $20 billion arms package for the region.

He certainly makes some contradictory decisions. On the one hand he announces his intended Middle East trip is all about making peace and assuring ‘democratisation’ of the region and then we learn of this £20 billion arms deal. Nice one, George. If you want peace, prepare for war. And with democratisation high on his agenda, just who else does he go kowtowing to? None other than the Saudi regime, some of the worst human rights abusers in the world (see a previous piece on this blog). Did he slate King Abdullah for his outlawing of trade unions, the ban on political dissent, demonstrations, the lack of democracy, the oppression of women? Not on your nelly!

As Michael Hirsh, writing for Newsweek, observes :

“What could not be found on Bush's schedule was one Saudi dissident or political activist, much less a democrat. Just a day after his speech in Abu Dhabi—and three years after declaring in his second inaugural address that "it is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture"—the president made time for a tour of Saudi Arabia's National History Museum but not for a meeting with Fouad al-Farhan. Farhan, Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger, was arrested in Jidda last month for daring to defend a group of Saudis who wanted to form a civil rights group.”

Creating an alliance against Iran aside, high on Bush’s agenda is the oil crisis back home. At the moment oil stands at almost $100 dollars a gallon, a four fold increase in recent years, and Bush is desperate the price comes down – well, there’s an election coming up and oil prices might reflect badly on the repukes -and thus he urges the Saudis to increase production:

"I would hope, as OPEC considers different production levels, that they understand that if . . . one of their biggest consumers' economy suffers, it will mean less purchases, less oil and gas sold."

In a round table talk with reporters, whilst in Saudi Arabia, Bush was asked about the alleged incident in the Strait of Hormuz. His reply was reminiscent of that he gave when asked about Osama bin Laden and replied that he didn’t give a shit, that he wasn’t a priority any more:

"It's not going to matter to me one way or the other if they hit our ships, and the Iranian government has got to understand that"

And days after Bush’s historic visit to Israel, to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace we find violence erupting on two fronts, with an Israeli air strike killing 17 Palestinians in Gaza and a car bomb destroying a U.S. Embassy vehicle and killing four in Beirut.

Interestingly, at a press conference in Israel this week, a spokesman for the Israeli government said that the missiles they were getting from the US were smarter than those being sold to Saudi Arabia.

I wonder if King Abdullah will take Bush aside and say: “Yo, Bush, about these weapons you’re giving Israel. How come they’re better than the crap you’re selling us?”

And I can just see Bush answering: “And what’s all this about you sucking up to Iran? Here’s me trying to form an alliance against Iran these past two years and there’s you at the Gulf Council of Cooperation walking hand in hand with Ahmadinejad! Let’s just say I’m hedging my bets.”

Bush scares me shitless

"I can predict that the historians will say that George W. Bush recognized the threats of the 21st century, clearly defined them, and had great faith in the capacity of liberty to transform hopelessness to hope, and laid the foundation for peace by making some awfully difficult decisions." George W. Bush, January 4th, 2008 Interview for Israel's Channel 2

I must confess to being a mite fearful of late, fearful for my class, my fellows throughout the world and for whom I hold no ill feelings. It’s like those crazy days when Reagan rattled his nuclear sabre at the Soviet Union in the 1980s, when I was first married and had a baby daughter; in the days when it was advised that the best way to survive a nuclear blast was to remove the doors from your house and lay them at a 60 degree angle to a wall, piling pillow cases filled with soil from your garden against the outside, thus creating your very own shelter – the days when I lived on the top floor a fucking block of flats, for Christ’s sake!

And It’s people like George W Bush, Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condi Rice and John Bolton, the US Ambassador to the UN and the rest of those war mongering bastards that cause this fear. I cursed their kind a quarter of a century ago and I curse them still.

Despite the claim from the IAEA that there is “no evidence of a nuclear weapons program or any diversion of nuclear material [in Iran],” the masters of war are hell bent on making the case that another Middle East conflict will be necessary. It matters not that an IAEA inspection team have meticulously searched Iran’s nuclear sites, the case is being made in Washington, and promoted by the US media, that Iran is an aspiring nuclear power with its cross-hair sites trained on the US.

Nobody in Washington seems concerned that the CIA’s National Intelligence Estimate reported in November of last year: “Tehran has not restarted its nuclear weapons programme as of mid-2007…We continue to assess with moderate-to-high confidence that Iran does not currently have a nuclear programme…Tehran’s decision to halt its nuclear weapons programme suggests it is less determined to develop nuclear weapons than we have been judging since 2005”.

Even as the NIE was doing the rounds in Washington, Bush’s language was belligerent in the extreme, with talk about “world war three”,

Oh, I’m fearful alright, fearful because I can honestly see these blood thirsty maniacs in Washington ordering “pre-emptive” nuclear strikes on Iran. No way will they make an attempt to invade the country and fight battles the old fashioned way, hand to hand.

Cheney recently ranted on about “meaningful consequences” if Iran forged ahead with its legitimate nuclear enrichment programme. Bush has reiterated those very words in the last few days. Rice, ever keen to raise the stakes, says: “We face no greater challenge from a single country than Iran… This is a country that seems determined to develop a nuclear weapon in defiance of the international community that is determined that they should not get one.”

And despite the fact that there is as much evidence for Tehran’s desire to build atomic bombs as there was for Saddam to lob a missile at the west within 45 minutes, Bush has been in the Middle East for the past week stirring up the shit, trying to build an Arab alliance that will sanction the bombing of Iran. Israel is already as keen as hell for war.

Speaking yesterday in the UAE, Bush said that Iran is threatening the security of the world, and that the United States and Arab allies must join together to confront the danger "before it's too late." Bush said: "Iran is today the world's leading state sponsor of terror. It sends hundreds of millions of dollars to extremists around the world while its own people face repression and economic hardship at home. It seeks to intimidate its neighbours with ballistic missiles and bellicose rhetoric. It defies the United Nations and destabilises the region by refusing to be open and transparent about its nuclear programmes and ambitions."

Any critic of US foreign policy could easily have levelled those same words at the US and backed them up with sound evidence. I know could easily.

Bush continued: "Iran's actions threaten the security of nations everywhere. So the United States is strengthening our long-standing security commitments with our friends in the Gulf, and rallying friends around the world to confront this danger before it is too late."

Earlier that day in Bahrain, U.S. Vice Adm. Kevin Cosgriff, commander of the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet, which patrols the Gulf, informed Bush that he took it "deadly seriously" when an Iranian fleet of high-speed boats charged at and threatened to blow up a three U.S. Navy vessels near Iranian waters.

This timely, though bullshit, incident happened on the eve of Bush’s visit to the Middle East, with the Pentagon claiming Iranian patrol boats had threatened to attack and blow up US naval vessels in the Straits of Hormuz, The Pentagon even released a recorded radio message - “I am coming to you. You will explode after a few minutes.” - and it was reported the ship’s commander was a split second from opening fire on the Iranian patrol boats. However, new information over the past three days has emerged that suggests that the incident did not involve such a threat and that no US commander was on the verge of firing at the Iranian boats.

Serious damage to the US version of the incident was the video released by Iran last 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 asks for the "side numbers" of the US warships. A voice with a US accent replies, "This is coalition warship 73. I am operating in international waters." It is now apparent that the Iranian message released by the US was a fake. What, the US war machine fake intelligence? Never!

I think that few, if any, politicos, believed the official version when they heard about it, seeing this as another “false flag”, the type that has been hoisted by the US in the past and in order to justify military aggression. And as if Iranian seamen would be so stupid as to attack a US naval vessel spark such bloodbath in their own country! I myself forecast such a “false flag”! incident and I sincerely believe there will be another.

Roger Bybee, at Znet writes:

“The US hostility toward Iran remains so intense that when European nations and the US developed a package of incentives to steer Iran off its nuclear course, the US "insisted that all language addressing Iran's security interests be removed," as Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett, former National Security Council staffers, wrote in a New York Times op-ed (12/11/07)

“…The Bush Administration has repeatedly proven itself not only impervious to, but utterly dis-interested in hard evidence like the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. The Bush Administration now sees itself as bolstered by the illusory success with the "surge" in Iraq, although only 38% of Americans believe it has improved conditions, according to a CBS/New York Times poll conducted Dec. 5-9.

“But based upon the continuing ferocity of post-NIE statements by Bush and Gates, don't be too surprised by a "faith-based" US strike against Iran before George W. Bush leaves office. “

Over on Information Clearing House, William H White sees another dimension to a war with Iran – namely the pretext to enforce a state of national emergency in the US, and the link highlighted below is well worth following up:

“Assuming a decision to attack Iran, given weather and other logistical concerns, combined with attention to the domestic political schedule, the timing would likely be within two to three months or early fall.

“Should this occur, the potential for destabilizing domestic and foreign consequences increase substantially, approaching near certainty. This nominally unattractive and reckless gamble would fit Bush's character as well as the pattern of his governance. Also, this is his last shot, with a chance to create conditions in the Mideast that lock in future policy options, as he has in domestic policy with a massive deficit. Given the consequences, he would attack not only his foreign enemies, but at the same time strike at his domestic foes under the cover of the resulting emergency.

”The later the attack on Iran comes, or a significant response from Iran, the more likely it would be combined with or be followed by a formal declaration of a national emergency, possibly affecting US national elections. The result would be a de facto coup d'état.

”Finally, to further assess its likelihood, ask the question: who is to stop him? Not Congress; not the courts; not pubic opinion nor the press. The only chance, however slight, of stopping Bush would rest almost entirely with the British government, if Parliament became aware of the plan prior to the commencement of hostilities.”

I can’t help but feel there is a lot more than comes across in that opening quotation from Bush –“awfully difficult decisions”!

At the end of the day, Bush, like me and hopefully most readers of this bog is a class warrior, the big, big difference being that we fight on different sides of the class divide and with diametrically opposed interests. Whereas the class conscious are all for peace and harmony and ending waste and want and war, Bush and the clique he represents see profits everywhere, are after ‘full spectrum dominance’ and the freedom to go about their business without criticism from any corner. For workers everywhere, we will see any attack on Iran as an out and out atrocity, a catastrophe for humanity of mammoth proportions; for Bush it will be simply another “awfully difficult decision.”

Iraq, Iran, Pakistan. What the hell is Bush up to?

This interview, made recently, goes some way, I think, to explain yesterday's assassination in Pakistan of Benazir Bhutto.

The Pet Goat

I've waited a while to post this video (note - link now dead, video removed from original location).

Just after 9 am on 11 September 2001, the second airplane hit the South Tower of the World Trade Centre. President Bush was in Florida, at the Emma T. Booker Elementary School, listening to children read. Prior to entering the classroom he had been informed that a plane had hit one of the twin towers. Chief of Staff Andrew Card comes over and whisperes in Bush's ear, "A second plane has hit the second tower. America is under attack."

What does the Commander in Chief do? Absolutely nothing. He sat there in full knowledge that two planes, within miutes of each other, had hit the twin toweres - the symbol of US capitalism - that his country was under attack - but found it more important to read a kid's book, The Pet Goat. He sat for well over 5 minutes, doing nothing while 3,000 people were dying and the attacks were still in progress.

That expression on Bush's face says a lot.

And as an aside - where the hell did they get this teacher? What an appalling method of teaching. If that's how they teach kids in US schools then no wonder Dubya is so damned dumb.

Bush orders the militarisation of space

In signing the recent executive order creating a new National Space Policy, President Bush has announced that the US will reject future arms-control agreements that might limit US military manoeuvrability in space. The document further announces that the US “will preserve its rights, capabilities and freedom of action in space ... and deny, if necessary, adversaries the use of space capabilities hostile to US national interests."

“Freedom of action in space is as important to the United States as air power and sea power,” the policy declares and that to “increase knowledge, discovery, economic prosperity, and to enhance the national security, the United States must have robust, effective, and efficient space capabilities.”

One wonders why the US fears other countries may have “hostile” intentions in the use of their space capabilities. Clearly the answer has to be because this is exactly what the US is itself intent on using space for. What else was Clinton’s Star Wars programme all about?

The White House, however, insists that the new policy does not refer to the development or deployment of weapons in space. Indeed, in those sections of the policy made widely available recently, there is no explicit reference to the militarization of space. However, while the policy document insists that the main concern of the US is to “strengthen the nation’s space leadership”, to facilitate “US operations in and through space to defend our interests there”, it boldly asserts that national security is critically dependent upon space capabilities.

Moreover, it calls upon Donald Rumsfeld, the hawkish Defence Secretary and John Negroponte, Director of National Intelligence, to “develop and deploy space capabilities that sustain US advantage and support defence and intelligence transformations.” In this regards the policy document adheres to the militaristic and offensive tone that runs through every national defence document the White House has produced since Dubya’s inauguration.

Clearly the US dislikes anything perceived as an attempt to muscle in on its standing as the foremost power in space and the world’s leading military power; the two titles now looking likely to merge. Hence, US concerns about the EU’s Galileo project. At the outset, the US feared the project would allow the transfer of state of the art technology to countries it perceives as antagonistic to its interests. What really spooked Washington was the realisation that China was investing £150 million in Galileo.

Michael Kriepon of the Stimson Centre told the Washington post: “The Clinton administration opened the doors to developing space weapons, but that administration never did anything about it. The Bush policy now goes further.” (The Independent, 19th October).

One wonders just how other countries will now respond to US ambitions for the militarization of space for, make no mistake, this is exactly what Washington’s masters of war have in mind – this is full spectrum dominance in the making. Back in 1999, when Republican hawks celebrated a Senate vote not to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and announced their intention to scupper the 1972 ABM Treaty which outlawed Star Wars missiles systems capable of intercepting incoming missiles, Russian Defence Minister Nikolai Mikolov, acknowledging Russia could not match US technology, declared Russia would simply deploy more warheads capable of overwhelming the US nuclear umbrella system.

Theresa Hitchens of the Washington based Centre for Defence Information said: “You would think that we would have learnt our lessons about the danger of military pre-emptive action and unilateralism in Iraq, yet we are repeating the same policy towards space.” (The Independent, 19th October).

Experts argue that the new space decree has put the US on perilous path in so far as it extends Bush Doctrine policy to brand new military arena, whilst at the same time discarding endeavours to limit US military ambitions.

National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones, in an attempt to discourage the military significance of the new policy, said: “Technology advances have increased the importance of and use of space…Now, we depend on space capabilities for things like ATMs, personal navigation, package tracking, radio services, and cell phone use.” (Asia Times, 20th October)

What really concerns international observers and the US ‘s budding competitors, and which should concern all of us, is that the US absolutely refuses to negotiate any space arms-control agreement. Washington is promoting the line that because there is currently no space-arms race then there is no need for any such accord – which is utter hypocrisy when one considers the number of actual international agreements in existence, aimed at maintaining the peace, preventing weapons proliferation and the like , that the US refuses to ratify or even acknowledge.

Meanwhile, though, the US Air Force has produced the Counterspace Operations Doctrine, calling for “a more active military posture in space,” and arguing that defence of US satellites and spacecraft necessitates the use of “deception, dirpution, degradation and destruction.” Nothing like a bit alliteration to hammer your message home.

Make no mistake; the militarization of space is now well underway. The very fact that the US is playing down the military dimension of its new space policy is evidence it wants a real head start and to thus be in a position to better oppose any country with similar ambitions.As socialists have announced several times in recent years, if we are to prevent the 21st Century becoming a more violent re-run of the 20th, that witnessed two world wars, the first use of nuclear weapons and many hundreds of smaller conflicts – all in the name of profit – it is essential we, the victims, the cannon fodder, the class that has the biggest price to pay to satisfy the whims of the mighty, begin to organise now; not tomorrow when space is militarised, nor in years to come when the sirens are screaming and lasers are zapping the planet from US defence satellites orbiting the earth . We as a class have suffered too much and have too much to lose to leave decisions regarding the future of our planet in the hands of group of arrogant, conceited and profit crazed individuals. Let’s really organise to take their power away now, before it is too late.

PROJECT FOR THE OLD AMERICAN CENTURY

I'm surprised it has taken me so long to find this revealing site, not that I'm unfamiliar with the Bush family-Nazi connection. Just as strong these days, incidentally, is the Bush family-Bin Laden connection. No doubt, before too long, some researcher will reveal the Bush family-Genghis Khan connection.

The photo above is of Prescott Bush, Dubya's grandpappy, sitting chatting comfortably with Nazi officials.

The text accompanying the photo says:

"According to classified documents from Dutch intelligence and US government archives, President George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush made considerable profits off Auschwitz slave labor. In fact, President Bush himself is an heir to these profits from the holocaust which were placed in a blind trust in 1980 by his father, former president George Herbert Walker Bush. On the 20th of October, the government commenced action against the company under the trading with the enemy act. After the seizures in late 1942 of five U.S. enterprises he managed on behalf of Nazi industrialist Fritz Thyssen failed to divest himself of more than a dozen "enemy national" relationships that continued until as late as 1951, newly-discovered U.S. government documents reveal. In 1952, Prescott Bush was elected to the U.S. Senate, with no press accounts about his well-concealed Nazi past."

Of Dubya's great grandpappy, the site says:

"George Walker set up the takeover of the Hamburg-America Line, a cover for I.G. Farben's Nazi espionage unit in the United States. In Germany, I.G. Farben was most famous for putting the gas in gas chambers; it was the producer of Zyklon B and other gasses used on victims of the Holocaust. The Bush family was not unaware of the nature of their investment partners. They hired Allen Dulles, the future head of the CIA, to hide the funds they were making from Nazi investments and the funds they were sending to Nazi Germany, rather than divest. It was only in 1942, when the government seized Union Banking Company assets under the Trading With The Enemy Act, that George Walker and Prescott Bush stopped pumping money into Hitler's regime."

As Kitty Kelly might have said, looking into the Bush family history is like navigating the New York sewer system in a glass mini submarine.

Lies, lies and more lies

Remember the bullshit spouted by Blair and Bush in the run up to the invasion of Iraq? The spoof dossiers and documents, the photos and false testimony from exiles? Remember Colin Powell’s speech to the UN, in which he outlined the case for military action against Saddam? Yeah, that’s right, the lies about WMDs, Iraq’s mobile labs, the Niger connection, the aluminium tubes, Iraqs link to Al Qaeda.

U.N. inspectors have now complained to Washington and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear programme. The inspectors have labelled parts of the report "outrageous and dishonest”.

When there are profits to be had - in this case from oil – truth is not only the first casualty in war, truth is in fact stamped into the ground long before the first salvo is fired and trodden further into the dirt when the last shell casing hits the ground.

As the US makes the case for sanctions against Iran, as a prelude to widening Middle East war, expect the bullshit machine to go into overdrive.

OFFICIAL! George Bush: Iraq had sod all to do with 9/11

President Bush in the midst of explaining how the attacks of 9/11 inspired his “freedom agenda” and the attacks on Iraq until a reporter, Ken Herman of Cox News, interrupted to ask what Iraq had to do with 9/11. “Nothing,” Bush defiantly answered. Watch the video.

Full transcript:

BUSH: The terrorists attacked us and killed 3,000 of our citizens before we started the freedom agenda in the Middle East.
QUESTION: What did Iraq have to do with it?
BUSH: What did Iraq have to do with what?
QUESTION: The attack on the World Trade Center.
BUSH: Nothing. Except it’s part of — and nobody has suggested in this administration that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack. Iraq was a — Iraq — the lesson of September 11th is take threats before they fully materialize, Ken. Nobody’s ever suggested that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.

State of the Unions Address 2006

Looking for the script of the State of the Unions Address 2006 - without success - I came across the following spoof Address, which I personally found more interesting that the official one, and which I will comment on at length on as soon as I get hold of it. Yup, I was one of those sad gits that stayed up until the wee hours to watch Dubya's speech.

I found this State of the Union Address drinking game too, the idea being that you take a shot of the heavy stuff each time Bush uses a specific word or reference. No mention is made of the fact that you will need a stomach pump if you manage to reach the end of the game.

Osama bin Laden plugs Bill Blum book

You must have heard of the story by now. Twenty-four hours after Osama bin Laden told the world that the American people should read a book by little-known Washington historian, William Blum, "Rogue State" shot up from 205,763 to 26 on Amazon.com's index of the most-ordered books.

Like it took bin Laden so long to discover a book so critical of US foreign policy? The present blogger reviewed the book for The Socialist Standard in September 2000. A further edition of the book was reviewed in the April 2003 issue of the Standard.

Information Clearing House (see link to the right) carry a 40 minute C-Span video interview with Blum (you'll need Realplayer to watch this film, downloadable from this web page).

Sections of the book can be read here. And one chapter - War Criminals: Theirs and Ours - can be read on the video page quoted above.

Got a book that is not selling too well in Waterstones, WH Smith's and Borders? Send a free copy to Osama bin Liner and he'll plug it for free - though make sure it contains an attack on US foreign and domestic policy.

Rumour has it that George W has sent My Pet Goat to Afghanistan via Airforce One for Osama's appraisal (this being the enthralling story book which, having just been informed a second plane had slammed into the twin-towers, Dubya continued to read* with a group of school kids).

*Bush actually sat like this for 5 minutes after being informed of the second attack, and that gloopy look just about says it all: "Plane number three should be coming in just about....nnnnow."

Watch out, George, Here comes China

Tonight, George W Bush delivers his annual State of the Union Address. Amongst the topics he will no doubt dwell at length upon, will be the problem of China. For the US, China really is becoming a problem.

Based on statistics for 1993-2002, during which time China’s exports increased at an annual rate of just over 17%, the country will exceed US exports by 2010. You can bet your bottom dollar the panic button was pressed in the US some time ago.

In the opening of his book Being is Enough: Collective Self-Help for a Sustainable World , Doug Brown (Professor of Economics at North Arizona University) writes:

“…the Chinese are doing a pretty remarkable job of growing their way to American affluence. But it’s not sustainable. For their 1.3 billion citizens to live like the average North American would require the carrying capacity of about four more planets.”

I was reminded of this poignant quote when reading a lengthy piece tucked away inside The Guardian’s Society supplement last week. Lester R Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute examined the consequences of China’s population devouring at the rate of their American counterparts.

Lester Brown writes: “China has now overtaken America as the world's leading resource consumer. Among the basic commodities - grain and meat in the food sector, oil and coal in the energy sector and steel in the industrial sector - China now consumes more of each of these than the US except for oil. It consumes nearly twice as much meat - 67m tonnes compared with 39m tonnes in the US; and more than twice as much steel - 258m tonnes to 104m.”

China also, incidentally consumed 31% per cent of the world’s coal in 2003, and accounted for a 40 per cent increase in world oil demand in 2004. In the past 10 year’s its consumption of aluminium, copper and nickel has doubled to 20 per cent of the world total.

It is reckoned that China will have the same oil demands as the US within 20 years and India will not be far behind.

Lester Brown notes: “If China were to have three cars for every four people – as in the US – it would use 99 million barrels a day. The world currently produces only 84 million Barrel’s a day.”
Lester Brown further sees the important questions as “…what if China's consumption per person of these resources reaches the current US level, and how long will it take for China's income per person to reach the US level?”

Indeed, Lester, a mega-problem of global sustainability to boot; but consider also that China’s foreign exchange reserves last year were in excess of $750 billion and are estimated to hit the $1 trillion mark by mid 2006. What is preventing the collapse of the US dollar and the rise in US interest rates is China’s purchase of US treasury bonds.

Chomsky notes: "China is already establishing relations with Iran -- and even with Saudi Arabia, both military and economic. There is an Asian energy security grid, based on China and Russia, but probably bringing in India, Korea and others. If Iran moves in that direction, it can become the lynchpin of that power grid."

There is another important question – just how long will the US tolerate such a powerful economic competitor threatening the profits of corporate America, a competitor who could collapse the US dollar and a competitor on real cosy terms with the anti-American leadership in Iran and Venezuela?

Rendition to Torture

Once again, the US is in the proverbial “dock” over revelations that it allows a practice known as “rendition to torture”, whereby terror suspects, upon arrest, are secretly flown to far off countries to be tortured for months on end.

Condoleeza Rice, the US Secretary of State and Klingon look-alike, is currently on a damage limitation exercise in Europe and telling anyone who will listen to her, and who can keep a straight face, that the US is not into that sort of thing, that it does not condone torture. She admits that the US has made mistakes in the war on terror and has said that where possible those wrongs will be righted, but pathetically covers these transgressions with the claim that at least CIA methods have saved European lives.
Granted, there are a lot of gloopy people in Europe – I’ve met a fair few myself - or else we would not have the leaders we have here, but for her to come here and say the US is not into torture suggests Rice thinks Europe is chocabloc with lobotomised cretins.

Let’s get a couple of things straight. Firstly, the US does not give a monkey’s f*** for human rights. This much was made abundantly clear when George (Dubya) Bush took office and, acting on advice from one Alberto Gonzales, withdrew the US from the Geneva Convention and cancelled Clinton’s signature from the International Criminal Court. Well, if you’re aiming to torture whoever you want, where ever you want, then it makes sense not to be a signatory to a document stating you believe people should not be tortured, that all people should be treated with respect and human kindness.

Secondly the CIA is actually above the law. Not a lot of people know this but on 27/12/2000 Congress passed a law to protect the CIA from any legal action whatsoever (the relevant law is: 114 STAT. 2840 PUBLIC LAW106-56 DEC. 27, 2000. SEC.1001. (a) and (b)). The latter makes sound sense – if you’re hell bent on world domination and are prepared to go to any lengths to secure it then you have to make damn sure your intelligence services are free from prosecution.
According to Human Rights Watch, The Bush administration is now the only government in the world to claim a legal rationalization for abusing prisoners during interrogations.

White House officials recently approached members of the U.S. Congress to seek a waiver that would permit the CIA to use cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment on prisoners in U.S. detention outside the United States.

In a 90-9 vote, the U.S. Senate accepted a measure backed by Republican Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham that would proscribe the military and CIA from using “cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment” in the case of any captive, anywhere in the world. But in October, Vice President Dick Cheney and CIA director Porter Goss met with Sen. McCain to propose a presidential waiver for the planned legislation. The suggested waiver stated that the measure “shall not apply with respect to clandestine counterterrorism operations conducted abroad, with respect to terrorists who are not citizens of the United States, that are carried out by an element of the United States government other than the Department of Defence. . . if the president determines that such operations are vital to the protection of the United States or its citizens from terrorist attack.” The waiver which clearly applies to non-military counter-terrorism operations against non-citizens overseas, declares that such operations need to be “consistent with the Constitution and laws of the United States and treaties to which the United States is a party.” But the Constitution does not vigorously restrict the conduct of the CIA overseas, and pertinent domestic laws contain abundant loopholes. What is more, administration officials have previously told Congress that they do not deem CIA personnel operating outside the United States to be bound by legal prohibitions against “cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment” under treaties to which the United States is party. This exemption carries coded language that could give the CIA the go ahead to treat prisoners inhumanely. Human Rights Watch said the waiver would also open the door for outright torture, as interrogators would find it impossible to draw lines between illegal and “allowable” mistreatment. Bush administration officials, under questioning from members of Congress in the past, have failed to clearly define differences between torture and lesser forms of mistreatment. They have also made inaccurate statements about the definition of torture; for instance, administration officials have claimed that “waterboarding” (suffocating a person until he believes he is about to drown) is not a form of torture.

The widely publicised photos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, show not isolated cases of brutality by unsupervised personnel – as has been claimed – but CIA torture techniques that have been used for 50 years all over the world.From 1950 to 1962, the CIA carried out research into psychological torture that cost an estimated $1 billion, producing a new method of torture that was psychological, “no touch torture”, not physical.

Your common or garden physical method meant interrogators had to inflict pain, by rough beatings, but this often produced heightened resistance, especially in obstinate prisoners, or undependable information. With the new psychological concept, on the other hand, interrogators used two new methods, disorientation and self-inflicted pain, to make prisoners feel responsible for their own suffering.

Though ostensibly less violent, "no touch" torture can produce lasting psychological scars on both victims and interrogators. The victims often need much psychological help to recuperate from a trauma every bit as debilitating as physical pain. The interrogators can undergo a perilous increase of ego, leading to increasing barbarity and lasting emotional scars.

After codification in the CIA's "Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation" manual in 1963 (this is now declassified and can now be downloaded from the National Securuity Archives website – they’ve lots of other juicy stuff there too) the new technique was circulated to police in Asia and Latin America through USAID's Office of Public Safety (OPS). In the wake of accusations of torture by USAID's police novices in Brazil, the US Senate closed down OPS in 1975.

With the demise of the OPS, the CIA propagated its torture techniques through the US Army's Mobile Training Teams, which in the 1980s were operating in Central America. In 1997, the Baltimore Sun published alarming extracts of the "Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual" that these Army teams had distributed to allied militaries for two decades.

These manuals ceased to be used in the early 1990s, but torture continued apace right up to 9/11 and beyond with the hunt for Al Qaeda suspects, with US intelligence agents handing suspects over to foreign agencies for processing.

When Bush kick-started the current ‘war on terror’ the ‘no touch’ torture techniques recommenced, firstly in Afghanistan at Bagram Air Base, where prisoners actually died during interrogation and then in Iraq, where interrogators have likewise killed their victims. Similar prisoner abuses have been reported at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The US is as guilty as hell of not only torturing its suspects just as Britain and other countries are accomplices in so far as they allow their airports to be used by CIA chartered planes carrying their victims to be tortured in whatever god-forsaken hell hole they have lined up for them. The photographic evidence for psychological torture cannot be denied and neither can the testimony of those lucky enough to have been freed by their interrogators.

What planet Condi Rice comes from is anyone’s guess – the Klingon planet Narendra III?