AS THE WORLD SQUIRMS

When I saw the Newsweek cover featuring Big Daddy Bush muscling toward the front with a diminished little Dubya skulking in the background, my first thought was: How is Junior going to react to this? Bush II's resentment toward his father is well-known -- a resentment no doubt compounded by his lifelong, abject dependence on Daddy's financial and political pull -- and I knew that Little Bush would not simply accept this media humiliation and move on.

Antonio Neri Licon, "Nerilicon", El Economista, Mexico City

‘Little Bush’ Hits Back At Voters!

· Bush to Ask for Another $127 Billion for War Push(?)

· 57,000 US Troops Get Iraq Deployment Orders

· Bush's Vietnam Lesson(?): Don't Quit(?)

Sergio Langer, Clarin, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Saturday: 45 Iraqis Killed, 31 Injured

Sunday: 93 Iraqis Killed, 136 Wounded

News & Comment

Kissinger says military victory no longer possible in Iraq

International Herald Tribune (IHT)

11.19.06

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger said military victory is no longer possible in Iraq, in a television interview broadcast Sunday.

In a wide ranging interview on British Broadcasting Corp. television Kissinger presented a bleak vision of Iraq, saying the U.S. government must enter dialogue with Iraq's regional neighbors_ including Iran — if any progress is to be made in the region.

"If you mean, by 'military victory,' an Iraqi government that can be established and whose writ runs across the whole country, that gets the civil war under control and sectarian violence under control in a time period that the political processes of the democracies will support, I don't believe that is possible," he said on the BBC's Sunday AM program.

The new media offensive against Iraq withdrawal

Norman Solomon

11.17.06

A survey by the Boston Globe, conducted in February 1968, found that out of 39 major daily newspapers in the United States, not one had editorialized for withdrawing American troops from Vietnam. Today – despite the antiwar tilt of national opinion polls and the recent election – advocacy of a U.S. pullout from Iraq seems almost as scarce among modern-day media elites.

The standard media evasions amount to kicking the bloody can down the road. Careful statements about benchmarks and getting tough with the Baghdad government (as with the Saigon government) are markers for a national media discourse that dodges instead of enlivens debate.

Many journalists are retreading the notion that the pullout option is not a real option at all. And the Democrats who'll soon be running Congress, we're told, wouldn't – and shouldn't – dare to go that far if they know what's good for them.

Implicit in such media coverage is the idea that the real legitimacy for U.S. war policymaking rests with the president, not the Congress. When I ponder that assumption, I think about 42-year-old footage of the CBS program Face the Nation.

The show's host on that 1964 telecast was the widely esteemed journalist Peter Lisagor, who told his guest: "Senator, the Constitution gives to the president of the United States the sole responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy."

"Couldn't be more wrong," Sen. Wayne Morse broke in with his sandpapery voice. "You couldn't make a more unsound legal statement than the one you have just made. This is the promulgation of an old fallacy that foreign policy belongs to the president of the United States. That's nonsense."

Lisagor was almost taunting as he asked, "To whom does it belong then, Senator?"

Morse did not miss a beat. "It belongs to the American people," he shot back – and "I am pleading that the American people be given the facts about foreign policy."

The journalist persisted: "You know, Senator, that the American people cannot formulate and execute foreign policy."

Morse's response was indignant: "Why do you say that? … I have complete faith in the ability of the American people to follow the facts if you'll give them. And my charge against my government is, we're not giving the American people the facts."

Morse, the senior senator from Oregon, was passionate about the U.S. Constitution as well as international law. And, while rejecting the widely held notion that foreign policy belongs to the president, he spoke in unflinching terms about the Vietnam War. At a hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, on Feb. 27, 1968, Morse said that he did not "intend to put the blood of this war on my hands."

And, prophetically, Morse added: "We're going to become guilty, in my judgment, of being the greatest threat to the peace of the world. It's an ugly reality, and we Americans don't like to face up to it."

War on Iran: Unleashing Armageddon in the Middle East

Dr. Elias Akleh

Pravda – Moscow

11.17.06

The American “power elite” had drawn a “Grand Plan” to control and to monopolize global oil and nuclear energy resources to assure American global hegemony. The collapse of the Soviet Union had created a power vacuum the American administration is trying to fill up.

The attacks of 911 were necessary requirement for the Bush administration to wage a “global war against terror” that would serve as a cover up for American hegemonic actions. President Bush had borrowed Mussolini’s fascist motto of “If you are not with me, you are against me”, and turned it into “You are either with us or with the terrorist” to terrorize weaker nations into accepting American expansions.

CIA: Iran Not Developing Nuclear Weapons

By Brendan Smialowski

AFP

11.19.06

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A classified draft CIA assessment has found no firm evidence of a secret drive by Iran to develop nuclear weapons, as alleged by the White House, a top US investigative reporter has said.

Seymour Hersh, writing in an article for the November 27 issue of the magazine The New Yorker released in advance, reported on whether the administration of Republican President George W. Bush was more, or less, inclined to attack Iran after Democrats won control of Congress last week.

A month before the November 7 legislative elections, Hersh wrote, Vice President Dick Cheney attended a national-security discussion that touched on the impact of Democratic victory in both chambers on Iran policy.

"If the Democrats won on November 7th, the vice president said, that victory would not stop the administration from pursuing a military option with Iran," Hersh wrote, citing a source familiar with the discussion.

Cheney said the White House would circumvent any legislative restrictions "and thus stop Congress from getting in its way," he said.

Patrick Chappatte, Geneva daily "Le Temps", Sunday edition of the Neue Zurcher Zeitung,

weekly cartoon the International Herald Tribune

UN Chief: NATO Cannot Defeat Taliban by Force

The Guardian – London

11.18.06

Official says alliance failing in Afghanistan as Blair admits Iraq is a 'disaster'…

Blair: Moderate Policies Defeat Terror

By David Stringer (AP)

Forbes

11.19.06

British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Sunday that brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal would help diminish the anger fueling Islamic militants in places outside the Middle East, such as Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Blair, speaking after a meeting with Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf, said more aid, moderate Islamic role models and a lasting resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict were key to defeating Islamic extremism.

"This global extremism is an ideology that exploits grievances. So what we have to do is at the same time as we are taking on the ideology, we have to take away those elements of grievance," he said.

Washington Turns Blind-Eye To “Ally” Israel’s Blatant State Terrorism Olmert Orders Assassination Of Palestinians’ Democratically Elected Hamas Political Leaders

The Times – London

11.19.06

According to Israeli security sources, a decision to assassinate leading Hamas politicians was taken by Olmert and his defence minister, Amir Peretz. Early yesterday Israeli missiles struck Hamas targets in Gaza, including a charity run by the group.

Since withdrawing from Gaza more than a year ago, Israel has targeted Hamas’s military activists, but that has not stopped the rockets. Outraged by an attack last Wednesday on the village of Sderot, Israel is determined to ensure the political leadership in Gaza, the West Bank and abroad will “no longer escape responsibility”.

The controversial change in tactics has been driven by Peretz, who broke down in tears when one of his bodyguards was badly injured in Sderot, his home village. The army has been battling against Palestinian rocket units in northern Gaza for months and has intensified its operations there in recent weeks. Since the beginning of this month, 98 Palestinians have been killed.

“People should not be afraid of their government.

Governments should be afraid of their people.”

An extraordinarily prescient TV interview with General Norman Schwarzkopf and Robert Gates - Deputy National Security Advisor to Former President George Bush Sr.

Why Invading Iraq Was A Very Stupid Idea…

(Click on blinking dot above for video)