Being a crook is a requirement for serving in the Bush administration, or working in the upper echelons of the petroleum industry. And if you are both, all the better. He was put into the position he is in, because he was bought and paid for by the Bush administration, the same way that bin Laden was bought and paid for, and Saddam was bought and paid for...

This shouldn't come as a surprise though, should it? It just underscores how bad the US Iraq policy is, and why people should abandon the Democratic party in the US to vote for Nader this time, as he is the only viable anti-war candidate remaining.

While plenty of people have chastised Nader and Kucinich for their anti-war position saying they would phase out US troops in Iraq within 6 months as the "cut-and-run" strategy, we have yet to see any cohesive strategy outlined for us come from Bush or Kerry. "Staying the course" isn't going to work, as we've painfully seen in the last month in Iraq. Going to the Security Council and foreign capitals to try and dump the problem at their doorstep isn't exactly a way to reinvigorate our international relations OR get more nations or NATO involved, because the US has allowed the security situation to deteriorate so badly, just so the neo-cons could claim they could "do this war" with a leaner, meaner military force.

Kerry has put himself in the same position that Humphrey was in back in 1968. He is defending an indefensible war, from which we will exit with a "cut-and-run" just as we did in Vietnam. I'm sure Kerry and his handlers see that, but know that to be "electable" in their worldview, requires an extreme militarist position on Iraq and the war on terror.   The situation in Iraq has already deterioriated far beyond what can be fixed by renewed diplomacy efforts by the US.

Just as many of us predicted, this Iraq war has condemned the Iraqi people to a much darker future than we were told. Their country already is disintegrating, and no amount of Fallujah bloodbaths will turn that around anytime soon. Combine that with the disastrous Bush/Sharon Mideast war plan, and it is clear that they have plunged the world into decades long conflicts, doomed the rest of the world to a greatly heightened vulnerability to terrorist attacks, and condemned the people of the Middle East and North Africa to living in poverty, squalor, and violence for the forseeable future.

All so the Anglo American coalition of Britain, the US, and Australia to get the cheapest oil prices for their nations, while the world supply of oil runs out.

We, the Iraqis, the Middle East, and the world, are going to be living with the negative legacy of this administration's "war on terror" for decades to come.