BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Tucker
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 02:04 AM



"December 13, 2004: There about 115,000 Iraqi security forces on duty. This includes police, troops and security forces that basically guard things like power plants and oil facilities. Journalists over there tend to concentrate on those incidents where Sunni Arab soldiers or police run away. But the majority of the Iraqi armed forces and police are doing their job. The jails are filling up with criminals again, and the Sunni Arab gangs in central Iraq often attack Iraqi police and soldiers, only to find that they are Kurds or Shia Arabs, who are eager to shoot right back.

The Sunni Arab terrorism is giving rise to an increasing amount of similar actions by Shia Arab groups. The Shia Arabs, unlike the Sunni Arabs, are not trying to take over the government. Once elections are held next month, the Shia Arabs will be the largest block in parliament. What the Shia gunmen are looking for now is revenge. What outsiders often forget is that decades of terrorism and violence by Saddam was done most often by Sunni Arabs who did not hide their identities. The Shia took names, and some are not waiting for trials. They have lists, and are out looking for Sunni Arabs to kill. It is personal. And the police are not bothering much with these vigilantes.
NATO has agreed to help Iraq train police commanders and army officers, but few NATO members will actually send trainers. Most Iraqis (the Kurds and Shia Arabs) believe that the violence in central Iraq is supported by Saddam Hussein's many friends. This in includes Iraq's Sunni Arab neighbors, and many European countries (Russia and France were major weapons suppliers to Saddam). So NATO's reluctance to help them makes sense. Conspiracy theories are popular in Iraq, the one about France and Russia wanting to put Saddam back in power has gained some traction.
Shia Moslems have long been persecuted by the majority Sunni. While the Kurds are Sunni, they are not very religious. At least most of them. A small minority of Kurds support Ansar al Islam, an Islamic radical group in league with al Qaeda, and supported by Iran. While Iran is mostly Shia, there are some in the Iranian government who support anyone who will help kill American soldiers. A principal belief of Iranian Islamic radicals is that the United States is the major enemy of Islam and must be destroyed, or at least weakened, by any means available. This attitude is a bit much for Iraqi Shia Arabs, who were never fond of the Iranian government anyway. Arabs are a minority in Iran, and even though these Iranian Arabs are Shia, they have suffered persecution from the majority, non-Arab, Iranians.
Iraqi Shia Arabs have lived in fear, and domination by Sunni Arabs or Iranians, for over a thousand years. Now it is their turn to rule, and they are not eager to let their chance slip away.


December 11, 2004: Iraqis believe that their Arab neighbors are using Iraq as a way to get rid of their Islamic radicals. Syria, in particular, does little to stop Islamic radicals from entering Iraq. The Syrians know that most of these men will get killed. Those that survive and return, can be arrested, questioned to see if they are still willing to die to establish an Islamic state, and release them if they have mellowed out. Saudi Arabia and the other Arab Gulf States are accused of doing the same thing. These countries remember what happened during the 1980s, when eager young men went off to fight for Islam in Afghanistan, and the survivors came back eager to start an Islamic revolution in their home countries.
Actually, very few of the Arabs who went to Afghanistan got killed there. The Afghans were reluctant to take, into combat, inexperienced Arab volunteers who didn't even speak the local languages. But the Arab volunteers, like Osama bin Laden, stayed in Pakistan working with Afghan refugees and helping out as they could. Then these fellows went home full of enthusiasm for establishing Islamic republics. This resulted in the formation of Islamic rebellions in many Arab countries. In Iraq, many of the volunteers, even though they speak the local language (although with an accent that gives away their foreign origin), were also shunned by the more experienced Sunni Arab gunmen leading the fight against the government and coalition forces. Many of the foreigners are used as suicide bombers, as all this requires is driving a few miles, then pushing a button.
The Arab volunteers, in effect, identify themselves as Islamic radicals by going to Iraq. Frequently, even their families are surprised when they discover a son has gone off to Iraq. This is often considered a tragedy, because if the kid doesn't get killed in Iraq, he will be on a police list of usual suspects when he comes back.
It's thought that several hundred foreign volunteers died in Fallujah, a city that many volunteers headed for when they entered Iraq. Fallujah was the center of suicide bomb operations, and an area where foreign volunteers were prepared for suicide missions, or given training to make them useful as gunmen or for planting roadside bombs. But many of these volunteers never left Fallujah, as it was easier to use locals (who knew the neighborhood) to plant roadside bombs, or make attacks on local police. So when the battle for Fallujah happened, many foreign volunteers for a chance to fight. They were pretty inept, and many of those who got caught by bombs, and didn't leave behind enough information to identify nationality, were believed to be foreign Arabs. Interrogations of over a thousand captured gunmen in Fallujah indicated that lots of foreigners were there, and had been encouraged to stay there and fight. Most apparently did, and died. Only a few dozen were captured.
Iraqis are angry with their neighbors for allowing these bloodthirsty men to come to Iraq to kill people. Most of the casualties inflicted by the foreign Arabs are Iraqi. The government is increasingly vocal in demanding that their neighbors crack down on these "volunteers," but little is actually being done. Getting rid of your local Islamic radicals is too good an opportunity to pass up.
December 9, 2004: Most of the suicide bombers in Iraq are foreigners. The volunteers are numerous, but they come prepared to die. The Sunni Arab Iraqi antigovernment organizations that come across these foreigners, pass them on to al Qaeda groups, who get the volunteer ready for the mission. Sunni Arab groups have been helping with getting cars (bought or stolen) and equipping them with bombs (usually artillery and mortar shells wired to explode when the driver pushes a button.) But most of the suicide car bombs have been al Qaeda operations. Few Iraqis have volunteered to be suicide bombers, but the concept is popular in other Arab countries, where Palestinian suicide bombers have been turned into folk heroes. Many of the volunteers don't want to kill Iraqis. These are often told to go home. Others are convinced that they will be killing Kurds (who aren't Arabs, and are ethnically related to Iranians, who are much hated by Arabs) or Shia Arabs (al Qaeda is a Sunni movement that preaches death to Shia for not being Sunni enough.) Some of the suicide volunteers, the ones who aren't too bright to begin with, are simply deceived and sent out on their mission. It's not like the guy is likely to come back and complain that he was tricked.

The foreign volunteers are eager to kill coalition, especially American, troops. Some of the suicide car bombers are still directed against American troops, and sometimes they succeed. But most of the time they either can't get into position, or American troops shoot them. So the volunteers are given secondary targets, and these are the ones that are usually hit. The volunteers drive off with a non-suicidal guide/minder, who plays navigator until they are within sight of a target. The guide then arms the explosives, bales, and the volunteers drives off to do his best.

There have been 100-150 suicide car bomb attacks so far, with many more aborted, or the drivers arrested or killed before they could set off their explosives. Over 500 people, mostly Iraqis, have been killed by suicide bomb attacks so far. The attacks have made al Qaeda, foreign volunteers and Sunni Arab rebels very unpopular with most Iraqis. This is what al Qaeda wants (the better to start a Sunni/Shia civil war), although it is not exactly working out according to plan. Over a third of the Iraqi dead are Sunni Arabs, and Shia Arabs and Kurds are increasing their own security (with volunteer guards, or simply more civilians willing to point out attackers to police or coalition troops.) This forces the suicide bombers to increasingly hit targets in Sunni Arab neighborhoods. This is one of the reasons there have been so many attacks on police stations in Sunni Arab areas. While this demoralizes the police, it infuriates the Sunni Arabs because of all the Sunni Arabs killed in these attacks.

Seven suicide car workshops were found in Fallujah, and several more have been found in and around Baghdad. There are obviously more out there, and they will only be found when enough Sunni Arabs get fed up with the bombings and let the police know where the workshops are.


December 7, 2004: The fighting in Iraq is a continuation of the war that began in March, 2003. While Saddam's army and government was quickly demolished, his supporters in Sunni Arab areas of central Iraq were still there. Saddam didn't rule Iraq with the army, but with a force of skilled and ruthless terrorists. With a strength of over 100,000 men (and a few women), the work was often done at night. Real, or suspected, opponents of Saddam were kidnapped, beaten or killed in the dark. Broad daylight executions, or mutilations, in public places, were also used. Terror is fueled by frightening images, either mental or visual. Day and night, Saddam's terrorists frightened the Iraqi people into submission. The work of these terrorists continues, but the victims are fighting back. Saddam's thugs were chased out of northern Iraq ten years ago, with the U.S and Britain providing backup for the Kurds doing the chasing. In southern Iraq, Shia Arab gangs have been forming to go after Saddam's men in mixed Shia/Sunni areas of central Iraq. Saddam's thugs have been terrorizing and killing Shia Arabs. This is done mainly gain dominance and control in towns and neighborhoods with mixed populations. The thugs want everyone to know who the real boss is. The main target of the Sunni Arab gangs are the police and security forces. But these are increasingly staffed with Shia Arabs and Kurds. Saddam's men cannot threaten the families of Kurdish cops, and are having a harder time reaching the kin of Shia Arab police and soldiers. Western journalists have a hard enough time covering the battle involving American troops, but they are almost completely cut out of this other war. All you hear reported is the occasional killing of a prominent Sunni Arab (usually a clergyman). But the body count on both sides is quite high, and trending against the Sunni Arabs. If the Sunnis gather together in large groups, to overwhelm local police, they risk getting caught, and demolished by American troops. Operating in smaller groups, and there is increasing danger from Shia Arab (and even Kurdish) death squads. This is a very dirty war, which will eventually get reported as such. But for the moment, it's a dangerous beat for reporters, because neither side wants journalists along, and will kill any who get too close.
December 5, 2004: Sunni Arab antigovernment and al Qaeda gunmen now make no secret of their desire to trigger a religious and ethnic based civil war in Iraq. Attacks on Kurds (who are not Arabs) and Shia Arabs (who practice the form of Islam prevalent in neighboring Iran) are increasing. Only a minority of Kurds and Shia Arabs are affected, because most of those populations live in parts of Iraq where there are no Sunni Arabs, or where the local Sunni Arab leaders have kept the gunmen out. The major battlegrounds are cities like Mosul and Kirkuk. Saddam Hussein had, for over a decade, forced Kurdish families out of these cities, and moved in Sunni Arabs. It was ethnic cleansing at its most blunt. But large Kurdish minorities remain, and more Kurds, and their guns, are returning. In central Iraq, Sunni Arab gunmen roam the roads that Shia Arabs use to travel between the majority of Shia Arabs in the south, and the large minority of Shia Arabs in Baghdad. "

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Truth Fairy
Date: 14 Dec 04 - 01:19 AM

The futile efforts of a minority to terrorize a majority now risen to power. The Sunni insurgency is attempting to play its last card by starting a civil war in Iraq without success.

Sunni Arab antigovernment and al Qaeda gunmen now make no secret of their desire to trigger a religious and ethnic based civil war in Iraq. Attacks on Kurds (who are not Arabs) and Shia Arabs (who practice the form of Islam prevalent in neighboring Iran) are increasing. ... There are two reasons why the civil war has not broken out yet. First, the Sunni Arab gunmen represent a minority in the Sunni Arab community. ... One thing that makes the current situation different than the Lebanese civil war of 1975-90, is that the Sunni Arabs are not united to fight anyone. The antigovernment forces represent several factions, and many other larger factions want no part of a civil war.

This illuminates the second reason for no civil war; the Sunni Arabs are vastly outnumbered and likely to get quickly smashed. This is made worse by the fact that 80 percent of the population (the Kurds and Shia Arabs) would like to see the Sunni Arabs "punished" for generations of tyranny. Most Sunni Arabs understand this, but the minority who continue to murder and molest Shia Arabs and Kurds spend most of their efforts on terrorizing their fellow Sunni Arabs.

What the insurgency has done is remove the old Sunni chieftains from the field leaving it clear for those they formerly terrorized. An MSNBC article describes that while Sunni insurgents have forbidden participation in the elections their voice no longer carries the power of command.

As Iraq's first nationwide elections in more than a generation near, Hamra and other Shiite clergy, perhaps the country's most powerful institution, have led an unprecedented mobilization of the Shiite majority population through a vast array of mosques, community centers, foundations and networks of hundreds of prayer leaders, students and allied laypeople. The campaign has become so pitched that many Iraqis may have a better idea of Sistani's view of the election than what the election itself will decide. The momentum they have created has made a delay in the ballot difficult, if not impossible. Voters will choose a 275-member National Assembly, but powerful groups within Iraq's Sunni Muslim minority are boycotting the election or have called for a postponement so that they can bring calm to restive Sunni regions where insurgents have threatened to attack those taking part. ...

"Who wants to boycott, let them boycott, but the elections will happen regardless," said Hamra, sitting in an office with white walls bare but for a portrait of Sistani reading the Koran.

On December 3 a suicide car bomb blew up a Shi'ite mosque in Baghdad in an effort to reassert dominance but it merely increased scorn for the insurgents. The Financial Times found a curiously passive way to say the unsayable: that maybe some Shi'ites are joining forces with the government and America against the insurgents. For now at least when bombers -- accused of being Sunni insurgents -- struck at Shia holy sites in August 2003 and February 2004, many Shia clerics saved their strongest criticism for the coalition authorities, who they said had failed to protect them from attack. However, insurgent threats against forthcoming elections, which have been strongly endorsed by senior Shia scholars such as Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, may be breaking down the clergy's resolve to stay aloof. ...

A black-turbaned Shia cleric drove through the streets of the southern Baghdad district of al-Amel on Saturday, carrying a loudspeaker and mocking the insurgents who scrawled anti-election slogans on the neighbourhood's walls. "Let those who wrote this show their faces, if they are men," residents quoted him as saying, as two dozen armed supporters followed his motorcade on foot, painting over graffiti that threatened to "cut off the heads" of voters. "Come and vote," the cleric said to passersby. "We will protect you." ...

Dozens of Shia, from clergy to army and National Guard recruits, have been killed by Sunni ultra-puritans while driving through Latifiya. Two weeks ago, a delegation of tribesmen from Basra calling themselves the "Brigades of Anger" approached Mr Sistani, asking him for permission to launch reprisals in Latifiya, says Sheikh Musa al-Musawy, a representative of the Grand Ayatollah in Baghdad. Mr Sistani refused them his blessing. "The government will deal with this problem, and the law will take its course," he reportedly said.

The Iraqi Government found the strongest possible terms, borrowing unconsciously from a cult horror classic, to assure the nation that they would not waver nor yield in the face of terror -- and those words were spoken by a Sunni.

As the powerful, mainly Sunni tribe led by Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawar's uncle rallied behind an electoral bloc formed by leaders of the long oppressed Shi'ite majority, Yawar urged people not to identify the insurgency with the Sunni cause. Speaking after a particularly bloody few days in which more than 70 people have been killed, Yawar said: "Right now, we're faced with the armies of darkness, who have no objective but to undermine the political process and incite civil war in Iraq."

"But I want to assure the whole world that this will never, ever happen... After all these sacrifices, there's no way on earth that we will let it go in vain," said Yawar, who holds a largely figurehead position in the administration set up in June to take over responsibility from the U.S.-led occupation forces.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 09:47 PM

Torture and Truth
By Mark Danner Interviewed By Dave Gilson
Dec 11, 2004, 21:37



Tracing the origins -- and the aftermath -- of what happened at Abu Ghraib.  It's a lesson for every American to see how a democracy can arrive at the point where it commits these kinds of crimes.


When the Abu Ghraib scandal boiled over last spring, it looked, briefly, as if it would cause a major shakeup -- if not in how the Bush administration was fighting the war in Iraq, then at least within the administration itself. But soon enough, election season arrived, and the issue all but faded into the background. That doesn't mean we've heard the last of Abu Ghraib. Far from it, says journalist Mark Danner. "I don't think this thing is over by any means."


In his new book, Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War On Terror, Danner explores the origins and aftermath of the administration's post-9/11 decision to "take the gloves off." The book collects several articles written for the New York Review of Books over the past year, offering a mix of reportage -- Danner was one of the first reporters to arrive on the scene of the bombing of the Red Cross headquarters in Baghdad in October 2003 -- and a close reading of the nearly 500 pages of official documents related to the Abu Ghraib scandal that make up its bulk. The documents, some of which are published for the first time in Torture and Truth, make for gripping, if disturbing, reading. Danner admits that most Americans are unlikely to delve into these papers with the seriousness they did another official account of terror-fighting gone wrong, the best-selling 9/11 Commission report. "These are difficult issues," says Danner. "They make people uncomfortable."


The documents illustrate how the Bush administration constructed its rationale for ignoring prisoners' rights, and how that decision played out, with appalling consequences, in Iraq. "I think it's a lesson for every American to see how a democracy can arrive at the point where it commits these kinds of crimes," Danner says. "It's there in the documentary history." Exhibit A is the "torture memo" issued by the Justice Department in early 2002 at the request of President Bush's legal adviser (and nominee for attorney general) Alberto Gonzales, which concluded that "under the current circumstances, necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate" U.S. laws prohibiting torture. A few pages later, Iraqi prisoners give hair-raising depositions of their time in American captivity. Such first-hand accounts, says Danner, reveal how the "euphemistic world" of the Bush bureaucracy translated into "real pain and real suffering on the ground." As some of the Abu Ghraib guards go on trial, and fresh stories of abuses in Guantanamo and Iraq come out, it remains to be seen whether any of this will trickle up the chain of command.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 04:51 PM

HOENIX Dec 13, 2004 — U.S. Sen. John McCain said Monday that he has "no confidence" in Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, citing Rumsfeld's handling of the war in Iraq and the failure to send more troops.

McCain, speaking to The Associated Press in an hourlong interview, said his comments were not a call for Rumsfeld's resignation, explaining that President Bush "can have the team that he wants around him."

"I have strenuously argued for larger troop numbers in Iraq, including the right kind of troops linguists, special forces, civil affairs, etc.," said McCain, R-Ariz. "There are very strong differences of opinion between myself and Secretary Rumsfeld on that issue."

---

You have to wonder why he is NOT calling for Rumsfeld's resignation.

I am.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 04:26 PM

From the Washington Post, by Neely Tuckerconsidering the Second Bush Inaugural Address planned in January:


...Further, Bush faces a challenge in that second inaugurations are by nature
less giddy affairs. When Lincoln stood to give that landmark second
inaugural address during the Civil War, even he began by saying: "At this
second appearing to take the oath of the Presidential office there is less
occasion for an extended address than there was at the first."

But what he went on to say, particularly considering it came during the
nation's bloodiest war, is striking for its humility. Though the end of the
war was at hand, he did not boast or even promise victory.

He allowed that the war even might be God's punishment for slavery. If it
continued "until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be repaid by
another drawn with the sword," then so it must be.

He said that soldiers on both sides read the same Bible, prayed to the same
God, and each invoked His aid against the other. "It may seem strange that
any men should dare to ask a just God's assistance in wringing their bread
from the sweat of other men's faces, but let us judge not, that we be not
judged," he said. "The prayers of both could not be answered. That of
neither has been answered fully. The Almighty has His own purposes."

What faith! What dignity! What honesty!

Lincoln was assassinated a month later in Ford's Theatre, less than a mile
away from where he gave his inaugural address.

His own purposes, indeed.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 13 Dec 04 - 08:59 AM

The dreams of Rummy and the neocons were bound to collide. But it's immoral to trap our troops in a guerrilla war without the essential, lifesaving support and materiel just so a bunch of officials who have never been in a war can test their theories.

How did this dangerous chucklehead keep his job? He must have argued that because of the president's re-election campaign, the military was constrained from doing what it is trained to do and flattening Fallujah and other insurgent strongholds. He must have told W. he deserved a chance to try again after the election.
Excerpt from a Maureen Dowd column on Rumsfeld's recent embarassment (Click for article):


...He had a willing audience. W. likes officials who feed him swaggering fictions instead of uncomfortable facts.

The president loves dressing up to play soldier. To rally Camp Pendleton Marines facing extended deployments in Iraq, he got gussied up in an Ike D-Day-style jacket with epaulets and a big presidential seal on one lapel and his name and "Commander in Chief" on the other.

When he really had a chance to put on a uniform and go someplace where the enemy was invisible and there was no exit strategy and our government was not leveling with us about how bad it was, W. wasn't so high on the idea. But now that it's just a masquerade -- giving a morale boost to troops heading off someplace where the enemy's invisible and there's no exit strategy and the government's not leveling with us about how bad it is -- hey, man, it's cool.

...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 08:43 PM

In and of themselves the 9-11 attacks would have had no serious negative impact on the economy, especially if we had stayed focussed on the correct targets and prosecuted the actuaL perps successfully. As Bobert says, what has been far more damaging to the economy is the blind panicked leverage the attack gave Bush. The notion that had Gore been in charge the economy would have worsened is groundless, and without content as an argument -- unless Mister Bunker has some irrefutable rationalization for his assertion.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 07:52 PM

Yo, Bunko...

9/11 *did* ruin the US economy... Prior to Bush's cousin Osoma's strike Bush had the lowest approval rates in like four or five hundred years... Like it was preceeded with a - (minus)... Then Cousin Osoma conviently blows up some stuff and yer guy become the *Second Coming*.... Go figure?

Well, Iz all fir the Second Coming but it ain't Bush. No, what 9/11 did was open the flood gates for Bush and his boys to raid the treasury and raid, pilliage and plunder they have done. And then along came this past election, with Diebold's CEO promising to deliver the good to tyhe plunderers and deliver he did. Yup, lotta pollsters scrathing their heads even to this day on how, for the first time in the history of exit polls, voters decided this year, like some big voter conspiracy, to lie to the pollsters? And then the 51% to 48% split when the exit polls were the opposite??? Like, can I get a big, "hmmmmmmmmmm"?

No Bunko, you got it wrong. We don't hate Bush. Heck, he doesn't have a clue he lost in both 2000 or 2004. Buyt what we do hate is his anti-American policies that are Hell bent on bankrupting the federal governemnt so that his thugs can do what every Repub has tried to do for the last 60 years: kill the New Deal and restore Boss Hog to his birth-right dominance over the working man...

Just that simple... No reason to complicate it beyond this... Everywhere you look Boss Hog has more on the table than he can possibly eat and the working man is just hoping to get a scrap... 1 in 5 kids in America live in poeverty... Oh yeah, Bunko, they screwed up in not chosing to be born into the ruling class...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 07:09 PM

Rumsfeld under fire for 'hillbilly armour' used to defend army

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington


11 December 2004



The row over America's failure to send enough military vehicles to Iraq took a new twist yesterday when the company that manufactures them said it could deliver 1,200 more a year, but has had no request from the Pentagon.


Two days earlier, Donald Rumsfeld, was bluntly confronted by an Iraq-bound National Guardsman at what was meant to be a pep rally with the Defence Secretary at a US staging base in Kuwait. Instead, Mr Rumsfeld was hit by a barrage of pointed questions, first about the extended tours of duty driving down the morale of service personnel in Iraq, then over the lack of properly armoured Humvees to protect them from the roadside bombs that are the insurgents' weapon of choice.


"We don't have proper vehicles," said Thomas Wilson of the Tennessee Nation Guard, who claimed he and his men were forced to rummage in landfills for metal scrap and ballistic glass to use as makeshift shielding, known by soldiers in Iraq as "hillbilly armour".


Mr Rumsfeld, insisting everything possible was being done, and said: "You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want." That forthright response only made matters worse. Senior Demo-crats, led by Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, said the episode only proved the Pentagon's incompetence, and the refusal of Mr Rumsfeld and his colleagues to face reality.

(From the UK Independent)


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Bunky
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 06:34 PM

Would the fact that he was re-elected for a second term in spite of all the propaganda and dirty tricks by the Democrats have any bearing on his leadership?

You Bush haters simply refuse to acknowledge those facts and continue your rant.

You will not acknowledge that the terrorist attack of 9/11 was an economic blow that could have ruined the country and lead to a much higher deficit and a depression. Why did it not?

If the great Gore had been in charge on 9/11, you would be selling apples on the street corner and holding out a tin cup.



B

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 12 Dec 04 - 06:12 PM

Much has been made of the large U.S. budget and trade deficits in explaining the U.S. dollar's recent weakness. But is the sinking U.S. dollar mostly a reflection of global dissatisfaction with recent U.S. foreign policy? Joseph Quinlan — chief market strategist at Banc of America — argues that the dollar will continue to drop until U.S. legitimacy is restored.

Behind the Sinking Dollar: America's Image as a "Rogue Nation?" has the whole article.

Albert, while it may seem I am putting out some osrt of flow of hatred, in my view I am simply insisting on the clear and simple repetition of the fundamental facts of the case, especially the facts concerning unnecessary warmongering, economic malfeasance and incompetence as a manager or executive. You may recall in his first campaign Mister Bush asserting that his most telling qualification was that he knows how to lead. If you examine where he has lead the nation to you may want to add this to his list of inaccurate and misleading assertions.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 06:01 AM

700!!!! Thanks chaps, a good team effort!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:58 AM

699

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:57 AM

Is that really a photo of Robert Kilroy Silk?
he looks a bit different on telly, must be all the make up etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:53 AM

Morning Dave, Now THAT'S the kind of link we like to see!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:52 AM

That Anique bloke off telly {david Dickson] has got an orange face as well, he's a right weirdo, he wears womens dresses, i saw a programme about him.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:49 AM

He is OK Robert Silk but he doesn't Bush his teeth.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 05:22 AM

Hi jOhn, fancy meeting you down here in Intellectual land! Robert Silk has an orange face, never trust a man with an orange face!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Rt Revd Sir jOhn from Hull
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 03:48 AM

Robert Kilroy Silk reckons Arabs are rubbish.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 10 Dec 04 - 03:45 AM

Hey Amos, I'm an Arab too!

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Fat Albert
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 02:25 PM

The positive facts that others post here are usually from news articles. The things you post here are from Bush haters. You always ad you personal spin to it to emphasize the negative and degrade anything positive. Do you also hear voices?

I picture you as Joe Bfstplk in Lil' Abner. The guy with the raincloud over his head all the time.

If you are allways looking for shit you will find it. If you want to be miserable you can find a way. The opposite is also true. Forget Dianetics and see a professional.

Hey Hey Hey

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 09 Dec 04 - 12:43 AM

If you bother to rub your brain dwells together, Albert, you will see a slight difference. Once in a great while I go off the handle about the murderous cretin in charge of the country, because I think his rampant galloping idiocy has done serious harm to the world. But MOSTLY I offer various views from different people on this thread, and try to speak to issues, reserving my ad hominem stuff for the President.

The people who wrote most of those letters, though, were just so full of hatred all they could do was froth at the mouth. And by the way the word you are thinking of is venomous, meaning rich in venom.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Fat Albert
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:54 PM

Amos is the Mr Universe of spewing venimous crap. It looks like those letters were from ordinary people that did not like the bulshit spewed by Leon Smith, the Democratic candidate two time loser and owner of the newspaper.

Are Asian countrys in violation of the Kyoto Treaty? Maybe those glaciers calve because of them.

Massive air pollution casts Asian haze over global climate

Wed Dec 8, 2:58 PM ET

"AGRA, India (AFP) - A cloud of pollution which has been identified in the skies across Asia travels long distances across the Indian ocean and is now threatening to make the entire planet a drier place, experts warned."

Hey Hey Hey

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Once Famous
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:40 PM

Flash: This Just in.

Amos is really an Arab.

I heard the CIA is interested in him.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:31 PM

Dear Bratwurst-Brain:

More anonymous hatred, huh? Y'ever wish you could just come out and say what you had to say under your own name and own your own point of view?

Terror is ugly whether high or low. Spewing this kind of venomous crap is just sad.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Greg F.
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:29 PM

And these are scientists???

In a word, Bobert: No. They're not. They're Bush propagandists, bought and paid for.

Since about a week after Bush took office, REAL scientists & scientific organizations have pointed out time and time again how the BuShites use junk "science" to support their ideaology.

Just Google "Bush" and "junk science" or do a news.google.com search for the same- you'll be reading for weeks.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Crawford Iconoclast
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:26 PM

Letters to the EditorDear Editor:
I want to congratulate George Bush on his victory in the 2004 presidential election! An impressive win was accomplished with 52% of the 60 per cent of eligible voters casting a Republican ballot!
He will have a very tough job ahead given the record of the previous administration and I, for one, don't envy him the task! George Bush will now have to oversee a federal bureaucracy that has mushroomed more than any other in history with a 300 plus trillion dollar deficit to get down. He will have to get those health care savings accounts in place for the 45 million uninsured and see if those drugs that people want from Canada are safe to buy more cheaply. I am looking forward to investing my 2% in my social security account (and am looking closely at Smith&Wesson/Remington Gun stock) though I know he will have to fight tooth and nail with those "liberals" who wanted to keep the trust intact!.

But most difficult of all is that he will inherit a war from a previous administration with no clear exit strategy, waning moral support from battle weary reservists and national guard and worsening insurgency that have killed more Americans every month ....But I know this moral president can do the job! Again Congratulations and Best of Luck!

G.D.
Jonesboro, Ark


What an embarrassment you are to Crawford, Texas!! What an embarrassment you are to the State of Texas!! We live in Indiana now and it was amazing how people here were making fun of you for what you wrote about Bush. Of course, Indiana voted 61% for President Bush. I guess that's one of the reasons alot of people here thought you should be run out of Crawford.

As small as your little town is, I would think you would have a one way ticket to California or New York by now. My question to you-----how can someone so out of touch with Texas be able to run a newspaper in the town where the President of the United States lives??? I guess you have trouble with subscriptions at least in your area. Do you personally know President Bush??? I wondered about that. And I guess you know that John Kerry's hometown newspaper endorsed President Bush. Go figure-----Maybe you two were just trying to get some publicity for yourselves.......

We hope to move back to Texas soon. We miss the Lone Star State. We are also proud of the President and proud that he has Texas roots.

Sincerely
S.H.
Ft. Wayne, Indiana


After spending 33 years writing for and editing newspapers, I am well aware of how easy it is to be stupid.
Your editorial for Kerry proves anew that being stupid is our occupational hazard.
D.B.
Lake Placid, Fla.


Go cry in your cow manure. This is a rag for nitwits.
K.S.


Hurray! Hurray!
Four More years of:
Dick Cheney, Halliburton and their
top assistant George W. Bush.
D.M.


I am very grateful that your endorsement of John Kerry fell on deaf ears. The breakdown of counties throughout the United Sates shows a shift away from the Democratic Party. The era of Ted Kennedy and his "gang of liberals" is now over. Ain't life grand?? Now the hard part for this newspaper is to make amends with the local town folk for your endorsement. Your need for fifteen minutes of fame didn't set well did it??
J.M.
Fort Worth, Texas


Eat your hearts out you lying liberal jackasses!
M.H.

WELL MR SMITH,
I WANT TO THANK YOU AND YOUR TWIN, AND SOUL-MATE MICHAEL MOORE.
YOUR PROFOUND IGNORANCE HELPED TO ENERGIZE A NATION TO GET OFF IT'S BUTT AND GO OUT AND VOTE AGAINST THOSE LIKE YOU AND THE COMMUNIST PARTY, RE WWW.CPUSA.ORG THEY TOO ENDORSED JOHN KERRY.
YOUR ENDORSEMENT WAS NOT BORN OUT OF TRUTH, BUT A PACK OF LIES GENERATED BY THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL PARTY.
I COULD RESPECT A DIFFERENCE OF OPINION HAD YOU SIMPLY SAID IN YOUR DISGUSTING EDITORIAL THAT BASED ON A DISAGREEMENT IN POLICY YOU WERE ENDORSING KERRY . BUT YOU WENT OUT OF YOUR WAY TO EDITORIALIZE THE UNTRUE ALLEGATIONS YOU DID .
GEORGE BUSH WENT TO WAR IN IRAQ BASED ON INFORMATION FURNISHED BY AN INTEL REPORT PROVIDED BY AN AGENCY IN POWER DURING THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION, ANY AMERICAN WITH ANY GUTS WOULD DO THE SAME.YET YOU LITTERLY CALLED A MEMBER OF THE COMMUNITY FROM WHICH YOU EARN A LIVING CRAWFORD TEXAS . A LIAR. YOU MAY CALLTHAT 1ST AMMENDMENT FREEDOM? OF COURSE IT IS. BUT THERE IS ALSO A THING CALLED "TASTE" SOMETHING YOUR INFLATED EGO IS DEVOID OF, BUT SINCE I PLAN TO EXERCISE MY FIRST AMMENDMENT RIGHTS ALSO , BASED OF YOUR EXAMPLE .I PLAN ON INFORMING ANYONE WHO ADVERTISES IN YOUR PAPER THAT I'LL BE DRIVING TO WACO OR CLEBURNE TO SHOP, AND SINCE YOU DONT LIKE BUSH I WONT OFFEND YOU BY ADVERTISING IN YOUR PAPER ANY MORE, AFTER-ALL YOU WOULDNT WANT TO GET GERMS FROM MY MONEY, SURELY ALL US BUSH FANS ARE BOUND TO HAVE GOTTEN A KICK-BACK FROM HALLIBURTON?
SO EVEN THOUGH I'VE NEVER SPENT A GREAT DEAL WITH YOU, SO YOU WONT MISS THIS "BUSHIE" GUESS I'LL JUST "TATOO" MY ADS ON A JACKASS'S BEHIND AND LEAD IT AROUND TOWN.
THAT MAY BE JUST AS RESPECTED.AS YOUR PAPER NOW IS.

J.V.


GUESS YOUR CANDIDATE LOST. WHY DON'T YOU MOVE TO BOSTON. YOU MUST BE A BUNCH OF IDIOTS! GO GEORGE W!!
Unsigned

It is clear you do not represent Texas. Please get into your car, pick up that lesbian Marxist named Molly Ivins and head north, way north.
Like that line in that old John Wayne movie-"We just don't need your kind around here".
The sooner the better.

J.M.
A real Texan, born in Texas.



Dear Texans:
Today, all of America has received a wonderful gift from the great state of Texas. I want to let you know that Americans appreciate the fact that Texas has lent him to us for the next four years. In four years time he will return to Texas and most likely go down in history as one of the greatest presidents of all time. Some may not like his policies but all should respect his convictions and desire to serve this great country.
E.V.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand, you lose. - K.R.


Dear Mr. Smith,
Well, I hope you aren't shocked, appalled or surprised at the outcome. You decided to open your mouth and back Kerry, in Bush's hometown. Fun, isn't it, being on the outside looking in?
Are you going to whine about it? Are you going to just emphasize the "hate" mail and NOT focus on your arrogance?
The big articles just put out by Time and Newsweek magazines, delayed, according to the editors, because they were so negative for Kerry, are very interesting and informative. Too bad you didn't have a chance to know some of that stuff before you editorialized for Kerry....in Bush's home town.
These two editors were on the O'Reilly Factor yesterday. VERY interesting.
What a colossal dose of Smith-arrogance. You called it "principle." Another load of arrogance. You tried to rub the noses of your local readers in your liberal point of view. Endorsing Kerry in Bush's hometown? Unbelieveable arrogance. I won't call it stupid because you KNEW exactly what you were doing.
You must win some kind of Darwin award for it—the "Mother of all Arrogance" award perhaps?
My guess is that you will be a guest columnist on the syndicated liberal rags in blue states. I look forward to reading some more of your gems. I DO read both sides.
Come on out to Kaleeeeforneeyah! We love our Governator and his lovely Democrat wife! He's no girlie man; he will PUMP YOU UP!
You DO have a future with the left, er, progressive side of the Democrat party.
I was a Democrat until 1994. Became an independent as a shock reaction to Clinton's admission of his gargantuan lie about Gennifer Flowers. Then, I became a Republican when my Democrat party put up Clinton for re-election in 1996. One of the "seven dwarves," "a third rate governor from a second rate state"....the DEM'S own words. "What has happened to mah party?" —
Zel Miller.
Y.B.A.
San Francisco

To The Editor:
Well, it looks like you really stepped in it NOW. You may want to just shut it down and move to the 'LEFT COAST'. No one of any common sense shares your liberal bias. Hey I've got an idea. MOVE TO FRANCE! They'd love you there.
S.M.
Omaha, Neb.

The Editor of your newspaper should move to Boston. That's where the Queers are but not many steers.
J.B., Minn.

To The Editor:
Concerning Stem Cell Research
As Homo-sapiens we are different and have risen above all other creatures. Every life is valuable, but human life is more so. Humans should not be treated by the scientific community as "cattle", ripe and ready for experimentation without ethical checks and balances. No other human endeavor has carte blanche like the science community is not only asking, but DEMANDING of the world.
Life is precious and so very, very short. I don't know when it starts. I don't really care. If I'm to make a decision concerning stem cell research, I see it this way: I refuse to even risk the possibility of taking an innocent life to save mine, but I am very willing to give mine to save yours. And it would be my greatest honor to do so.
J.G., Katy, Texas

To The Editor:
You are what my dad used to refer to as being "penny wise and dollar dumb."
Bush may be bad for "the" economy....but your dumbass actions are responsible for "your" economy, and that of your paper, taking a rather serious dive, huh?
R.

To The Editor:
Adding fuel to the fire. There are some people who are too stupid to understand how they have messed up; are you? You primarily earned your income from local matters......... It appears to most that you took the chance for greater notoriety with your only partially accurate opinion. Now 'tis time to pay for your folly. I wish you no bad cess (guru net that), only hope that you have learned not to bite the hand that feeds you, even if it is the "right" hand. Ha, ha - good pun -did you get it?
Sincerely,
P.Z.
Robbinsville, N.C.

Thank you Amos for informing us about this fine bottom of the birdcage class newspaper.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:09 PM

Anyone notice the incredible calving that is going on at bopth poles, with segments falling of icebergs as big as Greenwich Village? Unprecedented decomposition of centuries-old ice-masses?

Hmmmmmm?


There are some pictures out there of these blocks of ice falling apart...fskinatin'


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 11:03 PM

Yeah, fir every scientist who seems to make sense there's another who doesn't have a clue...

Even Bush's clue-less scientists agree that the planet seems to be warming. Where the disageement crops up is in the area of solutions. Bush's scientist think that we just need to figure ways of eating up the carbon monoxide short of protecting forests. But they don't seem to have any real ideas on how that might happen???

And these are scientists???

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Jeb Shwarzeneggar
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 10:48 PM

Kyoto will not work, warns climate expert
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

09 December 2004.

"The West's approach to fighting global warming, enshrined in the Kyoto protocol, will not work, a leading climate scientist said yesterday."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Bobert
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 09:53 PM

Voodoo, science?

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,TIA
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 08:17 PM

Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit.

The "scientific community" believes with unanimity that global warm is a threat. Oh yeah, the Bush administration can always find a quack whom they can pay to say otherwise, but "the scientific community" (consisting of liberal, conservative, American, European, Asian, black, yellow, brown, christian, hindu, WHATEVER...) agrees that it is happening and that it may have cataclysmic consequences. The only real question is how much human activity is implicated. Note that it IS implicated, but we don't know for sure how much.

The notion that there is any debate whether global warming is really occuring or not is a myth propagated by Rush Limbaugh and his ilk, who are either scientifically illiterate, or lying through their teeth (you choose). On September 14, 2004, Rush Limbaugh actually said "come on think about it folks...if the ice caps were melting, the oceans would be getting cooler." If you follow this logic, and believe this BS, the same two choices apply for you.

Sorry to jump on anybody, but I've got three kids who may have kids themselves, and this shit matters! Drop the political crap. Where and how are my kids and their kids going to live? I've seen the world environment change in my lifetime. Seventy percent of the world's coral reefs have died in the last 10 years (go look it up if you don't believe it).

If Rush Limbaugh were a coal miner, he'd be saying "big deal, it's just a dead canary."

Idiot.

"Winning" politically matters more than our progeny's future?

Idiots all.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: DougR
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 05:33 PM

Amos: I don't recall the Democrat's idol, Bill Clinton, waving the flag for the Kyoto Treaty either. Do you? He and the Democrat controlled congress had ample opportunity to sign it if they wanted to. Why didn't they? For the very reason the U. S. representative pointed out. A division of opinion, even in the scientific community, whether or not global warming is a real threat.

DougR

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 04:57 PM

Couldn't help but be bemused by these two news stories which appeared side by side in a newsfeed this morning:

---

Huge no-fishing zones 'offer only hope' of saving marine ecosystem from
disaster
Michael McCarthy | December 8
The Independent -

It has been invisible, so it has gone largely unheeded,
but the wrecking of the seas is now the world's gravest environmental
problem after climate change, British scientists said yesterday.

Such destruction has been caused by over-fishing in the marine environment
and only massive protected zones, where all fishing is banned, will allow
the sea's damaged areas to recover, members of the Royal Commission on
Environmental Pollution said.

---

US rules out joining Kyoto treaty

The US has told a UN conference on global warming that it has no
intention of re-joining international efforts to cut greenhouse gas
emissions.

The chief American negotiator at the conference in Argentina's capital
Buenos Aires ruled out any move to sign up to the Kyoto Protocol for years.

He told reporters that efforts to cut emissions were based on bad science.
The US was focused instead, he said, on implementing President George W
Bush's plans to promote energy efficiency.

---

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:38 AM

Dear John-John Guest Kingfish Calhoun:

What I don't get is why you feel you have to be secretive and pretend to be three different people.

Why is that?

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Kingfish
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:23 AM

New US team reflects Bush's world-view

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Calhoun
Date: 08 Dec 04 - 12:14 AM

Bloomberg
Representative Allen Boyd became the leading Democrat to endorse President George W. Bush's plan to create private Social Security accounts ...

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 11:59 PM

Afghanistan swears in first democratic leader
Declan Walsh in Kabul
Wednesday December 8, 2004
The Guardian UK
"For 30 years coups, assassinations and invasions were the usual means of power transfer in Kabul. But yesterday Hamid Karzai broke with bloody tradition and assumed office with a simple formula of words.

Laying a hand on the Qur'an, Afghanistan's first democratic president swore his allegiance inside the former royal palace that was once the scene of thunderous gunbattles but has since been renovated to welcome 600 guests."

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,Johnjohn
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 11:50 PM

New York Times
WASHINGTON, Dec. 7 -
The House voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to approve the sweeping intelligence-overhaul bill sought by President Bush and the independent Sept. 11 commission

JJ

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 06:31 PM

Years from now, the mistreatment of Afghan war detainees at Guantánamo and
Iraqi war detainees at Abu Ghraib is likely to rank with the internment of
Japanese-American civilians in World War II as a blot on the history of the
United States. But the Bush administration remains deaf to criticism of its
actions, whether it comes from U.S. courts or the International Red Cross.
Congress must act to steer America back toward compliance with the Geneva
conventions and U.S. law.

From The International herald Tribune editorial section.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 06:29 PM

Bush sets out plan to dismantle 30 years of environmental laws

By Geoffrey Lean in Washington

05 December 2004

Excerpt:

George Bush's new administration, and its supporters controlling Congress, are setting out to dismantle three decades of US environmental protection.

In little over a month since his re-election, they have announced that they will comprehensively rewrite three of the country's most important environmental laws, open up vast new areas for oil and gas drilling, and reshape the official Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

They say that the election gave them a mandate for the measures - which, ironically, will overturn a legislative system originally established by the Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford - even though Mr Bush went out of his way to avoid emphasising his environmental plans during his campaign.

"The election was a validation of the philosophy and the agenda," said Mike Leavitt, the Bush-appointed head of the EPA. He points out that over a third of the agency's staff will become eligible for retirement over the President's four-year term, enabling him to fill it with people lenient to polluters.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 06:26 PM

From The Boston Globe:

Afraid to look in the moral abyss


By James Carroll  |  December 7, 2004

Excerpt:

WHY DON'T we Americans look directly at the war? We avert our gaze, knowing that the situation in Iraq grows more desperate by the day. Vaunted "coalition" efforts to "break the back" of the "insurgency" have only strengthened it. The violence among Iraqis would surely qualify as civil war -- except that only one side is fighting. The structures of relief and repair are gone. Whole cities are destroyed, populations displaced. The hope of Iraqi elections is mortally compromised. "Coalition" members are dropping out. The mission of American force is to secure the country, but it can't secure itself. The performance of US intelligence has been consistent: Its strategic failures caused the war, and its tactical ignorance of the enemy is losing the war.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 09:40 AM

Bush Administration Facing Failure On Every Front


By Paul Craig Roberts


Is the Bush administration competent? There is enough information at hand on which to base an objective opinion.

On the eve of President Bush's second term, the US economy has fewer jobs than when Bush was inaugurated four years ago.

During Bush's first term, the US economy was unable to create jobs in both export and import-competitive sectors. The formerly powerful US jobs machine has been allowed to run down to the point that jobs can only be created in nontradable domestic services.

The service jobs that have been created are too few in number to offset the loss of manufacturing and knowledge jobs. Unemployed manufacturing workers, US software engineers, computer programmers, and IT workers number in the hundreds of thousands.

During Bush's first term, the value of the US dollar declined dramatically in relation to other traded currencies. The extraordinary diminution in the dollar's exchange value threatens its role as the world's reserve currency. If the dollar loses its role as reserve currency, there will be catastrophic consequences for US living standards and superpower status.(...)

---

Click link for rest of article.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 04 - 09:34 AM

Founding principles under siege by Bush administration

By SCOTT ELLIOT

"Karl Rove has all but succeeded in reversing the outcome of the Civil War and the Scopes trial in one masterstroke. The founding principles of this country have been under siege by the Bush administration for the last four years. In our schools, biology is being edged out by Bible studies, the pursuit of happiness has become the private reserve of the most affluent, and America the Beautiful is falling prey to the oil drill and the chain saw.


I'm surprised that we Democrats lost, but in retrospect, I'm not surprised that we lost on "moral values." After all, everyone knows, or should know by now, that it is more moral to take up swords against "infidels" than to beat them into plowshares. Osama bin Laden taught us that, only he had to make do with box cutters.


Bearing false witness not only appears to be acceptable to Bush supporters; it is the common thread between the campaigns of father and son. Bush I gained office with the aid of Lee Atwater's infamous Willie Horton ads. Bush II used Atwater protégé Karl Rove's attacks on the patriotism of true war heroes, John McCain, Max Clelland and John Kerry. Attacks were made against Bush, to be sure, but so far, none have been proven untrue.


Followers of U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, R-St. Joseph, Attorney General John Ashcroft and Bush apparently believe that the mere sight of a woman's breast is a grave threat to our national morality, but they have no problem with peeking into people's bedrooms and then finding ways to punish them if they don't like the way they make love.


While Kerry dreams of someday reducing terrorism to the level of a nuisance, Rove already considers the poor, the sick and the elderly little more than a nuisance. Dismantling Social Security and Medicare, protecting profits for health insurance and pharmaceutical companies, rolling back environmental standards and slashing housing programs are the cornerstones of the new morality.


While Bush enlists the working class in making a heaven on earth for the rich, Rove is no doubt busily at work trying to figure out how to expand the eye of a needle."

See link for rest of article.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Peace
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 10:55 PM

GUEST, Siggy--your post was number 666.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: GUEST,siggy
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 10:51 PM

Mental Health 101 by Amos

Freud

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 07:22 PM

A paper called the New York Tribune has written a condemnatory article on the Bush Administrations "managing the news flow out of Iraq". An excerpt:

US media uncover Bush administration's managing the flow of news from Iraq
By New York Tribune Dec 3, 2004, 11:57


Allawi's recent visit to the United States was part of an intensive campaign by the Bush administration to manage the flow of news out of Iraq. As a matter of policy, any journalist wanting to visit the Green Zone, had to be escorted at all times; one could not simply wander around and chat with people in bars and cafés, says the latest issue of the New York Review.
The vast world of civilian contractors-of Halliburton's Kellogg, Brown & Root, of Bechtel, and of all the other private companies responsible for rebuilding Iraq-was completely off-limits; employees of these companies were informed that they would be fired if they were caught talking to the press. During the days of the Coalition Provisional Authority, its administrator, L. Paul Bremer, and the top military commander, Ricardo Sanchez, gave very few interviews to US correspondents in Baghdad.
They did, however, speak often via satellite with small newspapers and local TV stations, which were seen as more open and sympathetic. "The administration has been extremely successful in going around the filters, of getting their message directly to the American people without giving interviews to the Baghdad press corps," one correspondent said.

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 07:18 PM

A site called "WhyWeHateBush" (which I saw for the first time today I believe) is upset about the Republican assault on Kofi Annan, in an essay entitled Once again, it's the Bush Administration vs. the World. Part of their thesis:


Bush Republicans Attack United Nations, Deflecting Attention from Cheney Corruption

 Commentary ~ December 4, 2004: George Bush and his minion Republican attack dogs launched a vicious assault this week on United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan because, they say, his son received $125,000 in payments from Cotecna, a Swiss contractor in the oil-for-food program. This accusation conveniently overlooks the fact that Dick Cheney continues to get $1 million a year from Halliburton, the company that received billions in uncontested contracts from the U.S. Government through Cheney's influence.


The New York Times reported that Mr. Annan's son, Kojo Annan, was employed from December 1995 until the end of 1998 by Cotecna Inspection Services, a company based in Geneva. On Monday, the United Nations confirmed that Kojo Annan received nearly $2,500 a month after leaving the company, payments that did not cease until February 2004.

Seth Goldschlager, a spokesman for Cotecna in Paris, told the International Herald Tribune that the $2,500 a month in health care compensation was part of the noncompete agreement that is required by Swiss law.

$2,500 a month for an official's son vs. $1 million a month for an actual official? Realistically speaking, if there was any corruption, wouldn't Kojo have asked for ten times that amount?

For all this so-called "corruption," Cotecna won a $4.8 million contract to monitor the import of aid items to Iraq under the oil-for-food program, which permitted Iraq to sell oil to buy goods to offset the effects of sanctions between 1996 and 2003. Halliburton, far and away the largest recipient of Iraq reconstruction dollars with about $18 billion in contracts, has seen revenues increase by 80 percent in the first quarter of 2004, compared with the same quarter of 2003, according to the Financial Times. Next in line is the Bechtel Group of San Francisco, with nearly $3 billion in Iraq reconstruction contracts. USA Today has reported that Bechtel executives gave thousands of dollars to both Bush presidential campaigns, and two of the company's top executives serve on advisory boards for the White House and Pentagon.
A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 07:12 PM

Paul Roberts, who served under Reagan as Treasury Secretary, has a very dim view of the current posture of the Bush Administration.

In a piece entitled Is The Bush Administration Certifiable? he asks seriously, "Has President Bush lost his grip on reality?", and goes on to say:


'In his December 1 speech in Halifax, Nova Scotia, President Bush again declared his intention to pre-emptively attack "enemies who plot in secret and set out to murder the innocent and the unsuspecting." Freedom from terrorism, Bush declared, will come only through pre-emptive war against enemies of democracy.

How does Bush know who and where these secret enemies are? How many more times will his guesses be wrong like he was about Iraq?

What world does Bush live in? The US cannot control Iraq, much less battle the rest of the Muslim world and beyond. While Bush threatened the world with US aggression, headlines revealed the futility of preemptively invading countries: "Pentagon to Boost Iraq Force by 12,000," "US Death Toll in Iraq at Highest Monthly Level," "Wounded Disabled Soldiers Kept on Active Duty." ...Bush's insane doctrine of pre-emptive war promises a 21st century more bloody than the 20th.' See link for whole article.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Popular Views of the Bush Administration
From: Amos
Date: 06 Dec 04 - 06:31 PM

When did the Soviet Union collapse? When did reform take off in Iran? When
did the Oslo peace process begin? When did economic reform become a hot
topic in the Arab world? In the late 1980's and early 1990's. And what was
also happening then? Oil prices were collapsing.

In November 1985, oil was $30 a barrel, recalled the noted oil economist
Philip Verleger. By July of 1986, oil had fallen to $10 a barrel, and it did
not climb back to $20 until April 1989. "Everyone thinks Ronald Reagan
brought down the Soviets," said Mr. Verleger. "That is wrong. It was the
collapse of their oil rents." It's no accident that the 1990's was the
decade of falling oil prices and falling walls.

If President Bush made energy independence his moon shot, he would dry up
revenue for terrorism; force Iran, Russia, Venezuela and Saudi Arabia to
take the path of reform - which they will never do with $45-a-barrel oil -
strengthen the dollar; and improve his own standing in Europe, by doing
something huge to reduce global warming. He would also create a magnet to
inspire young people to contribute to the war on terrorism and America's
future by becoming scientists, engineers and mathematicians. "This is not
just a win-win," said the Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael
Mandelbaum. "This is a win-win-win-win-win."

Or, Mr. Bush can ignore this challenge and spend the next four years in an
utterly futile effort to persuade Russia to be restrained, Saudi Arabia to
be moderate, Iran to be cautious and Europe to be nice.

Sure, it would require some sacrifice. But remember J.F.K.'s words when he
summoned us to go to the moon on Sept. 12, 1962: "We choose to go to the
moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but
because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure
the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we
are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we
intend to win."

Summoning all our energies and skills to produce a 21st-century fuel is
George W. Bush's opportunity to be both Nixon to China and J.F.K. to the
moon - in one move.

(From the NY Times Editorial section -- Friedman)

---

A