IPS: "The Bush administration's failure to accept advice on Iraq from its military and foreign service officers has led to policies that have fuelled the insurgency against U.S.-led forces in the occupied nation, says a letter signed by some 500 national-security specialists. Released Tuesday by a group called Security Scholars for a Sensible Foreign Policy (S3FP), the letter calls the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq the United States' 'most misguided' policy since the Vietnam War. 'We're advising the administration, which is already in a deep hole, to stop digging,' said Barry Posen, the Ford international professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), one of the organisers of S3FP, which includes some of the most eminent U.S. experts on national-security policy and on the Middle East and the Arab world."

So just how is this scheme supposed to make anyone happy (let alone make any sense)? Bush plans to leave 130,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan - no relief for the thousands who have already been there for repeatedly extended tours. But he's going to pull 70,000 guys from Europe - from places like Germany that many soldiers HOPE to be sent, spending millions upon millions to do so (for one thing, where the heck will you put 70,000 active duty people when they get here?). But he's not actually going to do ANYTHING until 2006. So it's all a sound byte, designed to make it appear that he's doing SOMETHING besides bashing John Kerry. Wesley Clark summed it up nicely: This makes absolutely no strategic military sense whatsoever. But then, neither has anything else G. W. Bush.has done.

Las Vegas SUN: "Secretary of State Colin Powell promised Iraqi leaders Friday that the United States will speed up spending to rebuild the country's infrastructure and create jobs, and said doing so will help make Iraq safer." Gee, we wish we could hear the same promises here! "It's important to note the leaders of Iraq are very courageous, they put themselves at risk every day," Powell said after meeting with interim Iraqi President Ghazi al-Yawer." We'd love to hear the Bush administration give the same praise to US police and firefighters, who ALSO risk their lives every day. Instead, he plans to cut funding for tens of thousands of their jobs. Maybe if, for example, New York cops struck oil in Manhattan they'd be given the same preferential treatment as the Iraqis.

Former top diplomats and military leaders will release a statement this week calling for a change in U.S. national security policy. Among the signatories are former ambassadors to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock and Arthur A. Hartman. Also voicing support are former CIA director Adm. Stansfield Turner, former Joint Chiefs chairman William Crowe Jr., former Air Force chief of staff Gen. Merrill McPeak and former Central Command chief Gen. Joseph P. Hoar. Others include Phyllis E. Oakley, former chief of the State Department's intelligence operation, as well as former ambassadors Avis Bohlen and Charles Freeman and onetime U.N. ambassador Donald F. McHenry.

"Differences over the handover of sovereignty to Iraq and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict have led to several last-minute reforms to the G8 Summit agenda. The Summit will still call for support for the Middle East's 'civil institutions, private enterprise and businesses,' though U.S. plans to sketch out a Greater Middle East Initiative have been 'seriously scaled back.' In addition, France and Russia have blocked plans for a U.S.-backed Democracy Assistance Group, arguing that states would view it as 'a back door to regime change.' The U.S. (along with Britain and Italy) is also pushing for an initiative that would draw international funds to offer support to countries that join so-called 'peace missions.' Joan Russow of the Global Compliance Research Project believes the initiative is an attempt 'to train and equip peacekeepers from developing nations as 'a standby brigade to clean-up after U.S. 'humanitarian interventions' or preventive aggressive strikes' - as in Iraq or Haiti.'"

Al Jazeera reports: "A British charity has concluded that the 'war on terror' is a cause of great suffering to some of the world's poorest people. In a report to be published on Monday, Christian Aid said London had to reverse a recent trend of linking aid to the fight against 'terror'. Lead author John Davison highlighted Afghanistan and Uganda as places where funds have been wrongly diverted. 'The giving of aid by the world's richest countries is ruled by the rhetoric of 'with us or against us'. This must not be allowed to continue.' Davison added it was dangerous to blur humanitarian aid for the world's poorest with the military activities of their governments. Christian Aid cites two particular case studies. It claims Afghanistan's $2.2bn in aid for 2004 is being diverted to military projects and emergency relief rather than long-term redevelopment." No wonder Kerry was reluctant to rubber stamp Bush's request for $87 billion!

Inspired by the public protest of over 50 former British diplomats, 60 former US diplomats condemned Bush's Middle East policies and urged him to "reassert American principles of justice and fairness...Your unqualified support for Israel's extra-judicial assassinations, its Berlin Wall-like barrier, and its harsh military measures in occupied territories" has cost America "its credibility, prestige and friends," the diplomats assert... The letter warned that Bush's policies were were placing US diplomats, civilians and military overseas "in an untenable, even dangerous position." Will Bush listen to 60 respected veteran diplomats? We doubt it. He'd rather listen to rogue misfits like John Negroponte or Henry Kissinger.

Robert Dreyfuss writes, "Sounds like the good old Cold War: the US climbing into bed with ugly dictators in exchange for military cooperation and base rights. Here's the latest from Central Asia: A top American official has confirmed that the Bush administration is seeking a long-term military presence in Central Asia as a hedge against emerging terrorist threats from the region. According to Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith, the Pentagon is currently busy building bilateral relations with the former Soviet republics of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, paving the way for greater U.S. deployments to those countries in the near future. The Administration's ambitious plan is to gain strategic control of the 'arc of instability' stretching from North Africa through the Middle East and Central Asia to the Far East through an expanded military presence in those theaters." Still, the media buys Bush's Big Lie about invading Iraq to promote "democracy" in the Middle East.

"In the rogues' gallery of Soviet dinosaurs, the rulers of the central Asian states have pride of place. Islam Karimov, who has ruled the impoverished republic of Uzbekistan as a dictator for 15 years, may not be the looniest. That reputation could probably be claimed by his neighbour, President Saparmurat Niyazov of Turkmenistan, who in 2002 renamed the months of the calendar - January after himself. But President Karimov could well be the cruellest, accused of torture of opponents, muzzling freedom of speech and jailing up to 6,500 political prisoners... Since 11 September 2001, he has come into his own, however, thanks to George Bush and the war on terror. After opening an air base to the US military for the war against the Taliban, he was thanked with a visit to the White House. Despite the human rights abuses in his one-party state, Mr Karimov looks likely to stay as the Bush administration's man in central Asia."

Tom Engelhardt writes, "Our global Baseworld consists of at least 700 military and intelligence bases; possibly -- depending on how you count them up -- many more... The process has speeded up under Bush, but until recent weeks, if you read our press, you would have had almost no way of knowing this; on Iraq, since in April 2003 the NY Times front-paged Pentagon plans to build four permanent bases there... Only recently, however, a few basing articles have suddenly appeared and, miracle of miracle, Christine Spolar of the Chicago Tribune has actually written one about our permanent Iraqi bases, endearingly referred to in the military as 'enduring camps.' Such bases were almost certainly planned for by the Pentagon before the 2003 invasion... The numbers of those potential enduring camps in Iraq are startling indeed. The title of Spolar's piece tells the tale: 14 'enduring' bases set in Iraq... our particular version of military empire is perhaps unique: all 'gunboats,' no colonies."

NYTimes reports, "It is democracy in a china shop -- aggressive televised arrests, new limitations on the press, a rushed constitutional amendment to concentrate presidential power, a headlong confrontation with a rebellious local strongman... His supporters in the United States and Europe, who are heavily financing his government and have a stake in its success, are crossing their fingers that he will not push things too far. Human rights groups have begun to warn of a tendency toward one-man rule... 'We must move swiftly to take advantage of political support,' Mr. Saakashvili said a month ago during a visit to Washington, where he met with President Bush and won promises of support. The United States is heavily invested in Georgia because of its strategic location on Russia's southern border and because of a major oil pipeline that crosses its territory and is scheduled to open next year."

"The US is preparing to cut the number of troops stationed in Europe by up to a third, diplomats said on Tuesday. This will be one of the biggest reductions since American soldiers were first based there after the second world war. Washington will not establish new permanent bases in eastern Europe - allaying fears that the Pentagon was preparing to punish some countries of 'old Europe' for their opposition to the US-led war against Iraqâ?¦ Nato officials said the US would not close Ramstein, its biggest military base in southern Germany, as it is a key strategic asset for US operations in Afghanistan and Iraq."

"After sending thousands of soldiers to war and failing to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Mr Bush and Mr Blair have been put forward to receive the Nobel peace prize... Nobel watchers say neither Mr Bush nor Mr Blair has much chance of winning...Other nominees are varied and include... former Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler... and former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic."

John Chuckman read "An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror" by Richard Perle and David Frum, and found it chilling. "Frum and Perle don't want a revolutionary change in policies; they want Israel's paranoid apparatus extended to world-scale. This is a mad vision of a world which perhaps resembles nothing so much as Orwell's 1984 politely introduced through the back door in the name of stopping terror instead of being imposed by a police state, although in this vision America would become effectively a police state vis-a-vis the rest of the world. The manifesto might be viewed as a call to fulfill what was once known as America's Manifest Destiny when only Indians and Spaniards in western North America were affected. Now that call is openly to assume the imperial purple of Rome on a planetary scale. You have the military power, America; use it. To hell with what the other 95% of humanity thinks or fears." Is this the blueprint for GWB II?

Louise Christian writes,"Worldwide, the experiment is becoming the norm. It has been estimated that at least 15,000 people are being held without trial under the justification of the 'war on terrorism'. They include more than 3,000 detained in Iraq after the war, of whom at least 1,000 are still in detention; an estimated further 1,000 to 3,000 detained at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan; and an unknown number being held on the British territory of Diego Garcia. Bagram is a CIA interrogation centre, practising 'stress and duress' or 'torture lite'. An investigation has reportedly begun there after the deaths of two prisoners in suspicious circumstances. US personnel stationed at Bagram have described the regular practice of sensory deprivation and sleep starvation, as well as incidents of throwing prisoners against walls while hooded... Let everyone be certain of this: those who experiment in inhumanity will have no appetite to stop unless there is such protest."

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern writes, "Put it on your shields or on your Christmas card, as did Vice President Dick and Lynne Cheney: - 'And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?' This, of course, is not the first hijacking of 'Him' for the needs of empire. In 312... Constantine had a cross inscribed on his soldiers' armor. The new 'Christians' won the battle and lost Jesus' message of nonviolence. Several centuries later, 'Deus Vult' ('God wills it') was the inscription chosen by St. Peter's successors as they dispatched crusaders to war in the Holy Land. And 'Gott Mit Uns' decorated Nazi belt buckles... But wait. Was not 'His' message a direct challenge to empire-in his day the Roman Empire and religious and civil collaborators in the Roman occupation? Isn't that why the religious and civil authorities put their heads together and ended up torturing and executing him?"

Tom Engelhardt writes, "2002 should certainly have been dubbed the Year of the New Rome, the year neocon pundits (and a few liberal commentators as well) proudly urged us to shoulder our new imperial burden and emulate the Romans, or at least the 19th century Brits, forever and a day. If so, then 2003 was the year in which our homegrown imperialists fell silent on the subject of empire, while our legions, setting out to remake the Middle East and then the world (cap that W), fell into the nearest nation-building ditch... 2004 should be a fierce holding action for [the Busheviks]. The question is - as with Richard Nixon in 1972 - can they make it through to November before the seams start to tear. They might be able to. But here's the thing: Sooner or later, the children will leave the stage and some set of adults will have to start picking up the pieces. If the 2004 election is theirs, however... well, sometimes there are just things, our planet included, too broken to fix."

Senator Robert Byrd orates, "Congress allowed the Constitution to become a casualty of the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strikes. Congress allowed its constitutional authority to declare war to fall victim to this irresponsible strategy. Just a little more than a year ago, in October 2002, the Senate obsequiously handed to the President the constitutional authority to declare war. It failed to debate; it failed to question; it failed to live up to the standards established by the Framers. Like a whipped dog, the Senate put its tail between its legs and slunk away into the shadows, slunk away from its responsibility. Congress--and I mean both houses--Congress delegated its constitutional authority to the President and effectively washed its hands of the fate of Iraq. It is a dark and despicable mark on the escutcheon of Congress. The roots of this travesty can be traced directly back to the President's doctrine of pre-emption."

"The quest for American supremacy qualifies as a bubble. The dominant position the United States occupies in the world is the element of reality that is being distorted. The proposition that the United States will be better off if it uses its position to impose its values and interests everywhere is the misconception. It is exactly by not abusing its power that America attained its current position. Where are we in this boom-bust process? The deteriorating situation in Iraq is either the moment of truth or a test that, if it is successfully overcome, will only reinforce the trend. Whatever the justification for removing Saddam Hussein, there can be no doubt that we invaded Iraq on false pretenses. Wittingly or unwittingly, President Bush deceived the American public and Congress and rode roughshod over the opinions of our allies."

Erich Marquardt writes for PINR: "During the buildup to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in early 2003, numerous U.S. politicians -- from across the political spectrum -- agreed with the Bush administration's objective of increasing U.S. influence in the resource-rich region of the Middle East. What they did not agree with, however, was the foreign policy strategy drafted by the administration to achieve this end. Perhaps the most contentious issue dividing the administration and its domestic critics was the policy of U.S. unilateralism used in pursuing foreign policy objectives."

AP: "Equatorial Guinea's president had his opponents imprisoned and tortured, had his presidential predecessor executed by firing squad, helped himself to the state treasury at will. State radio recently declared him 'like God.' Teodoro Obiang might seem an unlikely candidate for warmer relations with Washington, except for one thing - his tiny West African country's got a tremendous amount of oil. With America looking increasingly for alternatives to oil from the Middle East, West Africa - and dictators like Obiang - aren't looking so bad. To the dismay of human rights activists, Washington reopened its embassy on the tropical country's island capital of Malabo last month after an eight-year shutdown. Although no U.S. ambassador is serving in Malabo, Obiang's critics say reopening of the embassy gives tacit approval to a repressive regime that lets little of the country's newfound oil wealth trickle down to its 500,000 people, who are among the poorest on Earth."

"US multinational companies are 'acutely worried' about the business consequences of Bush administration foreign policy, according to a new report from Control Risks, a UK-based international security consultancy. 'The consequences of Bush's foreign policy have created new risks - and exacerbated existing risks - for US companies around the world,' the report says. The company's RiskMap 2004 report describes US foreign policy as 'the most important single factor driving the development of global risk'. It says many in the private sector 'believe that...by using US power unilaterally and aggressively in pursuit of global stability, the Bush administration is in fact creating precisely the opposite effect.' It says that for companies such as McDonald's and Coca-Cola, dealing with anti-American sentiment is not new. 'However, US companies that never previously worried about their national origin are acutely worried about a new wave of popular resentment,' it says." Et Tu, MegaCorps?

Sydney Shanberg writes: "If some wishful Americans are still hoping Resident Bush will acknowledge that his imperial foreign policy has stumbled in Iraq and needs fixing or reining in, they should put aside those reveries. He's going all the way--and taking us with him. The Israeli bombing raid on Syria October 5 was an expansion of the Bush policy, carried out by the Sharon government but with the implicit approval of Washington. The government in Iran, said to be seeking to develop a nuclear weapon, reportedly expects to be the next target."

Jim Lobe reports, "Rather than spurring the creation of a united front, the recurring attacks [on Bush's Iraq policies] have seemed to spark infighting among the hawks. After Cheney revived a story about an alleged meeting between one of the 9-11 hijackers and an Iraqi spy, Rumsfeld told reporters 3 days later he had seen nothing to connect Hussein to the attacks, an assessment backed up by Rice and Bush. At the same time, neo-cons outside the administration and close to Cheney, Wolfowitz and Feith kept up an offensive this week denouncing Rumsfeld's refusal to increase the number of US troops in Iraq. Several neo-cons, including Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, also assailed Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, for allegedly warning Republicans that there must be 'no more wars' for the remainder of Bush's first term. The public nature of this infighting is remarkable in an administration that has obsessed about message management and spin control."

VOA News reports: "The Bush administration claims it had nothing to do with recent moves by its anti-terror partner in East Africa, Djibouti, to expel as many as 100,000 illegal immigrants. The immigration crackdown follows warnings by Washington about possible terrorist threats on Western interests in Djibouti. The Djiboutian government ordered the expulsion of the country's huge illegal immigrant population in July. The immigrants, who make up 15 percent of the tiny east African nation's population, were given until August 31 to leave. But authorities recently extended that deadline until September 15. [Despite US denials] anonymous Djiboutian and Western sources, local and international media have also reported that Washington put pressure on the Djiboutian government to crackdown on illegal immigrants to better protect American troops stationed in the former French colony."

"In 1898, the Anti-Imperialist League was established to oppose America's territorial expansion, especially the 'liberation' of the Philippines from Spain.... Imperialism, League members argued, was unjust, unnecessary and harmful to America's national interests. The league had a diverse membership featuring many respected public figures like Mark Twain, industrialist Charles Francis Adams, writer William James, [and] financier Andrew Carnegie.... As Charles Eliot Norton, a founding member of the League, said: 'It is not that we would hold America back from playing her full part in the world's affairs, but that we believe that her part could be better accomplished by close adherence to those high principles which are ideally embodied in her institutions-by the establishment of her own democracy in such ways as to make it a symbol of noble self-government, and by exercising the influence of a great, unarmed and peaceful power on the affairs and the moral temper of the world.'"

"The US and 10 allies stepped up plans Thursday to intercept ships suspected of carrying weapons of mass destruction despite a warning from China that the move could be illegal. Four nations, the US, Australia, Japan and France, will send ships to the Western Pacific next week for an exercise simulating an interception, John Bolton, Washington's top arms control official, said after talks in Paris. Bolton rejected concerns that the initiative launched by Bush in May risked breaking international law and said participating states had agreed a set of guidelines on how they would carry out interceptions of ships or aircraft."

"The Imperial strategy will fail for America just as it failed for Rome. Joseph Tainter notes that 'As the marginal return on investment in Empire declined, major stress surges appeared that could scarcely be contained with yearly imperial budgets. The Roman Empire made itself attractive to barbarian incursions merely by the fact of its existence.' It truly is 'deja vu all over again.' Today, the US Army describes itself in Iraq as 'a magnet for terrorism,' while it is becoming clear to many that American policies are not making Americans safer, but rather endangering the entire planet as America's increasing energy dependence to maintain its obscene consumption levels demands the violent expropriation of the wealth of other societies; ultimately futile investments in death. The sack of Rome ushered in a long era of decline that historians call 'The Dark Ages.' Faced with the onset of another such age, we must organize against the American government plan to 'bring it on.'"

Karen Kwiatkowski, a recently retired Air Force Lieutenant colonel, writes "While working from May 2002 through February 2003 in the office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Near East South Asia and Special Plans in the Pentagon, I observed the environment in which decisions about post-war Iraq were made. Those observations changed everything... Much has been written about the role of the founding members of the Project for a New American Century, the Center for Security Policy and the American Enterprise Institute and their new positions in the Bush administration. Certainly, appointees sharing particular viewpoints are expected to congregate, and an overwhelming number of these appointees having such organizational ties is neither conspiratorial nor unusual. What is unusual is the way this network operates solely with its membership across the various agencies -- in particular the State Department, the National Security Council and the Office of the Vice President."

George Monbiot writes: "What is lacking in the Pentagon and the White House is not intelligence (or not, at any rate, of the kind we are considering here), but receptivity. Theirs is not a failure of information, but a failure of ideology. To understand why this failure persists, we must first grasp a reality which has seldom been discussed in print. The United States is no longer just a nation. It is now a religion. Its soldiers have entered Iraq to liberate its people not only from their dictator, their oil and their sovereignty, but also from their darkness. As George Bush told his troops on the day he announced victory: 'Wherever you go, you carry a message of hope - a message that is ancient and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah, 'To the captives, 'come out,' and to those in darkness, 'be free'.'' So American soldiers are no longer merely terrestrial combatants; they have become missionaries. They are no longer simply killing enemies; they are casting out demons."

Erich Marquardt writes for PINR: "However, it is now unlikely that this administration still has the political leverage to continue a policy of 'regime change.' While Washington never achieved international political legitimacy to invade Iraq, it was able to secure domestic political legitimacy, as most of the American population supported the Bush White House before, during and immediately after the march to Baghdad. Yet with the failure to find the alleged massive stockpiles of WMD in Iraq, in addition to embarrassing evidence demonstrating that the Bush administration used forged documents in their political case against Baghdad, the U.S. has lost nearly all international legitimacy it may still have had, while at the same time is rapidly losing domestic legitimacy."

Richard Cohen writes, "Is George Bush the Iraq war's 'useful idiot'? The phrase was coined by Vladimir Lenin to refer to gullible communist sympathizers who swallowed whole the party line. They believed what they were told, and what they were told was mostly lies. It could be somewhat the same with Bush. He may well be the last person to believe that the Iraq war was waged virtually in self-defense... The real mystery is whether Bush himself realized how weak the evidence for a preemptive war was or was being manipulated by a cadre of disciplined administration aides who long had sought a war with Iraq," namely the PNAC crowd led by Rummy and Wolfy. Hey Richard - do you think Bush was comatose when he appointed the PNAC crowd to run the Pentagon? Of COURSE Bush supported their plans to invade Iraq, and to conquer the rest of the world too. Just read Bush's lips, as quoted in Time: "'F*ck Saddam. We're taking him out." (March 2002, one full year before the war began).

"As the Bush Administration and its defenders try to pretend that the war in Iraq is not going badly, the reality is that things are getting worse with little hope for a solution in the near future. Viceroy Jerry [Bremer] has asked for 50,000 troops to maintain his rule. There's one small problem with that. There aren't 50K to give. The US military is nearly at the end of it's deployable strength and needs to withdraw the 3ID as soon as possible. [Half of the combat power of the US Army is already deployed in Iraq. Only the First Cavalry Division is fully deployable from the US. We] desperately need help from our allies to relieve the burden in Iraq. OK, now didn't we disregard our allies sane, rational, and logical suggestions about how to deal with Iraq? Now, we expect Japanese and Korean troops, forget French and German to help us out? It's time for a reality check: No country is going to send their troops to be bullet sponges."

Heather Wokusch writes: "Put bluntly, if the United States can openly murder foreign POWs, how soon before American POWs are systematically murdered abroad? If the US can justify invading another country because of unproven 'imminent threat,' how soon before US cities are similarly attacked? And if pre-emptive assassination deems the murder of civilians/bystanders abroad acceptable collateral damage, then how about on US soil? The Bush administration has already tacitly accepted the Sharon government's plan to conduct assassinations in 'friendly countries' - presumably including the United States. That's right: the White House has basically given the green light for Israel to conduct targeted assassinations on US soil. Feeling safer?"

Jim Lobe writes: "Much like its successful military campaign in Iraq, the Pentagon is moving at seemingly breakneck speed to redeploy U.S. forces and equipment around the world in ways that will permit Washington to play 'Globocop,' according to a number of statements by top officials and defense planners. While preparing sharp reductions in forces in Germany, Turkey and Saudi Arabia, military planners are talking about establishing semi-permanent or permanent bases along a giant swathe of global territory -- increasingly referred to as 'the arc of instability,' from the Caribbean Basin through Africa to South and Central Asia and across to the North Korea."

Knute Berger writes, "Returning from the Middle East, George W. Bush took a victory lap, turning the onetime No-Fly Zone into a kind of Mile High Club of conquest. Air Force One took a shortcut across Iraq so that the country's new lord could survey his new dominion from his throne on high. As the self-proclaimed military victor, Bush couldn't resist raising his leg on the fire hydrant of the enemy. It was fitting that he viewed it from the sky, seat of American power. It was our B-52s that made the difference in Afghanistan --'B-52 justice' they called it. It was our total dominance of the air that allowed American and British forces to cut the Republican Guard to pieces and blow Iraqi command and control to kingdom come. Shock and awe by way of thunderbolts from the heavens."

In London, playwright Harold Pinter declared: "'The US is really beyond reason now. It is beyond our imagining to know what they are going to do next and what they are prepared to do. There is only one comparison: Nazi Germany. Nazi Germany wanted total domination of Europe and they nearly did it. The US wants total domination of the world and is about to consolidate that. In a policy document, the US has used the term 'full-spectrum domination', that means control of land, sea, air and space, and that is exactly what's intended and what the US wants to fulfil. They are quite blatant about it.' Pinter blamed 'millions of totally deluded American people' for not staging a mass revolt. He said that because of propaganda and control of the media, millions of Americans believed that every word Mr Bush said was 'accurate and moral'. The US population could not be let off scot-free for putting the country under the control of an 'illegally elected president - in other words, a fake'."

BBC News reports: "Former cabinet minister Clare Short has launched an outspoken attack on US 'bullying' which she says could become a 'recruiting sergeant' for terrorist groups. In an article for the BBC, the former international development secretary says the US response to 11 September may have created more support for the likes of Osama Bin Laden."

AFP reports: "The United States will attempt to 'roll back' proliferation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in the world -- and may use force to take away these deadly arsenals from rogue states, a senior US government official warned. Under Secretary of State John Bolton also told Congress that Washington will not offer disarmament inducements to North Korea, will punish suppliers of dual-use materials and offer Iraqi scientists specializing in weapons of mass destruction (WMD) a chance to emigrate, presumably to the United States." Get ready for permanent War.

"Revenge must be very sweet, considering the hard-nosed approach the Bush administration takes toward those who opposed the resident's decision to invade Iraq. Resident Bush's personal grudge against several nations is still obvious, including France, Germany, Russia, Turkey, Canada, Mexico and Chile. [Even more sinister,] Colin Powell -- in an uncharacteristic role as the godfather-enforcer for the administration -- has been lecturing straying nations that they will be punished for their stand against the war. As he puts it, they will suffer the 'consequences.' The exact penalties are never spelled out but the ominous threat is left hanging. [All of this makes the U.S. look petty. Bush] is demanding an oath of unquestioning loyalty from its allies. Those that fail to toe the line now must seek forgiveness on bended knee. The Bush administration has treated the UN in the same autocratic way. Is everyone supposed to march in lockstep with the United States?"

Holy Orwell, Batman! "A Norwegian parliamentarian nominated Resident Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for the Nobel Peace Prize on Thursday, praising them for winning the war in Iraq. 'Sometimes it's necessary to use a small and effective war to prevent a much more dangerous war in the future,' Jan Simonsen, a right-wing independent in Norway's parliament, told Reuters." War is Peace...War is Peace...War is Peace...

"Governor John Sanderson has accused the United States of provoking terrorism by flexing its military might outside the United Nations. He said the undermining of the UN and the international focus on America's strategic interests meant some people would now see terrorism as their only leverage on the world stage. 'The Americans are so dominant in military capacity and that has just been shown to us in great detail... so what alternatives are available to people to make their point?' he said...(The UN) was powerless without American support but it appeared it could only get that support if it complied with America's domestic priorities."

Announcing results of a recent poll by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes, director Steven Kull said, "Despite the US victory in Iraq, public opinion appears to have remained unchanged with regard to the use of military force, the UN, and the role of the US in the world." Asia Times reports: "When asked to choose among three options to describe the role Washington should play in the world, only 12% favored the pre-eminent world leader position; 76% said 'The US should do its share in efforts to solve international problems with other countries'; 11% said Washington should 'withdraw from most efforts to solve international problems'. Even more unexpected was the response to the question of whether the Bush administration should have tried to get Security Council authorization for taking military action against Iraq, a notion with which administration hawks strongly disagreed. Eighty-eight percent of respondents chose the UN route."

Finding themselves on the wrong side of Bush and seeing what happens to nations that do, BBC reports: "Four European Union countries which opposed the war in Iraq have ended a mini-summit in Brussels by announcing closer defence ties. The leaders of France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg say their plans include creating a joint military planning system by next year and a multinational headquarters for European military operations where Nato is not involved. They also intend to set up their own rapid reaction force. They want to launch a European Security and Defence Union, which others would be encouraged to join. The BBC's Chris Morris in Brussels says Europe's anti-war coalition has put down its marker for the future - it wants the EU to have a stronger, more effective defence capability, and the four are prepared to go it alone to begin with if they have to."

"Hitler clearly spelled out his plans to destroy the Jews and launch wars of conquest to secure German domination of world affairs in his 1925 book, long before he ever assumed power. Despite the zigzags of rhetoric he later employed, the various PR spins and temporary justifications offered for this or that particular policy, any attentive reader of his vile regurgitation could have divined his intentions as he drove his country and the world to murderous upheaval...the Bush Regime's foreign policy is also being carried out according to a strict blueprint written years ago, then renewed a few months before the Regime was installed in power by the judicial coup of Dec. 2000. The first version, mentioned in passing here last week, was drafted by a team operating under Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in 1992. It set out a new doctrine for U.S. power in the 21st century, an aggressive, unilateral approach that would secure US domination of world affairs - 'by force if necessary'."

In Timespeak, a "News Analysis" is akin to the voice of God - or at least Clio, the muse of History. Richard Bernstein's "News Analysis" struggles with whether the US is now an empire like Rome or Britain, as many observers around the world - described by Bernstein as "radical" - are saying. Well, duh. Bernstein, in a distinctly non-radical (i.e. braindead) approach, is taking a "wait-and-see" attitude. "Some commentators are waiting to see whether new military actions stem from the Iraqi victory, which, they believe, would be final confirmation of the new American imperium." Hey Richard, can you spell S-Y-R-I-A?

Rob Kall writes: "What if the Neocons get their next wish?... And then, George W. decides that God has told him, has honored him with the vision to invade Syria. Religious fanatic converts make claims like that... the religious far right -- the 50 million readers of the Left Behind book series that explores life on the planet after 'the Rapture' when the messiah comes back, at the 'end times' as predicted in the New Testament-- may actually be happy about what's going on... These religious supporters see the Iraq war as a step closer to meeting their messiah and leaving this earth. With India and Pakistan juggling Nukes, just waiting for an excuse to drop them, with N. Korea and Israel primed and ready to go with their own nukes, it's time for the congress to pass a bill [hopefully initiated by Democrats], really fast that makes it clear that the war it authorized with Iraq was the limit of the authorization, that any attack on any other country is strictly forbidden."

NY Times opines, "We did not like the combative doctrine when it was formally unveiled last September because it seemed to walk away from America's historical inclination to work with other nations to preserve the peace and to rely on force only when its security was directly threatened. The overthrow of Mr. Hussein does not make it seem any more valid. Few could oppose those portions of the Bush doctrine that would extend the benefits of freedom, democracy, prosperity and the rule of law. Unfortunately, these goals were overshadowed by an arrogant, go-it-alone stance and an aggressive claim to the right to use pre-emptive action against threatening states. That is one reason why the move to war drew so much opposition around the world, and why this page urged the administration to pursue its goals in Iraq within an international framework. A doctrine that purports to spread happiness, but ends up spreading resentment, is not working, no matter how many statues come tumbling down."

William Pfaff writes: "The Bush administration, determined to remake the Middle East by remaking Iraq, now has the bit between its teeth... This is not good news. There are three things to be said about the neoconservatives and what they want. The first is that they act out of fear... Second, they are naive... The problem in the Middle East is not 'Arabs.' The problem is a powerful historical culture that functions on categories of value absolutes and religious certainties hostile to the pragmatic relativisms of Western democracy. Military conquest and good intentions will not change that. Finally, the neoconservatives are fanatics. They believe it is worth killing people for unproved ideas. Traditional morality says that war is justified in legitimate defense. Totalitarian morality justifies war to make people or societies better."

Michael O'McCarthy writes, "There are three major forces at play in the battles for the Middle East, the founding ground for the US's version of the Fourth World War. The dominant force is represented by George W. Bush. He is the archetypal white male patriarch that the white, evangelical Christian world requires at this time. The opposition is predicated upon the equally irrational 'theology' of the other two forces at play in the Middle East. Judaic Zionism, the God of Abraham, believes itself to be the ideological vehicle for the 'chosen people's' re-occupation of the chosen land. Fundamentalist Islam believes itself to be the religion of the one god Allah and all who are not Islamic are infidels and that the 'State of Islam' which knows no geographic domain is in a perpetual 'state of war.'"

NY Times reports, "Shortly after Donald H. Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring that any 'hostile acts' they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt severe consequences, one of Bush's closest aides stepped into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation. Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word - 'Good' - and went back to work. It was a small but telling moment on the sidelines of the war. For a year now, the president and many in his team have privately described the confrontation with Saddam Hussein as something of a demonstration conflict, an experiment in forcible disarmament. It is also the first war conducted under a new national security strategy, which explicitly calls for intervening before a potential enemy can strike." "Iraq is not just about Iraq," said Karl Rove.

Bernard Weiner writes: "These guys will bankrupt the U.S. before they abandon their grandiose scheme, will send more and more young men and women to their deaths to get what they want. They want the world and they want it NOW, and nothing you or I say will deter them from their self-appointed rounds. God has anointed them, you see, and the geopolitical situation offers the opportunity -- no other Superpower around to stop them -- so get out of our way, damn it. The idea that they can be defeated by non-superpowers -- like the world's citizens boycotting American goods, by millions of anti-war demonstrators leaning on their governments abroad to combat U.S. imperial ambitions, the beginning rumbles for impeachment, even (possibly) the United Nations stepping in to force their hand -- simply hasn't entered their craniums. Yet."

Asia Times reports, "One writer describes a 'charmed circle of American capitalism, where Tomahawk and cruise missiles will destroy Iraq, while Bechtel Corporation...will rebuild the country. And stolen Iraqi oil will pay for it.' 'US weapons contractors are likely to gain significant profits because of this war,' said Natalie Goldring, executive director of the Program on Global Security and Disarmament at the University of Maryland. 'They'll be paid to replace the weapons that are used or destroyed in the war. The companies will also trumpet their successes at next summer's Paris Air Show, searching for foreign buyers.'" Iraq is a textbook on Bushonomics: Bush cronies make a 'killing' first by arming Iraq, then make a 'killing' by destroying Iraq, make another 'killing' by rebuilding it, and make a third 'killing' by terrifying the world into buying more US weapons. Indict Bush on War Crimes!

Arundhati Roy writes, "Bush-bashing is fun, because he makes such an easy, sumptuous target. It's true that he is a dangerous, almost suicidal pilot, but the machine he handles is far more dangerous than the man himself. Despite the pall of gloom that hangs over us today, I'd like to file a cautious plea for hope: in times of war, one wants one's weakest enemy at the helm of his forces. And President [sic] George W Bush is certainly that... Bush's tactless imprudence and his brazen belief that he can run the world with his riot squad, has done the opposite. He has achieved what writers, activists and scholars have striven to achieve for decades. He has exposed the ducts. He has placed on full public view the working parts, the nuts and bolts of the apocalyptic apparatus of the American empire. Now that the blueprint (The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire) has been put into mass circulation, it could be disabled quicker than the pundits predicted."

UK Guardian's Jonathan Freedland writes, "George Bush has cast off the restraint which held back America's 42 previous presidents - including his father. Now he is seeking, as an unashamed objective, to get into the empire business, aiming to rule a post-Saddam Iraq directly through an American governor-general, the retired soldier Jay Garner. As the Guardian reported yesterday, Washington's plan for Baghdad consists of 23 ministries - each one to be headed by an American. This is a form of foreign rule so direct we have not seen its like since the last days of the British empire. It represents a break with everything America has long believed in."

This NY Times article from 7-16-02 is one of the most important public discussions of the "Bush Doctrine" of pre-emptive war. Here is a key reference to Iraq: "The problem with a full-scale invasion is that you lose the element of surprise, which is often critical in pre-emption," a senior official said today. "So Bush wants to try everything short of that, because he knows that if we have to mount an invasion force, Saddam will see it coming." Hey guys - now that the "Bush Doctrine" of perpetual war is an utter failure, could you kindly scrap it and return to the "Clinton Doctrine" of peace?

Robert Dreyfuss writes, "In the Middle East, impending 'regime change' in Iraq is just the first step in a wholesale reordering of the entire region, according to neoconservatives - who've begun almost gleefully referring to themselves as a 'cabal.' Like dominoes, the regimes in the region - first Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, then Lebanon and the PLO, and finally Sudan, Libya, Yemen and Somalia - are slated to capitulate, collapse or face US military action. To those states, says cabal ringleader Richard Perle, 'We could deliver a short message, a two-word message: 'You're next.'' In the aftermath, several of those states, including Iraq, Syria and Saudi Arabia, may end up as dismantled, unstable shards in the form of mini-states that resemble Yugoslavia's piecemeal wreckage. And despite the Wilsonian rhetoric from Bush and his advisers about bringing democracy to the Middle East, at bottom it's clear that their version of democracy might have to be imposed by force of arms."

Josh Marshall writes: "The White House is in such a state of pandemonium and implosion that they are discarding the [Bush War] policy - indeed, they are positively undermining it - in the hopes of insulating the president [sic] from the immense fall-out that they can see barreling down the track. Consider also that, saying the president [sic] was 'out of the loop' -- seemingly a family failing -- on the central policy of his administration is a devastating admission of incompetence on its own. So that tells you what they think of the consequences of remaining attached to the policy. If you need some evidence that our country is in some trouble, there it is."

"By the very act of proclaiming pre-emption as our new national policy, then, Bush II was in effect also declaring a pre-emptive war on the system of international institutions that the U.S. built at the end of World War II. That was fine with the neoconservatives, who, with the fall of Soviet communism, sought a world over which the U.S. exerted unfettered control. That was fine with Bush himself, the first genuinely xenophobic president the United States has had since it rose to the status of a world power. (It's clear already that Bush is far more comfortable running a war than he was practicing diplomacy.) But to build the world anew, they needed a new 1914 -- a war to end old alliances, to blow away the United Nations, the European Union and other impediments to American power in much the manner that World War I destroyed the old Romanov, Hapsburg and Hohenzollern empires. Okay, they've got their war. We'll see if a 1914 level of wreckage will in time follow in its wake."

NY Times finally reports, "The origins of the current war are rooted in a series of policy pronouncements by ... conservative intellectuals that date from the early 1990's, after the end of the cold war and the inconclusive end of the gulf war in 1991, which left Mr. Hussein in power. [They] kept alive the cause of deposing Saddam Hussein during the mid- and late 1990's through scholarly conferences, foreign policy magazines and forums at research institutions. Then, when many of them returned to power in the administration of George W. Bush, their views ended up dominating the administration's policy, defining an important shift in United States foreign policy thinking... There is little doubt that the fundamental debate [over 'pre-emptive wars'] will continue. 'This is just the beginning,' an administration official said. 'I would not rule out the same sequence of events for Iran and North Korea as for Iraq, but circumstances do not compel you to end up in the same place.'"

William Lind, a conservative, writes, "The quest to create the 'universal monarchy,' which was the earlier term for 'the only superpower,' began in earnest with the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, the father of King Philip II of Spain nearly 500 years ago in the early 16th century. Charles ruled virtually all of Europe, except France. His kingdoms included Spain, which had the first true world empire. Fueled with the gold and silver of the New World and possessing an army so successful that it went unbeaten for more than a century, Spain offered Charles and then Philip the potential of ruling the world... What finally stopped Hapsburg Spain and, later, France under King Louis XIV and Napoleon and Germany under Hitler from establishing the universal monarchy was a fundamental characteristic of the international state system: whenever one nation attempts to attain world dominance, it pushes everyone else into a coalition against it."

BBC reports, "The doctrine of 'shock and awe' is based on a book by military strategist Harlan Ullman, who is admired by both Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell. Mr Ullman wrote that the use of air power to achieve 'nearly incomprehensible levels of mass destruction' could achieve 'an overwhelming level of shock and awe against an adversary on an immediate basis to paralyse its will to resist'. It is a belief that is deeply held by the US military, who were among the first advocates of strategic air power. They applied it to the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which ended World War II... However, many US supporters of air power have called for precision bombing which would not be aimed directly against civilians but only military and industrial targets. Mr Ullman argues that with modern precision weapons, a 'non-nuclear equivalent' of Hiroshima could be created."

BuzzFlash writes, "Before announcing a state of war Bush pumps his fist and boasts, 'Feels good.' Donald Rumsfeld walks around quoting Al Capone. Richard Perle calls an internationally respected journalist a terrorist for disclosing how Perle would profit from an Iraq war. And then Richard Perle celebrates the death of the U.N. Like it's yet unleashed Guernica-bombing campaign, touted as 'Shock and Awe,' the brazen, thuggish extremism of the Bush administration is meant to numb the American public into submission. And, for the most part, the strategy has succeeded... America's finest resource -- its brave young men and women -- have already begun to die in a war conceived of by radical madmen years ago. They waited to seize our precious democracy -- and after they did, they waited for the moment to launch their hellish plan of world domination."

Leon Furth writes, "The word 'empire' has been used fairly often as a metaphor to convey the global scope of ... American military, economic and political influence. After the conquest of Iraq, however, it can be fairly argued that we shall have created not a figure of speech but a concrete reality. First of all, we will have made clear that the US answers to no authority other than itself when it comes to the use of military force. Moreover, the authority of the US will be mostly indistinguishable from the personal will of its president. The Bush doctrine of preemption becomes a replacement for international law: Any president at any time in the future can decide to attack any country, provided only that he is satisfied that country might at some point represent a direct threat to the US. Second, [by occupying Iraq], we become a virtual member of OPEC, and one of the most powerful at that. So immense military power will be united with an equally impressive form of economic power."

"Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who gave tacit approval for the 1991 Gulf War, said the U.S. attack on Iraq was a major mistake that would do huge damage to international relations and security. Gorbachev, who was president of the USSR when the first Gulf War broke out in January 1991, told reporters at an international water conference in Japan that it seemed the US was trying to make the world its own province. 'I believe not only that this war is unjustified, it is a major political mistake,' Gorbachev said. 'It will do tremendous damage to international relations and to world security,' he said. 'It is an attempt to teach a lesson to all other states and shows that the U.S. administration is trying to make the world its own province.' Gorbachev tried to act as a middleman to prevent the Gulf War in 1991 but the Soviet Union did not use its right of veto within the UN Security Council to oppose the war. This time Russia strongly opposed U.S. plans to attack Iraq."

NY Times opines, "Mr. Bush has already named Iran and North Korea as Baghdad's partners in an 'axis of evil.' Both have nuclear weapons programs far in advance of Saddam Hussein's and histories of international terrorism. In all, Washington lists 13 countries with active biological weapons programs, including Cuba, Libya and Syria, and 16 currently producing chemical weapons, including Pakistan, the former Yugoslavia and Sudan. All six have the same kind of indirect links with international terrorism that Iraq does. Following the doctrine to its logical conclusion would create a world in which the United States attempted to protect its security through military dominance, stretching ever further until the nation's resources and the world's patience were exhausted." Well, duh. Why didn't you make that point after the Axis of Evil SOTU speech in 1/02, or the West Point pre-emptive war doctrine speech in 6/02, or any of Bush's speeches since?

Erich Marquardt writes for YellowTimes.org: "In the next week, the future of international order will be determined. If the Bush administration chooses to invade Iraq after failing to secure United Nations approval, a precedent will be established encouraging states to pursue unilateralist rather than multilateralist policies. The failure of the U.N. to restrain the United States may spark a new wave of nationalism, where states no longer feel secure under the symbolic umbrella of international treaties and agreements. This will weaken global cooperation and increase the possibility for conflicts around the world."

George Bush's foreign policy has been a Keystone Kops-worthy series of missteps and disasters, with only one formulated, documented plan, which has come to be known as The Bush Doctrine--and which, Jeffrey J. Mariotte writes, contradicts nearly everything he said about foreign policy before seizing power.

Businessweek (!) writes, "How did the U.S. lose the prewar?... The seeds of the current diplomatic disaster were planted in the first year of the Bush Administration... when Washington defined its foreign policy, which has come to be seen as the three 'D's' - disdain, disregard, and disrespect for treaties, allies, and friends. In those early months, the Administration managed to insult the heads of both North and South Korea, an amazing policy feat... The U.S. simply walked away from both the Kyoto global warming treaty, infuriating the Europeans, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, angering the Russians... Now, bolstered by new oil riches and courted by France and Germany, Russia is trying to regain some of its luster as a world power by threatening to veto a second U.N. resolution on Iraq. The White House has been surprised by the move - yet another diplomatic miscalculation... [Bush] risks turning what was once trumpeted as the American Century into the Anti-American Century."

The Pentagon Post is mad at Bush - not for launching a criminal W-ar of aggression in Iraq, but for doing it so clumsily that we have just two allies. PentaPost insists the W-ar is about "disarming" Iraq, thus ignoring the proven fact that Iraq has no nuclear program left, and the nearly-proven fact that Iraq has no chemical or biological weapons either. Iraq is the first application of the PentaPost doctrine, which declares: "The United States is ready to use its strength to face threats to world peace that it tried to contain or ignore in the first decade after the Cold War." In other words, the entire world belongs to the US, and our military can conquer any nation it pleases as long as it incants the magic words "world peace." Excuse us, but that's exactly the reason the United Nations was created. There's only one word for such a unilateralist doctrine - Imperialism.

BuchananMag writes, "Only recently has it become commonplace (outside of the Marxist Left) to call this new policy imperialist. Bush himself still shuns the word, telling a Veterans Day audience, 'We have no territorial ambitions. We don't seek an empire.' But a surprising number of foreign policy analysts, in the neocon orbit and beyond, have picked up the 'I' word and run with it. Max Boot... writes in the Weekly Standard about 'troubled lands [that] cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen in jodhpurs and pith helmets.' Kristol co-author Robert Kagan prefers the term 'hegenomy' to empire, and many neoconservatives stress that the new American imperialism will differ from the bad old European sort because it will be welcomed by its subjects. The American Enterprise Institute's Joshua Muravchik has written a primer on 'exporting democracy' whose phrases now pop up regularly in Bushite rhetoric."

Chris Floyd writes, "Iraq is not the end, but the means. What America needs -- or rather, what the thugs in the Bush Regime desire -- is dominance of Middle Eastern oil in order to hold the economies of China and India hostage in the coming decades. The aim is not conquest, in the classic sense; our elites are imperialists, not colonialists. They don't want to settle amongst all those funny-looking foreigners; heaven forefend! It's bad enough there are so many of them in God's country already, where, as one august national leader, Republican Representative Sue Myrick, noted recently, they 'run all the convenience stores' ... No, what is sought -- what is demanded, what will be enforced with human cannon fodder and treasure extorted from ordinary citizens ('You're under attack! Give us your money!') -- is that the emerging powers become pliant 'friends' and business partners, along the lines of Western Europe."

"Project for the New American Century. Never heard of it? Well, don't feel bad. Few have. But have you heard of Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld or Paul Wolfowitz? Back in 1997, those three out-of-office politicians and several other like-minded, mostly conservatives, were frustrated with American foreign policy... Today, a 76-page paper written by the organization reads like a blueprint for the [Bush] policy... Is this a case of democracy in action? Influential thinkers who became policy makers? Or is it, as some international critics of the White House's policy on Iraq have argued, a secretive organization pulling the strings of the Resident, with an imperialistic goal of dominating the world? Are these criticisms legitimate? Tonight ABC News correspondent Jackie Judd will explore this conspiracy theory, and the influence and role of the Project for the New American Century. Ted Koppel will then speak with the Project's founder and chairman, Bill Kristol" - who will lie and lie and lie.

MoJo's Robert Dreyfuss writes, "If you were to spin the globe and look for real estate critical to building an American empire, your first stop would have to be the Persian Gulf. The desert sands of this region hold two of every three barrels of oil in the world -- Iraq's reserves alone are equal, by some estimates, to those of Russia, the United States, China, and Mexico combined. For the past 30 years, the Gulf has been in the crosshairs of an influential group of Washington foreign-policy strategists, who believe that in order to ensure its global dominance, the United States must seize control of the region and its oil. Born during the energy crisis of the 1970s and refined since then by a generation of policymakers, this approach is finding its boldest expression yet in the Bush administration -- which, with its plan to invade Iraq and install a regime beholden to Washington, has moved closer than any of its predecessors to transforming the Gulf into an American protectorate."

BuzzFlash writes, "From the perspective of the resurrected-from-the-dead John Birch Society members in the White House, the U.N. is a useless vestige of a cold war Communist plot to undermine the US. Bush and his crew are going through the motions of trying to obtain Security Council approval for the Iraq War only as a concession to Poppy Bush and Colin Powell. As far as the Bush Cartel is concerned, they have as much use for the U.N. as an athlete has for a cancerous leg. You don't believe BuzzFlash? Here is what King George reportedly said in an off-the-record talk with members of the RNC in an East Room White House meeting last month: 'I don't know what they're going to do,' he [Bush] said. 'But I can tell you this: I know what I'm going to do, and Saddam Hussein is going to be disarmed. I told them they could be the League of Nations or the UN. That's up to them and the history books."

Paul Woodward writes, "The vision that Paul Wolfowitz has been nurturing for more than a decade focuses above all on America's unique position as a global power. Wolfowitz's 'Defense Policy Guidance' written in 1992 asserted that the US must 'endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power.' The challenge he had in mind then and the challenge that has not gone away comes from China... For the past decade, China has been a net-importer of oil and by 2010 may depend on the Middle East for as much as 80% of its supply... [Controlling Iraq's oil] would provide America with the strategic power to further constrain China's emergence as a global superpower. What is being described as a pre-emptive attack against Iraq may turn out eventually to have more to do with containing China than either grabbing oil, fighting terrorism, or destroying weapons of mass destruction."

Will Pitt writes, "There is a great difference between being the citizen of a constitutional democracy and being a citizen of an empire. The establishment of an empire requires some significant sacrifices. Essential social, medical, educational and retirement services will have to be gutted so that those funds can be directed towards a necessary military buildup. Actions taken abroad to establish the preeminence of American power, most specifically in the Middle East, will bring a torrent of terrorist attacks to the home front. Such attacks will bring about the final suspension of constitutional rights and the rule of habeas corpus, as we will find ourselves under martial law. In the end, however, this may be inevitable. An empire cannot function with the slow, cumbersome machine of a constitutional democracy on its back. Empires must be ruled with speed and ruthlessness, in a manner utterly antithetical to the way in which America has been governed for 227 years."

Novelist Norman Mailer writes, "Bush and many conservatives have come to the conclusion that the only way they can save America and get ii off its present downslope is to become a regime with a greater military presence and drive toward empire. My fear is that Americans might lose their democracy in the process... Iraq is the excuse for moving in an imperial direction. War with Iraq, as they originally conceived it, would be a quick, dramatic step that would enable them to control the Near East as a powerful base - not least because of the oil there, as well as the water supplies from the Tigris and Euphrates rivers - to build a world empire. The Bushites also expect to bring democracy to the region and believe that in itself will help to diminish terrorism. But I expect the opposite will happen: terrorists are not impressed by democracy. They loathe it... The more successful democracy is in the Near East - not likely in my view - the more terrorism it will generate."

Osama and other Islamist militants regularly denounce the US and Israel as an alliance of "Crusaders" and "Zionists" who are determined to destroy Islam. According to the UK Observer's Ed Vulliamy, this Islamic nightmare is reality. Rove and Wolfowitz "represent an unlikely and formidable alliance forged between the gritty Texan Republicans who took over America, fuelled by fierce conservative Christianity, and a faction of the East Coast intelligentsia with roots in Ronald Reagan's time, devoted to achieving raw, unilateral power... Islam, Rove argued [after 9-11], 'was one of the world's great empires' which had 'never reconciled... to the loss of power and dominion'. In response, he said, 'the US should recognise that, although it cannot expect to be loved, it can enforce respect' [through power]. Rove's position dovetailed with the beliefs of Wolfowitz, and the axis between conservative Southern Protestantism and fervent, highly intellectual, East Coast Zionism was forged."

Robert Scheer writes, "Imperialism has always been pitched at home as a win-win way to help the world's stricken peoples while helping oneself, and in Paris it was no different. France's colonial wars were waged under the rival banners of Catholicism and the French Revolution; the goal was to civilize the natives. A million Frenchmen gave up the joys of life at the center of Europe to colonize Algeria alone, building schools, churches, hospitals and civic bureaucracies. Ultimately, however, the price of France's hubris was writ large in the blood of its sons and daughters over painful decades, from the fall of Dien Bien Phu to the Battle of Algiers, from the student protests of '68 to the bombs that terrorized Paris... The lesson of France is that merely riding in under the banner of liberty is no guarantee that you or those you 'liberate' won't regret you ever left home."

Denver Post columnist Craig Barnes writes, "In school ... I learned what we thought were the values of America. I learned that we had saved the world from the aggressions of Hitler and Japanese warlords, that we, as a principle, resisted imperialism and contained communism. That we had fostered the United Nations, were champions of international law and descendants of a new order for the ages, a country in which law was above the king.... On Jan. 28, in one speech, George W. Bush threw away and rejected all this.... When he said he would not hesitate to cause the deaths of innocent civilians in Iraq, he endorsed the idea of collective responsibility, a violation of the Nuremberg principles. When he said that he would track down and kill people whom he imagined were terrorists, without trial, without evidence or proof, he rejected the foundation of American democracy, that we are a nation of law.... This was intended to be the Krystalnacht of post-war American liberalism."

Will Pitt writes, "Were the protesters fully aware of whom they faced, many of them may well have fled in terror to cower in their homes. One does not lightly bait a bear with such terrible claws... The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) desires and demands one thing: The establishment of a global American empire to bend the will of all nations. They chafe at the idea that the US, the last remaining superpower, does not do more by way of economic and military force to bring the rest of the world under the umbrella of a new socio-economic Pax Americana... The People versus the Powerful is the oldest story in human history. At no point in history have the Powerful wielded so much control. At no point in history has the active and informed involvement of the People been more absolutely required. The tide can be stopped, and the men who desire empire by the sword can be thwarted. It has already begun, but it must not cease. These are men of will, and they do not intend to fail."

Nina Burleigh writes, "The wave of western soldiers landed in the Islamic nation, armed with weapons and good intentions... Copies of Tom Paine's Rights of Man - translated into Arabic - were given to local leaders. The invaders' stated aim was to liberate Arabs and spread democratic ideals in the Islamic world. If they brought back a little plunder, surely the vanquished owed it to the conquerors in exchange for their liberation. The year was 1799. The setting was Egypt and the leader of the expedition was Napoleon. He and his 34,000 men were bringing republican principles to Islam, liberating Arabs from their Ottoman rulers and teaching them the notions of liberte, egalite, fraternite. The grandiose plan failed utterly. A deceptively easy conquest of Cairo was followed within months by an urban insurrection. The westerners beheaded rebels in public streets using sabers, leaving severed heads in gutters as warning. It had no effect. Jihadi fervor remained, fomented from afar."

John Prados writes that the Bush administration quite plainly threatens regime change -- not in Iraq, but a transformation of the entire pattern of the United States' relationships with the world. Today's "situation is unprecedented, and possibly irreparable; one need only look to the Bush administration's foreign policy actions for glaring evidence. Rather than defying the system on a single demand or issue, George W. Bush has shocked America's friends on multiple counts. Bush's renunciation of the Kyoto standards, U.S. withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, and the administration's 'unsigning' from the treaty establishing an international war crimes tribunal (actually illegal under applicable international law), plus its disputes over commodities and preferences within the World Trade Organization -- all these posed direct challenges to our global partners."

Here is a seminal article, in a conservative paper (the Atlanta Journal Constitution), describing the real aims of the "New World Order" crew that infests this Administration. "This war is intended to mark the official emergence of the United States as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the United States must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means becoming the 'American imperialists' that our enemies always claimed we were. Once that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. For example, why does the administration seem unconcerned about an exit strategy from Iraq once Saddam is toppled? Because we won't be leaving."

"A popular Arab saying goes like this: 'Your true friend is the one who tells you the truth, not the one who believes you.' Many friends of the US are reluctant to tell the US the truth since it will only accept the half truths imposed upon it by a Cold War clique manipulating the post Sept. 11 American psyche though their views and agenda were developed well before Sept. 11. Of course this generalization does not include US administration figures who are not part of this clique, but they can only play a limited moderating influence on American policy since the clouded legitimacy of the present US administration was given a life of its own by the reaction of the administration and the public to the events of Sept. 11, and no one was willing to take action that might affect this new legitimacy..."

In an important Nation essay, Jonathan Schell writes, "This autumn and winter, nuclear danger has returned, in a new form, accompanied by danger from the junior siblings in the mass destruction family, chemical and biological weapons. Now it is not a crisis between two superpowers but the planned war to overthrow the government of Iraq that, like a sentence of execution that has been passed but must go through its final appeals before being carried out, we have talked to death. (Has any war been so lengthily premeditated before it was launched?) Iraq, the United States insists, possesses some of these weapons. To take them away, the United States will overthrow the Iraqi government. No circumstance is more likely to provoke Iraq to use any forbidden weapons it has. In that event, the Bush Administration has repeatedly said, it will itself consider the use of nuclear weapons. Has there ever been a clearer or more present danger of the use of weapons of mass destruction?"

The United States has long been acknowledged as the greatest power in the world. But we have used that power for purposes and goals that the international community shares -- until Bush and his cronies took office, that is. Bush sees the U.S. not as first among equals, but as a law unto itself. The Bush Doctrine defines the world as full of threats to America. Unfortunately, this paranoia has created a self-fulfilling prophecy, turning allies into opponents and making the world a more dangerous place for all of us.

Tom Englehardt writes, "Little has been said here about what may be happening to what's left of our American republic. But can there be any question that empires abroad that involve massive military garrisoning, as ours does, tend to end up by garrisoning the 'homeland' as well. Months ago, with a flurry of discussion of whether we were the New Rome (that was before the cover of the New York Times magazine section informed us that American Empire was us and we should simply 'get used to it'), a few writers did manage to invoke the 'crossing of the Rubicon' that essentially brought the Roman Army back to Rome as a conquering force. But somehow all that's died away. I suppose we're getting used to it, which actually means watching one tiny Rubicon after another be forded by the forces of the imperium. (Of course, the Supreme Court offered us all a hand in crossing the first of those Rubicons on this round of empire.)"

"With the Cheney-Bush junta preparing us for a new hot war, [Gore] Vidal asks whose interests are served by this doctrine of pre-emptive attack. Was Afghanistan turned to rubble to avenge the 3,000 slaughtered on September 11? Or was Osama 'chosen on aesthetic grounds to be the frightening logo for our long contemplated invasion and conquest of Afghanistan'? After all, Corporate America has long been excited by Eurasia's mineral wealth. And whatever happened to Osama? 'Once Afghanistan looked to be within the fold, the junta, which had managed with some success to pull off a complex diplomatic-military caper, abruptly replaced Osama, the personification of evil, with Saddam Hussein. This has been hard to explain since there is no US intelligence to connect Iraq with 9/11. Doubtless, 'evidence' is now being invented. But it's uphill work, not helped by stories in the US press about the vast oil wealth of Iraq which must, for the sake of the free world, be reassigned to US consortiums.'"

Maureen Dowd writes, "At a moment when Americans were hungry for reassurance that the monomaniacal focus on Iraq makes sense when the economy is sputtering, Mr. Bush offered a rousing closing argument for war, but no convincing bill of particulars. Republican senators tried to back up the president. While admitting that there was no evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction yet, John Warner told reporters that an attack was justified 'if you put together all the bits and pieces that are out there right now.' Americans will never understand the Bush rationale for war if they simply look at the bits and pieces of physical evidence. They will understand the Bush rationale for war only if they look at the metaphysical evidence, the perfect storm of imperial schemes and ideological stratagems driving the desire to topple Saddam... Their reasons for war predate 9/11. The conservatives have wanted Saddam's head for a dozen years."

William Pfaff writes, "A nation with the power and ambition of today's US owes it to itself, and to the world, to know facts. Knowing what actually happened, rather than myths about what happened, would seem essential to avoiding error about what may happen in the future... A senior White House official was quoted last week in The Washington Post as saying that the US has assumed 'an almost imperial role' today because its responsibilities are the same as when America was 'standing between Nazi Germany and a takeover of all Europe.' Britain, not the US, stood between the Nazis and the takeover of all Europe. The US did nothing substantial to oppose the Nazis until 1942. Churchill pleaded for help, but an isolationist Congress denied it... The only practical aid for Britain that President Franklin Roosevelt was able to get from an isolationist Congress was to exchange 50 obsolete destroyers for 99-year leases on British bases in the Western Hemisphere."

Unlike his one-term father, George W. Bush isn't conspicuously lacking in "the vision thing". Unfortunately, what he envisions is America dominating the rest of the world militarily, economically, and culturally. It doesn't seem to occur to him or any of his henchmen that the world might resist U.S. domination, and that the resistance might make life unpleasant for Americans.

John Pilger writes, "According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld, the new organisation, known by its Orwellian moniker as the Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group, or P2OG, will provoke terrorist attacks which would then require 'counter-attack' by the United States on countries 'harbouring the terrorists'. In other words, innocent people will be killed by the United States. This is reminiscent of Operation Northwoods, the plan put to President Kennedy by his military chiefs for a phoney terrorist campaign - complete with bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans - as justification for an invasion of Cuba. Kennedy rejected it. He was assassinated a few months later. Now Rumsfeld has resurrected Northwoods, but with resources undreamt of in 1963 and with no global rival to invite caution. You have to keep reminding yourself this is not fantasy: that truly dangerous men, such as Perle and Rumsfeld and Cheney, have power."

The longer George W. Bush is in power, the more people around the world have a negative opinion of the United States. What a coincidence.

From the Black Commentator: "The Bush regime's strategic decision to seize effective control of the planet translates domestically as wholesale pillaging of American civil society. Breathtaking is too weak a word to describe the scope of what the Republicans have accomplished under the guise of a War on Terror. Bush has parlayed the gift - for surely 9-11 is treasured as a Godsend by Bush and his crew - to consolidate an approximate corporate coup at home while smashing the delicate mechanisms of civilized relations among nations. The world is terrified - hushed - in wide-eyed thrall of the cocked American hammer. Rule of the international madman is at hand, and nobody wants to set him off. Him is Bush, not Saddam Hussein, the petty tyrant who engineered for himself the historical misfortune of becoming indispensable to Bush's 'big goals.'"

The Asia Times reports that two events last week went almost unreported but clearly demonstrate the Bush administration's disregard for nation-state sovereignty, which it says it supports. The U.S. missile launched into Yemen on November 3 did more than kill six suspected terrorists. It signaled that the Bush regime will ignore other international borders and international laws whenever it suits them. The other event was the economic blackmail of Mauritius' support for the UN Security Council Iraqi W-ar resolution. The Bush administration's actions display an attitude that goes far beyond unilateralism, all the way into imperialism. "Complete sovereignty for us; complete intervention for everyone else," said French foreign-policy expert Pierre Hassner about the administration's worldview several months ago. "This is typical of empire."

Jang.com reports: "Russia declared Tuesday the right to take preemptive military action beyond its borders in the fight against terrorism and said it would re-evaluate its relations with countries that do not join the fight. Declaring a 'battle without borders,' Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said that 'the armed forces will be used if necessary, according to the kind of terrorist act (being prepared or carried out) and the involvement of foreign countries.' Ivanov also announced that Russia planned to modernize its military and keep a million-strong army that was both mobile and well equipped. In a series of statements, published separately in the Izvestia daily and made during his tour of army bases in the Russian Far East, Ivanov delivered a tough new warning against Chechen guerrillas and international terror groups....'This battle has no borders, no fronts, or visible enemies,' he said."

"The Bush administration's national security doctrine of regime change, preemptive military action and permanent American global military dominance, which represents a drastic shift in the concepts that have driven American foreign policy since World War II, does not serve United States interests or provide the foundation for a stable world order in which American values can thrive, analysts at a think tank forum Monday in Washington said....'Dominance and preemption have (already) failed,' said Sherle R. Schwenninger, co-director of the Global Economic Policy Program at the New American Foundation...The administration's new foreign policy focus has been embodied most in its tough talk about an invasion of Iraq to topple President Saddam Hussein. Although this new approach has been dubbed the 'Bush Doctrine,' Michael Lind, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, said these policies are actually a rehash of policy proposals from Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of Defense."

LA Times reports, "For Bush, this month's debate in the U.N. Security Council is all about Iraq and its alleged weapons of mass destruction. But for France, Russia and other countries, the issue isn't just the Iraqi threat - it's the U.S. threat, too. The US says it is providing leadership, lighting a fire under a Security Council that has failed for years to enforce its own mandates on Iraq. But to many members of the Security Council, it appears as if the United States is using its strength not to lead, but to bully. These ambassadors fear that if Washington sidesteps the U.N. to attack Iraq, the result will be irreparable damage to the institution that should be at the center of international affairs. How the debate is resolved may shape the way future conflicts are addressed in the new world order - with or without the U.N." Congratulations, George. You've convinced the international community that you're a bigger threat than Saddam Hussein.

The core of America's self-image is that we're an example to the rest of the world, not an Empire. But the Bush regime has dropped all pretense of adherence to that ideal, and is swaggering toward a belligerent imperialism. They're making a serious mistake. The American people have not agreed to change the national myth. The more obvious it becomes that Bush is rejecting our ideals, the more America will reject Bush.

We're already seeing the tragic consequences of the Bush Doctrine. Bush's lust for war and his proclamation that We're Number One and we won't tolerate rivals is turning friends into enemies. Jordan has been one of our country's staunchest allies in the Middle East. And now a U.S. diplomat has been assassinated just outside his home in Amman.

Mani Shankar Aiyar writes, "'Regime change' is what Hitler insisted on in ordering the Austrian Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg to quit in favour of the Nazi quisling Artur Seyss-Inquart when the Chancellor committed the outrage, in Hitler's eyes, of ordering a plebiscite to ascertain whether the Austrian people wished to be absorbed into the German Reich. 'Regime change' is what Hitler then demanded in Prague... Germany then marched into Czechoslovakia without a shot being fired. Hitler then personally supervised regime change in the Hradacny palace. Next was Poland's turn. Hitler demanded that Colonel Josef Beck go and Berlin decide who will rule in Warsaw. Beck demurred. The Brits suddenly discovered their resolve. And the Second World War began. Some 50 million died in the cause of 'regime change'. That is why the German Minister of Justice bluntly compared the actions of Bush to those of Hitler. Bush is readying to do to Baghdad what Franco and his Nazi allies did to Guernica."

"We are voting on this new Bush doctrine of preventive strikes--preemptive strikes. There is nothing in this Constitution about preemptive strikes. Yet in this rag here, this resolution, we are about to vote to put the imprimatur of the Congress on that doctrine. That is what the Bush administration wants us to do. They want Congress to put its stamp of approval on that Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes. That is a mistake. Are we going to present the face of America as the face of a bully that is ready to go out at high noon with both guns blazing or are we going to maintain the face of America as a country which believes in justice, the rule of law, freedom and liberty and the rights of all people to work out their ultimate destiny? What are the ramifications around the globe? What is the image of the United States then going to be? A nation that is a rogue nation, that is determined to wipe out other nations with a preemptive strike?" Call Byrd at (202)224-3954 to thank him.

David Podvin writes, "American foreign policy is revisiting the most brutal period in our history. George W. Bush has resurrected the scourge of Manifest Destiny, a depraved philosophy that states we are morally compelled by God Almighty to kill weaker people and steal their land... The stated desire for world domination has some observers comparing Bush to Adolf Hitler. It is a comparison that is entirely inappropriate - Hitler did not pretend to love the innocent civilians he was slaughtering... The Bush record is a logical extension of what happened in 2000. The theft of that election was not just a power grab... it was a policy statement by someone who has contempt for democracy and the rule of law. The inevitable result is the introduction of the Bush Doctrine, [which] is the latest incarnation of the Manson Doctrine, which clearly states, 'I reserve the right to kill you if I feel like it.' This is not the best of America."

William Pfaff writes, "International law is not 'law' at all. It is a system of treaties, conventions, precedents and other commitments over many years by which governments have attempted to limit war, keep the peace and adjudicate their conflicting claims and interests to their mutual advantage and security. It is not law because no authority issues it. No one enforces it, other than through cooperative action among nations. The US has, during its two and a quarter centuries of existence, been one of the nations most active in building up the structure of international law that the Bush administration now is engaged in knocking down. The Charter of the UN is one of the principal existing agreements making up international law and was drafted largely by the US. The 'threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state' is outlawed by the charter, and 'preemptive' war was specifically treated as a war crime at the Nuremberg trials."

Charley Reese writes: "The neoconservatives around George Bush are crazy. They actually believe the United States can run about the world, overthrowing governments by force and establishing democracies in their place. This group of maniacs not only wants war with Iraq, but after that, war with Syria, Iran and North Korea. Any government that doesn't meet their standards of a modern, Western-style democracy is a target for America's military might in their warped minds... Bush ought to be paying close attention to countries that have the capability of destroying the United States, and at the moment, China and Russia are those countries. A lot is going on in Russia that does not bode well for the democratic people in that country.... It's unfortunate that he has surrounded himself with neoconservatives full of hubris. At their urging, he's acting like a little boy who suddenly fancies himself a soldier and emperor of the world."

Robert Scheer writes, "It sure smells like imperialism. That's the word historians use when powerful nations grab control of desired resources, be it the gold of the New World or the oil of the Middle East. Imperialist greed is what 'regime change' in Iraq and 'anticipatory self-defense' are all about, and all of the rest of the Bush administration's talk about security and democracy is a bunch of malarkey. In the laundry list of reasons the Bush team has been trotting out in defense of a unilateral invasion of Iraq, oil is never mentioned. Is the fact that Iraq holds a huge pool of oil a piddling footnote to this debate? Is that Gulf War protest sign, 'No Blood for Oil,' too cynical, even passe? Perhaps we should ask Condoleezza Rice, who served as a Chevron director and had an oil tanker named after her... The strategy is pretty much the same as that drawn up by the Romans: Find and support local strongmen who can deliver the goods to the imperial capital, come hell or high water."

In a powerful essay, Jay Bookman writes, "As it turns out, this is not really about Iraq. It is not about weapons of mass destruction, or terrorism, or Saddam, or U.N. resolutions. This war, should it come, is intended to mark the official emergence of the US as a full-fledged global empire, seizing sole responsibility and authority as planetary policeman. It would be the culmination of a plan 10 years or more in the making, carried out by those who believe the US must seize the opportunity for global domination, even if it means becoming the 'American imperialists' that our enemies always claimed we were. Once that is understood, other mysteries solve themselves. For example, why does the administration seem unconcerned about an exit strategy from Iraq once Saddam is toppled? Because we won't be leaving. Having conquered Iraq, the US will create permanent military bases in that country from which to dominate the Middle East, including neighboring Iran."

Jack M. Balkin, Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School, writes: "The Bush administration's new policy of pre-emptive attacks is a dangerous addition to this mixture, creating a host of bad incentives. Simply by announcing future threats that deserve pre-emptive action, presidents can seize control of the political stage...In this way, the president can effectively govern through war, with disastrous consequences for the nation and for the world. Armed with the doctrine of military pre-emption, the perpetual political campaign perfected by our last president might well become the perpetual military campaign of future presidents... Still, he has not accomplished his stated goal of eliminating al Qaeda or capturing Osama bin Laden. With victory not achieved and Afghanistan still unstable, he has now attempted to shift our attention to a new war with Iraq."

Molly Ivins writes, "No. This is not acceptable. This is not the country we want to be. This is not the world we want to make. The United States of America is still run by its citizens. The government works for us. Rank imperialism and warmongering are not American traditions or values. We do not need to dominate the world. We want and need to work with other nations. We want to find solutions other than killing people. Not in our name, not with our money, not with our children's blood. I rarely use the word 'we' because it's so arrogant for one citizen to presume to speak for all of us - and besides, Americans famously can't agree on the time of day. But on this one, I know we want to find ways so that killing is the last resort, not the first. We would rather put our time, energy, money and even blood into making peace than making war."

Chris Floyd writes: "Not since 'Mein Kampf' has a geopolitical punch been so blatantly telegraphed, years ahead of the blow... Similarly -- in method, if not entirely in substance -- the Bush Regime's foreign policy is also being carried out according to a strict blueprint written years ago, then renewed a few months before the Regime was installed in power by the judicial coup of December 2000. The first version, mentioned in passing here last week, was drafted by a team operating under then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney in 1992. It set out a new doctrine for U.S. power in the 21st century, an aggressive, unilateral approach that would secure American domination of world affairs -- 'by force if necessary,' as one of the acolytes put it.... Anyone still 'puzzled' over the Bush Regime's behavior need only look to these documents for enlightenment...(which) explain America's relentless march across Afghanistan, Central Asia and soon into the Middle East."

Paul Krugman writes that Karl "Rove's original model [for Bush] was William McKinley... But McKinley was also the president who acquired an overseas empire. And there's a definite whiff of imperial ambition in the air once again... Pundits tell us that a war with Iraq will drive down oil prices, and maybe even yield a financial windfall. But the effect on oil prices is anything but certain, while the heavy costs of war, occupation and rebuilding - for we won't bomb Iraq, then wash our hands of responsibility, will we? - are not in doubt. And no, the US cannot defray the costs of war out of Iraqi oil revenue - not unless we are willing to confirm to the world that we're just old-fashioned imperialists, after all. In the end, 19th-century imperialism was a diversion. It's hard not to suspect that the Bush doctrine is also a diversion - a diversion from the real issues of dysfunctional security agencies, a sinking economy, a devastated budget and a tattered relationship with our allies."

Time's Michael Duffy writes: "Sometimes it's striking how strength begets greater strength. One by one, George W. Bush is clearing away the obstacles to war, at home and overseas...Bush makes it clear that the billions of dollars we have spent on armies, navies and aircraft can't protect us anymore.... Americans deter and defend; we don't attack, and we don't conquer. It wasn't entirely true, but it was true enough so that when we broke our rule, we tried to keep it quiet... Asked whether the new strike-first doctrine was aimed at Iraq, a senior official dodged last week and said pre-emption is at the 'narrow end of a long band of options.' But it's no coincidence that the new strategy has appeared at the very moment that Bush needs a strategic anvil on which to forge his campaign against Saddam."

William Rivers Pitt writes, "Some will tell you the Cold War ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Others will say it ended when the Soviet Union finally collapsed, when their breed of communism was cast aside in favor of free-enterprise democracy. In truth, the Cold War finally ended this past week, when the Bush administration chose to reframe the strategic posture of the American military away from the concept of deterrence. Replacing that time-tested and diplomatically pliable stance are two steel fists. One declares the United States supreme over all nations, now and forever, and warns the world that we will never allow another nation to come close to matching our power. The other bluntly proclaims that we will attack any nation, at any time, in a pre-emptive fashion, if we so choose."

Dana Milbank writes: "More and more, Bush has been acting like the seventh president... the White House is convinced of the similarities. Top Bush strategist Karl Rove... invited historian Robert Remini to lecture senior officials at the White House Thursday on similarities between Bush and Jackson. 'There are a lot of Jackson fans there, including Karl Rove,' Remini said. In fact, Remini said of Rove's new model for Bush, 'there's something to it'... Bush's aggressive use of American power... follows very closely the Jacksonian approach. The Council on Foreign Relations' Walter Russell Mead, in a book last year titled 'Special Providence,' discerned four strains of American foreign policy: the Hamiltonian approach, which favors international commerce and institutions; the Jeffersonian approach, which frowns on costly international entanglements; the Jacksonian approach, an unapologetic flexing of military might; and the Wilsonian approach, an internationalism based on moral values."

If there was a "liberal" media, the new Bush Doctrine of Global Domination would certainly cause a "liberal" newspaper like the NY Times to unleash a torrent of outrage. But the Times can barely rouse itself to say boo. After praising W's "eloquence" - say WHAT? - the Times gently writes: "The paper sounds more like a pronouncement that the Roman Empire or Napoleon might have produced. Given Mr. Bush's lone-wolf record on matters like global warming, and the nature of the issues he now faces, including a looming confrontation with Iraq, it is clear these combative attitudes will be driving Washington policy in the months ahead. The boys in Lubbock may want to pause before signing on for the overly aggressive stance Mr. Bush has outlined." Hey Gail Collins, why don't you just tell it like it is - Bush is determined to rule the world, and only the American people can stop him - by defeating ALL Republicans.

Bush unveiled the new "Bush Doctrine" of foreign relations which overturns a half century of struggle toward global peace initiated by Truman's doctrine of containment and deterrence. Bush's scheme is at its heart little better than a wild west script of "shoot first, ask questions later." Anyone perceived as an "enemy" can be blasted with a "preemptive strike." It is an insult to any progressive nation on Earth that has emerged from the war lord mentality. What's more pitiful still, this "doctrine" was slapped together by Donald Rumsfeld, a cold war fossil and Condolleezza Rice, whose chief educational background was studying Cold War Russia. And these are the people who are determining America's global course? Man the lifeboats!

"The Bush administration will publish its first comprehensive rationale for shifting American military strategy toward pre-emptive action against hostile states and terrorist groups developing weapons of mass destruction. The strategy document will also state, for the first time, that the US will never allow its military supremacy to be challenged the way it was during the cold war... The document, titled 'The National Security Strategy of the US' ... [rejects] most nonproliferation treaties in favor of a doctrine of 'counterproliferation,' a reference to everything from missile defense to forcibly dismantling weapons or their components. It declares that the strategies of containment and deterrence - staples of American policy since the 1940's - are all but dead... The White House delayed releasing the document this week so [it] would not dominate delicate negotiations in the UN or the testimony of administration officials who appeared at Congressional hearings to discuss Iraq."

The Sunday Herald (UK) revealed that Bush had a plan in place to invade Iraq whether or not Saddam was the ruler as early as 2000 - plan formulated by the Project for the New American Century. This "project" calls for a grandiose, belligerent return to 1800s-style imperialism. Here is the original statement of purpose of PNAC. Look who signed this document, and you will find familiar names - in fact the names of all key Bush administration players and First Brother Jeb Bush. And, the chairman of the project? None other than William Kristol - playing the role today of chief inside operator in the media. Can anyone now doubt that the entire Bush administration amounts to a major conspiracy in and of itself?

From UK's Sunday Herald: "A secret blueprint for US global domination reveals that Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power in January 2001...The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC)...The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security...the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein'... This 'American grand strategy' must be advanced for 'as far into the future as possible'. It also calls for the US to 'fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theatre wars' as a 'core mission'."

Thomas Walkom writes: '"A year later — a year after the attacks on New York and Washington — two things are becoming clear. The first is that international terrorism is not as dangerous as many had feared...it is the good news. The bad news is that a more serious threat to the world has emerged. That threat, perhaps not so ironically, is the United States itself. America has become a rogue state, a danger to itself and others, a superpower on the verge of losing all self-control. This is not the analysis merely of those that my friends in the right-wing press like to call professional anti-Americans. It is one that, in different ways, is articulated by members of the U.S. power elite itself — including some whose patriotic and conservative credentials are impeccable. Inside the United States, this critique has crystallized over...George W. Bush's obsession with Iraq."

Bush is making a lot of noise about a new "Bush Doctrine." The doctrine is as simpleminded as Bush himself - it says Bush can drop bombs anywhere he damn well pleases, and kill as many people as he likes, without any explanation, with YOUR tax dollars. Doesn't this violate the Constitution? Of course, but who cares except "unpatriotic" liberals? How about the UN Charter? Mega-dittos! In other words, Bush has declared himself the Global Terrorist-in-Chief. But to us, its primary goal is to give Bush an excuse to destroy Iraq, for one simple reason - to take Iraq's oil and give it to Bush's oil buddies, whose lust for the world's oil and other essential resources (like water) will keep America at war for generations to come. Impeach Bush Now!

During his losing 2000 campaign, candidate Bush promised a "humble" foreign policy. But the new Bush doctrine makes the US the global policeman, dropping bombs wherever we feel like it. Will the attack be "conventional" (like the "daisy cutter" virtual nukes) or nukular? It's impossible to get a clear answer. But whatever the means, the goal is clear: OIL. "I think the president is trying to get the American people ready for some kind of preemptive move" against Iraq, said a Pentagon consultant. He said it would not necessarily be against Iraqi weapons sites but might instead involve a seizure of Iraqi oil fields.

On Sept. 4 at the Geneva conference on disarmament, Bush's representative, one Robert Grey, proclaimed that the Anti-Ballistic Missiles Treaty had become obsolete. Thus, in effect, the Bush corporation has declared that the painstaking work toward world peace done by leaders over nearly three decades is simply out of style - rather like last years Guccis. But what can you expect from an administration that has all the depth of a page from an annual report done on glossy stock, the comprehension of world affairs of a mall-cruising adolescent, and the sense of responsibility toward his fellow humans of a cash register? Well, Shrub, at least you should be able to understand when the day comes (soon, we hope!) that the world declares you and your cronies out of style - sort of like last year's faux cowboy boots from Dior.