Bush, clueless as ever, is planning to blunder into Ireland, a country where he is about as welcome as a root canal. The majority of Irish, who value freedom more than most, having had to fight tenaciously for it throughout much of their history, can't stand Bush and what he represents. A group of Irish lawyers has drafted a document stating that Bush's reelection would be "disastrous" for the US and the entire world. http://home.eircom.net/content/irelandcom/breaking/3439362?view=Eircomnet Meanwhile, an interfaith coalition of Irish clergy has officially protested Bush's visit. "The Dean of St Patrick's Cathedral, Rev Robert McCarthy, also at today's call for public protests, reminded reporters that 100,000 people turned out to protest against the war. 'The situation is worse than anything we thought at the time,' Rev McCarthy said."

BBC: "[Aussie] Labor president Carmen Lawrence said she believed the Bush administration was trying to help conservative PM John Howard win the election." After Labor candidate Mark Latham vowed to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq, Bush tried to sway public opinion against Latham by stating that the move would be "disastrous." Colin Powell and other White House officials then frequently repeated this unsubstantiatable claim. "It's a bit unseemly for American senior officials to be telling an opposition in this country how to conduct its affairs and what its policies should be," Lawrence said. "Australians are a proud people and don't much like being told how to conduct themselves by other governments." Bush is understandably worried: Polls show Howard and Latham running neck-to-neck. After this story broke, the White House immediately began damage control: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,9835514%5E401,00.html

All of a sudden, Bush is kissing up to our allies in a blatant ploy to convince U.S. voters that he plays well with others. But the rest of the world knows better than to be fooled by this sudden interest in diplomacy. As CBS News reports, "It only takes a day at the United Nations to understand why the discontent runs so deep.... In a dozen interviews, with diplomatic officials ranging from ambassadors to secretaries, most see Mr. Bush's efforts as too little, too late." Trust, once lost, cannot be regained. If we want the United States to regain its standing as an honorable and honored nation, we MUST get George W. Bush out of the White House.

ABC: "Bush got what he wanted: a photogenic gathering of world leaders on his turf that, by making him look the statesman, could help his tough battle for re-election this November. But the harmony on display at the Group of Eight summit only covered so many cracks. Bush said he felt the gathering's biggest accomplishment was endorsing his initiative to promote economic and democratic reforms in the Middle East and North Africa. But even here there was dispute. European leaders warned that change cannot be imposed on the Middle East. Jordan cautioned that doing so could backfire. Russian President Vladimir Putin said he would not contribute money, and the European Union pointed out that many of the initiatives were already being carried out by European countries. French President Jacques Chirac and his German counterpart, Gerhard Schroeder both unreformed opponents of the war that toppled Saddam Hussein shot down Bush's hopes that NATO might commit more troops to Iraq."

NZ News: "George W Bush on Thursday sought to paper over differences with France on a Nato role in Iraq and said he did not envision sending more troops from the military alliance there. However, French President Jacques Chirac continued to express scepticism at a proposal by Bush and his ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair that Nato should help train Iraqi security forces. A day after G8 leaders backed democratic reforms in Arab and Muslim nations, Bush described "the spread of freedom throughout the broader Middle East" as "the imperative of our age" and said he did not feel snubbed by the failure of Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait to attend the summit." That's like having a conference on the Caribbean and having Puerto Rico, Jamaica, and Cuba not show up - then claiming it's no big deal!

For Bush, reality is whatever he decides its going to be at that moment. As a prelude to visiting France this week, he told the press that he'd never had anything but good will toward the French - 'our constant allies.' Tell that to Ma and Pa Bushie Redneck out there who now eat only 'Freedom Fries'! Then he invited Chirac (figuring the French prez wouldn't be the wiser) to 'C'mon over and see some cows,' meaning, of course, come spend time at Rancho Boguso in Crawford - the ranch he built as a set for election 2000 - and see some cows owned by the guy who manages the ranch. Bush himself, you see, knows nothing about ranching and owns no livestock himself except a pet cow named Ophelia. (see http://www.utne.com/webwatch/2003_98/news/10756-1.html)

Roger Morris was a diplomat who quit over Nixon's invasion of Cambodia. In a letter to current diplomats he writes, "You know how recklessly a cabal of political appointees and ideological zealots, led by the exceptionally powerful and furtively doctrinaire Vice President Cheney, corrupted intelligence and usurped policy on Iraq and other issues. You know the bitter departmental disputes in which a deeply politicized, parochial Pentagon overpowered or simply ignored any opposition in the State Department or the CIA, rushing us to unilateral aggressive war in Iraq and chaotic, fateful occupations in both Iraq and Afghanistan. You know well what a willfully uninformed and heedless president you serve in Bush, how chilling are the tales of his ignorance and sectarian fervor, lethal opposites of the erudition and open-mindedness you embody in the arts of diplomacy and intelligence."

A careful reading of this report from the Asia Times will show the same type of electoral interference in Cambodia exists as that found in Venezuela and Haiti. Money to a favored opposition; insistence that aid will be linked to free elections as long as the one they don't want isn't elected, etc. It's the same pattern that was used in Nicaragua to bribe the nation to vote the Sandanistas out of office during the Reagan/Bush administrations.

"Patriotic Americans of all political persuasions are increasingly concerned about the recent radical changes in U.S. foreign policy. There is mounting evidence that the present course will weaken rather than strengthen America's own security; reduce rather than increase world stability; and create more hostility towards the United States rather than admiration for our dynamic economy and democratic way of life. With this in mind, The American Prospect magazine, the Center for American Progress, and The Century Foundation sponsor[ed] a conference on U.S. national security. The event, titled, 'New American Strategies for Security and Peace,' in Washington, D.C. on October 28th and 29th, 2003. This conference [was] aimed at government officials, foreign policy experts and opinion leaders who are concerned with the direction of U.S. foreign policy and its adverse effects on the safety of Americans at home and abroad." Quotes, audio & video available.

"Germany and France pledged Thursday to push ahead with plans to develop an autonomous EU military capability, despite criticism that it would double up with NATO. They committed themselves to transforming the European security and defence policy into a full-scale defence union 'so that the EU can emerge as a full and equal partner on the world stage.' The statement was issued at the end of government talks chaired by German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac. They said the defence union would be open to all EU members. But the idea of developing an EU military capable of acting on its own has not gone down well in Washington, which fears it may undermine the US-dominated North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. An April meeting between Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg, at which they proposed an autonomous European military command headquarters near the Belgian capital, was derided by [xenophobic Bushnazis] as a gathering of 'chocolate makers.'"

LA Times reports: "Once bitter foes, India and Israel plan to strengthen their defense, intelligence and trade ties when Ariel Sharon attends a summit here today in the first official visit by an Israeli prime minister.... The most significant deals are likely to be negotiated behind the scenes. Flush from a booming economy, India has gone on an arms-buying spree and wants to purchase advanced systems from Israel. At the top of the shopping list is the Phalcon airborne early-warning radar, which India has been trying to buy from Israel for years. Washington said last month that it did not object to the $1-billion sale, despite warnings from Pakistan that such a move would tip the military balance on the subcontinent.... Pakistan and India have nuclear arsenals, but Pakistan is worried that the combination of advanced radar and antimissile systems in India would neutralize its smaller atomic deterrent and spark an all-out nuclear arms race."

Noam Chomsky: "When the US overthrew the government of Guatemala in 1954 - again, we have that rich record of declassified documents - what they explain is that the threat of Guatemala was that its the first democratic government had enormous popular support. It was mobilising the peasantry, instituting social reforms and this was likely to appeal to surrounding countries that might want to do the same thing. And that couldn't be tolerated or else the whole framework of US domination of the hemisphere would collapse. And it was the same in South East Asia and the rest of the world. The threat of independent nationalism has always been a primary threat.... [R]emember the American colonies when they liberated themselves from England, they were regarded by European statesmen as a tremendous threat. The Czar, Metternich and others were extremely upset by this threat of republicanism which might appeal to others and undermine the conservative world order and its moral foundations."

"There was no need for the United States to base any of its troops on Australian soil, [the Aussie Labor Party leaders] said today," reports News.au.com. "Chris Evans said Australia should be responsible for its own defence and any request by the US to base troops in Australia would have to be justified. Senator Evans said Labor supported close defence links with the US but basing troops on Australian soil was a different matter. 'Mr Howard is out there again talking up the possibility of US forces on Australian soil,' he said in Canberra."

Matthew Riemer writes for PINR: "In the diplomatic cacophony preceding the U.S. invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the tensions and new alignments in Europe, the European Union, and the trans-Atlantic relationship could be seen forming and then further defining themselves as the pre-war debate continued. The fractures set in motion at that time are still forming today and are present in the geopolitical situation in Europe including Washington's relationship to that unfolding process. The most recent landmark along the road of change being traveled by the E.U. was reached on July 02, the second day of Silvio Berlusconi's presidency of that same organization, when the Italian Prime Minister quipped to German lawmaker Martin Schulz in the European Parliament, who had heckled him about bribery charges, that he would be 'perfect' for a role in a movie as a Nazi prison guard. This comment set-off a war of words between Italy and Germany with Italian officials firing away insults."

From Reuters: "Condoleezza Rice was quoted in a German magazine Sunday saying the Bush administration was trying to patch up strained relations with Germany but would continue to ostracize Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. Focus magazine reported President [sic] Bush's national security adviser told a German visitor recently that relations between Bush and Schroeder were ruined because of the German leader's outspoken opposition to the U.S.-led war in. 'We're now doing everything we can to improve relations to Germany at all levels,' the unnamed German visitor quoted Rice as saying. 'But we're going to work around the chancellor. It's better to leave him out.' 'The Bush-Schroeder relationship will never be what it was and what it should be,' Rice was quoted as saying in Focus."

Ash Pulcifer writes for YellowTimes.org: "The United States has failed to persuade the world to support its quest for global hegemony. The belief that America is the 'indispensable nation' that needs to continually expand its sphere of influence has been met with resistance from many, both inside and outside its borders. This failure of persuasion means that the U.S. will find it difficult to secure control around the world and instead will be met with challenges from other states claiming different ideologies, hoping to surmount the U.S. in global attractiveness and influence. Instead of continuing this failed attempt to remain a global hegemon, the U.S. should instead recognize the likelihood of its weakened future position and work to create empowered global institutions that could prevent one state from ever achieving too much power."

Helen Thomas writes: "It looks like tough times ahead for all things French. We have the word from the White House that it's payback time -- France is being blacklisted by President [sic] George W. Bush and his hawkish advisers for not toeing the U.S. line on Iraq. This is shabby treatment for an old friend who came to our rescue as far back as the American Revolutionary War... As part of the new official Franco-phobia, Bush told NBC-TV in an interview Wednesday that he doubts President Jacques Chirac would be 'be coming to the ranch soon' in Crawford, Texas... Does that mean that we are now going to invade France? Of course not. Boycott, maybe. Shun, certainly. The New York Times reports that the neo conservatives on the presidential and vice presidential staffs are planning to freeze out the French by turning for decisions to the NATO Defense Policy Council which does not include France. It may also snub the North Atlantic Council, NATO's governing body of which France is a member."

Reuters: "Thousands took to the streets to protest against the fighting in Iraq and now Mecca-Cola, which has sales of about 5 million bottles in Europe, will give thirsty Senegalese a thought-provoking alternative thirst slaker to the US Brand. At a glance, the 1.5-liter Mecca-Cola bottles look just like Coca Cola. But closer study shows a green mosque, Arabic writing on one side and the sales pitch in French and Arabic: 'No more drinking stupid. Drink with commitment.' Sales of the new drink have taken off far more rapidly than anyone predicted. After its first week, a new plant in Morocco had already sold 300,000 bottles."

Helen Thomas writes, "What can they be teaching in American law schools today about the principles of international law and constitutional law now that our nation is practicing 'unilateralism' and 'preemption?' The U.S. invasion of Iraq flouted many of the legal commitments and treaties that we have pioneered and fostered since World War II. The US also has conveniently skirted the UN charter, which limits the legality of taking up arms against another country to instances of self-defense or when the U.N. Security Council has given its prior approval. So why haven't we heard more from leaders of the legal community? The 9-11 terror attacks seem to have thrown them for a loop... Now that we are bypassing the tenets of international law and acting out our own rules of behavior on the world stage, I pity the professors in the law schools. Their challenge will be to explain how our nation, which prides itself as a nation of laws, got itself into this fix."

"The survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project found that a majority of the public in each of the nations - Britain, France, Germany, Russia, Spain, Italy, Poland and Turkey - continues to oppose participation in the invasion of Iraq that appears imminent. At the same time, the poll found that positive attitudes toward the United States have plummeted in all of the countries, while disapproval of Bush's approach to foreign policy has soared. 'This is the most negative [international] public opinion about America and an American president that I've ever seen,' said Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew project. Quick success in a war against Iraq may soften these attitudes, Kohut said. But he believes that even military victory is unlikely to eliminate them because they are rooted in fundamental anxieties about the way America is exercising its might as the globe's sole superpower."

Paul Krugman writes, "'Oderint dum metuant' translates, roughly, as 'let them hate as long as they fear.' It was a favorite saying of the emperor Caligula, and may seem over the top as a description of current U.S. policy. But this week's crisis in U.S.-Mexican relations suggests that it is a perfect description of George Bush's attitude toward the world... [On Monday], Mr. Bush said that if Mexico or other countries oppose the United States, 'there will be a certain sense of discipline.' These remarks went virtually unreported by the ever-protective U.S. media, but they created a political firestorm in Mexico. The White House has been frantically backpedaling, claiming that when Mr. Bush talked of 'discipline' he wasn't making a threat. But in the context of the rest of the interview, it's clear that he was... When I read an interview in which the U.S. resident sounds for all the world like a B-movie villain what I feel, above all, is shame."

WashPost reports, "Analysts and U.S. officials suggest a number of reasons Bush has become the subject of such vitriol overseas. Some of it stems from personality: Bush's blunt manner and frequent references to religion appear especially grating to European ears, these analysts and officials say. But much of it is rooted in substantive questions about the role of U.S. power in the world and whether Bush is properly using it in his battle with Hussein. 'The debate [overseas] has not been about Iraq,' a State Department official said. 'There is real angst in the world about our power, and what they perceive as the rawness, the arrogance, the unipolarity' of the administration's actions. But, pointing to Bush's seemingly dismissive statements about the protests, the official said the concerns reflected in cables from American 'overseas posts' appeared to have little impact on White House decision-making."

NY Times reports, "As antiwar demonstrators prepare for what they are saying will be among the largest protest marches in history this weekend, many in Europe are asking themselves: how did trans-Atlantic relations, which were so good so recently, get so bad so quickly? [Bush's] preparations for a war with Iraq have provoked something far beyond the normal disagreements - as happened ... recently over such questions as the Kyoto Protocol on global warming or the International Criminal Court, both favored in Europe but rejected in Washington. Now, something deep and fundamental [has] been brought to the surface by the Iraqi crisis. Several hundred thousand antiwar protesters are expected Saturday on the streets of London alone, and it has become clear that the European public, from Britain to Poland, from 'old' Europe to 'new' Europe, is against war in Iraq. Indeed, it is almost as if Bush [has] unwittingly brought about a popular unity on this continent."

Former CIA officer Graham Fuller writes, "The better case might be made that it is America that stands for 'old' values, and that France and Germany represent 'New Europe' - or even 'the coming world.' Think about it. France and Germany have put five centuries of wars behind them, including two devastating world wars, to form a new union with shared currency and desires to forge a broad common foreign policy. Such a step is revolutionary among ancient nation-state rivals... But it doesn't stop there. The European Union is a remarkable experiment - the first time in history when states have been willing to give up real hunks of their own national sovereignty in order to join a new civilizational project... The reigning premises of the Union are that states must be truly democratic, they must protect human rights and civil liberties, and that war among its members should be an unthinkable option... They aspire to form a new force in the world - and are well on the way."

AP reports, "A second day of 'intensive' consultations at NATO failed Tuesday to end one of the worst crises in the alliance's 53-year history, with France, Germany and Belgium refusing to lift their veto of U.S.-backed plans to bolster Turkish defenses against a possible Iraqi missile attack. After two postponements during the day, ambassadors from the 19 NATO countries met for only 20 minutes Tuesday evening before ending the session... Informal negotiations would continue through the night and the ambassadors would reconvene at 9:45 a.m. Wednesday. The division in the alliance could undermine the Bush administration's attempts to muster support in the U.N. Security Council for military action against Iraq... NATO's disarray also casts doubt on the future of an alliance founded to fight the Cold War, which has spent the past years seeking to reinvent itself as a force to confront terrorism or rogue states."

"France and Germany continued this weekend to gamble with the institutions that have kept something called the Western alliance united for half a century. The question to contemplate now is whether that alliance, formally known as NATO, continues to serve the interests of the United States. This may seem a radical thought, but it is certainly warranted by the astonishing recent behavior of nations thought to be U.S. allies. Three countries--France, Germany and their mini-me minion, Belgium--have moved from opposition to U.S. policy toward Iraq into formal, and consequential, obstructionism. If this is what the U.S. gets from NATO, maybe it's time America considered leaving this Cold War institution and re-forming an alliance of nations that understand the new threats to world order." Can this marriage be saved? Not with a wife-beating husband named Bush!

BBC reports, "Belgium says it will block an American request for Nato to start preparing a deployment of forces designed to protect Turkey in the event of a US-led war with Iraq. Members states have until Monday to state formal objections to the US appeal. France has also indicated it will oppose the request and wield its veto, despite pressure from the US The rift between Washington and what US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld termed 'old Europe' threatens to do lasting damage to NATO solidarity, according to the BBC's Stephen Sackur in Brussels. 'When one has to take a slap in the face such as the insulting remarks... by Mr Rumsfeld, who comes to teach a thing or two to 'old Europe', the Europe of democratic values, humanist Europe, the Europe of the Age of Enlightenment, personally I find that this hurts' ... The stage is set for a furious behind-the-scenes row at Nato headquarters, our correspondent says."

"Harsh criticism of U.S. policy over Iraq and heated discussion about the U.S.' role as the world's only superpower dominated the normally polite seminars of the World Economic Forum yesterday. Again and again, world leaders and other participants in the prestigious five-day talk shop criticized U.S. plans to topple the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and they charged the U.S. with hypocrisy for its policies on human rights and refusing to sign international treaties. It was a dramatic change in the tone of the forum, which has been dominated in the past by U.S. chief executives, academics and Washington policy-makers, and whose sessions frequently were used to tout U.S. solutions to world problems... Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad warned U.S. Attorney-General John Ashcroft during a debate that, 'if you do start [a war against Iraq] you will kill a lot of innocent people. You are going to make a lot of people very angry, certainly a lot of Muslim people.'"

WashPost reports, "In a recently televised satire here titled 'Between Iraq and a Hard Place,' George W. Bush is depicted as an idiot who can't seem to grasp why Saddam Hussein isn't cooperating with the U.S. timetable for war. American democracy is defined as 'where there are two candidates and the one with the most votes loses,' and Britain's role in the forthcoming military campaign is starkly simple: 'What is it that the Americans want from us?' asks a British official. 'From us?' replies an army general. 'Dead bodies.'... Other signs of the swing in mood: efforts by the tabloid Daily Mirror to build circulation with an all-out campaign against an attack on Iraq; the sold-out success of 'The Madness of George Dubya,' a north London theatrical satire that depicts a child-like president in pajamas with a giant teddy bear; and the continuing bestseller status of Michael Moore's book 'Stupid White Men,' a blistering critique of the United States."

Writes Joshua Kurlantzick of the New Republic: "The Bush administration has made Southeast Asia a priority in the war on terrorism. But, instead of bolstering cash-strapped intelligence and civilian agencies, it has sent money and training to the region's corrupt militaries. That is a mistake. While civilian organizations are making strides in combating terror, the same cannot be said about the Indonesian, Malaysian, Philippine, and Thai militaries, which are not only brutal but in many cases have ties to Islamic militants themselves. U.S. aid for these armies may backfire, fueling more radicalism and terror."

"The top bishop of the Episcopal Church, in a stinging rebuke of American foreign policy, said the US is rightly 'hated and loathed' around the world for its 'reprehensible' rhetoric and blind eye toward poverty and suffering. 'We are loathed, and I think the world has every right to loathe us, because they see us as greedy, self-interested and almost totally unconcerned about poverty, disease and suffering,' Episcopal Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold III said in a speech Sunday at the Washington National Cathedral to mark his fifth anniversary as presiding bishop... 'I'd like to be able to go somewhere in the world and not have to apologize for being from the US.' Griswold, head of the 2.3 million-member church, accused the Bush administration of using 'language so unwisely, so intemperately, so thoughtlessly ... that I'm not surprised we are hated and loathed everywhere I go.' He singled out Bush's labeling of Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an 'axis of evil.'"

"The U.S. State Department issued a public alert to U.S. citizens on Dec. 5 about a possible terrorist threat in Turkey. Washington has 'unconfirmed and fragmentary information' that unknown terrorists are planning to conduct an operation against official U.S. government facilities or personnel in southeast Turkey. Specifically, American citizens are warned to use caution in traveling into or out of Gaziantep airport, near the border with Syria. The U.S. military has a substantial presence at Incirlik air base near the southeastern city of Adana. Turkey agreed earlier this week to allow the United States to use some of its facilities in a possible military action against Iraq, given that U.S. action is sanctioned by the United Nations." So reports Stratfor.com.

Newsday.com reports: "They were key figures in the Iran-Contra scandal and U.S.-backed 'dirty wars' in Central America in the 1980s. Now Otto Reich, Elliot Abrams and John Negroponte are back, helping run White House policy toward Latin America....The return to power of the Reagan-era hard-liners coincides with the rise of leftists to power in several countries in Latin America.... Analysts worry about a head-on collision between the Bush team and Latin America's newly empowered left. 'We are going into volatile times,' said Larry Birns of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, a liberal think tank in Washington, DC. 'The prospect of a train wreck is real.'... 'The resurfacing of the Iran-Contra culprits has been nothing short of Orwellian in this administration,' said Peter Kornbluh of the liberal National Security Archives...'These are not 21st-century appointments. They are retrograde appointments, a throwback to an era of interventionism when the U.S. was the big bully on the block.'"

ABCNews.com reports: "The top aide to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien who called [Mr.] Bush a 'moron' resigned on Tuesday, saying the controversy generated by the comment had made her position untenable. Francoise Ducros, Chretien's communications director, had been under intense pressure from opposition politicians and the media since making the remark last Wednesday during a conversation with journalists during a NATO summit in Prague. She first offered her resignation last Friday but Chretien refused to accept it, saying the remarks had been private. But on Tuesday she sent Chretien a letter saying she was quitting. 'It is very apparent to me that the controversy will make it impossible for me to do my job. I would therefore like to leave my position as director of communications immediately,' wrote Ducros, who had been in the post since mid-1999. Ducros, a 40-year-old lawyer known for her combative and often abrasive manner, showed undying loyalty to Chretien."

From the Boston Globe: "The United States plans to start beaming new Farsi radio broadcasts to Iran next month, hoping that a mix of pop songs and hard news [FOX-style!] may help make unpopular US policies more palatable among young Iranians. Radio Farda - 'tomorrow' in Farsi - is expected to offer at least five hours of news, features, and other programming spliced into a mix of popular Persian and Western music from the likes of Britney Spears and New Kids on the Block. The broadcasts, due to begin in mid-December, are the latest salvo in a US campaign of 'public diplomacy' aimed at presenting US policies, culture, and institutions in a better light in the Middle East. Skeptics suggest that if the broadcasts appear to be biased they will do little to help the US cause in a region where there is deep resentment about Washington's support for Israel and profound misgivings about any US-led war against Iraq."

"First, (Mr.) Bush refused to congratulate Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany on his re-election victory, then Mr. Bush ignored a personal letter from the chancellor. When he finally took a phone call from Mr. Schroeder on Nov. 8, their conversation was businesslike and brief. Now the question remains: Will Mr. Bush shake Mr. Schroeder's hand at a major NATO summit meeting in Prague this week?...Mr. Bush is still angry that Mr. Schroeder campaigned this fall on a platform opposing a war in Iraq, and was further infuriated when a minister in Mr. Schroeder's government was reported to have compared the president's tactics to those of Hitler [The Truth hurts]....White House officials say that Mr. Bush is a mature leader who understands the importance of the American relationship with Germany, but they acknowledge that the trouble between the president and the chancellor shows how much Mr. Bush values personal loyalty -- and demands allegiance -- in his foreign policy."

According to Radio Free Europe, Indonesian VP Hamzah Haz "thinks outside powers were involved. And his deputies have suggested publicly that U.S. intelligence agents had both the ability and the motive to carry out such an attack. Those remarks reflect a conspiratorial theory that seems preposterous to most Westerners but is gaining widespread currency among Indonesians -- the allegation that U.S. agents may have been responsible for last weekend's Bali bombings... Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group says the popularity of the view reflects deep-seated resentment against the United States: 'The U.S. is seen as having put extreme pressure on the Indonesian government to go after Muslim targets. And that has been resented not just by the extremist Muslim groups in Indonesia, but also by people who have a very strong sense of nationalism and national identity -- and don't want to see Indonesia pushed around by the United States.'"

Doreen Miller writes,

"1. Take a bunch of self-righteous, egomaniacal, power-hungry individuals wrapped in a layer of morally bankrupt religious fanaticism.
2. Add the world's most extensive arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.
3. Toss in absolute, unchecked control over the deadliest of military forces.
4. Pour in some half-baked ideas about dominating and ruling the world.
5. Stir vigorously until thoroughly mixed up.
6. Keep the mixture at a steady boiling point over a constant, pseudo-patriotic flame of fear-mongering, and what have you cooked up?
Bush's latest recipe for disaster, otherwise known as "The National Security Strategy of the United States."

This is a repost from a month ago, September 10th. We posted it then as a warning to the Bush administration and the military that they risked placing our troops in a dangerous situation by using Kuwait as a base of operations for an extremely unpopular war. As we have the misfortune to be saying now on a regular basis: it sometimes sucks to be right. Now, for the second time in two days, armed Kuwaiti civilians have confronted Marines there, killing one Marine and wounding another. Anti-American sentiment in Kuwait is at an all-time high - not the sort of place you want the troops to depend on as a "safe zone." Bush, knowing for months that Kuwait would be unsafe for American troops, still chose to order them to begin "urban warfare" maneuvers, thereby lighting the fuse to the powderkeg.

First we had this administration engineering the failed Venezuelan Coup to overthrow Hugo Chavez. Then Ari Fleisher made a terorist threat when he suggested an assasination of Saddam Hussein (in CLEAR violation of US law and policy). And now Richard Perle threatens German minister Shroeder by saying to this recently democratically elected leader "the best would be, if he would withdraw." This administration does not care about the election process (see Florida, Venezuela and now Germany), they don't care about the rule of law (aggressive war against Iraq, cancelling treaties without Congressional approval), as well as putting every American's life in danger by this never ending war talk. Impeach Bush Now!

Bush can take absolute credit for one thing: He has managed to destabilize the entire world more thoroughly in just 2 years than any other leader in modern history. Not even Hitler managed to create so much international tensions or precipitate so many political crises in so short a time. But Bush is a political dinosaur turned loose in the global china shop - a half-witted elephant turned loose at a genteel teaparty. The latest tensions to emerge as direct result of Bush's idiocy are in Southeast Asia, where Bush's wooing of China in his anti-Saddam "coalition building" efforts and his bullying of, and inuendoes against, Indonesia and Malaysia are creating political unrest and regional friction. Does anyone dare imagine the world after TWO MORE YEARS of the G.lobal W.reckingball?

In a sane regime, the National Security Advisor would be armed with decades of experience and an exceptionally broad background. We'd have an elder statesperson who, exceptionally well-versed in critical Middle East and Southwest Asia issues. So what do we get? Bush's workout buddy, hired on Daddy's recommendation, who has an all but worthless degree in Cold War Soviet relations and has spent most of her adult working life cloistered on a University or in the schmoozy artificial environment of a major corporation. So, it comes as little wonder that Condi Rice's performance is going from poor to abysmal. First as primary author of Bush's "shoot 'em up" travesty of policy, and now as a "spokesperson" who has managed to offend and alienate the very people with whom we have the most dangerously poor relations at present. Rice's arrogance has become almost legendary - even Bush himself thought her rhetoric in the "policy paper" sounded "stuck up."

While the U.S. press gave sour coverage to the win of Prime Minister Schroeder in Sunday's elections in Germany, the rest of the world, including China, expressed varying degrees of joy and relief at the win. Schroeder has made it plain he will oppose involvement in Bush's endless war. Meanwhile, the US media keeps spinning and misrepresenting, like good codependents softening the blow to their pouting bully controller Bush. In the wake of the election, they are harping STILL on the Herta Daubler-Gmelin anti-Bush remarks, and now calling her remarks anti-American, as if Bush and the US were synonymous, and acting as if she is being forced to leave office because of her comments (she's leaving because she lost her bid for reelection to another candidate). What a national embarrassment Bush and his media are!

Ari Fleischer whined to Chancellor Schroeder about it. U.S. has spun it like crazy. The rightwing Christian party in Germany has hoped to use it, Bush-politik style. Chief Bush brown noser Tony Blair is frantically kissing up to Schroeder on Bush's behalf. All over the comment by Justice Minister Herta Daeubler-Gmelin, who dared speak what so many already think: there ARE parallels between Bush and Hitler's tactics. But the US media failed to report the story in context, or its real consequenes. German papers reveal that they've made Herta a heroine, more likely to her party's Sunday election (thankyou Ari!!!)and that Schroeder has no intention of firing her (his poll showing has gone UP since pulling away from Bush). Btw- Herta also observed that Bush would be sitting in the Big House, not the White House, right now if the U.S. had had adequate insider trading laws during Bush's oil days. You go, Herta!!!

Bush is like a lead steamroller - no matter what the warning signs may be, he's gonna just keep rolling forward toward disaster. Global warming? Ignore it. Stock market plunging? Ignore it. UN unsupportive of attack plans? Ignore it. America's press may be corporate mush-mouth toadies spouting pap, but abroad, the public knows the truth. Now, from Muslim nations and developing countries, hatred of America has spread to Europe. This week, a McDonald's was attacked in Germany. But it was not the first serious anti-BushAmerica attack. Last May, enraged by Bush's visit to Germany, an underground group firebombed several American businesses.

Gabriel Ash writes, "On my visit to Barnes & Noble the other day, I saw a little sign informing that the store will open late on September 11. The management invited the employees to spend the morning in quiet reflection. All over America, the bosses, from the supervisor to the frothing madman who runs the Justice Department, want us to be silent, mum, and quiet. 'Take two minutes of silence,' they counsel. As if we didn't have a whole year of loud, garish silence; a whole year in which nobody 'respectable' dared to point out the lurid nakedness of our court-appointed emperor. Americans fell silent when a felonious cabal decided that getting their boy into the White House was more important than maintaining even the pretense of democratic elections."

Libertarian Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) writes: "Jefferson spoke for the founders… when he stated: 'peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none...' which is 'one of the essential principles of our government'… Whatever happened to this principle and should it be restored?… We as a people are less free, and the prosperity we still enjoy may be more illusionary than many realize. The innocent victims who have suffered at the hands of our militarism abroad are rarely considered by our government. Yet they may well be a major factor in the hatred now being directed toward America… Has this policy of foreign intervention set the stage for radically changing America and the world in ways not yet seen? Were the founders completely off track… or was the foreign policy they advised based on an essential principle of lasting value? Choosing the wrong answer to this question could very well be deadly to the grand experiment in liberty begun in 1776."

Global Security Newswire reports the US "is pushing to cut short the Biological Weapons Convention review conference, scheduled to meet for two weeks beginning Nov. 11. Senior U.S. diplomats ... threatened to publicly identify suspected treaty violators unless the conference is abbreviated, and discussions about amending the treaty by establishing a verification and monitoring regime are avoided. Bush administration officials also said they would oppose any further treaty meetings until the next review conference scheduled for 2006. The U.S. insistence is a further blow to efforts by other Western treaty parties to strengthen the pact in a number of ways, including by creating an on-site inspection mechanism for checking on suspected biological weapons activities worldwide, similar to that of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Observers say U.S. officials are hoping to shut down the conference to prevent any further discussion of an inspections protocol to the treaty." Impeach Bush Now!

How can anybody wonder why the Bush administration is so despised abroad? Here's Bush's ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci trying to tell our neighbors to the north how to run their country. Thanks for your help during 9/11 says Cellucci, but you folks better get with the Bush program and start dumping all your tax dollars into into defense spending. (Though it must be said, with G.lobal W.reckingball Bush at the helm, they may NEED more protection!) Talk about arrogance! Cellucci figures Canadians will quiver with fear because concerns about the Maple Leaf land's lack of defense spending has reached "the very highest levels of the Bush administration." Who does this guy think he is? An envoy from his Royal Heinous gone into the "provinces" to collect tribute?

From the Strait Times of Asia: "The stockpile of global sympathy and goodwill for the United States after Sept 11 has dissipated - replaced by a rising anti-American sentiment that has turned into a contagion now spreading across the globe. Anti-Americanism is no longer limited to religious radicals and terrorists who resent the US, but is infecting even the US' most important allies in Europe. Analysts blame this on a series of new US policies widely considered to be selfish and unilateral, including pResident George W. Bush's plans to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. Here in Britain, the US' staunchest friend, snide remarks and downright animosity greet many Americans these days. In virulent prose, newspapers criticise the US. Politicians attack its foreign policies ferociously, especially its plans to attack Iraq. And regular citizens launch into tirades with American friends and visitors. What happened, many Americans are wondering, to all that global goodwill?"

In another (un)diplomatic initiative, the Bush administration continues its renegade attempts to undermine the newly established International Criminal Court, by combining plausible deniability with blackmail. CNN reports: "The Bush administration said it is not using the threat of withholding military aid to pressure countries into providing U.S. peacekeepers with immunity from the International Criminal Court…A provision of the treaty that created the court says that a bilateral agreement between two countries overrides the international court's jurisdiction when the court has filed charges against a peacekeeper from one of the countries stationed in the other…The US now is seeking Article 98 agreements with…about 175 nations in an attempt to circumvent the court's jurisdiction… But U.S. officials denied (telling) foreign diplomats (they) could lose U.S. military aid if they do not provide immunity to U.S. peacekeepers."

A report by the Washington Office on Latin America reveals that the Bush administration's assault on desperately poor farmers in Bolivia in the name of "drug control" has left 10 coca growers dead and at least 350 injured or detained "It is inexcusable that the U.S. government continues to fund units of security forces in Bolivia where there is clear evidence that those units are abusing their own citizens," says WOLA's Bill Spencer. This cowboy-style attack was supposed to have been complemented by an alternative development program. Instead, peasant farmers have been left with burned fields and no other means to feed themselves and their families in Latin America's second poorest country. The attack by "America's mercenaries" (as they are now called) escalated dramatically last fall while America's attention was distracted by "Bush's Trifecta" on 9/11. What other operations did Bush and the restored Iran-Contra gang (Reich, Abrams et al) launch behind the smokescreen of 9/11?

If men - and nations - are known by their friends, the U.S. is in deep trouble, thanks to Bush. "European leaders, increasingly irritated by the Bush Administration, feel they are coming to a moment of truth about themselves and their relationship with Washington," says a report by Steven Erlanger in Berlin. "Real interests are diverging, and years of talk about tensions and resentments have crystallised into a perception that the relationship itself has changed. On fundamental issues like the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto environmental treaty and the crisis in the Middle East, even strongly pro-American leaders like the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, and the German Foreign Minister, Joschka Fischer, are openly differing with Washington with a public bluntness that would have been unthinkable five years ago - or in the weeks after September 11." Any credibility that Bush may have gained after the attack has, says one European official, has been "frittered away."

John Judis writes, "Except for a brief respite after September 11, the Bush administration has supported what conservatives call 'unilateralism' but really a variant of 1920s isolationism. The isolationists of the 1920s did not reject overseas intervention; they just rejected intervening through alliances... Bush's unilateralism was on display before September 11 in his withdrawal from the Kyoto Protocol... and in his infatuation with national missile defense. Most recently, [it has been] his rejection of the International Criminal Court and in the startling new Bush doctrine on pre-emptive war. These measures combine an indifference to international agreements with an imperial hubris grounded in America's current military superiority. They may not backfire immediately... but before the decade is over, decisions such as these could contribute to making the world far less hospitable to American power than it is now" -- and undermine the very basis of Bush unilateralism.

John Pilger writes in the Observer, "From Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, an ally of crypto-fascists, to impeccably liberal commentators, the new imperialists share a concept whose true meaning relies on a xenophobic or racist comparison with those who are deemed uncivilised, culturally inferior and might challenge the 'values' of the West. Watch the 'debates' on Newsnight. The question is how best 'we' can deal with the problem of 'them'. For much of the western media, especially those commentators in thrall to and neutered by the supercult of America, the most salient truths remain taboos... Perhaps the most important taboo is the longevity of the United States as both a terrorist state and a haven for terrorists. That the US is the only state on record to have been condemned by the World Court for international terrorism (in Nicaragua) and has vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling on governments to observe international law, is unmentionable."

George Michael's new video "Shoot the Dog" marks "his first foray into the world of political satire, in which he takes on President [sic] George W. Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and the Queen Mum. In the song, Michael criticizes British foreign policy — at least when it comes to dealings with the Middle East — as being too closely aligned with that of the U.S. The video depicts Bush as an idiot and Blair as his lapdog, literally. Critics are already predicting that the song and video — which shows Michael astride a nuclear missile — could end the pop star's career…"People are looking at the song in context of an attack on America, as opposed to an attack on Tony Blair," Michael said from his vacation home in France…"We're all still obviously very much vulnerable right now, both countries, with their relationship with the Middle East and Al Qaeda," Michael said. "Britain is now a target, we're effectively a possible target, as a warning to America."

The Mirror UK reports that "For 101 days, Royal Marines have been engaged in a farcical operation as mercenaries of the United States whose lawlessness now qualifies it as the world's leading rogue state. Shooting at shadows, and the occasional tribesman, blowing up mounds of dirt and displaying 'captured' arms for the media, all have been part of the Marines' humiliating role in Afghanistan - a role foisted upon them by the Blair government, whose deference to and collusion with the Bush gang has become a parody of the imperial courtier. Gang is not an exaggeration. The word, in my dictionary, means 'a group of people working together for criminal, disreputable ends'. That describes accurately George W Bush and those who write his speeches and make his decisions and who, since their rise to power, have undermined the very basis of international law."

What do you get when you have a two-bit, all-hat, no-cattle cowboy running the rodeo? An embarrassing Wild West show starring a cast of washed up John Wayne wannabes. It's a grade-C horse opera where everyone is either with us or against us - and if you're against us, ya better get outta Dodge by sundown...a bizarro world episode of Gunsmoke where the folks who are supposed to be the good guys shoot first and ask questions later...where the fat cat town bosses call the shots from their cushy "saloons" far removed from "hostile territory." Trouble is, these half-baked characters are playing with REAL LIVES.

"The regrettable but observable fact is that the Bush Administration's foreign policy has been a disaster of unprecedented proportions, making the world far more dangerous than it was just two years ago. Bush has turned the diplomatic corps and the military into branches of the Foreign Commercial Service, the part of the State Department charged with helping American businesses secure opportunities overseas. In a cynical twist on the immortal words of John F. Kennedy, the word went out to friend and foe alike that the United States would bear any burden to ensure that the interests of American multinationals were aggressively protected. The escalation of the all out war in the Middle East is nothing less than presidentially-assisted suicide." So writes Democrats.com's David Lytel.

Ian Williams writes, "John Bolton, the Under Secretary of State for [the right wing neo-fascist wish list], can get a lot done in one day. On May 6... he added Cuba, Syria and Libya to the administration's 'axis of evil' hit list. That same day, Bolton sent a letter to the United Nations reversing President Clinton's decision to back the founding of the International Criminal Court. 'Usigning' the Rome statute does not really fall into Bolton's bailiwick. But the busy right-wing hawk has never let his job title blunt his ambition. His ability to usurp the ICC decision reveals his success in building a power base for unilateralism in the State Department ... He has emerged as an energetic force trying to return the Bush administration to its pre-Sept. 11 habits of unilateralism, thumbing its nose at the rest of the world." Jesse Helms said during Bolton's confirmation that he would be honored to stand next to Bolton during Armageddon - unfortunately, we all may be standing with them!

"Former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on Sunday accused President [sic] Bush 's foreign policy team of suffering from 'untreated bipolar disorder.' Albright said the Bush administration is projecting contradictory messages on a broad range of global conflicts, including the Middle East and Afghanistan .'They talk about the importance of the rule of law, but seem allergic to treaties designed to strengthen the rule of law in areas such as money-laundering, biological weapons, crimes against humanity, and the environment,' Albright said in a commencement speech at Tufts University's Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy." You go, Madeleine!

Molly Ivins writes, "Bush's foreign policy is starting to look like a running gag on Saturday Night Live. How inept can he get? ... We knew when Bush won the coin toss in 2000 that he was no genius on foreign affairs. [It looks like] we need to start with the fundamentals with this team: Peace is better than war. We like peace. We try to promote peace. Peace is good. When Jimmy Carter [is in Cuba] the smart thing would be to seize the chance to make progress... The right wing has been on Bush's case about his supposed lack of 'moral clarity' in foreign policy. The fact is, it's a complicated world; most of us understand that. What I resent is the administration's pretense that its policies are never hypocritical and are born solely of virtue and idealism, never influenced by business deals, strategic considerations, the need for oil and other facts. It's one of those, 'How dumb do they think we are?' deals."

TomPaine reports "'He is repressive and he ought to have free elections, and he ought to have a free press, and he ought to free his prisoners,' our president [sic] said as he sat next to Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohammed... An apt description, though it might have seemed to be a jaw-dropping breech of diplomatic etiquette. But Mr. Bush wasn't talking about Dr. Mahathir. He was talking about Fidel Castro... One wonders, though, what the Malaysian leader must have been thinking as he heard the description. 'My message to the Cuban people,' Mr. Bush concluded, 'is demand freedom and you will have a president [sic] that [sic] stands with you.' Demand freedom in Malaysia and you're likely to wind up in prison and, no, George W. Bush won't be standing with you. He's standing instead with Dr. Mahathir, a repressive bigot who is another of our new best friends in the War on Terrorism."

Joe Conason writes in the New York Observer, "In an era when the United States needs to maintain a strong international alliance against terrorism... George W Bush still insists on outdated unilateralism. [Bush's rejection of] the International Criminal Court shows that he and his advisers have learned little from the terrible events of last September. What is most worrisome about this administration's foreign policy is not its supposedly tough-minded practicality, but its blind confidence. Only the most naïve optimist would suggest that the United States can exempt itself from the standards we impose on others without doing great damage to our own credibility and prestige." In rejecting the court, Bush has joined the 'axis of evil' nations, "as well as Libya, Syria and China. There can scarcely be worse company for a democracy that regularly proclaims its devotion to law and human rights."

"The assumption that has remained central to [British Atlanticists] since the signing of the Atlantic Charter in 1941 - that there exists an unbreakable community of interests and values linking the democracies of Europe to the US - is being challenged as never before... This challenge comes not from the rise of anti-Americanism in Europe but from the almost total collapse of America's willingness to accept the constraints and mutual obligations that are essential to any meaningful alliance system. On every front, the Bush administration is rejecting multilateralism in favour of an aggressive, America-first policy. It asserts the right to pollute without restraint by rejecting the Kyoto agreement. It demands access to the markets of the world while imposing steel tariffs and hiking subsidies for domestic agriculture. Arms control, it insists, is for others as it abrogates the ABM treaty and prepares a new generation of 'mini-nukes.'" So writes David Clark in the UK Guardian.

On 5-5-02, billionaire investor Warren Buffett told shareholders "it's 'virtually a certainty'... that terrorists will inflict 'a major nuclear event' on the United States soon. The most likely targets, he added, will be New York or Washington, D.C. What makes Buffett so pessimistic? Maybe he read the Capitol Hill testimony of Charlotte Beers, undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, before the House appropriations committee on April 24, in which she discussed the deep hostility that the entire Muslim world - not just Arab countries - feels toward America... It would be nice, therefore, if we thought harder about making friends, not naming enemies." So writes Newsday columnist James Pinkerton, perhaps the only honest person in the corrupt Bush I regime.

The Washington Post reports, "What is taking shape across southern Africa is the perfect famine, a disastrous collaboration between nature and man that has caused the region's worst food shortage in nearly 60 years. Officials in the region say as many as 20 million people are suffering from hunger and malnutrition. The U.N. World Food Program is already feeding more than 2.6 million people in Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia and other countries in the region, and agency officials say that number will at least double in the coming months as peasants finish off the meager yields from this season's harvest. Overall, relief workers anticipate they will need roughly 145,000 tons of food, worth about $69 million, to plug the immediate shortfall in domestic crop production in the region. So far, donors have pledged only about $3 million." But Bush wants to add $48 BILLION to the severely OVERnourished military budget!

Jocelyn Noveck writes for the AP, "President Jacques Chirac was re-elected Sunday in a landslide victory over extreme-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen, after a dramatic presidential race that shook France to its foundations. In exit polls, all three of France's major polling firms gave Chirac between 81 and 83 percent of the vote, with Le Pen getting 17 to just over 18 percent... Some voters did not go happily to the polls. A few leftists said they were so displeased with the choice offered that they planned to cast ballots for the conservative Chirac, who is plagued by corruption scandals, wearing latex gloves or with clothespins on their noses. French officials warned that such a public display could lead to fines or the annulment of a vote." The French Leftists are lucky -- the Florida Bush Reich did everything in its power to prevent Democrats from voting, and refused to even count the votes when they did!

Ian Williams writes, "Quietly, and without the fanfare that accompanies the campaign in the mountains of Afghanistan, the administration has begun a long march through multilateral institutions. At the UN and elsewhere, the U.S. has mounted a campaign to purge international civil servants judged to be out of step with Washington in the war on terrorism and its insistence that the U.S. have the last word in all global governance issues. The first and most prominent to go was Mary Robinson, the former Irish president whose work as UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has been acclaimed by human rights groups across the world... Another recent victim of the U.S. campaign was Robert Watson, the much-respected chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change... A few days later, on April 22, the U.S. right achieved a new level of success with the deposition of Jose Mauricio Bustani, the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons." And Kofi Annan may be next...

Harold Meyerson writes in the American Prospect, "If the administration's foreign-policy apparat (minus the increasingly isolated Colin Powell) were placed under one roof -- Rice, Rumsfeld, and Reich; Perle, Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Bush -- what watchword would be inscribed over the door? No, not 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter.' There are any number of supplicants who should not abandon hope -- Latin American putschsters, China's Leninist social Darwinists, the Colombian paramilitary, Ariel Sharon, even al-Qaeda terrorists scrambling over mountaintops with no U.S soldiers around to impede them... In record time, the Bush administration's foreign policy has become a cosmic shambles -- its interventions increasingly ineffectual and counterproductive; its refusals to intervene only making bad situations worse; its unilateralism undone by the impossibility, even for the world's superpower, of going it alone; not to mention [Bush's] pronouncements good for the life span of a gnat."

Simon Tisdall writes in the UK Guardian, "Mr Bush repeated his hegemoniacal mantra that, in the battle against global terrorism, 'nations must choose - they are with us, or they're with the terrorists'... And he warned that the US would readily resort to military means to 'defeat the threats against our country and the civilised world' -- without identifying the 'uncivilised' bits. There was a time, not so long ago, when this sort of language from an American political leader would be discounted abroad as mere demagoguery, aimed perhaps at winning an election. The problem... is that Mr Bush really believes this stuff. It may... be counter-productive, having the effect of alienating and alarming friendly countries and antagonising potential enemies. To non-American ears, it certainly sounds arrogant and foolish in the extreme. But it has become the 'Bush doctrine' and as such, it is official US policy, and everybody has to deal with it."

Scott Galindez of truthout.com chides Shrub's unilateralist foreign policy. Shrub often acts like a child, and on the global scene, he's like a kid on a playground who refuses to play fair. "Let’s face it, George, once the sympathy from 9/11 subsides America will be isolated in the international community. Prior to 9/11 you were alienating foreign leaders almost daily. You continue to act unilaterally, straining relations with our allies and other nations throughout the world. Many presidents have called on the Council of Former Presidents … I recommend you swallow some of your pride and ask former President Jimmy Carter to teach you how to collectively resolve disputes instead of being the bully of the world."

Bill Press writes: "Back in the 2000 campaign, Democrats raised a lot of questions about George W. Bush's inexperience in foreign policy. After all, as governor of Texas, his only foreign travel was next door, to Mexico. Nonsense, the Republicans said. Bill Clinton spent too much time on foreign policy. Bush would focus mainly on domestic issues. So, it didn't really matter how well he knew world problems. Besides, they insisted, his own unawareness would be more than offset by the expertise and experience of his crack foreign-policy team: Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice and Donald Rumsfeld…. And, faced with serious challenges, Bush's foreign-policy team members haven't turned out to be such hot shots after all. They're looking more and more like the gang that can't shoot straight."

Here is another Web poll that is likely to be scrubbed soon: Netscape.com asked its visitors to "Grade President [sic] Bush's foreign policy efforts." As of 4-22-02, 40% gave Bush an F, while another 9% gave Bush a D. Even with the Freepers pulling out all the stops to give Bush an "A", only 35% have done so. You have to be pretty sick to give Bush an "A" in foreign policy - unless you think massive bloodshed in the Middle East is a good thing.

Washington Post's Richard Cohen writes: "More and more the administration appears inept at foreign policy. Recently, for instance, it failed to instantly condemn the Venezuelan coup, somehow forgetting that the United States favors democratically elected governments, especially in this hemisphere. Someone should have looked it up... It is the Middle East, though, where the administration has really floundered. Most spectacularly, Bush demanded that the headstrong leader of a sovereign state, Ariel Sharon, reverse policy 'without delay.' Sharon did nothing of the sort because, in effect, he felt he could do nothing of the sort… In a single day, the United States approved a U.N. resolution demanding an Israeli withdrawal while, a bit later, Bush suggested that what the Israelis were doing was just fine with him. The United States had one foreign policy in the morning, another by afternoon -- and yet another reversal still to come."

George W. Bush and the CIA suffered a devastating defeat in Venezuela, when "a countervailing uprising that swept like wildfire through the slums surrounding the capital carried the populist leader back to the presidency today." Hugo Chávez returned to the Presidency only two days after Bush's CIA deposed him and "dismantled the National Assembly, fired the ministers of the Supreme Court, arrested high-level members of the Chávez government and sent others into hiding." Chávez "described the demonstrations by his loyalists as a 'counterrevolution to a counterrevolution.' But the time, he added, had come for the fighting to end. And the 47-year-old Mr. Chávez appealed for reconciliation... Latin American nations helped pave the way for Mr. Chávez's return by refusing to accept the legitimacy of the military move against him and by threatening sanctions against the transitional government." The world is sick of Bush's global tyrrany, and is fighting back!

How many times has Shrub repeated that inane, seemingly obvious line that "The Cold War is over" in reference to U.S.-Russia relations? Seems, though, that this was just another one of Shrub's "mantras" meant to convince the public that he's doing one thing when he's really doing the opposite. Thanks to Shrub's actions - trashing the ABM treaty and deceiving Russia about eliminating nuclear warheads- we're headed for a NEW Cold War. The latest insult concerns the alleged recruiting and DRUGGING of a Russian Federal Security Service agent by 2 CIA operatives.

As William Rivers Pitt points out in a Truthout.com editorial, Bush is captain of a "sinking ship of fools" when it comes to his foreign policy in the Middle East. "This administration has allowed the Middle East to become a bloodbath as it attacks the Stone-Age nation of Afghanistan, all the while failing to capture any of the agents behind the September 11th attacks... Meanwhile, the administration plans for war in Iraq while virtually ignoring Saudi Arabia, the birthing bed of international terrorism, because of its interests in the oil game...This is not foreign policy. It is chaos. If this is what happens when the adults are back in charge, the world yearns for the rule of those children who believed constructive engagement served the purposes of peace. We sail on dangerous waters, a jagged reef yawns before us, and no one is steering the ship." Too bad the illegitimate crew of that ship would take us all down with them.

We predicted that Bush's urging peace in the Middle East would prove bogus. He has failed at every turn to act as a peacebroker between Israel and the Palestinans, instead compounding the problem with an ongoing, erratic display of conflicting signals. As the situation escalates to an insane pitch, all other leaders in the world but Bush are condemning Sharon's all-out assault on Arafat. Now, with Bush an all-but-useless co-conspirator to Sharon, citizens from all over Europe have converged on the West Bank to place themselves between the combatants in a desperate last bid to de-escalate the conflict. Though Bush is fond of touting his "Christian values," we'd like to know what Christian value his Easter eve endorsement of the continuing escalation represents.

Tony Blair sure hitched his cart to the wrong horse when he decided to strap himself to Bush's derriere, because Bush may now be Blair's downfall. "If there was only one complaint to fend off, Blair would feel comfortable," says a Boston Globe report. "But there are many. Failing public services cause widespread anger, Blair's failure to ban fox hunting enrages Labor supporters, as does his fondness for big business and the government's U-turn on its refusal to pay off shareholders of rail operator Railtrack. But the biggest headache is the threatened military attack on Iraq as a second leg in the US war on terror, from which Blair would find it difficult to distance himself." Yep, sure sounds like a Bush disciple to us!

"How could Fleischer, an apparently intelligent man, have screwed up so badly? The answer seems clear. Fleischer's statement has all the hallmarks of being what Bush officials actually believe, and say when they're in private. Fleischer had simply sat in on one too many briefings where Cheney or Condee or maybe even George himself had trashed Clinton's Middle East diplomacy in just those words, and he suddenly spouted out what he'd been hearing for months. Who can blame him? It must be intoxicating, that macho, high-approval-ratings atmosphere where pathological Clinton-hatred is understood and tough guys lay down the law 'bout evil 'n' stuff to a cowering world. Poor little Ari, who has to be responsible and never gets to have any fun, just couldn't resist going Rummy on us for a minute." So writes Gary Kamiya in Salon.

Don't you think it is just a wee bit odd that the U.S. is now sending troops into - of all places! - Georgia (as in the Russian Georgia, not the peach-producing Georgia)? Well, wonder no more. Georgian leader Shevardnadze is a long-time buddy of oil moguls James Baker and Bush, Sr. and a major Enron schmoozer. Not only did Shevardnadze receive a big cash prize from Enron disguised as a "Public Service Award," but he was also flown to visit Rice University (which is heavily endowed by Enron and home to the Baker Institute) at the expense of several big U.S. corporations, including Shell Oil and Enron.

"Today I get to interview the author Stan Goff on "Hideous Dreams".Stan has a distinguished career in elite Ranger, Airborne and Special Forces counter terrorist units, went to Vietnam, Guatemala, El Salvador, Grenada, Panama, Venezuela, Honduras, South Korea, Colombia, Peru, Somalia and Haiti. This is an inside look into US Foreign Policy, the racist history of American imperial domination and his own personal struggle with political consciousness and cynical mandates of his life as a professional soldier. You won't want to miss this interview."

"By identifying America primarily as a military power, by asserting that it will pursue its perceived national interests regardless of international laws, coalitions or treaties, by emphasising its unchallengeable superiority over every other nation and global institution, by claiming an unconditional moral hegemony over any adversary he cares to identify, and by acting so blatantly in the interests of the US business establishment, Mr Bush is weakening America and playing into the hands of its opponents. He is fostering the belief that America's wealth and power are illegitimate and coercive ... The more America brandishes its military power, the more it will be met with antagonism, revulsion and misunderstanding... The greatest danger to America's dominant position today is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is the arrogance of American power." So writes Anatole Kaletsky in the conservative Times of London.

"The people of Iran are not our enemies. They are human beings who desire peace, and a secure future for their children, as much as does any American. With this is mind, I urge you in the strongest possible terms to reconsider your comments in the State of the Union address, and instead to lead in genuine efforts to build a mutually respectful peace between our nation and Iran and, indeed, with all the nations of the world." So writes Professor Alan Hale.

Salon's Jake Tapper reports, "The ties between the Bushes and the Saudi royal family are deep. After the Gulf War in 1992, Prince Bandar had bonded with then-President George H.W. Bush to the point that New York Times columnist William Safire morphed them into 'Bandarbush' and wrote: 'When Prince Bandar says 'jump,' George Bush asks 'how high?'' The prince donated at least $1 million to the former president's presidential library at Texas A&M University in College Station, Texas. In June 2000, he attended Barbara Bush's 75th birthday party in Kennebunkport, Maine. Following reports that the Saudi royal family was chagrined with the U.S. support for Israel, on July 15 the New York Times reported that President George H.W. Bush called Crown Prince Abdullah to assure him that his son the president would 'do the right thing' because 'his heart is in the right place.'" Yep, dubya's heart is in the Saudi Arabia's back pocket.

Everything changed on September 11 - including the geopolitics of the entire Islamic world. Suddenly Iran and Pakistan are exchanging hugs. Bitter enemies like Iran and Iraq are returning prisoners from their 1980's war. Iraq and Kuwait are burying the hatchet. Saudi Arabia wants US troops out - giving Osama Bin Laden his biggest possible victory. Why is peace breaking out? Because of US control of Afghanistan, plus US support for the region's non-Islamic powers, Israel and India. It looks like Bush has fulfilled his campaign promise to be a "uniter, not a divider." But is this good for the US? "If conciliatory efforts between Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabia succeed, it would be a major blow for US interests in the region... The test now will be how fast Arab and Muslim nations move to form a common stance, and how quickly the US takes measures to counter them." Quick, George, start a war - or you will be named "Man of the Year" by Al-Jazeera!

The Somalia operation that Bill Clinton inherited from Bu$h the Smarter "had nothing to do with humanitarianism or Africa-love on the part of Bush or Clinton. Several US oil companies, including Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips were positioned to exploit Somalia's rich oil reserves. The companies had secured billion-dollar concessions to explore and drill large portions of the Somali countryside during the reign of pro-US President Mohamed Siad Barre. (In fact, Conoco's Mogadishu office housed the US embassy and military headquarters.) A 'secure' Somalia also provided the West with strategic location on the coast of Arabian Sea." So writes Larry Chin in the Online Journal.

"The United States' first post-September 11 foray into Latin American politics—in Nicaragua's election—provides a glimpse of how Washington's new 'counter-terrorism' policy may play out in this region. Conservative candidate Enrique Bolanos defeated the Sandinistas' Daniel Ortega, in an election that had been cast as too close to call. US officials publicly warned against a Sandinista victory, accusing them of "links to terrorism," and openly supported Bolanos. But to understand the meaning of these events, we need a bit more history than most press accounts are providing." In recent years, "the Sandinistas took the United States to the World Court for its terrorist actions [in supporting the Contras] — the same Court where the US had won a judgment against Iran just a few years earlier, for the taking of American hostages. The Court ruled in favor of Nicaragua, ordering reparations estimated at $17 billion. The US refused to recognize the Court's decision."

On Paula Zahn's FOX-lite CNN show Monday, the King of Jordan was quoted as stating that if the Camp David Peace Talks under Clinton had succeeded, the 9/11 terrorist attack would likely never have occurred. Then Laura Ingraham (like Ann Coulter, a graduate of Richard Mellon Scaife propaganda pundit program) quoted right-winger Richard Perle, a recent guest on her show, as saying that the Israel situation had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks. Whether or not that is the case, Perle's comments could not be more outrageous. While an advisor to the Bush campaign, Perle urged Israel to walk away from the Camp David Peace Talks held by Clinton, if the Jerusalem question was not resolved. This was a perhaps criminal violation of the Logan Act, which recalled how Nixon and Anna Chennault successfully sabotaged the 1968 Paris Peace Talks to undermine LBJ and elect Nixon.

Responding to reports that Colin Powell was preparing to reiterate US support for eventual Palestinian statehood, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon sent a warning shot across the bow of the Bush administration: "Do not try to appease the Arabs at our expense," Sharon said. "This is unacceptable to us. Israel will not be Czechoslovakia. Israel will fight terrorism." He declared a major break in US-Israeli relations: "From now on, we will count only on ourselves." This brought a sharp rebuke from Ari Fleischer: "The prime minister's comments are unacceptable," he said. Without an understanding between Bush and Sharon - and meaningful progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace talks - US-Israeli relations may face their greatest strain ever. Are Bush and Sharon up to this profound historic challenge?

Once again, Bush is doing a backflip to reverse a policy attack on Clinton. This time the question is US support for a Palestinian state and a negotiated peace in the Middle East. President Clinton dedicated countless hours to direct negotiations, but Bush refused to invest his time in peacemaking. However, Arab states joining our coalition against terrorism have quietly demanded that the US revive peace talks, and Bush has given Colin Powell the job. Unfortunately, neglect has made peace more difficult, but hopefully Powell can pull off a miracle.

"Local U.S. policy experts and activists grappled with grief and shock Tuesday along with the rest of the country. While they took pains to explain that they in no way excuse or condone Tuesday's violence, some were willing to offer their insights into the reasons so many people hate America. Understanding the motives behind terrorist attacks against the United States is hampered by the assumptions many Americans hold, said Ira Chernus, a professor of religious studies at CU. One of those assumptions is that U.S. intentions the world over are good, even when the government or military makes mistakes. The belief that we're only trying to help makes it hard for us to understand why anyone would do something like this to us, Chernus said. Related to that assumption is the belief that the United States is both innocent and invulnerable, which prevents Americans from listening to the message behind such events. " - Pamela White in this week's "Boulder Times."

Chief Senate hawk Richard Shelby (R-AL) of the Intelligence Committee wants to lift the ban on the assassination of foreign leaders by U.S. operatives, and the use of "unsavory" (as in murderous) characters to obtain U.S. intelligence. Gerald Ford instituted the ban to prevent the kind of out-of-control behavior by the CIA that led to the slaughter and torture of hundreds of thousands of people in other countries and the murder of decent leaders who were considered "inconvenient." Osama Bin Laden should be hunted down - and turned over to a court of law as an example of the kind of Justice America believes in. The Sept. 11 disaster should not be used as an excuse to overturn the ban, thereby opening the door to a new era of U.S.-sponsored terrorism abroad. As to the use of unsavory characters to "fight terrorism," Bin Laden himself should be a fine example of where that approach leads, since he was recruited and trained by the CIA.

To strike a covert blow at the Soviet Union, in 1979, the U.S. (urged on by National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinksi), used the CIA to train and arm tribal Afghan leaders. These groups, described as terrorists by many, helped to drag out the conflict for years, costing countless Soviet and Afghan lives. Among the CIA-trained terrorists was a Saudi named Osama Bin Laden. The bloody, vicious war produced millions of Afghan refugees, 3 million of whom ended up in squalid camps in Pakistan. From the horrors of war, a militia of young refugee boys sprung up, all brutalized by war, many of them orphans, who knew nothing but refugee life. Their self-created "culture" was "Lord of the Flies" come to life. All they had was an extremist, bitter philosophy to cling to. They called themselves the Taliban. Now, 22 years later, America's heavy-handed, treacherous involvement in the affairs of others has come back to haunt the innocent.

Carefully stoking the anger and fear of Americans still reeling from the disaster, Bush has repeatedly threatened nations harboring terrorists. To Bush, it's just a few words. But for hundreds of thousands of desperately poor Afghan farmers, already living under subsistence conditions brought on by 20 years of war and the worst drought in decades, it may soon mean starvation. According to the U.N., 5.5 MILLION Afghans may not survive past November without food aid. But aid agencies have been forced to leave the country due to fears of U.S. attacks. As a result, hundreds of thousands could die of starvation before winter. So, added to the tragic toll of over 5,000 killed in the U.S., we may soon add hundreds of times as many Afghans - even if a shot is never fired.

In Indonesia, whenever the corporate interests of Henry Kissinger and his oil industry and gold mining buddies are threatened by rebellious natives, they simply cry "terrorism" and get the Indonesian military to charge in and kill or torture everyone. Now, to protect Enron's huge interests in India, Bush is doing the same thing. He says he wants to "deepen economic ties" and "strengthen efforts against international terrorism." But on the same day that this whitewash was splashed across the news, Bush's corporate rep, known euphemistically as "ambassador" Robert Blackwill was delivering extortionist threats on Enron's behalf. The real deal is this: The Bush cartel wants the Indian government to turn over its resources and cash to US corporate interests - or else. Let's just call this little scenario "Shade of Indonesia." Now lets see if India's leaders prove they are independent Sukarnos - or greedy, corrupt Suhartos.

Why don't Bush and Cheney just rename the White House 'Enron's Corporate Headquarters'? Not only does Enron exec Kenneth Lay lead Bush and Cheney around by their noses -- he and other Enron associates are key players on the "secret task force list." Now Bush's goon (they call him an ambassador) in India, Robert Blackwill is using intimidation and extortion to force India to keep paying for electricity generated by Enron's Indian operation, even though the price of Enron's juice is TWICE that of Indian power providers! Blackwill hinted to India that if they didn't ante up, the U.S. might exert "sanctions" against them. In other words, Bush is subverting the entire US government to further his corporate interests. See also http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/business/newsid_1507000/1507112.stm In this link, Kenneth Lay directly threatens India, acting as self-appointed President of the U.S.

When it comes to international treaties, Shrub is a serial murderer. In the wake of disclosures about Russian and Iraqi violations, the world is trying to strengthen the 1972 biological weapons treaty. But under Bush, the US is a rogue nation which is already violating the treaty by creating a genetically-engineered "super-anthrax." How does Bush justify his illegal actions? By saying: "it depends on your definition of 'weapon.'" Wasn't that the legal hair-splitting Bush promised to end? We demand an investigation!

Apart from the Middle East controversy, consider that the US was recently barred from the UN's Human Rights Commission for its racist policies -- especially the rampant execution of minorities -- such as occurred under Bush (remember the Bob Jones U. appearance!) in Texas. Are BushCheney cynically using the Israel issue as a smokescreen to strike back at the UN? Is their ultimate goal US isolationism -- as evidenced by the other BushCheney blows against the Kyoto Protocol, the ABM and Germ Warfare Treaties? Bush Corporate America surely would like out of the UN -- which has a Universal Declaration of Human Rights – and keep predatory globalist alliances such as the WTO, the IMF, GATT and NAFTA. Right now, the Utah GOP has a campaign to get the US out of the UN. Such right-wing paranoids would rather ditch constitutionally based entities -- such as the UN and even the US Government (the part not controlled by fascists) -- in favor of Corporations with flimsy "mission statements."

The Bushes have a long history of anti-Semitic alliances and actions (Enter 'nazi' in our .Compass search engine). In 1942 Prescott Bush was the director of Nazi front companies that had their assets seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act. As a congressman, George Sr. promoted the work of eugenicists like Dr. William Shockley. In 1980 the Bush network was linked to Nazi Klaus Barbie's Bolivian "Cocaine Coup." In 1988 several old Nazis were exposed in the Bush Sr. campaign. And Bush Sr. covertly armed Saddam Hussein's military, with our UN Ambassador greenlighting Hussein's invasion of Kuwait. Armed by Bush Sr., Hussein then bombed Israel (Enter 'iraqgate' in the .Compass). Last year, Bush advisor Richard Perle undermined Clinton's Camp David Peace Talks on the Middle-East (Enter 'perle' in the .Compass). Although James Carville consulted moderate Barak's successful campaign, Barak was later defeated by the Likud's Ariel Sharon (the usual BushDaddy CIA electioneering abroad?).

If GW wanted to don those Fox cowboy boots, a huge Stetson to cover the space between his protruding ears, and show off his adopted 'Texas drawl', it may just be wasted effort. Russian officials (on condition of anonymity) are making sure the word gets out, that just maybe Putin doesn't want to go visit the Ponderosa and get treated to a 'wild west' show, as bad as Bush thinks he does! Word on the 'net' is that Putin thinks it would be wasted effort, unless something 'new' develops between now and the scheduled Texas summit, to be held in November. In Putin's words, it is not necessary for him to travel to Texas, if the meeting is only to strengthen their personal relationship...translated, Putin has had quite enough of Bush 'looking at his soul!'

Today, too many countries, even the United States, are controlled by leaders who fail to represent the majority of citizens. As a result, bad decisions and unwanted conflicts and their consequences abound. We believe that the 'common man and woman' today are far wiser and more progressive, tolerant, and compassionate than their leaders. However, they are denied an adequate voice in the course of events. Here at Democrats.com, we wish to give the common citizen of the world a voice. We thus open our first on-line international summit. The first summit will focus on the conflict in the Middle East. We welcome input from all readers and feel sure that through such people, peace IS possible.

A State Department spokesman is floating a new proposal that the U.S. walk away from a 1995 amendment to the Basel Convention on International Shipments of Hazardous Waste that forbids the dumping of rich countries' toxic waste in poor countries. The earlier convention, negotiated by Poppy's administration, allowed for the dumping - of course. Eighty-two other countries, including the entire European Union and China, have ratified the amendment that would prevent a repeat of the 1988 atrocity when a cargo ship dumped 4,000 tons of Philadelphia's hazardous incinerator ash on the beaches of Haiti, which caused a deadly environmental nightmare. (The toxic waste was eventually cleaned up and shipped back to Florida where it is now sitting on a barge and possibly serving as Secretary of State.) BTW - Al Gore has supported a ban on the international shipment of hazardous waste since 1994.

Now that Wahid has been replaced by Megawati, the Indonesian people hope many wrongs can be righted. However, some of Megawati's promises show a distubring lack of understanding for the realities of her land. The only two hotspots of violence and rebellion in Indonesia now are Aceh and Irian Jaya. Why? Because these are the two provinces which have been most brutally and relentlessly exploited by U.S. corporations (ExxonMobile in Aceh and Kissinger's Freeport-McMoRan Gold & Copper in Irian Jaya). Although Megawati has apologized for the suffering of the natives, her promises still focus on maintaining law and order among natives and normalizing economic activities. If she truly wants to heal her nation's ills, she should focus her policing efforts on U.S. corporations, not their victims. To do otherwise will simply perpetuate the same cycle of greed and violence - in fact, with Bush and his ExxonMobile, Freeport McMoRan cronies now in power in the U.S., things could get far worse for Aceh and Irian Jaya.

The Israeli and American people are sending a clear message to their respective hawkish leaders. As Sharon and Bush continue to throw their weight around, their public support is failing. Now both men's approval ratings have plunged to below 50%. The world has progressed too far to tolerate self-absorbed, inflexible leaders whose message is: "My way or the highway." This is a world where we all have to share the same road and we need leaders willing to help direct traffic safely and efficiently, not set up roadblocks.

Bush stopped between holes of golf just long enough to pronounce the Middle East conflict pretty darn simple. Afterall, all ya' have to do is ask those suicide bombers to please stop. Then we'll all get some peace and quiet before our late lunch at the club. Bush brilliantly observed that acts of terrorism seemed to be prolonging the conflict and wondered why Arafat wasn't doing more. Afterall, Bush's people were doing all the could - like making regular phone calls asking folks to please try harder. But mostly, Bush seemed to find the journalists' questions irritating, and couldn't wait to get back to what was foremost in his mind: "Anybody see a flaw in my swing? Or is it a swing in my flaw." Somehow, the journalists were simply not amused. Or particularly interested.

There are between 60 and 70 million landmines in the ground in at least 70 countries. Landmines maim or kill approximately 26,000 civilians every year, including 8,000 to 10,000 children. Those victims that survive endure a lifetime of physical, psychological, and economic hardship (see www.landmines.org). An international campaign to ban landmines - led by American Jody Williams, winner of the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize - has persuaded 140 countries to sign a treaty to ban all landmines. President Clinton promised the US would sign the treaty by 2006, but Bush - the great "pro-lifer" - is now sabotaging that promise. Where is the outrage?!

Bu$h's unilateralism and isolationism are turning the world - particularly Europe - against the US. But will Europe - where center-left governments now hold power - decide to assert its more humane values independently of the US? Since WW II, Europe has taken its lead from the US, and could not even stand up to Milosevic without our leadership. This is an historic challenge for Europe.

In a stinging editorial, the NY Times writes: "Since taking office Mr. Bush has shown a surprising disdain for the kinds of treaties and international agreements that set the tone for America's engagement with the world and that have figured prominently in Washington's foreign policy for most of the years since World War II. The administration's hostile attitude communicates a sense of arrogance and contempt for international cooperation that ill serves American interests." The Times cites Bush's opposition to just about EVERY treaty the world is considering, including global warming, ballistic missiles, gun trafficking, biological weapons, and nuclear testing. How could America have elected Bush as the "leader" of the free world? We didn't - Bush STOLE the election!

Indonesia's new president, Megawati Sukamoputri is extremely popular with the poor and middle-class in her country - largely owing to her legendary father, Sukarno. However, she is also very chummy with the military, which has been guilty of widespread brutality, much of it committed in the name of protecting US corporations. Will she use her new power to end human rights abuses and wrest control of her country away from corporations? Will she ensure that peace in Timor is promoted? Will she make sure that money from exploitation of natural resources finally finds its way to the Indonesian people? Will she welcome or eschew the manipulations of western opportunists like Kissinger - and now Bush? These are the questions that were disturbingly unaddressed in her first speech. We urge Congress to take a tough stance on aid to Indonesia until Megawati shows her colors.

A poll taken of citizens in all of the EU nations reveals that only 48% of all European citizens want their nations to be part of the EU. While a few countries showed stronger support, with Luxemborg and Ireland each at 72%, in others, such as Austria, France and Germany, support was 35% or less. The lowest support of all for the EU was found among British citizens. Yet, who do we hear pushing EU membership the hardest? Tony Blair. So, here at G8 we have several European leaders who represent countries where the vast majority of citizens do NOT want EU membership, let alone globalization, while we in the US are represented by a man who did not receive even the majority in popular votes. Yet the protestors not willing to go along with this program are dubbed "fringe" elements. What is wrong with this picture???

Every dictator since Genghis Khan has known that that the best way to cement your power is to insure you have a steady supply of "enemies" to fight - even if you have to create them yourself.. Thus Napoleon always found new "enemies of liberty" to "free," while Hitler solidified the Reich by convincing Germans it was "them against the world." Now Bush is following suit and actively working at making enemies around the world. Far more sinister still, he is making sure they are funded ($43 million to the Taliban for starters) and now, that they will have access nuclear weapons and thus become the "rogue states" he has invoked to sell his missile shield. By proposing to revive nuclear fuel reprocessing, he is insuring a steady, highly accessible supply of plutonium - the ingredient most terrorists have a hard time getting hold of. We suspect his sole goal in reviving nuclear power was to insure a plutonium supply could be had by all.

His eye on US dollars, this week Japanese PM Koizumi kissed up to Shrub so shamelessly that his lips may remain in a permanent pucker. Koizumi described his meetings with Shrub in groveling terms: "heart to heart,"..."Truly wonderful..." "So much more than I expected..." You can get off your knees now, Koizumi - Shrub's desperate enough to do anything for a pat on the head. Thankfully, upholding Japan's honor is Japanese Foreign Minister Makiko Tanaka, a woman of few but honest words. A few days back, she summed up Shrub with accuracy and eloquence: "He is totally an asshole." Observers say this is the first time in Japanese history a statesperson has called a US president an asshole. Well, we wish to point out that this is the first time in history that a US president has earned it. Right on, Makiko!

-"It is ironic that America, which adheres to the western tradition that derives from ancient Greece, seems in this case very much like the men who debated justice with Socrates. Their argument boiled down to: 'It is just because I say it is just.' Socrates demonstrated that this arbitrary sense of justice had no place in rational societies. It has been over 2,400 years since Socrates held his debates, yet the United States continues to insist on regurgitating the same tired arguments that Socrates faced. America is guilty of excitedly pointing out the splinter in Iran's eye, while completely ignoring the sizable timber in its own. The degree of hypocrisy in the U.S. report would be laughable if the parties weren't so in need of an honest broker." So observes a writer in this week's 'Middle East Times.'

Indonesia/Malaysia are an oil/natural gas mogul's dream. The CIA helped instigate and engineer one bloody coup, a devastating civil war, and an unprovoked invasion in this region - all to secure the area for U.S. corporations. Now, as interest grows in the region's rich natural gas and oil fields (including one of the most extensive oil fields ever discovered in the Timor Gap between Australia and Indonesia), Bush is suddenly talking of building up our military presence in Australia -- a country that has much to gain from exploiting Indonesia. But Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad is, like Indonesia's Sukarno (the leader the CIA got rid of), not interested in selling his country out to the west. (see http://www.tpsb.com.my/events/mahathir.htm). As a result, he may now be in danger.

During his trip to Europe, Shrub championed an ever-expanding Europe incorporating Russia. But while Shrub - and the US media - were daydreaming, Russia and China were busy forming the "Shanghai Co-operation Organization." One objective is to oppose Shrub's missile defense scam, which China correctly views as intended to neutralize China's small ICBM arsenal. Another objective is to offset "Western-oriented regional bodies." The Shanghai group starts with China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and may expand to include India and Pakistan. Bush is bringing us to Orwell's "1984", when three regional superpowers - Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia - waged an endless, shifting war.

On Friday, anti-Bush/anti-globalization protests escalated into violent confrontations in which two demonstrators were shot by police (one demonstrator was seriously injured), shops were looted, buildings damaged. Piles of rubble in the street were set on fire. The protests became so heated that police were forced to retreat before a crowd, abandoning their vehicles. The City of Gothenberg is in a state of emergency; 600 protestors have been detained. Yet the 15 EU leaders merely changed their dining arrangements and went about their business - behavior eerily reminiscent of Louis XVI on the eve of the French Revolution.

"I think he stands for everything that Swedes dislike," says Marie Madsen, foreign editor of the Gothenburg Post in Sweden. Bush is so hated in Sweden, in fact, that some 1,500 police have been deployed to protect him from the more than 25,000 protesters expected to take part in different rallies. The highlight event will be a "bare bottom protest" in which protesters will moon Shrub en masse to show just how little they respect him. Emotions against Shrub are so intense in Sweden that Prime Minister Goeran Persson met with representatives of various groups to plead with them to abstain from violence. Earlier this week, five Danes were arrested on suspicion of planning acts of sabotage during the EU summit, while four Norwegians were deported from Sweden when evidence of possibly violent demonstration materials were found in their possession. As for the mooning, organizer Johann Davidson says "It's an image that can be shown everywhere and everyone can understand it."

Two dozen environmental activists chained themselves together in an effort to block an exit at an airfield where Bush arrived to attend a NATO summit. "It's a symbolic action showing he's not welcome," said the group's spokesman Dan Hindsgaul. The protesters booed and blew whistles as the delegations arrived for the summit, some carrying banners. One banner proclaimed "George W. Bush - Wanted for crimes against the planet." Similar protests greeted Bush in Madrid, while protest camps are already forming near the site of an upcoming summit Bush will attend in Sweden. Glad he's not OUR president (not legally, anyway).

You gotta hand it to Shrub: He's thorough. He has managed to offend nearly every nation on Earth by his posturing, regardless of what sort of kissing up some leaders may do. The average guy/gal on the global street knows the U.S. and, by default, the world, has had a lemon foisted off on it. Here with an amusing interactive look at Shrub's stumble around the world is a Bush-visit special from the UK's "Guardian."

This must be Shrub's own brand of diplomacy: Win friends and influence allies by intercepting their personal communications, including e-mails and phone/data calls. But the U.S. has now moved ahead with plans to station hundreds of National Security Agency personnel at a spy base in Yorkshire. The same operatives are being transferred from Germany, where their spy base was closed following heavy protests by Germans. Civil rights activists are advising people to encrypt their emails to prevent having their privacy violated by the NSA. Many Brits, already angry at what they say is Tony Blair's kowtowing to the U.S., are incensed by the deal.

In true Shrubmeister style, Bush kicked off his European tour in Spain. Sure, we don't have much to do with Spain, but idiot savant Shrub has one skill: he can speak Spanish. Hey! It wowed 'em in elementary schools in Texas! Once out of Spain, he'll be on his own, in a region where Bush is seen as a selfish cowboy playing fast and loose with the fate of Mother Earth. Meanwhile, EU observers predict Bush will respond to such criticism by regurgitating his pitiful fantasy that he is just some lone warrior standing up to "international bullying." In the linked news story, near the bottom of the page, you will see Bush did find two well wishers for a photo op! By the time he hits Poland, he'll be resorting to cardboard cutouts borrowed from the nearest Blockbuster! He didn't even dare to set foot in England or France! The top photo shows two military greeters appearing to still be waiting for the "real leader" to appear as Bush boards plane.

The U.S.'s foreign policy lies chiefly in the hands of Shrub's "tutor" (the person who larn'd him all them tough foreign names and places last year). The Tutor: Condy Rice. Why? One might rightfully ask! She knows little about Middle Eastern or Asian affairs, has a knowledge of Russia based on a Cold War era education, has no science background but enthusiastically supports a missle shield while opposing global warming, and takes such a pushy, "macho" approach in dealing with foreign leaders that she offended Russian leaders on a visit to Moscow this Spring. But hey! She and Bush like to pump iron together. Know what they say: "No pain, no gain"...maybe in Bush's case that should be "No brain, no gain."

US intelligence analyst Danny Stillman "said Chinese scientists offered details that seemed to contradict a select congressional committee headed by Rep. Christopher Cox (R-CA.). The committee alleged in 1999 that China had stolen U.S. secrets that helped it to miniaturize nuclear weapons for [ICBMs]." But Stillman reports the Chinese scientists developed miniaturization independently. Moreover, "Hu Side, one of China's leading weapons physicists, delivered an angry speech over dinner about distortions he ascribed to the Cox committee and the prosecution of Taiwanese American scientist Wen Ho Lee." We now know that the real Chinagate happened during the Reagan-Bush years, perhaps in Iran-Contra deals (see consortiumnews.com). Meanwhile, "the Chinese asked Stillman to press U.S. officials for help with nuclear bomb locks known as permissive action links, or PALs…Ultimately, however, U.S. authorities declined to help, and by the mid-1990s China had turned to Russia for PAL technology…"

Bush says 'peace' a lot, but he's inspiring quite the opposite. As with the Kyoto Protocol on Global Warming and the ABM Treaty, Bush is set to blow off "a draft agreement to enforce a 1972 treaty banning biological weapons, an agreement backed by Britain and other European countries. The protocol took six years to negotiate and established measures to monitor the ban on biological weapons.... By throwing out the protocol, the US can only encourage other countries such as China, Pakistan, India and Iran, which are none too keen on verification, to turn their back on the protocol inspection plans - and ultimately the treaty itself. The American move will also provide a propaganda boon to Iraq, which has steadfastly opposed renewed UN inspection of its weapons programmes...American pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies were none too keen to have foreign inspectors nosing around in their labs…The Pentagon also wanted to limit the inspection of American 'bio-defence' installations."

"Colombian army personnel, trained by US special forces, have been implicated...in serious human rights violations, including the massacre of civilians." Moreover, "Plan Colombia funds the aerial spraying of coca and opium fields with Roundup, the broad-spectrum herbicide patented by Monsanto. Roundup destroys almost everything it touches, wiping out legal crops alongside illegal ones, poisoning rivers, shattering one of the most fragile and biodiverse forest ecosystems on Earth, precipitating both acute and chronic human diseases. It is the Agent Orange of America's new Vietnam. (Agent Orange, interestingly, was also a Monsanto product.)" Again, the War on Drugs backfires. "When their livelihood has been destroyed, the peasant farmers and indigenous people have no means of survival but to flee further into the jungle and start growing drugs." But this is all a scam to profit Bush's defense industry backers, arms dealers, the cartels and, if the past is any indicator, Bush Daddy's CIA.

Hey, Shrubmeister! We felt so bad that no one on the international block wants to play with you that we found you a brand new best friend! He's greedy, power-hungry, corrupt, lies his way out of every accusation (then blames it all on a "vast left-wing conspiracy"), has complete control over the country's media, doesn't like minorities or immigrants, promised sweeping tax cuts his country can't afford, and has underworld connections. He's Silvio Berlusconi, the new leader of Italy. We predict a Bush-Berlusconi lovefest! This will be a match made in...well, it ain't heaven!

Condy Rice says the Russians are 'coming around' on the missile defense system, thanks to the Amway-style sales pitches she and the Bush crew are giving. She also says her team will win the "intellectual argument" for the system. Since when does investing over $100 billion in a system that will at best work 2/3 of the time - and then only if we can persuade enemies to attack us via a prescribed route - have anything to do with "intellect?" Oh - we forgot! Condy, et al are "think tank" alumni and thus under the delusion that this makes them smarter than everyone else. We guess no one told them think tanks are all about the green stuff, not gray matter. By the way, Condy - as to the Russians coming around, nice try. Next time, just tell us the truth!

"The Pentagon on Wednesday backed away from the hard line it had drawn earlier in the day over military contacts with China. A Defense Department memo provided to CNN Wednesday afternoon and issued under the name of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld ordered a halt to all U.S. military 'programs and contacts' with China...But later Wednesday, Defense Department officials told CNN that the memo was issued in error and that the Pentagon's policy was to review all military contacts with China on a case-by-case basis." Are the blind leading the blind -- or is it more like the inept are leading the incompetent? Consider the recent reports that the Pentagon pushed last February's Iraq air strikes past a "disjointed" White House. How disorganized must the Bush team be to get overwhelmed by such a befuddled Pentagon? Obviously, the reports of "CEO" Bush running a tight corporation are grossly exaggerated.

China warned Bush on Thursday that plans for a missile defense shield were a threat to world peace and accused him of being weak and yearning for media attention. In a scathing assessment of Bush's first 100 days in office, the People's Daily said the NMD plan made European allies consider Bush an "egotist" and Russia regard him as a new competitor in an arms race. "His whole-hearted wish is to cast off the shadow of 'the weak president'," the main Communist Party newspaper said. "His excessive acts and words over the China-U.S. plane collision and arms sales to Taiwan are all connected to this state of mind," the newspaper added.

It was a classic Shrubmeister moment - making a swaggering statement of international importance with absolutely no facts to back him up. When Shrub promised to sell 8 diesel-powered subs to Taiwan, he failed to find out first if he had them to sell. Turns out, he doesn't. The only countries that make the subs, the Netherlands and Germany, will not, under their own government's principles, sell Shrub the subs. And, after his outrageous sellout of Kyoto, they are certainly in no mood to make deals with President "I Need an Image-Boosting China Crisis Now." Maybe Shrub could just sell the Taiwanese cigarettes - they could threaten the Chinese with death and destruction that way!

In the hopes of making Shrub look "Presidential" after 100 days of illegitimacy, Shrub had several interviews with reporters. Once again, Shrub screwed up - this time committing US troops to defend Taiwan from China. This is a breathtaking shift in American policy, since it could trigger a US war with China to defend Taiwan, something the U.S. Senate has never approved in any treaty. It also breaks another one of Shrub's core campaign promises, namely to reduce the commitments of US troops overseas.

The Guardian writes: "Bush's America has all but abandoned, for now at least, its leading role in the Middle East and gone a long way towards scuppering detente on the Korean peninsula. On a range of fronts, not least over NATO and trade, Washington is also shaping up for conflict with the EU. And now, to cap it all, ignoring the Stockholm summit's direct plea, and at the very moment the German chancellor is crossing the White House doorstep, it tells Europe that Peoria's pocketbook comes first, so take your fossil fuel fuss and stuff it. If Mr Bush does not intend the alarm all this is causing internationally, then he is even more inept than commonly believed. Christine Whitman, his environment agency chief, told him this month that global warming "is a credibility issue for the US in the international community". She is right and he had better believe it. In the end, America, big though it be, cannot go it alone. It needs friends. But that even the oldest friendships have limits is a lesson Mr Bush has yet to learn. Humility is another. Wisdom may be too much to hope for."

"In the aftermath of the downed U.S. spy plane, the Chinese apparently have found a new way to ridicule President [sic] Bush - a virtual pet modeled after him. While the U.S.-made PortaBush software for handheld computers wasn't released with much fanfare last week, it became a big hit in China very quickly. Released a week ago by Marina Del Ray, CA-based Eruptor Entertainment, the software toy is similar to the faded Tamagotchi craze. Players feed their PortaBush, keep him happy and help him make vital national decisions like whether to bomb teen singer Britney Spears." Bush has certainly brought "honor and dignity" to the Oval Office! Can you say laughingstock?

"With the Regime's uncompassionate budget and 'tax cut for friends' now up for discussion, plus growing opposition to its determination to rape protected lands, the Resident's popularity has sunk to an all-time low. Add to this the upcoming sale of arms to Taiwan and other goodies planned to reward industrial/corporate/military supporters in the near future, and the handlers realized that another big propaganda coup was needed." So writes S. McKay in the American Liberal.

"Exxon Mobil is being investigated over allegations that it broke a US trade embargo against Iran. The US Department of Justice has subpoenaed documents and is questioning former Mobil executives to determine whether the oil company shipped oil from Kazakhstan to Iran in a complex swap agreement... The case relates to Mobil's interest in the Tengiz oilfield in Kazakhstan. Before the merger with Exxon in 1999, it is alleged that a swap agreement with Iran was used to export oil from the Tengiz field whereby oil was shipped to refineries in Northern Iran in exchange for exports of Iranian oil from terminals in the Gulf." What do you want to bet that the Bush-Cheney DOJ whitewashes this one for the sake of their Oil buddies? Likewise, don't expect any investigations into Cheney and Halliburton's dealings in Iran.

"…Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld…announced that the United States needed to build new, long-range nuclear bombers with which to 'fight and win a nuclear war' in East Asia, a clear reference to China...'even though China is decades away from having even the nuclear capacity of the [United Kingdom]'...With belief in communism seemingly as defunct in Beijing as it was in Eastern Europe and Russia about 15 years ago, could there be any sane point in needlessly provoking the world's largest nation? …Alas, it soon became clear that what [the Bush team] meant by realism was self-righteous belligerence. Global warming? A Socialist myth. Rapprochement in Korea? President Bush II insulted South Korean President Kim Dae Jung by rejecting it out of hand. Arms proliferation? The Washington Post reports that Bush plans to cut by 30 percent funds for helping Russia dismantle its nuclear stockpile. Instead, he wants to scrap the 1972 ABM treaty and build [an unworkable] missile defense system..."

There's nothing like an international crisis (with the exception of a sex scandal, of course)to get Americans riled up. We should be grateful the Chinese are more mature in their thinking than we are: If the roles had been reversed and the Chinese buzzed our borders and landed a spy plane in California, who knows what kind of real crisis we might have started--especially with a bunch of saber-rattling 1950s cowboys at the helm anxious to show how macho they are. Quick quiz: Can you name any country who has defended the U.S. during the crisis and called for the Chinese to back down? Not a single one? Isn't that impressive? The U.S., all alone again, naturally.

"China on Wednesday said it would release the 24 detained crew members of a U.S. spy plane …The Chinese said the Americans can leave as soon as travel arrangements are worked out, but there were indications that the spy plane would not be immediately returned...The letter U.S. Ambassador Joseph Prueher delivered Wednesday afternoon to the Chinese Foreign Ministry stopped short of the full apology." Prueher wrote, "Please convey to the Chinese people and to the family of pilot Wang Wei that we are very sorry for their loss... [Washington is] very sorry the entering of China's airspace and the landing did not have verbal clearance." In addition, "Prueher's letter to the Chinese government sets up an April 18 meeting, whose agenda will include arrangements for release of the EP-3E reconnaissance plane." Said China's No. 2 Naval Officer Vice Admiral Hu Yanlin, "As time passes, the chances of Comrade Wang Wei's survival grow slimmer."

Not helping dispel the conspiracy theories that the spy plane incident is a Bush Crime Family plot -- NBC News reported that the US EP-3 plane landed one mile from a major Chinese intelligence base. The basic premise is that the Bushes wanted to give the Chinese these technologies so that China will fill the "evil empire" role vacated by the defunct Soviet Union (Check out these conspiracy theories at "onlinejournal.com" and "thedailybrew.com"). The theories claim that this would help justify US arms sales to Taiwan, and especially the NMD ("Son of Star Wars") system -- so that Bush can pay back his Defense Industry overlords. Take it with a grain of salt -- but then again who would have ever imagined Iran-Contra-Cocaine -- or that Bush Sr. covertly armed and financed Saddam Hussein's military? By the way, the Cox Report revealed that the earlier Chinagate security breach occurred during the Reagan-Bush years, not the Clinton-Gore years. (See "consortiumnews.com" for details).

"A frustrated Jean Chretien warned … the country is in for four very tough years dealing with George Bush - but vowed he would play hardball with the new U.S. president on trade issues...Behind closed doors…the Prime Minister lamented [Bush's ignorance]…he had to explain to Bush where Prince Edward Island was …He also had to explain to the American president the size of the Alberta tar sands…to bring him up to speed on this country…he criticized the U.S. leader's cowboy-style demeanor…in the current standoff with China...It was then the Prime Minister explained how difficult it was to deal with Bush, compared with his predecessor, Democrat Bill Clinton, who had a good knowledge of Canadian issues...there had been no communication between Bush and the Prime Minister since Washington launched trade action against Canadian softwood lumber Monday. " In a major gaffe, Bush once stupidly called Chretien "Prime Minister Poutin" (trans. "Prime Minister Cheese Fries")!

The European leadership has been conspicuously silent regarding Bush’s Spy Plane crisis. In fact, Bush is getting quite a reputation as an ugly american, especially over his global warming pronouncements. "In France they call him an 'idiot.' In Germany they call him a 'big bully.' Europe could turn out to be President Bush's biggest foreign policy problem yet." Even the usually pro-Bush right-wing propaganda machine run by Rupert Murdoch allowed the following criticism in his London Times. Wrote the Times' Kaletsky: "By simultaneously destabilizing global security in China, Korea, the Middle East and Russia, by recklessly abrogating the Kyoto climate change treaty, by bullying his allies in Europe and Asia, by pursuing a tax policy that will turn America into the most unequal society in modern history, George W. Bush is fully living up to my expectation that he would become the worst U.S. President since Herbert Hoover." Maybe Murdoch finds Bush's foreign blunders bad for "bidness?"

"The latest and most troubling evidence of incompetence in the White House arrived about two weeks ago. That was when the first reports leaked out about the administration’s plan to scale back the aid we provide to the Russian government for reducing and securing their stockpiles of nuclear armaments and weapons-grade plutonium. On March 18, The Washington Post reported that Bush budget-cutters intended to cut next year’s appropriations of nuclear-safety assistance for Russia by 12 percent from this year’s level, and by 30 percent below the amount proposed by the Clinton administration…For reasons known only to the Post management, this scary scoop was buried on page A23 of the Sunday paper. It still generated sufficient uproar among sane members of Congress..." So writes Joe Conason.

Both sides are pointing fingers that the other side's plane rammed theirs. Did the accident occur in an area that China rightfully regards as its domain under the Law of the Sea treaty? How do we know for sure that the Chinese inspected the plane? Our media and government have used deceptive propaganda in the past -- remember the "Gulf of Tonkin" incident -- and the Grenada and Panama invasions. Reports quoting "anonymous intelligence sources" should always be regarded skeptically. Moreover, "...the American position could be damaged, to a degree, by some of the Pentagon's own cold war escapades... the Pentagon itself has often rejected appeals from other countries similar to the ones it is making." Hypocritical Bush deported 50 Russian diplomats just _in case_ they were spying! Will the Bush team use this incident to justify military hardware sales to Taiwan - or to promote Bush's ludicrous NMD plan for "protection" against the possible loss of the plane's secrets to the Chinese?

"In his own inimitable words, let no one 'misunderestimate' George W Bush. He is the most rightwing president in living memory. If this is compassionate conservatism, what does the other sort look like? In less than 100 days he has turned America into a pariah, made enemies of the entire world, his only friends the dirty polluters of the oil industry who put him there. His foreign non-policy is a calamity, brilliantly uniting Russia and China with gratuitous offence and threat." So writes Polly Toynbee in the UK Guardian.

"It's hardly surprising Beijing hasn't rushed to hand over a U.S. spy plane and its 24-man crew …To understand why, flip the script for a moment: Imagine a Chinese plane flying a surveillance mission off the Florida coast colliding with an Air Force F-16 sent on an aggressive monitoring mission. The U.S. fighter goes down and the pilot is lost; the Chinese plane is forced to land on U.S. soil. The incident occurs at a moment when China is about to supply a package of sophisticated weapons to Cuba (possibly including the very same model spy plane now in U.S. hands); is planning to deploy a missile shield that would neutralize the U.S. nuclear arsenal; and has signaled that curbing U.S. regional ambitions is to become the organizing principle of its military doctrine. Imagine further that the incident comes two years after Chinese bombs had destroyed (albeit inadvertently) a U.S. embassy in Europe." So writes Time's Tony Karon.

Malcolm Bruce, chairman of the Liberal Democratic parliamentary party, says "Not content is he with killing Texas prisoners by lethal injection, he now wants to kill thousands or even millions around the world by lethal pollution." Former Conservative environment secretary John Gummer said the European Union should block American trade demands until the US changes its mind. Labour MP is pushing for a complete boycott on American goods and compares the US announcement on global warming to a nuclear attack whose missiles will not land for another 30 years. Looks like the oil companies may pay a stiff price for helping Bu$h steal the Presidency.

"China accused a U.S spy plane of ramming one of its fighters in mid-air on Sunday in a military incident that threatened to blow up into a political storm. The fighter plane crashed after the collision over the South China Sea and rescuers were searching for the pilot, China said. The U.S. aircraft [with its crew of 24] made an emergency landing on China's southern island of Hainan without permission." Relations between the US and China had been strained, due to US planes mistakenly bombing the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia during the '99 Kosovo War. The wrong map coordinates had been provided by the CIA, or "The George H.W. Bush Center For Intelligence" (the Langley headquarters is named after the former President and CIA Director). Although Sino-US relations had been recently improving, cold war tensions are now being revived by this incident and that "China is particularly worried about possible U.S. sales of high-tech weaponry to Taiwan…[and the] anti-missile defense shield."

"By reneging on the US commitment to the Kyoto treaty climate change, President Bush has signaled that the US is returning to isolationism, only this time he's decided that the US won't be having anything to do with the rest of the world's weather…The timing of Bush's announcement seemed to be designed to bring maximum humiliation to the visiting Gerhard Schröder…This is only the beginning. Now we can look forward to having peace talks being chaired by the arms manufacturers, tobacco companies being put in charge of cancer research, the World Health Organisation being chaired by Ronald McDonald." Read the rest of John O'Farrell's scathing commentary in London's Guardian.

We're only two months into the illegal administration, and there is already a falling out among the thieves. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld wants to beat the drums of war everywhere to boost business for weapons manufacturers, while Secretary of State Colin Powell thinks the U.S. perhaps ought to try to solve problems, rather than create global crises. Unfortunately, Powell is getting the same back-stabbing treatment as Christy Whitman. Funny how the women and blacks get treated like fools by the rich white boys who are running the show.

Otto Reich, a central figure in the Iran-Contra affair, has been nominated by Bush for Assistant Secretary of State for western hemispheric affairs. Under CIA director Bill Casey and former CIA master propagandist Walter Raymond, Reich ran the Office of Public Diplomacy to shape the US public's perception of Reagan's foreign policies, especially in Nicaragua. The OPD was staffed with veteran psy-war experts from Fort Bragg. Reich and the OPD's tactics included flooding the media with pro-Contra materials (Reich's goal to glue "black hats on the Sandinistas and white hats on the Contras"), intimidating media executives and reporters, spreading scurrilous stories about uncooperative reporters' sex lives and writing phony newspaper letters to the editor. Along with Reich, the State Dept. has Secretary of State Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, both key Iran-Contra players -- just like our new UN Ambassador John Negroponte.

Internationally, Bush has blown it "big time" with his remarks to Korea, the paranoia-inspiring and ludicrous NMD ("Son of Star Wars") system and Bush's reversal on global warming. Add to that list the deportation of 50 Russian diplomats. Bush is again "sending a message" that further endangers foreign relations. "The punishment hardly fits the crime. On the face of it, there is no causal link between the Bush administration's expulsion of 50 Russian diplomats suspected of being spies and the damage done by Robert Hanssen, the FBI counterintelligence official who allegedly passed crucial secrets to the Soviets and then the Russians for 15 years...By maintaining the pretense that the Hanssen case justifies expelling so many Russian diplomats, the administration risks signaling Americans as well as the Kremlin that there is now a will in Washington to return to a Cold War yesteryear."

"Though it is only a few short months into the Bush administration, it is hard to imagine how he could have moved any more quickly to make the world a far more dangerous place than it already was." Read this fine summary of Bush's plan for global destruction in The Daily Brew.

"On China, Republican ideologues want to contain and punish Beijing, and G.O.P. business types want to do business there like there's no tomorrow. On Bosnia and Kosovo, isolationist Republicans don't want to stay another day, and G.O.P. idealists believe America has moral obligation to build democracy there. On North Korea, Republican realists want to do a missile deal, and the anti-Communists want to see the North Korean evil empire collapse, just like the Soviet empire, even if it provokes a violent mess... All of these fault lines were apparent in the Republican Party, but because it was not in power, it never had to resolve them — and it didn't. Well, vacation's over. So beware: chasms ahead." So writes Thomas Friedman in the New York Times.

In January, a bipartisan, private commission called the risk of theft of Russian nuclear materials "the most urgent unmet national security threat" facing the United States. The commission urged sharp increases in spending on programs aimed at reinforcing security at Russian nuclear weapons facilities, providing help to economically strapped Russian nuclear scientists and helping Russia convert weapons-grade plutonium to less-threatening materials. So what's in Bush's budget? A 9% CUT in these programs. Why? No doubt to create a Russian nuclear crisis that will justify spending hundreds of billions on Star Wars. Bush isn't running a government - it's just a protection racket.

Japan's economy remains in the tank, and the US economy is heading in that direction thanks to Bush's policies. Together, the two countries produce 40% of the world's GDP. The Bush administration is clueless how to help Japan, now that its only idea - increased Japanese military spending - has been deep-sixed by the USS Greeneville incident. "Meeting him is a waste of time," one senior administration official said of Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori's visit. Maybe Mori will do the world a favor by chewing out Bush for destroying the Kyoto global warming treaty.

"Whenever George W. Bush is allowed to open his mouth on foreign policy, you can count on world-class caca. Wednesday, only a day after Secretary of State Colin Powell declared that the Bush team intended 'to pick up where President Clinton and his administration left off' in negotiations with North Korea, President [sic] Bush told South Korean President Kim Dae Jung that the missile talks with the North would not be resumed any time soon, leaving Powell high and dry. But when Bush meets with Japanese Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori on March 19th, he may finally meet his bumbling double." So writes Chuck 45 in The Gully.

After the end of the Cold War, former Senator Pat Moynihan (D-NY) called for abolishing the CIA. As we learn more about the billion dollar "spy vs. spy" machinations involving tunnels and bugged embassies, we're left to wonder why the CIA and Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service don't simply share offices. It seems the only true secrets are the identities of the moles - who would be quite unnecessary without spy agencies - and the billions that are wasted on projects like the tunnel, which never produced a dime's worth of intelligence. We demand an investigation!

In only a month, Shrub has pissed off every country in the world. Only the Brits support Shrub on Star Wars and Iraq. According to Stan Crock in Business Week, "the Republican opposition to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto global-warming accord, and the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty make the U.S. an international loner."

Meeting with Tony Blair at Camp David, Bush said that he does not object to Europe having a "rapid-reaction force" that would be secondary to NATO. This force of 60,000 troops would be for those incidents that do not include the involvement of all NATO members. Blair refrained from commenting on Bush's foolhardy NMD (Son of "Star Wars") plan, which is straining America's international relations. Commenting on an outside discussion with Chinese leaders, Bush said that they would "remedy" the situation if they find that Chinese workers are building a "fiber-optic communications system linking Iraqi air-defenses", per intelligence reports. Great -- but what about Dick Cheney's previous dealings in Iraq, as well as Halliburton's project with Sinopec -- the Chinese company violating sanctions against Iran?

Did Bush and Mexican President Vincente Fox discuss Fox's NAFTA-Plus dream of a borderless US and Mexico within 15 years? Americans need to know. Such a plan brings up serious issues including massive changes in law enforcement, currencies, differing environmental standards, the need for supranational institutions and Canada's role. Will Bush use such a plan to eliminate those US standards his corporate bosses oppose? President Fox is certainly no champion of labor rights, as he uses young teens as laborers on his farm.

According to a joint report from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA), "political violence has markedly increased" since the first installment of the U.S.'s $1.3 billion Plan Colombia aid package was dispersed in August, with the average number of deaths from combat and political violence rising to 14 per day. There were at least 27 massacres in the month of January alone, claiming the lives of as many as 200 civilians. The killings are overwhelmingly the work of right-wing paramilitaries with close ties to the Colombian military, such as the Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC).

"Plan Colombia" opens the door for US-backed military actions that could lead to human rights nightmares like those suffered by Central America during the '80's. Under Plan Colombia, there has been recent spraying of herbicides to kill coca crops, causing grave social and environmental problems for the Colombian people. The stage is now set for a repeat of Oliver North-type operations to exploit "an army that maintains links to drug-financed paramilitaries". The true solution to the Colombia problem is to foster economic growth so that the lower classes are not driven to the drug trade. Of course, this would involve the very nation-building that Bush hates - compared to his family's penchant for nation-wrecking counter-insurgency warfare. (To understand the parallels between the Colombia situation and 80's Nicaragua go to http://www.consortiumnews.com/archive/crack.html to read about the CIA, the Contras and Drug Trafficking).

George, the people pleaser, must be very upset today. There's nothing he can do with regard to Cuba that won't alienate somebody. Right-wing Cuban-Americans feel that since they stole the presidency for him by stopping the Miami-Dade recount, he owes them an aggressive anti-Cuba policy. His fellow Repubicans want to trade with Cuba to enrich their corporate paymasters. Colin Powell referred to Castro as "an aging starlet" and Castro is hoping that Bush "isn't as stupid as he seems". Aren't we all, Fidel!

During a TV interview, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld did not reject Bob Barr's (R-GA) bill repealing the ban on US assassination of foreign leaders. "That's not a subject that has been addressed with the new national security team" was all Rumsfeld would offer. Does this mean that former CIA analyst Barr's horrendous plan WILL be considered by the National Security Council? Even if Congress shoots down Barr's bill, this NSC may well ignore the will of Congress, just like the earlier Reagan-Bush team - which lawlessly defied Congress in committing the Iran-Contra crimes. And this Bush Administration has already surpassed that precedent by its anti-democratic disregard for the will of the American people - first with its theft of the election, then with Bush's brazen cabinet appointments culminating in Ashcroft.

Bush faces major foreign policy challenges. But according to Sam Parry, he has a "credibility problem in promoting what has long been a hallmark of U.S. foreign policy: advocacy of the democratic process. Bush’s decision to grab the presidency even though he lost the popular vote by more than a half million ballots and only then by having five political allies on the U.S. Supreme Court stop the counting of votes in Florida makes America’s high-toned lecturing to others about democracy sound especially hollow."

"It's only a month into the Bush administration and I'm already tired of listening to its foreign policy. Because it seems to be focused on only one idea, which, so far, doesn't work — building a 'Star Wars' missile shield — against an enemy that, so far, doesn't exist." So writes Thomas Friedman in the New York Times. Hey Tom - don't you see, the enemy is declining profits for defense contractors in a world where our military dominance is absolute?

Just when they were beginning to forget about King George I tossing his cookies on the lap of the son of their former Prime Minister, once again we have to apologize to the Japanese people. Apparently, Lt. Gen. Earl Hailson, the Marine Corp's top officer in Japan, apologized for an e-mail he sent in which he described government officials in Okinawa as "nuts and a bunch of wimps". Relations were shaky to begin with. In January, Okinawa legislators adopted a resolution asking the US to cut its military presence following the rape of a local schoolgirl in 1995 by three servicemen. But given Hailson's rhetorical affinity to "A-hole" Bush, we're surprised he's not being considered for Chairman of the Joint Chiefs!

Democrats.com Advisory Board member Michael North has been travelling overseas for the past few weeks on business. He reports that everywhere he went people want to know about the recent US elections. On a page on the Democrats.com community site he relates some of the conversations he had overseas with people who look to the U.S. for leadership. [Please note: To post your own comments on Democrats.com and to view other member pages you need to sign up for the Democrats.com community by visiting http://community.democrats.com

It's really anybody's guess, because no one can predict what the next stage will be. Conventional wisdom would be that the nation rallies around the current administration in times when the U.S. is attacked. But in the last month of a campaign, it is difficult to see how this tragedy will all play out.