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Well, we did go into Iraq for (Bush's) thrill of blowing stuff up.

Iraq had not even a thread of a connection to 9/11. This was known prior to the invasion and was communicated to Bush by Richard Clarke immediately after the 9/11 attacks. In response, Bush told him to find a link.

It was known prior to the invasion, and prior to 9/11 that Iraq had no WMD program. To quote Colin Powell, speaking of Iraq's WMD program and sanctions on February 24, 2001 in Cairo:

"Frankly, they have worked. He [Hussein] has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors."

And then the Downing Street Memo:

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam Hussein, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

And then Bush's little slip revealing his hate for Saddam - again pre-invasion. I watched him say it on live TV, so yeah, it happened:

"There's no doubt his hatred is mainly directed at us. There's no doubt he can't stand us. After all, this is a guy that tried to kill my dad at one time."

Inconvenient facts are inconvenient. There was no intelligence failure.

Sigh. Nice job conflating Iraq and 9/11. As has been shown time and time again, there was no plausible link between the two.

The invasion of Iraq will no doubt be regarded as the USA's worst foreign policy disaster of the modern era. The Bush administration still has not given a consistent reason for it. In the words of Kevin Tillman:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can't be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

My personal belief is that the whole thing stems from Bush trying to settle a family score, gain some political capital as a "wartime president", and (while he was at it) grab a lot of Iraqi oil for his buddies.

I didn't vote for deregulations that allowed massive redistribution of wealth to corrupt speculators. Did you? What about arming Saddam Hussein? Did you vote to ignore all evidence except what would suggest that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons and working directly with al Qaida? The serious problems with the United States are not as general as "the undereducated." It is the most corrupt among the over-privileged, undereducated who are completely to blame for all the problems described in the stories I've linked. These policies were all implemented without the knowledge of the People, and in direct contradiction to the will of the people, which has been clear from the reaction to each. All of these American atrocities are not the fault of "democracy," it's the fault of fascist traitors, led by the Bush family.

The question was: did he still have them later on, and the answer to that, it seems now, is: no. Therefore, did Bush lie ? We don't know, but it looks like it an awful lot.

I don't understand why people believe this. If you look at The Downing Street memo

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/docs/memotext.pdf

For instance, what were the consequences, if Saddam used WMD on day one, or if Baghdad did not collapse and urban warfighting began? You said that Saddam could also use his WMD on Kuwait. Or on Israel, added the Defence Secretary.

This is supposed to be the smoking gun that proves that Bush and Blair lied about WMD. And yet one of the contingencies they planned for was that Saddam would use WMD on Kuwait or Israel. From what I can tell Saddam either destroyed his WMD in secret or shipped them to Syria. But what he definitely didn't do was to comply with the ceasefire at the end of the first Gulf War or the numerous UN resolutions to prove he had destroyed them. Given that Iraq had been found with surprisingly advanced WMD programs at the end of the first Gulf War and that he had used poison gas against both the Iranian army and the Kurds, it's silly to expect that anyone would believe he had disarmed without some sort of proof.

The distinction you wish for doesn't exist. Outside of politics, it you actually get held to higher standards as you move up the chain.
Right. You said it. Outside of politics. You still refuse to actually correlate Bush's crimes with Clinton's crimes. My point is specifically that at different points up and down the chain, people get treated differently. People tend to give the president much license because he's so high-profile.

[Foley] sorta indicated that he was sexually interested in a former employee of legal age. He was roundly condemned by his own party.
People are allowed to have as much ass sex as they want, as long as they don't vote against it. Plus, it's telling that the kid turned 18 6 weeks before a recorded interchange.

Grasp the difference yet?
I don't think you do. I don't know why I'm expected to do all the grasping around here.

Documentation, please. I have yet to find a liberal that can stand up to such a simple challenge.
OK, Katrina:
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/03/02/fema.tapes/index.html
WMDs, and on my fear-as-manipulation claim:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYI7JXGqd0o
The war in Iraq:
http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/
9/11:
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB147/index.htm

Really, for lies directed at the American people, try any of his state of the union addresses.

[Falsified information and firing based on political beliefs] is normal. Most completely clean house as they enter office and put their own lackeys in place.
Well, then, this marks a change for the better now that the likes of Alberto Glz are caught. Let's hope the next Democrat who does it on such a major scale gets caught as well. Washington is a fucking cesspool.

And Democrats don't use fear with respect to Social Security, Health Care, and a host of other issues?
I think threatening people with death and destruction is worse than threatening them with bad healthcare. Really, I think the healthcare system is fucked up, but you, like Tom Delay (what a cocksucker, might I add), seem to think that pointing out a problem with the Democrats absolves the president of guilt for killing people.

Man, you reek of hypocrisy and are clearly blind to your own side's foibles.
Look, I'm not attacking you or claiming you are on their side. You are putting me on the Democrat's side because I'm attacking Republicans. Why don't I create two arbitrary sides here, and we'll call them Nathan (that's me) and fucking moron (that's you). See? I like that better.

No, just stupid, uninformed, illogical, childish dissent.
Dissent is important. People being able to speak without being threatened by the government is important. I bet you think that the government should get to decide what is stupid, uninformed, illogical, and childish, too. In Soviet Russia... Oh, wait... there's no punchline!

It isn't our fault that half the Democratic party falls under this category.
Right. And half of the Republican party falls into the category of man-who-sucks-on-the-moral-rod-of-truth. In other words, guys who take it up the ass, and talk out against taking it up the ass. Or, hypocrites.

All false choices.
I was asking your preference, but I see you use the NeoCon ignorance defense.

First, the odds of any of these things happening to me are trivial no matter who the president is.
Not in Iraq. I understand you're not a Humanist. And you're probably very white and have probably never left the country. But the real world exists out there, too. And people are trying to live their lives like yo

I think they need more then a slap on the wrist. Bush should be impeached and sent to prison along with all of the bush administration and some of the media. At the moment I'm split on what happen to my government in the UK. was blair doing what he thought was right or was they in on it? http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/ seems to say a few of them was in on it.

if they had just invaded Afghanistan i wouldn't of cared too much, even though invading a country is not the way to fight terrorism, its won via the cia and mi6.

You have a curious set of opinions. How do you maintain the CIA misled the President in light of the significant evidence to the contrary?

I don't ask myself why the Republicans came to power. I know why. They have money, disciplined communications and a coherent strategy. Democrats sadly lack all three of these elements. Not that I care much for Democrats either. I consider both Democrats and Republican as belonging to the same party - neither of which represents my interests.

I have mod points, but I'd rather reply to this...

The people in this country have something to say about the current state of things but have yet to act upon what the morals that govern them. They talk about how wrong the President is but yet they vote him into office again. They shout " I don't want my phone tapped," but they do it in the comfort of their home where they can't be arrested. They say "let us be moral and leaders of the free world," yet they think "a little bit of torture never hurt anyone as long as its in Cuba." And here we are - you and I paying our taxes and showing our teeth like its all okay.

Just what am I supposed to do? Go and protest at one of GWB's speeches and get arrested? How will that change anything? How will that help? Will my being in prison make other people more free?

I could perhaps donate a little money to the ACLU or EFF - I think they're great causes - but their court actions are subject to a judiciary which is increasingly neo-conservative (aka fascist).

AFAIK, the most effective thing I can do is vote for democrats in the 2006 and 2008 elections. But everyone here at /. knows that recent elections were corrupt. I never voted for Bush in the first place, and that's true of approximately (or perhaps at least?) 50% of American voters. But the opinions of those voters are ignored by the present administration, and I suspect that some of their votes are ignored as well.

Personally, I believe that the current administration is led by criminals who should be impeached, tried, convicted, and imprisoned for a very long time. Their crimes are many and egregious. But what can I do about it? I'm not wealthy enough to buy a congresscritter.

So go ahead and mod me down or call me a troll because I don't care. Someone needs to tell America the truth and stand up for whats right. I'm moving to Maine...

Yeah, I'll bet you're going to move to another state just because of a slashdot story. Riiiiight...

Bush didn't lie, no matter how many times you say it. Bush acted on the best intelligence he had available.

Sounds like someone needs to educate themselves.

No, it is called libel. The downing street memos along with other government documents clearly shows the current administration knowingly deceived the public. Whistleblowers who wish to truthfully disclose government corruption are now at the mercy of corrupted.

Basing a war on lies is wrong for the person who does it, but our soldiers, the people GP was talking about, did not base their actions in this ware on lies. They based them on fairly accurate opinions of the Iraq situation built up over the last 12 years.

You know I'm amazed some americans still believe this.

The Downing street memo
Doubts, dissent stripped from public version of Iraq assessment
CIA leak illustrates selective use of intelligence on Iraq
Bush talking on the political advantages of war in 99

We didn't attack Iraq, we attacked its government. There is a huge difference. The country as a whole still suffers consequences, but that doesn't diminish the distinction.

The people of Iraq may not agree. I sure as hell don't. Collateral damage is newspeak:
U.S. invasion responsible deaths of over 250,000 civilians in Iraq
THE REAL WMD'S IN IRAQ - OURS
Displaced Iraqis 'living like animals'
'unknown Americans' are provoking civil war in Iraq
The Missing Girls of Iraq

Yes, we agree on many points. And I'm glad we managed to keep this civil. The points we disagree on are rather big though:

I do not believe that the death of tens of thousands of civilians can be justified by claiming to be bringing democracy.

I do not believe that you can force democracy on a country. All you can achive that way is a pseudo colony with a pseudo democracy. The kind of situation leading to the current state of Africa.

I do not believe that Bush believed there were WMDs in Iraq, nor that Iraq was closely tied to Al Quaeda, nor that Iraq was any kind of threat to the US.
I do believe that the "intelligence failures" were 100% intentional.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-15936 07,00.html
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/sp ecial_packages/iraq/intelligence/11901380.htm
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/sp ecial_packages/iraq/intelligence/12995512.htm

I do not believe that Bush invaded Iraq for humanitarian reasons.
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/
This count is most likely closer to the truth:
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11 674.htm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/ne ws/2006/05/12/wirq12.xml
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2162249, 00.html
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1 186519,00.html
http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArti cle.asp?articleID=8218

The list is endless but I'll stop here.

I believe that Bush does and will continue to do exactly whatever he feels will benefit him, with no concern what so ever for how many dies for his gain. Not that you actually need anything but his actions and his statements to prove this, but here are more links:
http://downingstreetmemo.com/archive/2004-10-31-Ho ustonChron-Herskowitz/
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12 885.htm

I believe that Bush is now planning his next war of aggression.
http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20 060511&hn=33036
http://www.rense.com/general71/tdarg.htm
http://wakeupfromyourslumber.blogspot.com/2006/05/ us-feverishly-works-to-frame-iran_13.html
http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/2006/05/839133.sh tml
http://english.people.com.cn/200605/13/eng20060513 _265252.html
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Condoleeza_Rice_ admits_she_responded_to_0509.html

While it's true that many governments suspected Saddam had WMD, there was no agreement as to what his actual capabilities were, or on what to do about it. Further, simply believing something to be true does not make it so, and certainly does not form a basis for war.

The administration never had a "smoking gun" to prove Saddam had WMD, and in fact the intelligence supporting the administration's view was alarmingly thin. As we now know from various reports, US intelligence affirming WMD frequently came from paid informants who, in some cases, were later proven to be fabricators. There was virtually no intelligence coming out of Iraq itself--the country was impenetrable, leaving the US and others with little in the way of credible sources.

It is also worth noting that while there was a range of opinion (and widespread error) as to Saddam's chemical and biological weapons capability, there certainly was not a consensus. The issue of nuclear weapons is a different story. Here, the US and UK stood nearly alone in their dire assessment. It was also on this issue that the administration demonstrated its willingness to use highly dubious intelligence reports by claiming that Iraq had sought nuclear material from Niger. This claim, of course, was based on crudely forged documents and should never have been made. The fact that the President did made this claim, and did so in a State of the Union address, is all the more troubling, especially given that the same statement was pulled from a speech he gave just a few months earlier.

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/realitycheck.html

Dude. Seriously. Point us at one reputable source that shows WMDs being discovered in Iraq. Had they been, the US and UK governments would have been screaming the news from the bloody hilltops - regardless of whether the media wanted to cover it or not, they'd have been forced to by sheer repetition.

It would vindicate your entire invasion of Iraq, and would go a long way to repairing your reputation with the rest of the world.

And republican/right-wing blogs and pundits would have been screaming it 24/7 - a quick Google search would be enough to turn up documentary proof.

Like, say the Downing St. Memo, which has been authenticated as real, admitted by the UK government (from which it was inadvertantly leaked, severely embarrassing them in the process), and indicates that Bush wanted to go into Iraq regardless of whether it had WMDs or not. It even moots the idea of using WMDs or terrorism as excuses to go in.

Seriously, are you trolling, or had you honestly never thought of these points?

(Discussion mercilessly pruned in the interests of participating in the discussion within a realistic "goofing off from work" time-span ;-)

"The American view is that the center represents a real, if abstract, concept that represents a desirable goal. That goal doesn't change, although our view of where it is may change. For example, "Life, Liberty, and Justice For All" is a fixed concept. What needs to be done to achieve this changes with time. At one time, giving white male landowners elected representation seemed to be the thing. Over time, this was broadened to include those who owned no land, women and blacks."

That's a fair enough position, and one which I agree with. Although I have a grave problem with absolutes, if I had to choose one to subscribe to, that would be it (in the order Life, Justice then Liberty, however, since that takes care of the problem of criminality and avoids the death penalty ;-).

While I agree with you that there are universal (or near-universal) Truths/Good, I think we disagree on how to achieve these aims, and how much they apply to the real world. For example, I believe that universal healthcare and welfare is essential to Life, and that Justice can be served by removing merely Liberty, instead of Liberty and Life.

I find it hard to agree that these universal absolutes apply to things as base as political position. I wouldn't agree that either the Right or the Left has a right to claim they're closer to the universal good, since both sides have policies that go against it (eg, the Right's traditional lack of support for "big government" knocks out much hope of universal healthcare/Life, and the far-left Liberals' penchant for inhibiting free speech/Liberty for political correctness).

Give this absence of clear absolutes in terms of which political party you support, I think a centrist view is the "safest" - you can take the best from both ends of the spectrum without being tied to any one ideology.

"We're starting to see common ground here. One other possibility, cogent to the UN argument; if enemies of what is right obstruct the UN from ratifying consensus."

This is the same point we keep coming back to - you believe in absolute Right, and think the US knows best (or at least roughly) where it is.

I believe you can never be sure you're right (eg, many of the Founding Fathers were slave owners, even while writing "Life, Liberty & Justice for all"), so the best way of ensuring rightness is by debate and consensus with as many other people as you can find.

I don't think we're going to resolve this, since it's fundamental to our separate world-views. That said, I am curious as to what your answer to my point above is - how do you know the current ideology is "right"? People have been certain of their rightness before, even people regarded as "wrong" by the rest of us (psychopaths, Hitler, religious people of all types, etc). Hell, suicide bombers are convinced of their own rightness - what makes you sure that you are, above and beyond anyone else?

Again, not a trap, but honest curiosity - I'd love to have that kind of certainty, as long as it was justified...

""AMERICA'S SKEPTICISM ABOUT THE UNITED NATIONS" by John Bolton, our UN Ambassador that everyone was so against. It gives some nice details of UN vs US over the last half century."

I read the linked article. Although I don't agree with everything in it, it was very enlightening. If we had space (and time) I'd write a point by point analysis, but at the very least it certainly explains the US position more.

"You note that the charges were false, and assume they were trumped up by Bush. The latter isn't immediately derived from the former."

Actually, I didn't believe Bush knowingly lied until I saw the proof. In case you haven't read it, the DSM is a genuine (and subseq

Questions taken from the Slashdot story: Is your boss a Psychopath?

How do you rate George W. Bush and Dick Cheney? -- Questions for Questions:

Q: When he harms other people, does he feel a lack of remorse or guilt? A: Does killing people qualify as harming them?

Q: Does he lie habitually even though he can easily be found out? A: Does lying to start a war qualify as lying? A2: Does pretending that you have reduced the violence in another country, rather than increased it, qualify as lying?

Q: When he's exposed, does he still act unconcerned because he thinks he can weasel out of it? A: Does saying it's all fine qualify as being unconcerned?

Q: Is he concerned about himself rather than the wreckage he inflicts on others or society at large? A: Does worrying only about election results qualify as being concerned only about oneself?

Q: Does he use his skill at lying to cheat or manipulate other people in his quest for money? A: When both Bush and Cheney have a long history of oil and weapons investments among family and friends, does starting a war in the world's second most oil-rich country qualify as a quest for money?

Q: Does he cruelly mock others? A: Does George W. Bush calling his deputy chief of staff, Karl Rove, "turd blossom" qualify as cruelly mocking him? A2: Does giving people disrespectful nicknames qualify as mocking them?

Q: Is he callous and lacking in empathy? A: Does taking habitual risks with the lives of other people while driving qualify as lacking in empathy? A2: George W. Bush DUI, 1st record of arrest A3: George W. Bush DUI, 2nd record of arrest George W. Bush was arrested 2 other times in his life, also, for stunts that were not something a sober person would find interesting. A4: Dick Cheney DUI, record of 1st arrest A5: Dick Cheney DUI, record of 2nd arrest

--
If your government chooses killing as policy, expect others to choose the same.

I don't buy the whole "lie" argument.

Okay, that's your position. But let's remember the big picture here. Remember these points:

* Lifelong Republican, and Bush's former Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill went on CBS and told 60 Minutes plainly that the Bush administration wanted to go to war against Iraq from its first days in office. Remember the map of Iraq already divided up among the oil companies that O'Neill showed on 60 Minutes and the Bush admin's threatened legal action for revealing that map?!

* Remember lifelong Republican and terrorist expert Richard Clarke's remarks that Bush himself basically told him to find evidence to go to war on Iraq immediately after 9/11?

These are not Hillary Clinton types -- they're two lifelong Republicans who have served multiple Republican (and, for the record, Clarke also worked for Clinton) presidents.

Now, keeping those points in mind, answer one question: How do you explain the Downing Street Memo?

Remember, the Downing Street Memo is an internal British gov't document. It was created after high-level meetings of British gov't officials with their US gov't counterparts. The meeting minutes plainly state that Bush had decided to go to war against Iraq using rhetoric of WMD and terrorism as the excuse (this was mid-2002, when Bush claims he still had not made up his mind). It also bluntly states that the US was "fixing the intelligence" to fit the war policy.

With that memo in mind, someone has to be lying -- either the British gov't is lying to themselves after meeting with the highest levels of the American gov't, or the Bush administration deliberately lied to the American public.

Is there a hole in that logic? Which do you think is more likely?

Also, factor in that the US and UK started launching massive air strikes on Iraq in the spring/early summer of 2002 -- long before Congress approved a war and long before Bush said he made up his mind to go to war. Some of those air strikes -- publicly confirmed by the Pentagon -- were 100+ plane bombing missions. They, of course, were done under the guise of the "no fly zones" and the size of those strikes were hidden from the US and British public at the time they were going on.

Now, consider all this. Do you really live in la-la land or on Planet Earth? I don't mean to be insulting, but get real -- there is more than enough evidence to convince a jury that Bush deliberately lied through his teeth to get the war he wanted.

Sadly, this isn't the first time a US president lied through his teeth to start a war (see LBJ/Gulf of Tonkin, Reagan saying that American medical students were threatened in Grenada, etc., etc., etc.). Worse still, with the half-reporting and mass media propaganda which is commonplace in the US, it won't be the last. :-(

Hey, here's a nutty idea...

How about you stop manufacturing wars that terrorize and kill hundreds of thousands of Arabs?

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/

Congrats Londoners!

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/

You can't go around manfacturing wars and then cry to the world when it starts to come back to bite you in the ass.

In particular, I was referring to this -- the fact that the US government was deliberately "fixing the facts around the policy", and was pretending to act in good faith when in fact the invasion was a foregone conclusion. This was apparent at the time, to anyone who chose to look, and it is documented fact now.

Whether Iraqis think Bush lied or not should make no difference on what is going on over there right now

I wasn't referring to the Iraqis in particular (although I think the US's legitimacy, or lack thereof, does play a significant role there), but to the world at large. If the US had been able and willing to make an honest, persuasive case for an invasion, they might have been able to gain significant support from other countries (comparable, say, to the amount of support Bush's father received in the first Iraq War). With the full support (and even more importantly, the nation-building expertise) of the UN and other countries, the post-Hussein transition could have gone more smoothly, without the mass looting and chaos, and costly mistakes (like disbanding the Iraqi army) might have been avoided. In this scenario, the insurgency might never have taken root, and the US would be in a position to triumphantly leave a peaceful Iraq today. But because of the Bush Administration's dishonesty and arrogant "we know best and fuck you if you disagree" attitude, they got only half-hearted token support at best. That leaves us in the position we are in today -- alone and paralyzed in an Iraq that is spinning out of control.

It is remarkable how quickly Iraq was able to hold elections and also the degree to which most of Iraq (with a few notable exceptions - Baghdad and Falujah esp) has become a free and functioning society

When that society can function without the presence of hundreds of thousands of American soldiers and a billion dollars a week in American tax money propping it up, then I'll be convinced. At the moment it looks like it is on life support.

It has been said that with the large conglomerate ownership of media these days, that the Watergate scandal would not have come to light.

And this statement is already being proven to be true -- look at the Downing Street Minutes -- have you seen this in the mainstream media? No? Thought not.

You say "Military recruiters recognize the more limited future of these kids and that they have something to offer them. Military recruitment is usually a win/win proposition." If we had responsible leaders who used war as a last resort, you might be right. But in the current debacle, it's atrocious the some people justify getting poor Americans to fight a war led by hawkish politicians who won't put themselves or their families in harm's way.

About 1700 young Americans have been killed in action thus far, it shouldn't be only the poorer families be the ones to risk their children's lives in order to have a better future. Do you support these 1700 deaths, along with tens of thousands of cases of physical and psychological injuries, such that other soldiers have a chance to lead a better life?

When you say the military takes care of you, that sentiment is greatly questioned by those in active duty. Where were you stationed during your service, and how many of your fellow soldiers were killed on the front line?

Also due to the current recruiting crisis, military recruiters have resorted to unethical practices to get people to enlist. Shouldn't these potential recruits make the decision to join on their own, without pressure from the recruiter?

The current class gap recruiting policies are nothing more than a technique to allow poor soldiers fight a war that the rich politicians support but don't want their own family members fighting in.

Hmmm...

Anyone notice how this happened right after they found that guy in California with names of 36,000 (not a typo) boys in notebooks?

Apparently journalists aren't very good at math. The man was 63 years old. If he started at 12 years old, that is 41 years. Subtract the 12 years he was in jail and you get 29 years, that is 1241 incidents a year or 3.4 incidents per day. Yes, the guy appears to have really molested kids and been arrested about 9 times. But 36000? It is physically possible but doing it without being arreseted more often than he was is another matter. That is 4000 incidents per arrest. Even Michael Jackson couldn't do that and he built an amusement park for kids. Even if his journals are real, they probably record more fantasies than reality. Or someone planted fake notebooks on a random repeat offender so they could pass repressive laws. This happened just three days after Jackson (who was distracting the media from news about important stories like the Downing Street Memo ) was acquited.

"1. Bombing Belgrade
2. DMCA"

1. Naziesqe ethnic cleansing, and the world was with us when we stopped it - with allies from around the world.
2. He didn't write it, and few people understood the ramifications.

If this is the worse that he did, considering 100,000 dead for a strategic conquest of an oil field isn't even news,, then he's the cleanest president we've had in a century. We sure could have used him as a President the last five years.

The seeping of blogistan into the pages of the Times of London with regard to its own scoops seems to me a bellwether of the kinds of changes that are being produced in our information environment by the blogging phenomenon. The gatekeepers at the New York Times and the Washington Post can no longer decide whether a leak is a story or a non-story. The public decides what a story is."

Let's point out the obvious too: the FEC was taking comments recently about whether or not to exempt bloggers from campaign finance laws. It became an issue because citizen media are getting too big to ignore.

I didn't have time to translate the entire article to English, due to a problem called work.

Here is my opinion about U.S. government corruption. It is a review of 35 books from respected publishers and 3 movies: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.

My understanding is that the U.S. government is extremely corrupt, but most U.S. citizens just don't want to know. They've been told for so long that theirs is the best country in the world that they have difficulty believing otherwise.

The U.S. government hides its corruption. For example, see this article: History surrounding the U.S. war with Iraq: Four short stories.

The present terrorism was caused by U.S. government support for violence against Arabs and others in the Middle East. Not surprisingly, there were people there who decided to fight violence with more violence. I think that violence is caused by mental illness, but it is easy to understand that Arabs don't like to be killed, and that some of them would decide to do to the U.S. what the U.S. government was doing to them.

I would be very interested to know how you view the information at this web site: U.S. Debt Clock. Do you say, "Oh, well, that's not real corruption. They are just stealing money?" Has the $7 trillion dollars borrowed made you richer? If it hasn't, where did the money go? It is a fact that people who were already rich got most of the money.

The U.S. government is stealing money from its own people and killing people in other countries. Can that somehow be considered moral?

See the Downing Street Memo. The U.S. government lied to the American people to justify its violence. Congressman like John Conyers are unhappy about that, even if you aren't.

The U.S. and British governments have a long history of destructive involvement in the mideast. Those who don't know that don't have the means to understand what is happening today.

http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/memo.html

Obviously Bush doesn't subscribe to this line of thought. He'd be long gone if he did: http://www.downingstreetmemo.com/

Of course, a sycophant like you probably isn't calling for Bush's resignations under the same terms as Clinton's. Oh, right - Bush never testified under oath. How utterly convenient and irrelevant.

-UK Gov admits Iraq was based on lies

Nonsense, that would suggest that Oceania's Ministry Of Truth was capable of adjusting history and presenting barefaced lies as fact, simply to fit their military ambitions.

Inconceivable!

(The only similarity is, when Shrub writes 2+2=5, he doesn't realise that's wrong, either).