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Back in the day, an attorney published a mock-grand-jury charging Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumfeld, Powell, et. al. for their criminal acts in the run up to Iraq. I think it's a good summary of all the lies.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/pos...

Except that the purpose of this experiment was to play with emotions of their users. And upset was one of the expected results.

Worse: The study has military sponsorship, part of ongoing experiments how to manipulate/prevent/encourage spread of ideas (like voting for an unapproved political parties or mute general discontent):

"research was connected to a Department of Defense project called the Minerva Initiative, which funds universities to model the dynamics, risks and tipping points for large-scale civil unrest across the world."

The end game explain in this very long but very insightful analysis: America’s Real Foreign Policy – A Corporate Protection Racket.

First, the page you've chose to use adjusts the numbers to the current exchange rate. There is a caveat on the page itself saying: "These results can vary greatly from one year to another based on fluctuations in the exchange rates of each country's currency."

Second, at 682 billion a year, the numbers are low to very low. The numbers are only the DoD budget, and spending for Afghanistan an Iraq. It ignores all military project spending outside of those, like the 20 billion tucked away in the DoEnergy for nuclear weapons, Another 8-10 billion "slush fund" of misc. spending not in the budget, or the DoD numbers, another 8-10 billion from the State Department, 120+ billion in Veterans Affairs... here's a nice little breakdown of it: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175361/ (although it's for 2012, the numbers only get a bit bigger as time goes on).

But here's the big part that so many people seem to miss: the countries on the list. To anyone, other than a hysterical coward, they do not pose a military risk to the US. China would be flat out stupid to engage us militarily, as we're one of the main driving forces behind its economy. Russia, in reality, has become a fairly dependable ally in NATO. Yes, there's some things we do they don't like, and the difference is they stand up to us and tell us instead of roll over. The rest? Allies or partners.

Correct, yes. Most feasible, probably not, because there are plenty of people making money on the status quo, and a fair amount of "economic value" depends on burning fossil fuels that are still in the ground (a scary amount -- http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175499/ -- search for "value" to skip chit-chat about the climate). Assume that something similar holds in China. Given this, there's going to be a powerful economic incentive to stick with business as usual, and plenty of money whose jobs, wealth, or pensions depend upon the continued consumption of fossil fuels. Politically, it may not be feasible to cut back until we start to see unambiguously negative outcomes (not predicted outcomes, not reports endorsed by a mere 95% of climate scientists, but actual bad stuff), and maybe not even then, if they only happen to poor people in countries we don't care that much about.

So given that, it's sadly prudent to consider a plan B, and perhaps a plan C and D.

I'm not sure what an "actual bad outcome" would be. How bad would a drought or a heat wave have to get before people quit claiming it was just "natural variation"? Sea levels right now are rising at 3.3mm/year; if the rate suddenly doubled to 6.6mm/year, climate scientists' hair would spontaneously catch fire, but most people would not notice for years.

According to Chris Hellman, the defense budget is more like $1.2 trillion. Link: http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175361/

"To get closer to a real figure, it’s necessary to start peeking at other parts of the federal budget where so many other pots of security spending are squirreled away."

You are an example of someone who has succumbed to the "lose the capability for sound argument in the roar of mindless accusation and countercharges" strategy.

I include CNN and MSNBC in my wide net, too. Fox just sets pace and tone in a race for the bottom, where EVERYONE is a loser, by a nose. Don't feel so smug, folks. NPR and the Wall Street Journal are equally co-opted.

All parties and ideologies are simply there to distract the marks, by political and media shills who work to pick your pocket and keep you "happy" at the same time.

They are all employed by the same bunch of cons. Figuring out who the cons are - and what is the ostensible business they run - I will leave as an exercise for you, the insightful and reasoned observer.

Oh, and welcome to Bush's 3rd term. By MY counting, it's actually Poppy's sixth or seventh.

We have over 10x military budget of the next country, China. This cannot end well.

Very recent article:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/174884/chalmers_johnson_how_to_sink_america

The radio interview is here:

http://antiwar.com/radio/2008/01/24/chalmers-johnson-3/

Parent is not a troll. It's an informative post.

There's not much political benefit to environmental stewardship when a considerable majority of your supporters have no interest in empirical truth. Most Bush voters believe exactly what parent said: Jesus will come again and they will be swept into heaven before the environmental consequences of their actions cause them any harm.

I suppose if I made SPECIFIC CLAIMS OR CHARGES, providing evidence would be my burden, sure.

However, such a broad, sweeping generalized comment, as I made, doesn't lend itself to an enumeration of the charges and evidence, does it?

No.

So I wonder what you agenda is, to miscast my comment as a more specific claim? Are you working off of prepared talking points and didn't BOTHER to actually think if they were applicable to my statements? It would seem not.

But hey, you're on a roll, and the actual facts don't really matter, do they?

If you want claims and evidence, although this is off topic, take a read through Elizabeth de la Vegas hypothetical indictment of Bush et. al.: http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=143205

The U.S. DOES want to stay there, can you say permanent military bases boys and girls I knew you could. See this article:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/ and scroll down to the middle to:

"Tomgram: A Permanent Basis for Withdrawal?

Can You Say "Permanent Bases"?
The American Press Can't
By Tom Engelhardt"

A National Disaster is clearly an excellent opportunity to trial new R&D in the field; harsh environmental conditions, long uptime, contingencies at a maximum - like a 'warzone' really. It would seem Bush has chosen to test future battle tech on his own people at home rather than random foreigners or US folk abroad. He doesn't miss a beat does he?

Anyway, I guess these sonic cannons are cheaper than food, shelter and tear-gas or else he surely would have.. nevermind.

This post can be found at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=1984

No longer will Dick Cheney have to pay visits to Langley, Virginia and lean on CIA analysts to produce the kind of intelligence a Veep might need; not now that the President has his man, Republican loyalist Porter J. Goss, heading up the Agency, and a second term in hand. Of course, the CIA was already highly politicized in the first Bush term. Run by George Tenet (accurately dubbed "a political apparatchik" by Toronto Sun columnist Eric Margolis), throughout most of the last four years, it proved a servile agency despite possessing perfectly clear-eyed analysts who knew the truth about Iraq and wanted to pass it on.

But not, it seemed, servile enough. Unhappy with the intelligence pickings from the CIA, the Bush administration turned to its loveably, unreliable then-"friend," Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, for the sort of intelligence that could actually be used to terrify a nation into war -- you know, all those weapons of mass destruction in Saddam's hands, all those ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda -- and then Douglas Feith, the number three man in the Pentagon, created the Office of Special Plans to "search for information on Iraq's hostile intentions or links to terrorists." It cherry-picked intelligence from Chalabi and others and passed it up the line to those eager to speak of mushroom clouds going off over American cities.

Such a complicated process, though. Now, former Republican congressman as well as ex-CIA agent and spy-recruiter Goss will bring no less loyal political aides from the House and elsewhere into the Agency's leadership and so simplify matters in a second Bush term. Already, before November 2, Goss's CIA was working hard to suppress crucial 9/11 information, as Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer reported. The CIA will now be but another, ever expanding militarized arm of an administration that will already control Congress (hence no possibility of serious oversight over the Agency), significant parts of our courts and justice system, a media machine, a political machine, a religious machine, a majority of the state governments in our federalist system, and sizeable hunks of the government bureaucracy. The President, in other words, will have his own intelligence arm and secret army at his beck and interventionist call for the next four years, and no one around to take a peek. The ultimate check on the administration was the electorate and it just failed. (Oh, let's not forget that there will at least be angry CIA agents and others still stuck in this highly politicized system, feeling betrayed, and as things begin to go truly off the tracks, leaking like mad.)

Of course, this administration has long been intent on putting much of what it does not only beyond all oversight, but utterly out of sight. After September 11, they put extraordinary effort and legal thought into creating an offshore mini-gulag, beyond the courts, beyond prying eyes, a torture-system beholden only to the President of the United States in his role as commander-in-chief. The CIA was put in charge of the most secret aspects of this system and, as the part of the government best tooled in the arts of offshore interrogation, from Abu Ghraib to a

This post can be found at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=1984

No longer will Dick Cheney have to pay visits to Langley, Virginia and lean on CIA analysts to produce the kind of intelligence a Veep might need; not now that the President has his man, Republican loyalist Porter J. Goss, heading up the Agency, and a second term in hand. Of course, the CIA was already highly politicized in the first Bush term. Run by George Tenet (accurately dubbed "a political apparatchik" by Toronto Sun columnist Eric Margolis), throughout most of the last four years, it proved a servile agency despite possessing perfectly clear-eyed analysts who knew the truth about Iraq and wanted to pass it on.

But not, it seemed, servile enough. Unhappy with the intelligence pickings from the CIA, the Bush administration turned to its loveably, unreliable then-"friend," Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, for the sort of intelligence that could actually be used to terrify a nation into war -- you know, all those weapons of mass destruction in Saddam's hands, all those ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda -- and then Douglas Feith, the number three man in the Pentagon, created the Office of Special Plans to "search for information on Iraq's hostile intentions or links to terrorists." It cherry-picked intelligence from Chalabi and others and passed it up the line to those eager to speak of mushroom clouds going off over American cities.

Such a complicated process, though. Now, former Republican congressman as well as ex-CIA agent and spy-recruiter Goss will bring no less loyal political aides from the House and elsewhere into the Agency's leadership and so simplify matters in a second Bush term. Already, before November 2, Goss's CIA was working hard to suppress crucial 9/11 information, as Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer reported. The CIA will now be but another, ever expanding militarized arm of an administration that will already control Congress (hence no possibility of serious oversight over the Agency), significant parts of our courts and justice system, a media machine, a political machine, a religious machine, a majority of the state governments in our federalist system, and sizeable hunks of the government bureaucracy. The President, in other words, will have his own intelligence arm and secret army at his beck and interventionist call for the next four years, and no one around to take a peek. The ultimate check on the administration was the electorate and it just failed. (Oh, let's not forget that there will at least be angry CIA agents and others still stuck in this highly politicized system, feeling betrayed, and as things begin to go truly off the tracks, leaking like mad.)

Of course, this administration has long been intent on putting much of what it does not only beyond all oversight, but utterly out of sight. After September 11, they put extraordinary effort and legal thought into creating an offshore mini-gulag, beyond the courts, beyond prying eyes, a torture-system beholden only to the President of the United States in his role as commander-in-chief. The CIA was put in charge of the most secret aspects of this system and, as the part of the government best tooled in the arts of offshore interrogation, from Abu Ghraib to a

This post can be found at http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=1984

No longer will Dick Cheney have to pay visits to Langley, Virginia and lean on CIA analysts to produce the kind of intelligence a Veep might need; not now that the President has his man, Republican loyalist Porter J. Goss, heading up the Agency, and a second term in hand. Of course, the CIA was already highly politicized in the first Bush term. Run by George Tenet (accurately dubbed "a political apparatchik" by Toronto Sun columnist Eric Margolis), throughout most of the last four years, it proved a servile agency despite possessing perfectly clear-eyed analysts who knew the truth about Iraq and wanted to pass it on.

But not, it seemed, servile enough. Unhappy with the intelligence pickings from the CIA, the Bush administration turned to its loveably, unreliable then-"friend," Iraqi exile Ahmed Chalabi, for the sort of intelligence that could actually be used to terrify a nation into war -- you know, all those weapons of mass destruction in Saddam's hands, all those ties between Saddam and al-Qaeda -- and then Douglas Feith, the number three man in the Pentagon, created the Office of Special Plans to "search for information on Iraq's hostile intentions or links to terrorists." It cherry-picked intelligence from Chalabi and others and passed it up the line to those eager to speak of mushroom clouds going off over American cities.

Such a complicated process, though. Now, former Republican congressman as well as ex-CIA agent and spy-recruiter Goss will bring no less loyal political aides from the House and elsewhere into the Agency's leadership and so simplify matters in a second Bush term. Already, before November 2, Goss's CIA was working hard to suppress crucial 9/11 information, as Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer reported. The CIA will now be but another, ever expanding militarized arm of an administration that will already control Congress (hence no possibility of serious oversight over the Agency), significant parts of our courts and justice system, a media machine, a political machine, a religious machine, a majority of the state governments in our federalist system, and sizeable hunks of the government bureaucracy. The President, in other words, will have his own intelligence arm and secret army at his beck and interventionist call for the next four years, and no one around to take a peek. The ultimate check on the administration was the electorate and it just failed. (Oh, let's not forget that there will at least be angry CIA agents and others still stuck in this highly politicized system, feeling betrayed, and as things begin to go truly off the tracks, leaking like mad.)

Of course, this administration has long been intent on putting much of what it does not only beyond all oversight, but utterly out of sight. After September 11, they put extraordinary effort and legal thought into creating an offshore mini-gulag, beyond the courts, beyond prying eyes, a torture-system beholden only to the President of the United States in his role as commander-in-chief. The CIA was put in charge of the most secret aspects of this system and, as the part of the government best tooled in the arts of offshore interrogation, from Abu Ghraib to a

I know its "in" to hate the USA (certainly on this site)

Sigh...it's not "in", it's a direct response to recent behaviour. I used to love the USA, I've been over many times for both business and pleasure. Not anymore though...

shows the desperation of people to show how the "USA is losing it" and this is the best they can come up with?

OK, how about:

• Your government is openly corrupt, with bribes a key part of the election process
• The rest of the world no longer sees the US as the pinacle of democracy
• The rest of the world no longer sees the US as the pinacle of freedom
• Your economy is in the crapper
• Your exchange rate is in the crapper
• Tourism is way down
• Exports are fucked up
• One in three people live below the poverty line
• You invaded a resourse laiden country over a lie, and the rest of us saw through the WMD lies way back at the start

This is what we mean when it is said that the US is losing it. We've all grown up on the Hollywood vision of America, where truth and justice were core. Perhaps as a citizen, you still see things that way, but as a (terrified) obvserver, we don't. Your leadership openly misleads you to justify a war that had no other aim than the economic and strategic betterment of those who were behind it.

The US is in the terminal stages of empire. You are spread to thin, yet still your leaders are commiting resources to combat communism in the former USSR. It's all like a big game of Risk, but the problem is that your country simply cannot keep up. The leadership know this but frankly don't care, so long as the fall doesn't happen during their term. There is a really interesting article on this subject here

I want the old US back.This new one scares me; with things going from bad to worse, I can only see the US acting like a cornered animal, lashing out at others.

Well, unfortunately your anecdote of failing personal investments has been duplicated millions of times across America. This is how the stock market now works ... for each new stock millionaire, you have to have 1000 people take a loss of $1000 each. I wish you luck with your investments, but I equally wish that you don't add to the housing bubble.

BTW, I came across this article just tonight:

Riotous Real Estate
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=2329
OR http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0419-22.htm
By Mike Davis

Select quote:

"The great American housing bubble, like its obese counterparts in the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Spain, and Australia, is a classical zero-sum game. Without generating an atom of new wealth, land inflation ruthlessly redistributes wealth from asset-seekers to asset-holders, reinforcing divisions within as well as between social classes. A young schoolteacher in San Diego who rents an apartment, for example, now faces an annual housing cost ($24,000 for a two-bedroom in a central area) equivalent to two-thirds of her income."