I am steamed that the working class has to, once again, pay for the excesses of the capitalist criminals that feeds its rapacious appetite with the flesh and blood of our children and won't rest until it owns every penny in this world and has all the power.

You may say, "But Cindy, it is not polite to be angry or to use such strong language in public." Horseshit! In my opinion, every citizen in the USA should rise up in anger and DEMAND that George Bush and Dick Cheney not only be impeached and removed from office, but be tried and convicted for murder and crimes against the peace and humanity! [More] . . read more

In answer to the question about the causes of the Democrats' failure to stop the war, I say: they are the same reasons which led to the failure of former President Kennedy to stop the Vietnam war. Those with real power and influence are those with the most capital. And since the democratic system permits major corporations to back candidates, be they presidential or congressional, there shouldn't be any cause for astonishment - and there isn't any - in the Democrats' failure to stop the war. You're the ones who have the saying which goes, "Money talks."

[An extract from the latest Osama bin Laden video, which some claim to be a forgery] . . read more

George Bush came to office in 2001 promising a new era of integrity, civility and "compassionate conservatism," an era of humble American foreign policy, and a bi-partisan approach to government. What did we actually get? Once in office, this chameleon president almost immediately set out to embroil the country in a major war in the Middle East against the nation of Iraq. The game plan was laid out at the president's first National Security Council meeting... It's hard to escape the conclusion that the Bush/Cheney administration, at a minimum, wanted an attack on American soil, and a national disaster that would put the country on a war footing.

Surveying at the appalling wreckage left after eight years of the Bush administration, it is hard to recognize the country that he started out with in 2001. A once proud nation-one that only a few years ago was admired around the world and that now is viewed as a pariah and a rogue state-today trembles before a handful of turbaned fanatics holed up in caves in the Hindu Kush, its trillion-dollar high-tech military colossus fought to a standstill in Iraq and Afghanistan by a few thousand brave men and women armed with RPGs, antique AK-47s and home-made roadside bombs...

Forget all the nonsense about Barack Obama being a closet Muslim. We already have our Manchurian Candidate in the White House, and he has largely accomplished what he was programmed to do: destroy the country. [More] . . read more

I don't know what President Bush thinks, but I think he's bought hook, line and sinker the Cheney rationale that the only way for us to be able to be dominant in the 21st century is to use our overwhelming power in the face of the moral disapprobation of the rest of the world, threaten the rest of the world, and that's how we avoid war in the future...

[As for Iran] the president has no constitutional authority to take this nation to war against a country of 70 million people, unless we're attacked or unless there is proof that we are about to be attacked. And if he does, I would move to impeach him... I don't say it lightly. I say it because they should understand that what they were threatening, what they were saying... what we were about to do would be the most disastrous thing that could be done at this moment in our history. . . read more

We are told the “surge is working”, whereas it is the U.S. military’s abandonment of its brutal home invasions that has led to the lull. Insurgents still control their own terrain. Meanwhile hundreds of thousands of Iraqis face the prospect of malnutrition and outright starvation, which is not newsworthy. Bush psychopathy stretches from the Middle East to the White House, where it is widely suspected that prior to its illegal erasure, the CIA torture tape was screened for the pleasure of the President.

Looking back over the terror war years, we can now contemplate accusations of high crimes & misdemeanours that once seemed impossible. The recent announcement that eight U.S. State Department veterans challenge the official account of 9/11 is likely to flush out more witnesses. Mainstream media are too embedded with the power elite to conduct an impartial yet vigorous evaluation of the evidence relating to dirty deeds on 9/11. In the end, the bloggers will have the last laugh. . . read more

The success of ‘the Surge’ is becoming almost received wisdom in the U.S. This is strange since, if the U.S. strategy did win such an important victory, why do America generals need more soldiers, currently 147,000 of them, in Iraq than they did before ‘the Surge’ started? But belief in this so-called victory is in keeping with the American tradition of seeing everything that happens in Iraq as being the result of actions by the U.S. alone. The complex political landscape of Iraq is ignored.

U.S. commentators have never quite taken on board that there are not one but three wars being fought out in the country since 2003: the first is the war of resistance against the American occupation by insurgents from the Sunni Arab community. The second is the battle between the Sunni and Shia communities as to who should rule the Iraqi state in succession to Saddam Hussein. The third conflict is a proxy war between the U.S. and Iran to decide who should be the predominant foreign power in Iraq. The real, though exaggerated, fall in violence in Iraq over the last year is a consequence of developments in all three of these wars, but they do not necessarily have much to do with ‘the Surge’. [More] . . read more

Naturally, every politician inside the American Beltway misses the aforementioned contradiction and agrees with Dick Cheney that the Russians must not be allowed to have their way. After all, it is Washington's world now and, even if there is hardly a horse's hair worth of difference between the governments in Washington and Moscow, Moscow can not be allowed to think that it can be Washington's equal on the world stage.

It is in historical moments like this that the citizen can truly see how little they matter. We have two powerful regimes trifling over a piece of territory that most of the world could care less about. Both of these regimes have proven that they are more than willing to kill thousands of people, destroy hundreds of square miles of land and water, and waste billions of dollars in doing so just so they can establish their position in their battle to control their world. It is their world because no matter how it turns out they will profit and we will pay. [More] . . read more

Talk to any person on the street of Kabul and Baghdad or even Peshawar and they will tell you how much they hate Americans and their manipulative and occupying policies. Every freedom loving people want freedom, the same freedom which the U.S. constitution provides its citizens. In particular death is better for a Pakhtun than an occupation especially by the U.S. The U.S. has no need, no role, and no right to occupy others land and if it wants its own security it must secure others from its own occupation. "Yankees go home" is a very famous slogan which has been repeatedly shouted by millions and millions people of the world in various parts of the world, but deaf ears in Washington refuse to hear it.

Ultimately one has to talk to one's enemies, but the U.S. is always talking the language of force, bullets, and destruction... Instead of pressurizing Pakistan to kill its own people the U.S. must rather encourage and participate in a dialogue with people who want peace in the region and the world at large. Dialogue and negotiation alone will isolate the extremists and solve the problems of terrorism. Force is not the solution. [More] . . read more

We need to learn the painful lessons of the Iraq War if we're going to secure this country and renew America's leadership. The first thing we have to understand is what happened in Iraq. Because there are two ways to look at this. The first way is to say that Iraq is a disaster because of George Bush's mismanagement. Or because of the arrogance and incompetence of Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld in prosecuting the war. Or because Iraq's Prime Minister just hasn't been up to the job.

But I take a different view. I think the problem isn't just how we've fought the war - it's that we fought the war in the first place. Because the truth is, the war in Iraq should never have been authorized, and it should never have been waged. The Iraq War had nothing to do with al Qaeda or 9/11. It was based on exaggerated fears and unconvincing intelligence. And it has left America less safe, and less respected around the world.  . . read more