A year ago David Horowitz and others of his bent told their readers that a former Iraqi general saw great stockpiles of Iraqi WMD in Syria. Much like Judith Miller's adventures in the desert with Chalabi's cousin,with absolutely no proof. So where is the general? Did he take his expense payments and disappear? Did he even exist at all? When it comes to any Iraqi assertion about never-seen Ba'athist WMD, the warmonger Right demands our complete faith in the invisible.

I read an account of newly arrived American's briefings in the Baghdad embassy: they are told not to trust any Iraqis. So the centurions of empire on site have an equally generalized lack of faith in every Iraqi's word. Whichever way you turn, the lack of empiricism by the self-described imperialists bodes ill.

...that started with the Iraq Occupation losing majority support in 2005 and continued with the 42-0 skunking of the Republicans in 2006 in party gains of Governorships, Senate seats and House of Representatitive seats has roots in more than White House war deceit, politicization of government and attacks on the Constitution. It also has roots in the actions of the .1% of the American people this administration actually cares about, and has

frightened and angered many of the 99.9% who aren't considered smart because we aren't rich yet, or at least born to those who are. In the last six years we have seen our pension funds plundered and our projected government benefits slashed. We have seen many Republican members of the federal and state legislatures devote their efforts to reducing the taxes on stock dividend, capital gains and inheritance income below the rate paid on wages. They have even threatened the income of M.D.s who spend their time practicing medicine instead of qualifying for management stock options. There is a certain core of right wing middle class wage-earners who identify with the rich even as they are robbed and lied to, but it looks like a some of them are waking up.

The Occupation only found some leaking 15-year-old poison gas bombs, not any useable WMD.

The Occupation could not allow actual freedom of the press or freedom of association because the Iraqi Arab anti-Occupation majority would vote them out. Even the parliament of pro-Occupation grifters had to be told which one of them was an acceptable prime minister for America's Iraq.

Now it is down to the last argument used to stay in Vietnam.

'Yes it is a mess, but if we leave it will be worse for our local allies (read Kuwait and Israel) and an even more a bloody mess than it is now. The terrorists will be emboldened to attack us at home!' Well, the bloody mess now is al-Qaeda growing larger in Iraq every year the Occupation stays, about 600,000 Iraqis killed and about 2,000,000 displaced, with a cost to America of over 3300 lives and $400 billion.

The dominoes falling is a fear tactic we have already heard.

It is a lie the second time, too.

George H. W. Bush made many pro-Vietnam War speeches, but probably not at home, since none of his four healthy sons volunteered to serve there. America lost in Vietnam not just because the non-conservatives didn't want to fight it: the conservatives in their tens of millions could have kept the war going if they thought it was worth it. But they avoided service in Vietnam too: the Bush brothers, Cheney, Bill O'Reilly, Limbaugh and millions more.

Nobody can win a tough fight by sending the most ignorant, desperate, legally compromised and socially inept to fight it for them. That is what the recruiters are resorting to now. 42 year olds. Paroled gang members. People who can't read English.

That isn't a way to win a war, just avoid losing it for a time.

Solidarity, hell.

Glenn and Salon do an excellent and valuable public service in exposing the Right's attempts to sell the public on the attitude that the

extreme authoritarian, militarist and classist policies of the last six years are the moderate, successful and moral course insead of the extreme and selfish fiascos that results analysis would indicate. For a while at least, the infusion of Japanese and Chinese credit makes things look better than they are. For now.

I can understand the right wing troll element whining over the exposure of Fox, The Politico and Washington Times, New York Sun et al as the efforts of right wing billionaires to move the Overton Window to a place where every opportunity and natural resource in the world is theirs to dispose. I believe to them only a monarchy licensing total commercial monopolies is extremely right wing; Pinochet would be an ideal of the moderate conservative.

Interesting choice of a name by 'Tiberius'. The second Roman emperor probably signed the actual death sentence of Jesus.

The stupid hand gesture in a posed photograph and forced '1776' joke are what you expect from someone never given enough incentive to grow up. At least we have gotten to the point that most Americans finally see his utter selfishness and feigned gravitas. He is a bigger disaster than Nixon.

Do any of these anti-Islamic alarmists protest the billions of dollars going to Lockheed, General Dynamics, Alliant Techsystems,

GM, Boeing or United Technologies in arms sales to Muslim nations? Do any of them go without a car to protest the money from the oil gulf flowing to al Qaeda every day? hell no. Hate sells, because it is based on self flattery and the justification of collective theft, and fear gets votes. 25 years ago it was the monolithic Communist conspiracy, someday it will be somebody else.

Or does your literary imagination get benumbed along with your professional standards when the editorial imperium asks you to use your journalist background to sling propaganda for the anti-Arab team?