"Elected" by daddy's club buddies...

Ignored evidence about the threat by Osama because they were too busy helping Enron pick California's pocket...

Lied and misled the world into war...

Spent every last penny of the next four generations lining the pockets of the racketeers who guard him...

No habeas corpus, secret detentions, kidnapping and torture with a wink and a smirk...

And all this with the tacit complicity of the majority of the American public, and the active support of the country's elites, and now they have to leave because they admitted to breaking the law?

I can imagine the crooked smirk on Cheney's face right now: "Says you and what army?"

How can anyone expect a more pointed line of inquiry from these Senators, when they are likely to have been the targets of this hidden surveillance? Each and every one of them has, at the least, unsavory aspects to their personal and political lives which are best kept from the public for the sake of their continued ability to collect contributions, and you can bet that Gonzales has the file on every one of them. They know he knows, he knows they know he knows, and so the shadow dance goes on. Truly backing him into a corner like any serious attempt to get between this Administration and it's desires is certainly political suicide and they know it, but it seems a secret kept from many Salon readers.

...to stand up forcefully to the bullies of superstition and misogyny? Now? Or not yet?

...to see the love his "conservative" fans have for him when he has to explain that the administration only wants to register their firearms "to protect us from the terrorists".

After all, they've trashed all the rest of the Bill of Rights...

Now that's funny...

Sorry, but I just couldn't agree less. More Americans and British troops armed to the teeth and isolated from the population would lead to even less stability, giving more Iraqis reason to attack each other and the troops. Civil war is tearing Iraq apart, just as it tore Lebanon apart, and most of the blame lies squarely with American greed, ignorance, and arrogance. Attempting to occupy any hostile country is bloody, murderous work, and this group has demonstrated a particular knack for doing it wrong. From lying to the troops about the length and terms of service, to deliberately cutting themselves off from any and every aid, to wilfully dismissing any understanding of Iraqi politics and culture, to confusing the power to destroy with the power to reform, and an unwillingness to face any facts that deviate from their wish list, it is impossible to think of a single thing that this regime has done right, and it is the people on the ground, mostly the weak and defenceless, but occasionally the soldiers, used and thrown away by their masters, who pay the price in blood and shame.

In fact, were it the case that the US net savings rate were even zero, the world would be a hell of a lot better off. The amount of outstanding debt owed to productive economies by the US through household, corporate, and government debt have expanded to the point where they can only be supported by borrowing more to pay the interest owed. Sales of treasury bonds are wholly consumed by the central banks of our "trading" partners, who so far have been content to return them to our "safekeeping" as the collateral for further borrowings to finance a lifestyle which is not only not available to the productive elements in their own countries, but really is no longer sustainable by the (once) industrialized West. That doesn't mean that their citizens are going to remain content with consuming one tenth the resources per capita that the wealthy do forever, or even much longer. What is missing from the conference, and nearly all accounts of the issues so far, is any kind of hope for avoiding economic disaster beyond the choices of sticking your fingers in your ears while singing loudly, and leaving it for the kids to deal with.

I printed out and sent every article to my brother, serving with the invasion forces. At the time, I remember thinking of it as the single light of unbiased, unem-"bedded" and realistic reporting to come over, as well as one of the few sets of reporting to add a solid context to the events on the ground. Back then, Salon did not provide this excellent means to communicate back, but now that it does, I wish to thank you Phillip for doing a job that needed doing then, and risking your neck.

Now, when the stakes are much greater, both for you personally, and the world, I thank you again; if anything, the rarity of honest reporting is only overtaken by it's danger. What you are doing is heroic, in the truest sense of the word.

It never ceases to amaze me how "defenders" of the State of Israel think that they can outsmart their backers among the American right-wing by having the most extreme Israelis push for the most outrageously destructive policies, and garnering support from the most destructive forces on the American political scene. If ever there was a match made in hell, this is it.

The current regime is looking out for their own interests, mostly trying to secure access to the Middle East's oil as always, and will defend their stranglehold on the source (and their ability to denominate it in dollars on the world market) to the last drop of Israeli blood, yet Israel finds itself more and more dependent upon just these swine. What blindness possesses otherwise rationally self-interested people to accept those like Cheney and Rumsfeld as allies? With friends like that...

I found this an interesting take on the subject:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=711997