GIs STILL BEING KILLED: U.S. army, in desperation, has basically handed over power in Fallujah region (& other regions) to the Saddamite guerillas. The intent, presumably, is to cut U.S. casualties before the election. But 3 marines were just killed in Sunni area.
SPACEWAR
It may turn out that by taking the pressure off the Sunni rebels, we have liberated them to redouble their guerilla mischief!
--------
We've been huffing & puffing about how we're determined to arrest or kill SADR, and to disband his militia. Now there's talk of a truce in Nahjaf: he'd withdraw his forces IF U.S. pulls back; he'll change his militia into a 'political organization' (no mention of its disarming!); his prosecution for alleged murder will be postponed until after election.

 
3.5 MILLION SVC.JOBS WILL BE OUTSOURCED OVERSEAS BY 2015, says Forrester Research. (They have UPPED their estimate for 2005 outsourcing, from almost 600,000 to over 800,000. In '03, only 300,000 jobs were lost here.) FORRESTER

What will reaction be of threatened IT professionals? Why should young people do the extra work of majoring in IT ? (Already the number is down.) Why not just sail through college majoring in Communications?

Till now, most IT workers have dreamed of being rich, so they have sided with GOP, the Party of the Wealthy. Will they wake up before November and side with the more humble workers in realizing that they are seen by their bosses as just as contemptible and dispensable as are the janitors?

 
SAUDIS CAN'T HELP BUSH: Even tho the Saudis say they're willing to go all-out now to increase their oil production, this won't lower U.S. gas-prices this summer, when Americans want to get in their SUVs and drive, drive, drive. ( 74% ofAMericans have said the increased gas-prices have harmed their families.)

The closer problem is the shortage of U.S. refining capacity to turn oil into car-gasolene. The refiners were 'caught short' by huge increase in gas-demand..or else they CHOSE to be 'caught short' to raise prices & profits.)FinTimes

In either case, many SUV-type people may turn against Bush this summer--and they might not forgive him in the Autumn. More hope for a regime-change !

 
RUSS WILL PULL OUT: A Russian company has been rebuilding Iraq's electric system. The Russ govt. called for all Russians to leave, but these workers said their electric system would collapse without them.

However, a bus with 2 of these workers was bombed; now all 234 of the remaining workers will pull out. So much for Bush's promise to reconstruct Iraq..we can't protect even the key workers in this enterprese. REUTERS

 
ARNOLD CAN'T CARRY CALIFORNIA FOR BUSH: Poll shows Kerry 55%, Bush only 40%. (Anti-Bush vote, not pro-kerry). CALIFORNIA

 
MORE DUMB ARROGANCE: Just as poor Brahimi was telling Iraqis (on our TV)how nearly sovereign the new regime would be, uncontrolled by U.S., some D.C. functionary told the press that the most likely Prime Minister would be Shahristani.
He'd be a good one--but now he will seem like another U.S. puppet. FinTimes
------------------
27May: Now the story is that Shahristani has TURNED DOWN the big job. He probably doesn't want his family endangered by the terrorists. (He may also decline to be just another U.S. puppet.) Shahristani was notable for saying sensibly that the interim govt--appointed, not elected--should not sign any long-term contracts. But now, interestingly, other countries WANT these contracts signed!

We have proposed a vague plan about the interim govt. China, Russia & France have proposed a 3-page amendment. One surprising part of their proposal is to say that the interim govt. should have the power to sign contracts ! [AssocPress27May]

It must be that these 3 countries feel confident that they can pressure the interim regime to sign contracts allowing CHINA,FRANCE, & RUSSIA to exploit Iraq's resources.
----------
THIRTY-FIVE DAYS till the much-touted TURNOVER, and we still don't have a man picked for the TOP JOB! (It's more and more obvious that he'll be picked by Brahimi as the puppet of AMericans, and will find it difficult to be accepted, say by Sunni guerillas, when he has to be Shiite.)

 
REMEMBER AFGHANISTAN? A 'many-party' committee of the House of Commons just returned from Afgh with a shocking but not surprising story.
NATO countries are not doing much to protect Aghans from warlords &Taliban (U.S. troops are mainly trying to nab Osama before November election!)

Pres. Kharzai (called the 'mayor of Kabul' because his writ doesn't run much further than that city ) is being pressured to hold elections soon, so Bush can point to 'Afgh.return to democracy' before Nov.

But only 1.5 million out of 10.5 million eligible voters have so far been registered.

The infrastructure is in ruins;the production of opium has skyrocketed; the country is falling into the control of drug-lords and resurgent Taliban. INDEPENDENT

 
RIGHT-WING, HAWK THINK-TANK in London, InternatlInst. of Strategic Studies, now says there is no doubt that our invasion has put us all in MORE DANGER from terrorists.

Rage at our stupidly brutal occupation tactics (with stories spread all over the world) has helped A.Q. recruit many new terrorists--18,000 the IISS calculates.

The IISS says it would take 500,000 allied troops, not just the 140,000 we have now, to pacify Iraq. INDEPENDENT

(500,000? Bloody likely! the present force is stretching U.S. army to the point of self-destruction. GUARDIAN )

 
IRAQI OBJECTIONS TO OUR UN RESOLUTION: Other countries have been polite in objecting to our proposal (except that Russia said bluntly that they'd never approve any such resolution till after our 'interim' govt. is named and everyone can see how it's working out.)

But 2 top Iraqis: the head of our puppet Council, and the man we appointed as 'Minister of Defense' have been more blunt: the President said the draft is 'disppointing' InternatlHeraldTribune.

And the Minister of Defense objected to the lack of a termination date for U.S. troops controlling Iraq--in months, not years, he says.

 
ONE TRICKY STEP: letter to R.MtnNews:
Your huge headline enthusing over Bush's speech read FIVE STEPS TO FREEDOM. One of those steps is 'helping Iraqis establish security'. This looks rather tricky, after our top General Myers told the Senate that, against the guerillas, 'we cannot win, militarily' in Iraq.

One is reminded of Voltaire's reaction when told by a gushing believer that St.Denis,newly beheaded, had thereupon walked one hundred steps, carrying his head, to the place he wanted to be buried.

Voltaire responded, "Forget the hundred..let's talk about that first step!"

 
SURE ENOUGH, with our airpower & tanks being used [indiscriminately, of course!] in the SUPER-HOLY-CITY of NAJAF, the most sacred Shiite shrine in the world got damaged significantly (by a rocket?). REUTERS

Now we'll see how Shiites all over the world (e.g., tens of millions in Iran) will react to this sacrilege.
-------
GOOD NEWS--Ayatollah Sistani's spokesman said publicly that SADR'S MEHDI deliberately shelled the shrine, counting on the U.S. being blamed. This accusation IF BELIEVED BY AVERAGE SHIITE, should discredit Sadr completely. We'll see. INDEPENDENT

 
"I HAVE A CUNNING PLAN ! " [statement from BLACK ADDER's dogsbody just before he outlined each goofy project]
The main point of Pres.Bush's speech was to show us that 'I have a plan' to extricate ourselves from swamp of our Iraq policy. One can't help remembering two other such pre-election 'plans'.

In 1952, Eisenhower ran for the Presidency saying he had a plan to exit from Korea, since we could not defeat the Chinese army there. His plan turned out to be a 'truce'. Result? Fifty years later, we still have 40,000 U.S. troops stationed there, in a region that has recently been described as 'the most dangerous place on earth."

In 1972, Nixon ran for reelection saying he 'had a plan' for exiting from the Vietnam quagmire. It turned out to be a lot like Bush's plan for Iraq: "We'll hand over power to our local puppets; we'll
'take off the training-wheels' and let the locals shift for themselves." (Of course the plan turned out to involve the collapse of our puppet regime, Vietnam falling to the Communists, and the shameless flight of our troops, leaving our friends hanging hopelessly from our helicopters as we bugged out. Kissinger is said to have
described privately the details of this plan: to maximize the time between when our last GIs left and the time when the first nuns were killed.)

The Bush campaign in Iraq has already failed; our top general Myers recently told the Senate that 'we could not win militarily in Iraq'--i.e., we cannot win. Will U.S. voters fall for still another
illusory 'plan'?

 
IRAQ POLL /by cooperation of media in U.S.,Germany, Japan: ABCNEWS

BACKGROUND: With Kurdish Sunni in de facto secession (Kurds still love us--partly because only 200 GIs are in their area!)--SHIITES outnumber SUNNI ARABS 2 to 1. /
Sunnis have run Iraq for centuries, with Shiites as despised subjects.

You'd think Shia would be very grateful for our invasion,which rescued them from murderous Saddam..yet...

"Invasion was wrong!" 63% of Sunni Arabs, FIFTY-ONE PERCENT OF SHIITES!
" Invasion humiliated us (vs. liberated)." Sunnies 66%./Shia 37%.
"We oppose U.S. presence." Sunnis 72% (Shia 54%!)
"OK to attack Americans!" Sunnis 36%, Shia 12% (85% of Shia say "Unacceptable.")
"GIs should leave now!" Sunnis 29% (53% say No.)/ Shia: yes 12%

Sunnis, Shia agree: want united Iraq..not an Islamic regime.
But, as Algerian Brahimi said, "Nobody wants civil war; countries slip into civil war."

Sunnis think "Best to have one strong leader for next 5 years!"
Half of Iraqis think life is better now, without Saddam.
[After one year of our 'helping', only half ??!]
---------
Remember: guerillas don't need a majority; to prosper, they need support of less than 1/3 of population.
(In U.S. Revolution, 1/3 supported Revolution, 1/3 supported the Brit King,
1/3 were fence-sitters.)

Now we can see why Gen.Myers said "We can't win, militarily." (How else could we 'win' ?)

 
LATEST BUSH-SHIT: The President's Monday speech basically said nothing new. He wants to establish a stable Iraq democracy (most Iraqis polled say there is not much chance of that!)

After he does that 'walk-on-water' (when he stumbles on dry land)--then he says that terrorists will be deprived of a base, and we will be more secure. [Or, when Iraq collapses into chaos, terrorists will GET a good base, and we will be ever-less secure--especially having enraged one billion Muslims even more by the disgusting 'prisoner' pictures--especially after spending $200 thousands of millions that could have been spent on grossly-underfunded homeland security.]

The post-1July regime will be CALLED 'sovereign' (by us--we'll see if UN is so tame they'll recognize this 'sovereignty'). Of course, because of our concern for security, our troops will stay in [quite defective] control--under a 4-star general now, not just a 3-star general.

He described great plans for setting up an Iraqi army, touching briefly on disastrous failures in that line so far.

Bush didn't comment on the recent remark by his top Chief-of-Staff, Gen.Myers: "We can't militarily lose in Iraq; but neither can we militarily WIN !" Myers could have just said WE CAN'T WIN.

One wonders if, for the last week or so, Bush's handlers have not let any bad news upset his pretty little head--so he could look optimistic while he read his script.

If he heard about how he's sinking in the polls.. Has he heard about Chalabi suckering our govt. out of $40 billion while working as an agent for our old enemy, Iran...?

 
BUSH LOSES MORE LEAVES. [ ABCNEWS ]

Now 47% approve of his overall jobperformance/ 50% DISAPPROVE.

58% disapprove of his handling of Iraq. 2 in 3 say we're 'bogged down' there. 6 in 10 say B. has no clear plan. Only 38% think we're moving toward a democratic Iraq govt.

Was war worth it? 48% yes, 50% NO.
"Did war enhance our safety, security?" 54% say yes, DOWN FROM 62%.

58% say STAY ON. 55% are optimistic about Iraq in next 12 months. (That could change before Nov.)


Interestingly, 57% disapprove of his handling of the prisoner-abuse scandal. (up from 35% earlier THIS MONTH.)

31% (UP 7%) are ANGRY over prisoner-scandals./ 60% still think torture was 'isolated abuse' (this could drop!) but 54% say the perpetrators were following orders.

---
58% trust Bush on 'security' (1st time below 60%).

Of INDEPENDENTS, only 40% approve B's work in Iraq.
His job appr. from MEN is down 8%. Among Conservatives, down 11%; among veterans' households, down 7%.

57% say B. doesn't understand problems of ordinary people.
--------------
More ordinary people are waking up. But Kerry's not doing well, still tied. Fewer Bush supporters say they're 'for Bush'; more than before say they're 'against Kerry'.

(Practically all Kerry supporters are 'against Bush!')
===========
CBS
POLL: FIFTY-TWO PERCENT NOW DISAPPROVE OF B'S OVERALL PERFORMANCE (41% approve).
SIXTY PERCENT say country is going in wrong direction.
If election were today, Kerry would get 49% to B's 41%.

But of course it's NOT today; all this good news should not make Kerry-supporters complacent.
Incumbent President, backed by over $200 million and the Pentagon, has all kinds of tricks he can pull before November. Kerry supporters should use this news to give them HOPE, to motivate them to devote time & treasure to this uniquely important election.

 
A NEW TRY AT EXPLOITATION? In the 1920s, the Brits took power in Iraq, after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. There were various uprisings, ruthlessly smashed by the conquerors (paying a high price in casualties among their own troops)--then the Brits came up with a clever plan for getting what they wanted even tho they had to bug out.

They found an unemployed king who was a descendent of Mohammed (he knew nothing about 'mespotamia',but was quickly tutored); the Brits held a fake election to name him King of Iraq--which worked to pacify the natives. [The realpolitic genius here was GERTRUDE BELL.]

Then the Brits got the League of Nations to recognize their pawn as the legit sovereign govt. of Iraq..then they had him sign a long-term contract awarding the country's oil to Brit corporations..the contract counted as valid, because the pawn-regime had been recognized internationally as 'sovereign'.
----------------
When the Yanks came in last year, they seem to have planned a similar coup. They set up their puppet 'Council', and this council signed various contracts giving away Iraqi assets to U.S.-favored corporations. But then someone noted that, under international law, contracts signed by a non-sovereign Council, while the country was occupied by a foreign country, did not bind future Iraq regimes.

Well! That means there has to be a pretense of handing over power to Iraqis on 1 July '04, so the new regime might be counted as sovereign, so the exploitative contracts IT signs will bind future Iraq regimes.
(Of course our army will still be running things--as the Brit army still ran things for a while under their pawn-king.)

And so, unsurprisingly, we read that U.S. & Brits have come up with a draft resolution for UN Security Council which will (a) recognize our new puppets--who haven't even been NAMED yet!--as the legitimate, sovereign govt. of Iraq (so its contracts will count as valid!)But of course
(b) the country will still be under the (fairly incompetent) thumb of the U.S. Army.
BloombergNews
----
DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THEN AND NOW:
--We have NOT come up with a unifying king (or indeed any other unifying figure)..There are still vigorous guerilla uprisings flourishing, in both Sunni and Shiite regions. The Iraqis have quit trying to export oil in the tumultuous North; and sabotage in the South has severely restricted oil exports. Indeed,our top general Myers has openly admitted to the Senate that 'WE CANNOT WIN MILITARILY." How else could we win?

--The Security Council is NOT our pawn as the League of Nations was pawn to Britain. The Russians and the French, especially, have no intention of handing over the resources-game to U.S. & Brits...not without compensating bribes.

--If the game is too obvious, the Iraqis (remembering the earlier Brit ploy) will make it obvious that the new regime is NOT accepted as legitimate sovereign by the Iraqis. They will see a compliant UN as pawns of U.S.--which they already tend to do. The Sunnis in SaudiArabia, Turkey, and Jordan-- the Shiites in Iran-- will all be watching suspiciously. And the Iraqi Kurds are a wild card.

--The haggling and the bargaining (and bargaining-failures) within and outside Iraq will be blackly humorous to watch.
---------
25May: XINHUAN NEWS :

Russia just sensibly insisted that no UN Sec.Council resolution should be passed UNTIL our new 'interim regime' has been formed and everyone can see how it's going to work. (Brits/U.S. are asking UN to approve of a new regime when nobody even knows yet WHO'S GOING TO BE INVOLVED!)
==========
One restraint on volunteers for the new regime is a feeling reported in polls by 7 in 10 Iraqis that their households would be endangered if one of them is perceived as working with America.

GOOD NEWS: a Shiite nuclear scientist named Shahristani is mentioned as a possible 'prime minister' (i.e., TOP HONCHO!) after 1 July. He's a close friend of Ayatollah Sistani--what's interesting is his view, in an oped in April,is that the interim regime should NOT do anything important other than to set up the election..that is, it should NOT sign contracts that would bind future Iraq regimes! That might mean that the U.S./Brits will try to veto him--
after all, what would be the point then of calling this obviously non-sovereign regime 'sovereign' ??!--but would they dare veto Brahimi's choice? If they do, the final 'prime minister' will have even less legitimacy than otherwise. WashingtonPost

 
ANOTHER BOMBSHELL!

BUSHIES RUTHLESS AND FOOLISH? Of course--but we didn't realize
HOW FOOLISH!
For years the Pentagon thinkers have backed the 'Shiite' exile CHALABI as basically, their candidate to take over Iraq & run it for us. [This in spite of the fact that he was convicted in absentia by Jordan for large-scale fraud.]

He brought forth many Iraqi 'defectors' who told the Bushies what they wanted to hear--that Saddam was on the edge of developing nukes and lethal germs, and so on--so he had to be toppled, at any price.

One of Chalabi's people produced a very sophisticated 'blueprint' of nuclear apparatus (supposedly a Saddamite document)--however, experts noticed that it seemed to be written originally in FARSI (language of Iran) and then translated into Arabic..but never mind!

(Remember that Iran has long been our archenemy, ever since they kidnapped our embassy staff; the Ayatollahs who run Iran have denounced America for years as The Great Satan..we honored them by naming them, along with North Korea and Saddam's Iraq, as the Axis of Evil. Recently we've been pushing the idea that they have nearly finished developing a nuke capacity--an idea that would legitimize a bombing strike on Iran by Israel.)

Back to Chalabi: during the last decade, we gave him $40 million; after our futile post-invasion search for WMDs, we should have realized he was 'disinforming' us all along. Still, we put him on our top (puppet) Council; and, until just last month, we've been adding $350,000 more to his pot each month.

Lately he has got pretty critical of our Bremerite regime and of our generals (the rat moving away from the sinking ship?). Then suddenly, we cut off his pension--and we just sent in our keystone Iraqi cops to raid his HQ, grabbing computers,etc. How did we fall so out of love?

A report just leaked from the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency tells an incredible story of clever Iranian plotting and--of course--stupid Bushie gullibility. All along, it is said, Chalabi has been an agent of the Iranian Ayatollahs!

(a) feeding us disinfo to lure us into attacking their old enemy Saddam,

AND (b) feeding them information about OUR plans ('above top-secret' info!--some secrets which may have endangered our troops.)

and (c) financing all this anti-American activity with OUR MONEY!

Gen.Myers, our top Chief-of-Staff, says that Chalabi's group had fed us some true and useful info. Well, of course! As Hamlet's friend Horatius pointed out, the devil sometimes tells truth to help convince us of his lies.
=======
For fuller story, click on this site: SeattleTimes

Also: LosAngelesTimes
[To access LATIMES, you must register with a site-pseudonym and password. No cost. In this case, it's worth the trouble!]

For another full analysis, click on MSNBC

Another analysis on www.Nypost.com, but I can't make a link work there.
=========
MORE DETAILS: 25MAY GUARDIAN
:
--Habib, Chalabi's henchman, was funded by Pentagon..today, he's on the run in Iraq.

--Defenders of Chalabi in Pentagon say this is CIA's revenge vs. neocons. But that doesn't show the story is false; presumably Cheney & Rice would punish CIA for falsely calling for FBI investigation into Pentagon neocons!

--A supertop secret piece of info from Natl.Secur.Agency, labelled "

 
ANTI-BUSH DOCUMENTARY WINS CANNES PRIZE: Michael Moore's FAHRENHEIT9/11 (exploring shady connections between the Bush family and Saudi oil sultans) won the top PALME D'OR medal at the Cannes film festival. Its appearance will be delayed by the Disney corporation's refusal to show it--but the closer to election the showing is, the more effect it will have.
-------------
Another influential movie--one that should draw attention to the Bushies' disgraceful record on environment-- is THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW. This scientifically inaccurate, but special-effects powerful, movie does show fairly accurately (according to a top Brit scientist) the shameless way politicians (especially Bushies!) ignore dangers of global warming.
-------------
The front section of DENVERPOST just ran (23May) a list of ONE HUNDRED people appointed by Bush to industry-regulating positions--ONE HUNDRED people who had previously been employees of or lobbyists for, the very industries they were now supposed to regulate! These are foxes guarding the foxes that threaten our environmental chickens.

And so it goes.

 
BUSH DRAGGING DOWN CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS? A recent poll said 50% of Americans want the Democrats to control Congress; only 41% want a Republican Congress. AssocPress

 
BUSH: 'JOB-ENGINE RUNNING STRONG'/but strong enough?
--In April, 288,000 new jobs showed up (down from March). Now we need 150,000 new jobs every month JUST TO ACCOMODATE NEW JOB-SEEKERS.
So April offered only 130,000 jobs to those unemployed now who have been seeking jobs for some time. And of the 308,000 jobs created in March, 233,000 were PART-TIME jobs. [DenvPost23May,p.25a] Presumably the April jobs also were mostly part-time.
--------
Most of those suffering from super-high job-losses under Bush are people who now HAVE jobs: "I'm over-worked & underpaid; my health-benefits are shrinking, my pension isn't safe. AND I DON'T DARE COMPLAIN--since many jobless people here and low-pay workers overseas would love to get my job!"

The 'misery index' won't improve until corporations feel enough pressure to hire & RETAIN workers that they quit treating their workers like dirt. That may not happen at all in the near future; it's very unlikely to happen before the Nov. elections!

Indeed, in spite of all the optimistic hype about 'the economy', 56% of Americans now disapprove of Bush's handling of THE ECONOMY!

 
"Militarily we can't lose [in Iraq]--but militarily WE CAN'T WIN !"
This bombshell was dropped at Senate hearings recently by TOP CHIEF-OF-STAFF Richard Myers. YahooNews

However, if you try to trace this astounding remark on NEWS.GOOGLE.COM, you'll find no references except to RICHARD REEVE (long-respected analyst)in YahooNews & several citations of mention of this comment by MAUREEN DOWD.

Except for these 2, our journalists seem DEAF to this LOUD bombshell.
----------
Wait a minute: searching for stories about 'richard myers' on news.google.com, on 23MAY, I did find (in a low position) another mention of this amazing concession, in an editorial by Lou Dobbs in US NEWS & WORLD REPORT(online)

Surprisingly, this rare mention of the comment was made in a prominent RIGHT-WING journal, U.S.NEWS&WORLD REPORT. (More to be expected: Dobbs' shocked comment that the money-costs of the war are now approaching TWO HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS. That's on top of the--far more than--ONE THOUSAND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS we shovel to the Pentagon EVERY DAY, just for ordinary (non-Iraq) expenses ! )

Dobbs pointed out that the prisoner-abuse-scandal makes certain that we can't win the conflict by winning the hearts-&-minds of Iraqis. So, if we can't win militarily, as Gen.Myers admits, how the hell CAN we win?

When Myers says we can't win & we can't lose, he's predicting a STALEMATE. This could go on for years, with dozens of GIs being killed, wounded or MAIMED each week. We had a stalemate in Korea, and finally Eisenhower arranged a truce with N.Korea..but this time there is no central Enemy Authority available to sign the truce!

Americans will very likely not stand for such a stalemate. Some Americans will suggest that we nuke Iraq and turn it into a parking lot--such suggestions were made regularly when it became clear we couldn't win in Vietnam. One hopes this won't happen; the alternative is to simply BUG OUT. Bush's reelection chances are shrinking--as are those of Republican Congressmen !(see 'poll' article above), as the election seems likely to be a 'referendum on Iraq'; all Kerry has to do is not to provide fodder for Bush's negative propaganda about him.

Dobbs says there has been only 'modest coverage' of Myers' concession in the U.S. media. This is a classic overstatement..there has been HARDLY ANY coverage !

 
REPUBLICAN SENATORS BALK: Four Senators refused to back the extravagant budget proposed by Bush & House of Reps. One was John McCain, an enormously popular pol. (He's a friend of John Kerry--both are real combat vets--and rumors keep circulating that he might serve as 'Unity' VP on Kerry's ticket!)

When Bush gave his peptalk in private, just to Republican legislators, NO QUESTIONS WERE PERMITTED ! INDEPENDENT

The contempt (perhaps deserved) which our Executive Branch shows for our supine legislature reminds one of the time, in ancient Rome, when the Emperor Caligula named his horse as a Senator.

 
NINE IN TEN Iraqis see us as occupiers (not liberators).
Our chosen foe SADR is now rocketing in popularity (as his foot-soldiers battle our tanks and planes in Karbala).

Bush hopes that the new honchos to take over 1 July will be chosen in the next 2 weeks. ECONOMIST


(A while ago, Brahimi said he'd have the names ready by 15 May--he said this was necessary to give the new honchos time to get ready to take over power by 1 July..Now they'll have only one month--OR LESS!-- to get ready!)

 
CAN SAUDIS HELP BUSH IN TIME? Saudi Arabia is willing to move to 'maximal pumping' to alleviate worldwide high oil prices.

The question is, will this new flood of oil help Bush counter rage of American voters over high gasolene prices, before November?

The major problem is that American oil corporations have deliberately shorted U.S. on gas-refining capacity (thus extracting enormous profits from poor SUV owners!) ..this capacity cannot be enlarged in the few months before November.

 
ANOTHER OF OUR IRAQI HONCHOS BOMBED: The home of another honcho was suicide-bombed, just as he was coming out the door. CNN


Obviously, the guerillas have good intelligence about the activities of our allies.

On the other hand, in spite of all our enthusiastic torturing of detainees, WE HAVE LOUSY INTELLIGENCE ABOUT GUERILLA ACTIVITIES!

We can't protect our top allies. No wonder so many Iraqis say they'd be safer if we bugged out!

 
AN INSPIRING STORY: Each day, I stand at some corner in Ft.Colllins, waving anti-Bush, anti-war signs at dozens of cars each day. (I don't hope to convert the blind heathen--but it does raise the morale of those already-enlightened. Often they thank me.)

Today my sign on one side read: BUSH'S UGLY WAR: WE'RE NOT WINNING. (Americans have few moral principles about foreigners; but they DON'T LIKE HUMILIATION.)
On the other side, the sign read BUSH & SHARON IN BED--SHARON'S ON TOP!
One young lady asked, "What does that mean?" (She'd never heard of Sharon.)

Most people are very friendly--more each week! But a few young males scream that a certain Commie they know should go fuck himself. So I was a little concerned when a young fellow came up on a bicycle--an Indian-looking Mexican. He stopped, even though his light was green.
He reached carefully into his shabby wallet, and with great ceremony, but without one word, handed me a dollar. I gave him earnest thanks, and he pedalled on, without a word.

I thought this was approval for my cause; but my wife suggested that perhaps he couldn't read English, and thought my sign said WILL WORK FOR FOOD. (One guy earlier yelled sarcastically, "Do you want money? food?" I responded, "I want Peace!") Mary also suggested that he might have been following Jesus' injunction to share with 'the LEAST of My brethren'.

If you behave unconventionally, you do meet interesting people.
I plan to frame that dollar--as a symbol of unusual human goodness.

 
ABORTION & WAR:
U.S. Catholic bishops threaten to refuse Holy Communion to Catholic pols who do not agree that abortion should be legally punished. [We should get clear: these pols may not favor abortion; it's just that they don't back legal punishments for abortion. Someone who does not back legal punishments for smoking is not necessarily one who favors smoking!] One bishop (of Colorado Springs, of course!) would even refuse Communion to Catholics who VOTE for pols who object to legally punishing abortion!

Defenders of these bishops are asked "Why the special importance given to abortion? Why not refuse Communion to those who support the goofy, bloody Iraq WAR? !" And these defenders have a glib answer: "Abortion is always wrong, is INTRINSICALLY wrong--whereas war is sometimes not wrong, so it is NOT INTRINSICALLY wrong." But this is to misinterpret the moral objections against abortion, and also the objections against war.
-----------------------ABORTION:
The Present Doctrine:
In the first place, Catholic women sometimes ARE allowed to abort the foetus when the uterus is cancerous. According to the famous Principle of Double Effect, the intent is to remove the cancerous uterus[the woman has a right to defend her body against cancer]. If the foetus could be saved, it would be saved--there is no intent to kill the foetus. So the principle must be this: "Any action directly aiming at killing the foetus must be counted as intrinsically wrong."

An Appropriate Extension:
However, an abortion, say to preserve the mother's sanity (e.g., the 12-year-old girl raped by her father)--such an [untypical] abortion need not be intended to kill the foetus; if, by a miracle, the foetus were preserved, the mother would not be frustrated; she just needs to have it removed. So removing the embryo is NOT always wrong; however, it it is ALWAYS TO BE PRESUMED WRONG (until it is justified by demonstrated necessity.) That doesn't mean that it's NOT INTRINSICALLY (and presumptively) WRONG to kill an innocent human--of course it is!...IF the embryo is counted as a full human.

Anti-abortionists say they needn't show that the fertilized egg IS a full human, only that it MIGHT BE; that means that, say the morning-after pill KNOWINGLY AND SYSTEMICALLY RISKS killing an innocent human, and counts thus as RECKLESS homicide, which again is INTRINSICALLY wrong. [Risking killing counts as reckless homicide unless it has been shown to be necessary, just as speeding through a school area, when this is not necessary, counts as reckless driving.]

--------------- WAR IN GENERAL:
War, like all homicide, is ALWAYS to be PRESUMED wrong. Of course killing an innocent human is INTRINSICALLY wrong, and war SYSTEMICALLY AND KNOWINGLY RISKS killing innocent humans--as RECKLESS HOMICIDE, therefore, war should be presumed to be INTRINSICALLY wrong.

In fact, all this is a tremendous understatement; modern war systemically risks (with practical certainty ! ) killing hundreds or thousands of innocent humans. War is RECKLESS HOMICIDE on a grand scale.

THIS WAR:
Catholic defenders of this war admit that Pope JohnPaulII has condemned our Iraq invasion in no uncertain terms; his envoy to Pres. Bush described the war as 'unjust, illegal, and distastrous."

"But" (these war-defenders say) "the last two points are matters of empirical OPINION only, and the Vatican could of course be wrong on such empirical points." [On the other hand, the Vatican, with intelligence agents in every country, is VERY KNOWLEDGEABLE about such matters of international affairs! One should think and think again before rejecting their 'merely empirical' warnings.]

These people discrediting the Vatican critique of the war seem to assume that critics of the war have the BURDEN OF PROOF to show the war is wrong. But that ignores the point made above, that risking the killing of innocents is ALWAYS TO BE PRESUMED wrong UNTIL it is demonstrated that this war was clearly (a) necessary to prevent an evil clearly worse than the homicide itself constitutes, and (b) likely to prevent this evil without causing any side-effect evils as bad as or worse than the evil to be prevented. It would be absurd to say,"Sure, I'll abstain from risking killing innocent people-- if you can show me why I should abstain!" /

It would also be absurd to say, "If we don't throw these virgins into the volcano, it will erupt--so this killing is NECESSARY!" [Killing the virgins is not LIKELY to prevent the volcano eruption!]

The burden of proof is on the DEFENDERS of the war. They are the ones who are claiming to understand the consequences of abstaining from war or going to war..understanding these likely consequences well enough to justify going to war.

The critic of war can say, "I don't clearly foresee such consequences, AND NEITHER DID YOU! NEITHER DID OUR RULERS (at the time of decision) ! So the decision to go to war was not properly justified. So the presumption still stands that this decision was wicked."
-----------------------
APPLYING THIS TEST:
Was it clear at the time of decision that the Iraq invasion was necessary (and likely) to prevent a worse evil than the invasion (& its predictable side-effects) constituted?

There was no good reason beforehand [aside from the clearly absurd faked evidence from Chalabi!] to suppose that Saddam posed a threat to other countries. No doubt he was doing harm to his own people; so also are the rulers of Sudan today, and so too is Mugabe of Zimbabwe, and many other rulers.

Our leaders should have foreseen [others did, including the knowledgeable Vatican!] the awful probable effects of our invasion:
--the slaughter of over 10,000 Iraqis--including many obviously-innocent children;

--our need to occupy the country afterwards, an occupation by people who DIDN'T EVEN SPEAK THE LANGUAGE!.. the predictable bungling of our occupation by the Bush loonies (including the destruction of law and order, the introduction of murderous anarchy, in Iraq);

--the predictable UNWINNABLE guerilla war against our occupation;

--the killing, wounding or maiming of over ten thousand GIs, plus the lethal psychological damage done to them; [over one in ten have had to be MEDICALLY EVACUATED.]

--our predictable bugout when the Bushies see that the war would lose them the '04 election;

--the predictable civil war between Kurds, Sunnis, and Shiites that will probably follow our bugout;
--and so on.
----------
It was NOT clear at all beforehand--as it had to be, to justify the war-decision--that the evil to be prevented (a continuation of Saddamite dictatorship) was worse than the direct and side-effect evils from our invasion. (Many 'hawks'--and decision-makers like Wolfowitz--have now admitted that they didn't foresee these effects, which were, however, clearly predictable.)

The presumption still stands that our invasion was wicked.
------------------------------------------------

And of course, justification must be given for EVERY DAY OF CONTINUING THE WAR.

Again, it would be absurd to say, "Sure, I'll STOP killing IF you can show me why I should!"

ATTEMPTS TO JUSTIFY WAR'S CONTINUATION:
We're told that the U.S. will be disgraced if we bug out. Well, we've been disgraced before (bugging out of Lebanon, Somalia, and Vietnam--and soon, Afghanistan) without noticeable harm to the world.

There is the danger of civil war when we bug out..but that danger is just as real if we keep our troops there--unless all the groups in Iraq were united, improbably, by their murderous hatred of our GIs.

It is quite probable that we WILL bug out; SO the sooner the better, the later the worse.
---------
In other words, the presumption stands that our continuing the war is pointless, and therefore wicked.
-------------
So the pols who defend our continuing in the war are defending a clearly wicked policy, a policy INTRINSICALLY wrong (in a sense analogous to the sense in which typical abortions, in Catholic doctrine, are intrinsically wrong)

These war-mongers are like pols who don't just oppose legal punishment for abortion, but actually favor abortion!

The bishops had better refuse Communion to the hawk pols AND TO THOSE UNREPENTANT CATHOLICS WHO HAVE VOTED OR WILL VOTE FOR THEM.


The good Catholics will have to reject most incumbents of BOTH parties; perhaps they'll have to write in Ralph Nader's name!
=========
My qualifications to speak on this subject: rank as Profesor Emeritus in Philosophy at ColoState U; 16 years of Catholic education, including 6 years of studying [as undergraduate] Thomistic philosophy; 8 years teaching in Catholic colleges, discussing these matters with Catholic academics; a PhD in social philosophy from U of Chicago.

However, these qualifications are not very relevant. What counts is the intrinsic worth of my arguments!

 
IRAQ OPINION: 6 months ago, 40% of Iraqis saw us as 'liberators;now only seven percent do !

In jan'04, less than 10% supported Sadr; now, after our big campaign against his 'thugs', 31% of Iraqis support him.

The Kurds are our strongest supporters; however, a Kurdish member of our puppet Council says that our occupation has been 'misguided from the start..we see a one-year accumulation of mistakes.."
REUTERS
=====
The longer we stay in Iraq, the more they come to hate us.
And it won't help to set up a transparently-puppet 'interim regime' on 1 July. Both Abizaid and Bush admit that the violence may INCREASE after 1 July. BRING 'EM HOME!
-------
This top Kurdish pol objects to the Brahimi/U.S. picking and designing the 'interim regime'. He says that should have been done by Iraqis.
REUTERS

 
FIFTY-FIVE % of Americans now say the war 'was NOT worth it', with only 41% disagreeing.

Kerry's aides say they're pretty sure Bush will announce before November a gradual pullout of our troops. FinTimes

 
VIOLENCE WORSE IN JULY? Some hawk optimists have conceded that insurgent attacks will increase till 1 July, because the guerillas think they must move now--after 1 July, they'd be attacking an Iraq regime.

But Gen.Abizaid told Congress that he suspects the attacks will increase AFTER 1 July, at least until the elections. And then?

NO informed observers think that even UN 'approval' will mean more foreign troops helping out in Iraq. That's why Abizaid says we may have to increase our troop-numbers. But won't that just increase the number of American clay pigeons?

 
BAD LUCK? OR DUMB RISK? TV viewers all over the world saw shots of the victims of our attack on a wedding[?] near Syria and simultaneously awful pictures of the children slaughtered or maimed by the Israelis in Gaza, the same day.

Not logically, but in terms of imagination, TV-watchers unite these two atrocities (all the more, because it was said that the gunship used by Israelis was provided by America!) This double-event helps to convince Muslims around the world that the 'West' is declaring war on 'Islam' ! "Moderate voices are heard less and less throughout the Muslim world."

The UN Security Council denounced the Israeli attack, and people are supposed to give us credit because for once we didn't veto the resolution--we just abstained. One doubts we'll get much credit for that.

Jordan and Morocco were 2 nations supposed to be quite friendly to U.S. Now the the share of these people who 'like' us is below 10%. In the year 2000, 2 in 3 Saudis felt confidence in America; now the number is less than 10%.

People knowledgeable about the area said they couldn't remember a time when we were less in control of events, or when America's standing in the region was lower.

A D.C. analyst said, "America is seen not just as Israel's ally, but as Israel's partner." This impression was not weakened when Bush hardly mentioned the Gaza slaughter in a speech to the U.S.pro-Israel lobby. [Knight-Ridder20May]

When Israel and U.S. constantly rely on gunships to manage insurgents, they deliberately risk provoking such outrage in the Muslim world--which outrage must delight Osama, as it helps him enormously to recruit terrorists worldwide.
-------
U.S. honchos said that evidence was found in the house attacked in Iraq showing that the place was an insurgent hideout. But Iraqis of course will believe that this evidence was planted by Americans. The rest of us, realizing that both sides lie regularly through their teeth,
will shrug, knowing that what counts is not what really happened, but what the Iraqis believe.
----------
TV EVIDENCE: Now it turns out the 'wedding-claimers' have a home-TV film showing the wedding. U.S. honchos say maybe the wedding was the day before--or else (admitting that several women were killed in the bombing), 'Bad guys have parties too." A surviving musician from the wedding band says the wedding was attacked. REUTERS

Perhaps the bad guys are better at forging evidence than our clumsy PR people. But that doesn't matter. Muslims around the world will surely now believe that we shelled another wedding.
==============
(We've been using gunships in the Shiite shrine towns, attacking--we hope--Sadr's militia. Local hospitals say that many obvious bystanders have showed up, with grisly wounds.

It's hard to believe all this is U.S. tactical stupidity. Our generals seem to be going out of their way to enrage the Shiites [a 75% majority, not counting the secessionist Kurds]. Perhaps that is to give our honchos an excuse for handing over power to Saddamite Sunni generals. This would be strategic stupidity.)

 
WORSE DISASTER THAN VIETNAM: John Gray, a distinguished professor at the LondonSchool ofEconomics,foresees an inevitable pullout from Iraq by the Bushies. He fears that this bugout will leave the world in much worse condition than before the invasion--mainly because of the new threats to stability--caused by the stimulus to terrorists from our invasion of Iraq--in Saudi Arabia.

If the world loses S.A., as well as Iraq,as reliable oil sources, the whole world will feel an immediate trauma. INDEPENDENT

 
MONDAY-AM QUARTERBACKING? It has been said that I am 2d-guessing professional generals without being on the scene and knowing the details.

However, when I hear that Brit officers in Iraq denounce their American counterparts as acting on the slogan "Kill, Kill,and Kill again!",[ see below ] then I feel less hesitation in criticizing these U.S. officers.

I remember the Viet war, when Gen. Westmoreland was lunging aggressively and losing; one observer commented on "Gen. Westmoreland's 'Thump 'em' strategy..if 'Thump 'em' can be called as strategy....! ":

There's little reason to think that the U.S. military is adept at occupying an alien nation.
-----------
WHOOPS! On 19 May, Iraqis celebrating a wedding made the mistake of firing rifles into the air. GIs showed up, then went away. Then a U.S. helicopter killed dozens and wounded many more.NETSCAPENEWS

We had a similar wedding-party WHOOPS in Afghanistan earlier.

In Vietnam, a cunning guerilla would sometimes fire at a U.S. helicopter from a crowd of innocent civilians, provoking a massacre by the helicopter--and freezing some more villagers in hatred against Americans, so they'd help the guerillas.

If U.S. officers were sensible, they'd ignore such trivial attacks (especially if they caused neither damage nor U.S. casualties!) But it's increasingly obvious that U.S. officers in Iraq/Afghanistan have lost what good sense they might have started with. They seem to be set in the 'kill, kill and kill again!' mode.
-------------
The Americans said they later found evidence at the bombed site of terrorist presence; the Iraqis will believe this evidence was planted by the Americans to cover their ghastly mistake. The issue is the almost-casual use of airpower (necessarily imprecise) by the Americans, in populated areas. We can expect that if civilians are killed, we will understandably be blamed.

The same day, the world saw horrific photos of Palestinian children killed and maimed by long-distance Israeli strikes with tanks and planes. And of course the Muslim world will tie these two atrocities together, linking us ever more firmly to Sharon.

 
RECONSTRUCTION SABOTAGED: When it's said that SECURITY is Iraq's main problem, that's understatement: SECURITY is the problem which must be 'solved' IF ANY OTHER PROBLEMS [e.g., water, sewage, electricity, transport] ARE TO BE ADDRESSED. And the Americans have proved absolutely incompetent in guaranteeing security.

For instance, one recent sabotage of a pipeline in the Shiite South has cut oil exports down almost to ONE-HALF! (They've quit even trying to export oil to Turkey in the North!)
THE ECONOMIST
----------
Powell said recently that the point of the 'power-transfer' is 'so that it no longer looks like an Occupation.' INDEPENDENT

Who will be fooled? But this much we can grant: it never has looked like a COMPETENT Occupation !
---------
NEWSWEEK says that the top Brit officers in Iraq are objecting to the American army's approach of 'kill, kill, and kill again!'--they object so strongly they no longer want to be under the American command!
INDEPENDENT

 
PURIFYING THE GENE POOL: A student at Carlton College in Canada fell off an eleventh-story balcony while engaging in a contest to see who could spit the furthest. This lad took a running start.

 
BUSY REPUBLICANS: The Colorado legislature was too busy to pass much important legislation; they're now talking about needing a Special Session this summer.

But they did find time to pass the 'Common-sense Consumption' law, which bars any lawsuits against fast-food corporations by people complaining that this junk food made them dangerously fat.

You'd think judges could dismiss silly lawsuits without needing such a law. But note that it's another way Republicans protect corporations against individuals. Why am I not surprised?

 
ASSASSINATION & POWER-TRANSFER: Bushies all shout that their plans for the 1July transfer [to SOMEONE !] are still on. But there is no doubt that sensible, prominent Iraqis will hesitate to volunteer for positions with such a short life-expectancy. (We obviously cannot protect even our top puppets.)

A while ago, Brahimi (the one who will nominally name the new (Shiite)PrimeMinister and [ceremonial,Sunni] President) said sensibly that he would have to name these guys by 15 May, so they have time to arrange to run the country by 1 July. That date has come and gone; 'short-list' rumors are circulating around Baghdad; but Brahimi's spokesman says that NO personnel decisions have yet been made. FinTimes

The infamous Chalabi denies that HE is running for office; but he does say that he expects an 'advisory council' for the new rulers to include members of our present puppet Council--guess who? He has been huffing and puffing that the interim regime must control the military AND THE OIL-MONEY ! (Neither is likely.) Anyway, even Rumsfeld seems to have finally turned against Chalabi, so it's unlikely HE'LL get much control over much money.

Some in D.C. are calling for elections to be moved up from January to the Autumn (to distract U.S. voters from the military fiasco.) Brahimi said earlier that it would be almost impossible to prepare for competent elections before January ! If he caves in on this issue, he'll be revealed as a complete puppet for the Bushies--a label he's already risking.

 
THE INFAMOUS CHALABI: A non-religious Shiite, hiding out in America for decades [years ago he was convicted in Jordan of a major fraud! ]--he pumped goofy Rumsfeld & buddies full of false stories about Saddam's Iraq (which stories they wanted to hear, to justify the invasion they had decided on anyway!)Rummie apparently planned to set up Chalabi to rule our NEW IRAQ.

It's long been obvious to everyone that his info was just false; so how have we penalized this self-promoting liar? We put him on our puppet Council...more amazing, we've been paying $340,000 each MONTH [ that's over FOUR MILLION DOLLARS FOR THE YEAR!] to his organization !

Now, finally, the Pentagon is deciding to cut this huge pension to the villain who helped lure us into this bloody fiasco. REUTERS

Note that so far the guerillas have not tried to kill Chalabi! He's too useful to them to illustrate vividly the COMPLETE PUPPET role of the Council.
---------
A Congressional report says we paid Chalabi's group THIRTY-THREE MILLION DOLLARS in the last year! REUTERS
-----
Lately, this particular rat has shown interest in moving away from our sinking ship. He's been denouncing the Bremerites. So,unsurprisingly, our puppet police just raided his home & offices, looking for evidence--of what?
On TV, he didn't look worried.

 
OUTSOURCING LEAPS UP ! Defenders of outsourcing tell us that the magnitude of the practice is small. BUT IT'S GROWING ! Last year, 315,000 U.S.jobs were wired overseas; this year it's 588,000; next year it's expected to involve 830,000 lost jobs.
InternatlHeraldTribune

A poll shows that 80% of Americans consider the unemployment rate 'very important' for deciding their vote.[USATODAY18May] This rate is certainly not likely to come down much before the end of June, when most voters make up their minds.

When only the bottom class is unemployed, that doesn't affect the vote much, because they don't usually vote. But angry middle-class workers whose job is lost or threatened (legal aides & sonogram-readers as well as computer workers)--they DO vote. And once unemployed they have time [as do the millions of retired people] to help the candidate of their choice.

The actually unemployed will still be a small portion of Americans. Kerry workers have to remind those who still have jobs that "I'm overworked and underpaid,with shrinking health benefits and unsafe pension. AND I DON'T DARE COMPLAIN! because I know that dozens of jobless people here and skilled people overseas would LOVE to take my job. Meanwhile gas and milk prices are skyrocketing."

 
BOMBSHELL STILL IGNORED BY MEDIA! If you go to news.google.com and search for 'richard myers' + senate + iraq -- you will get back various comments to the Senate of our topChiefOfStaff Gen.Myers; but you'll have a hell of a time finding one of his comments: "We can't militarily lose; but neither can we militarily win."
The prominent analyst Richard Reeves quoted Myers thusly in YahooNews

The only references in news.google to this astounding comment by our top general were to citations in various journals to a mention of the comment by Maureen Dowd.

Every journalist except Reeves & Dowd seems to have gone deaf.

 
SADR A SIGNIFICANT LEADER ! Rival Shiite leaders might dislike the bellicose-talkingSadr, and so of course do our generals--they're charging recklessly right into the Holy City of Najaf to nab him on an allegation of murder.

But how do ordinary Iraqis feel? 56% in Baghdad say they support him; 67% in Basra!

By the way, 80% of Iraqis oppose our occupation; 57% want our troops out immediately! [ OaklandTribune ]

It's getting pretty difficult to justify our staying on 'for the sake of the Iraqi people' !
---------
Of the 2 sacred shrines in Najaf, both have been damaged--also the offices of the revered Ayaltollah Sistani [!]in the battles between U.S. tanks and followers of Sadr.
-------------
U.S. actually called in AIR-STRIKES in the holy city of Karbala.
What can we say? [NYTIMES/18May]

The worry is that the inconclusive battles between these super-brave, lightly-armed men and massive U.S. tanks will glamorize the 'Mehdi' brigade. INDEPENDENT

Once again, U.S. tactics are backfiring. They never learn.
----------
SISTANI VS. SADR: Sistani called for both sides to pull out of the holy cities. He also called for his followers to demonstrate peacefully to this end. On the one hand, thousands did pour into the streets of Karbala to back his demands. On the other hand, they shouted anti-American slogans, not anti-Sadr slogans. WashTimes
-------------
IRANIANS MARCH: Tens of thousands of [Shiite] Iranians marched denouncing U.S. attacks on the Iraq holy cities. Petrol bombs were hurled at Brit Embassy (U.S. has no embassy in Teheran).
Top Iranian cleric denounced U.S. attacks as 'intolerable'; an Iranian said, "If he calls for a jihad, we march into Iraq!" REUTERS

 
SAUDIS CAN'T HELP BUSH THIS SUMMER! Bob Woodward said that Bush & Saudis were conspiring to lower gas-prices just before election.
They might have been TRYING for this--but it looks as if it will not work. Experts now say Saudis can't change U.S. oil-prices in near-future. FinTimes

U.S. Gas-Prices are already averaging over $2 per gallon--and they're expected to rise some more. Americans are planning their usual summer driving-orgy; owners of SUVs & light trucks [more trucks are now sold in Ft.COllins than cars!]will pay dearly for their travel.
One can only hope they'll blame Bush in November!

 
DANGER NOW FROM IRAQ GAS/GERMS !
The Bushies pretended pre-war to think that-
1) even after years of inspections--Saddam had enough WMDs (gas /germs) to threaten other countries. That claim was always implausible--but NOT a related claim.

2) Many (including myself) expected Saddam to have acquired ENOUGH gas/germs to PUNISH INVADERS--not much volume of weapons would be needed. (After all, he could hide such weapons from our air-attacks--indeed this was the ONLY way he could deter--or at least punish--an invasion of his helpless nation.) This second claim would not JUSTIFY an invasion; indeed, for any sane government, it would DETER such an invasion.

The Pentagon seemed to share this last worry with me; invading GIs were outfitted with cumbersome 'Spacesuits' which would protect them from gas or germs. However, once we had 'taken' Baghdad, when the punishing summer heat was coming on, the spacesuits were shucked. Then, millions of dollars were wasted by the Pentagon, failing to find large caches of WMDs.

These weapons are fearsome indeed. A tiny amount of anthrax spores, properly delivered, could wipe out a U.S. army bivouac (even in Kuwait)--but the disease is not contagious among humans, so the attack wouldn't much endanger surrounding Iraqis.

Sarin gas (or at least the horrible 'V-gas') can kill even soldiers wearing gas-masks.

For some reason, these invasion-punishing WMDs have not been encountered YET. However, on 17May an old shell was discovered in Baghdad containing the'binary' components of Sarin gas. (When these unite, the awful stuff is constituted.) A couple of GIs were 'slightly' poisoned by this gas.

This discovery reminds us of what COULD happen!

Another awful Iraq summer is approaching, during which the GIs simply CANNOT wear 'spacesuits'. Everyone agrees there are tons and tons of weapons of various sorts that are still hidden in Iraq, available to the guerillas. Perhaps these include some small (but lethal) volumes of gas/germs.

Putting these facts together, one wouldn't be surprised if the Italian government would pull out its troops quickly; even the Brits would hesitate to stay in. And the Bushies, it should be known, by keeping our troops there, are taking some real risk (however small) of having our present military fiasco turn into a real nightmare.
--------------
U.S. officials worry that the discovered bomb might be one of a few old ones left over--and that guerillas might learn how to use them more efficiently! THE STATE

 
HAWKS FEEBLY FLOPPING: An article in NYTIMES [see item below] lists many former defenders of Iraq invasion who now see the whole project was a mistake..rather, most of them defend the project they earlier endorsed, then condemn the Bushies for bungling it beyond much hope.
(More perceptive people would have foreseen that the Bushies were bound to bungle it; still more perceptive people would have foreseen--as some of us did--that ANY American administration was bound to bungle a wild lunge into a culture that even our elite did not understand.) )

Some of the hawks call themselves 'conservative'--now they finally perceive that such wild lunges are NOT conservative..the truth is that the U.S. right-wing is not conservative at all, but is quite radical and bold in venturing foolishly into new territory.
-----------
One widely-read hawk, Chas.Krauthammer,[ QuadCityTimes ] has backslid from his new pessimistic realism about our Iraq project. He asserts (without evidence) that the Shiite 'uprising' is fading--just when our own generals are beginning to take it more seriously.

Then he defends our handing Sunni areas over to Saddamite generals. "We decided that fully eradicating Sunni resistance is too costly in American lives...we have chosen an interim arrangement of local self-rule in the Sunni hotbeds.." In other words, we abdicated any attempt to control the key area of instability.

Today the guerillas assassinated the current president of our puppet Council ! (This is the second council member to be assassinated--showing Iraqis that we can't protect even our top puppets.)..in other words, the Saddamite guerillas won't STAY in the 'Sunni hotbeds'..we are handing over those areas to be staging and recruiting areas for 'terrorists'--the very situation our invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were supposed to prevent !

Krauthammer ends with a pious sermon: our final goal is to set up a decent, representative, 'democratizing' Iraq--[note: no longer are we pushing for a REALLY democratic Iraq!] Of course, if the new Iraq regime ends up truly representative (i.e., controlled by Shiites), it might NOT be, from our perspective, decent--e.g., it might crush women. But we won't care much about that.

K. says, with no evidence,and against the opinions of the experts, that this project remains doable. "What will make it undoable is the panic at home." Rather, the problem is our growing realization, as Gen.Myers has admitted, that we cannot 'win' this guerilla war without this proving 'too costly in American lives'[ and more importantly too costly in terms of Americans' continuing humiliation! ]

So we will hand over the whole country to whichever warriors can dominate it--just as we are handing over Afghanistan to let the warlords-druglords duke it out.

Given that we'll pull out sooner or later--the sooner the better, the later the worse. BRING 'EM HOME!

 
HAWKS' FEATHERS DROOP: A writer in NYTIMES notes how many classic hawks have in practice given up on the war--their line is that it was a great project, but the Bushies have fatally bungled it.
One old 'neocon' Krystal admits that conservatives generally have said the war is 'already lost or on the verge of being lost'--but he says stolidly that we CAN win and we MUST win.

He apparently hasn't heard that Gen.Myers told the Senate last Wed. that, while we militarily can't lose the war, we also militarily CAN'T WIN. (How the hell will we win it 'NON-militarily'..more Iraqis turn against us every week!)

 
THEOCRACY OK? After Bushies long denied that we would allow an 'Iran-type' Shiite theocracy to rule Iraq, Powell just said we'd allow any regime resulting from a fair election...i.e., some kind of Shiite govt.
2 Senators flew out the ballon that we should move elections from next January to this Autumn. (Bushies have despaired of pretending that the interim regime will count as sovereign.)
CHANNELNEWSASIA

On the other hand, who the hell is Powell?
---------------------
The best result would be a bargain between Shiite leaders and Saddamite leaders (in hiding).
The Shiites, to rule effectively, need an end to Saddamite guerilla activities and also they need the Sunni expertise in reviving the oil industry. Also they need to minimize interference from Sunni neighbors (e.g., SaudiArabia!) So some lip-service at least to 'minority rights' would be called for.

On the other hand, both groups want to crush the uppity Iraq women--a separate MAJORITY now in Iraq. Only the Kurds seem friendly to the women, and everyone just assumes the Kurds will get de fact autonomy, de facto secession (with how much of the oil? with how much interference from Turkey?)

 
INVASION DIVIDED OUR FRIENDS, UNITED OUR ENEMIES. Howard Fineman, in NEWSWEEK ,says that Osama binLaden is the big winner from our invasion.

Especially, Osama could not have prayed for a bigger break than the pictures of Muslim prisoner-abuse by infidel invaders..these pictures flashed all over the world, helping alQaeda hugely in recruiting extra terrorists (from among one billion Muslims) to attack America.

Fineman also points out that a chaotic Iraq, resulting from our invasion, will substitute for chaotic Afghanistan as training ground for terrorists. [Actually, we're leaving Afghanistan also chaotic, suitable for terrorist-training.] He also notes that we intended to secure Iraq oil for ourselves; we ended up endangering the vital oil-production of Saudi Arabia!

Fineman thinks the terrorists will launch another big attack on America before the election. He thinks the result is unknown; Lyons feels pretty sure that it will make voters lurch further to the right, and get Bush re-elected.

That will suit binLaden fine; nobody has helped the alQaeda cause more than George W. Bush!

 
DUMB? OR JUST CORRUPT? For years, right-wingers have bragged about how Pres.Reagan cleverly jacked up our military spending, and thus provoked the Soviet into spending themselves, in military response, into oblivion. It was then obvious that most of this new Soviet spending would be on nuclear weapons, which would deliver 'the best bang for a buck'.

Now we hear that the uranium/plutonium left over in former Soviet regions is enough to make 40,000 nuclear weapons and any number of 'dirty bombs', and that gangster chains are able and willing to sell this stuff to terrorists and other bad guys. [PARADE16MAY]

One would say the Reaganites were dumb not to foresee these unintended consequences of their idealistic program--if we didn't feel sure that the actual motivation for the staggering Reganite military expenditures was the customary desire to subsidize their weapons-maker supporters.

 
LEAVE OR NOT? Bremer & Powell both said we'd pull out our troops if the new Iraqi regime asked us to. Then a minor State Dept. functionary said this interim regime would NOT have authority to demand this, and Pres. Bush said we would stay on. Don't bring on the clowns; they're already here.

 
BUSHIES' REAL GOALS IN IRAQ? A Mideast expert suggests these were the real goals of our invasion:
1)We wanted a long-term strategic base in MidEast;

2) We wanted real influence over Iraq oil policy;

3) We wanted unrestricted access for foreign investment (vs. traditional Iraq suspicion of foreign investors);

4) We wanted a new Iraq to side with us and Sharon !

The expert is Ray Close, former CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia, for 27 years an 'Arabist' for CIA.

But could he be right that Bushies were nutty enough to dream of implementing these goals? GUARDIAN

 
SAUDI RULERS' COLLABORATION WITH ALQAEDA?
In the recent attack on Westerners in Riadh,there was some evidence that the 'Royal Guards' were actually helping the attackers! INDEPENDENT

 
MYERS BOMBSHELL STILL LITTLE NOTICED: Our top ChiefOfStaff, Gen.Richard Myers, last Wed. told Senate "We can't militarily lose Iraq war--NOR CAN WE MILITARILY WIN IT!" [RichardReeves column in YAHOO NEWS]
This astounding announcement was also mentioned by Maureen Dowd.
But otherwise, it has been ignored by the media--even overseas! (Try to find a reference to it on News.google.com !)

CAn this happen? Congress will approve $75 thousands of millions more to pay for continuing this stalemate? Americans (who don't like NOT WINNING!)will stand for months/years of humiliating stalemate, for dozens of killed,wounded, maimed GIs every week for months/years..all for a STALEMATE? !!

 
SUNNIS SAY 'PULL OUT!" A SUNNI group just called on U.S. to 'abandon military solution' and pull troops out of Holy Cities of Karbala & Najaf.
(They probably don't want the average Shiites roused to battle.)
But U.S. has moved TANKS into holy cemetary. IOL
------------------
KUWAITIS DENOUNCE U.S BATTLING IN NAJAF: Kuwait govt is our strongest ally in the region; but 1 in 3 Kuwaitis are Shiites. An umbrella group of Kuwaiti-Shiite 'bishops'have denounced our military plunge into the Holy City of Najaf (the super-sacred shrine has already been damaged!)

But the clerics also called on Sadr's militia to pull out--and presumably they have more influence over them than over U.S. army! TehranTimes
----------
TANKS MOVED INTO NAJAF! Shia were appalled by the increased risks both to the sacred shrine, and even to the life of Ayatollah Sistani. One reporter said the U.S. move into Najaf would likely increase anti-Yank opposition.
GUARDIAN
----------
Sure enough, even our generals now admit that Sadr's forces constitute a 'small uprising'--presumably,not just a rag-tag of malcontents.

As feared, Shiites are beginning to dismiss cautious Sistani as helpless against the hated Americans; they are turning to be loyal to Sadr. BostonGlobe

 
WITHERING SHRUB: A new NEWSWEEK poll:
"Generally approve B's performance?"down from 49% last month to FORTY-TWO % (G.Ford lost reelection with 47% in preelection May.)

"B's Iraq perf. ok?" Yes: down from 44% to 35%.

"Want B reelected?" down from 46% to 41%.

"Did higherups OK the prisoner abuse?" YES 45%.
------------
BUT: Bush in statistical tie with Kerry.

& 57% say we can achieve our goals in Iraq; we should keep troops in.
BLOOMBERG

(People haven't been told that ChiefOfStaff Myers told Senate last Wed:
"We can't militarily lose..and we can't militarily win..Stalemate!" Americans won't long accept stalemate involving dozens of GI casualties--dead, wounded or maimed--each week!)
---------------------
NEW ZOGBY POLL:

Kerry now runs ahead of Bush ! 50% to 43%

"Is Bush handling Iraq well?" 2 in 3 say NO; only 1 in 3 say yes.

"Is country going in wrong direction?" 54% say YES.
FinTimes

 
BISHOP'S EDICT: Bishop Michael Sheridan [Coloradoan15May] refuses Holy
Communion to Catholics who vote for certain politicians: they are to oppose, not just pols who actively favor abortion, euthanasia, or gaymarriage--but also pols who merely reject legal punishments for these activities.

We can be grateful for Bishop Sheridan, who illustrates vividly just how far off the rails U.S. bishops have gone. Many of them were loathe to discipline priestly pederasts (two lay commissioners investigating this scandal have resigned in protest over the lack of cooperation from many bishops! One, a Catholic appointed by the bishops, compares some bishops to the MAFIA! )

Bishops let child-abusers say Mass; but now this bishop will refuse Communion to lay Catholics who vote a certain way!

Most people don't realize how odd is the official Catholic position
about abortion. If I killed a baby, that would be an awful mortal sin
[Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2268,2269]. However, if I helped
flush out a fertilized egg, that unique sin would get me excommunicated! [Catechism... # 2272 ].

Moral teachers can be assessed by asking which areas of conduct they
emphasize. You'd think Christians would emphasize peace, and helping the poor. Instead, these tall-hatted gentlemen rail against flushing out fertilized eggs, stopping wretched cancer-victims from ending their hopeless lives, and sealing an authentic love-relationship with a marriage ceremony. Jesus never thought any of these these activities important enough to mention as sins.

One fascinating point: Jesus thought one issue so important that he did not hesitate to contradict Moses (!): forbidding remarriage after divorce.[Matthew, ch.19 ] Yet U.S. politicians do NOT vote to punish legally those who commit such wrongs; and U.S. bishops are silent about such politicians' negligence. Instead, as one priest noted, they themselves 'give out annulments like candy bars'.

Jesus was no moral softie: He uttered one of the most awful curses in
history: "Depart from Me, ye cursed--into the everlasting fires prepared before the beginning of the world for the devil and his angels.." What kind of sinners were cursed so dramatically by the gentle Jesus? NOT aborters, not suicides, not gay lovers--not even murderers, traitors, or idolaters! Rather, Jesus imposed this curse because "I was hungry and
YOU REFUSED ME FOOD.."etc. "As long as you refused it to the least of my brothers, you refused it to ME." [Matthew25/41-46 ]

These gorgeously robed clerics have come a long distance away from that
plain MiddleEastern Moralist.

 
"WHAT do YOU have at stake in Iraq?" /If we have to bug out quickly, as now seems quite possible--Gen.Myers just admitted to the Senate that "militarily, we CAN'T WIN THERE!"-- Bushies will lose credibility about their 'empire', about the NewAmericanCentury.
And they'll probably get diselected. That's all for the good.

By bugging out, we couldn't lose much reputation around the world, because Bushies have left us so little reputation anyway. Perhaps we'd be despised a little more to match the hate these loonies have provoked for us around the world. But the average American doesn't much care about all that.

Your heart might bleed for Iraqis without us to keep them from each other's throats, in civil war.
But 80% of them disapprove of the job we're doing there now; perhaps they wouldn't be much worse off. (About half of them think it's OK to attack GIS sometimes or always;only one in four say this would be ALWAYS wrong.) In any case, typical Americans will forget quickly about Iraq , just as they've forgotten about our wretched client Afghanistan or our earlier victim Vietnam.

Bushies plan to spend $5 thousand millions each month on Iraq military expenses, from now on through at least 2005: about $75 thousand millions more than we have spent already. If we gave $30 billion to Iraqis to help them repair our destruction [we probably won't!] that would leave $45 thousand millions that could go to all kinds of good causes here--education or health. But that money WOULDN'T go to those purposes, because the average voter isn''t bright enough to insist on it.

But he MIGHT have sense enough to insist that the $45 thousand millions extra would go to patch up the gaping holes in our Homeland Defense against terrorists!
-------
The typical American might be a little safer if continued war didn't stir up EXTRA hatred for us among one billion Muslims scattered all over the earth. They won't like us anyway for decades (or centuries?) But an increased DEGREE of hatred counts..moving more Muslims from abstract dislike to active support of terrorists, or even from active support to actual volunteering as terrorists.
-----------
You wouldn't have to hear every day about how many GIs were killed that day (and far more wounded or maimed--which you can infer but don't hear about!) Typical Americans would not face new daily humiliations as our 'superpower' is frustrated in new ways every day.
===========
These are GAINS for typical Americans from bugging out--what would they lose? Not the chance for cheap gas!.thanks to the war's rousing of new terrorists, not even SaudiArabian oil-supplies are secure now--let alone Iraq's!

Let's hope that as these considerable gains and negligible losses from 'bugging out' sink home with typical Americans, we will indeed bug out--the sooner the better, the later the worse.

 
BOMBSHELL WIDELY IGNORED:
TopChiefofStaff Gen.Myers told Senate Wed. that we can't lose militarily against the guerillas BUT WE CAN'T WIN EITHER. [MaureenDowd,RMTNNEWS14MAY/also inNYT?] The only other reference to this bombshell story I could find on news.google was on [F2Network]
==========
FOUR IN FIVE IRAQIS DISAPPROVE OF U.S. PRESENCE. SeattleTimes
============
NEW POLL RELEASED 14 MAY:[CNN /TIME]

KERRY NOW AHEAD BY 51%(46%bUSH)--If Nader also:K49%,B44%,Nader 6%.

"Approve of B's performance generally?" 49% NO/46% yes.

"Was it right to go to war?" 48% Yes (but down from 53% last month.)
"Is war 'worth it'?" 56% NO.

27% say the prisoner-scandal made them 'less supportive' of war.

'B doing good job in Iraq?" 55% NO /39% yes.

41% say we're NOT winning now; but 65% say we CAN win, and 52% say we WILL win.
[But see Gen.Myers' opinion above!]


"Who would handle Iraq better?": K46%, B42%

STARTLING CHANGE: "Is B.doing good job on terror?" 47% NO, 46% yes.

Generic question on probable Congress vote: Dems 13 points ahead.

"Is Bush trustworthy as leader?" 39%, down from 44% in early Feb.!
--------------------------
EARLIER POLLS: [NYTIMES,14May]
Gallup & Pew polls at beginning of May (before beheading--victim's father blames Bush !]:

'Bush handling Iraq well?" 58% NO/ 41% yes.

"Was war 'worth it'?" 54% NO/ 44% yes.

'Things going well for U.S.?" 61% NO/ 33% yes.

"Approve generally of Bush's performance?"
--Gallup: 51% NO /46% yes
--PEW: 48% NO /44% yes.
==========
U.S. RISKS SACRILEGE in top Shiite Holy City of Najaf: operating with shells and tanks, U.S. army knowingly risks damage to the most sacred shrine in the world for Shiite Muslims, in and out of Iraq. usatoday

THE SACRED SHRINE WAS ACTUALLY HIT by machine-gun bullets--whose? is not clear. But it is clear that U.S. took risk entering Najaf ..Sistani said earlier that this entry would cross a 'red line'; what will he say now? what will reaction be of World's Shiites? INDEPENDENT

U.S.honchos say they're out to disband Sadr's militia; but such a sacrilege would enlist millions more Shiites, in & out of Iraq, to augment guerilla & terrorist forces now fighting against us. NYTIMES14MAY

Pretty stupid--or else our generals may have a tacit license from other Shiite leaders rival to Mr.Sadr [e.g., Sistani] to take these risks. But will ordinary Shiites (in & out of Iraq) follow their accomodating leaders in tolerating such sacrilege?
Or will average Shiites turn instead to follow Sadr (or his successors), who will likely howl with rage against the infidel invaders defiling the Holy City?
==============

NEUHARTH'S RECANTING
It was refreshing to see Al Neuharth[founder of USATODAY] finally joining the other former hawks in seeing that we must withdraw our troops soon from Iraq. [USTODAY14may]

However, Neuharth still gives Pres. Bush too much credit when he says Bush 'bravely' took on a necessary fight against terrorists..presumably in Afghanistan. How was this attack a sign of Bush's bravery? he never missed a single cocktail-hour.

And our air-force bombed the rubble of a helpless nation--from a safe distance. After breakfast in Kansas or Missouri, pilots climbed into their B-52s, sailed to drop tons of explosive on Afghanistan with absolutely no danger to themselves, then sailed back to America for supper and games with their kids. This may or may not have been immoral-- but it was very, very far from brave.
-------------
WILL WE BUG OUT? Bremer now says we would pull troops out if interim govt.(after 1 July) asks us to.

Bushies have contradicted themselves AGAIN AND AGAIN on this issue.
Sometimes they way an earlier UN resolution authorizes them to keep troops in Iraq EVEN AGAINST IRAQIS' WILL! Sometimes they say that the decision of the post-election regime will decide this.

 
MURDER? WHO SAYS SO?
Mr.L.Ruane(RMtnNews14May) says that Catholics are not 'imposing their beliefs on others' in demanding that abortion be punished--because these Catholics see this practice as MURDER.

Well, animal rights people see eating hamburgers as involving MURDER. And while Catholics pay only hyper-reverence to the Virgin Mary, they literally and explicitly ADORE the bread after it is consecrated at Mass.Ceremonies of ADORATION OF THE BLESSED SACRAMENT mean adoring Jesus who's now there in the place where it looks like bread is.

Most Protestants would see this practice as IDOLATRY--a form of wickedness that justified prophets overturning altars in the Old Testament.

It's not enough to say that Catholics see flushing out a fertilized egg as murder; demanding its punishment is still imposing your private religious view--how your religion SEES this custom--on a secular society.

(By the way, though a few 'vigilantes' have imposed capital punishment on abortionists, I haven't heard of any bishops proposing life-without-parole even for cold-blooded, premeditated killing of fertilized eggs. Their 'murder' chatter is not really serious.)

 
FRANCE,RUSSIA WON'T ROLL OVER: Bushies dream that they can pretend to hand over sovereignty in Iraq on 1 July (with official UN approval), while keeping the land under complete control of our army.

Now France & Russia (who can block any Security Council resolution) say they will insist on REAL Iraqi sovereignty. FinTimes
---------
Now Powell & Bremer say we WOULD pull out our troops IF new Iraqi regime insanely requested this, even though we're authorized to stay [they say] by old UN resolutions.
But some generals say we wouldn't leave until ELECTED Iraq govt. told us to go.
SeattleTimes

What's at stake here? If we don't concede Iraqi control over military after 1 July, then France, Russia and Italy won't count the interim regime as LEGITIMATE SOVEREIGN--so no contracts will be valid which they sign letting Western powers exploit Iraq assets.

 
WOMEN WORSE OFF? Under Saddam's secular regime, Iraqi women were no worse off than the men. They could work with men, pray with men, even swim with men.

Now Shiite 'irregulars' are forcing woman students to be veiled--also, they're pressuring universities (with death-threats) to segregate the women--assuring that they'll get inferior educations.FinTimes

A few women were raped by Saddam's sons; now,under the chaos of U.S. regime,' everyone is raping!' Because so many men have been killed, well over 50% of Iraqis are women.

Will over half the Iraqis end up worse off under us than before?

 
ANTI-MISSILE BULLSHIT: A prestigious scientific agency has confirmed what common-sense has said all along--that the long-standing Republican project to shoot down attacking missiles is still pure nonsense, as it has been all along.

--They pretend now to be able to down only NORTH KOREAN missiles..But N.Korea has only a few missiles, and would be insane to attack the U.S. first. (Of course, if WE attacked first--as the Pentagon wants to do so bad it can taste it--N.K. might try to harm us in retaliation.

But they wouldn't likely try to use intercontinental missiles, when they have so many other ways to convey nukes to our shores..e.g., uninspected ship-containers (thousands enter our ports every day!) or short-range missiles fired from cargo-ships in midocean.

--Balloons painted like missiles could outwit our new systems, on which we're to spend FIFTY BILLION more over the next five years--on top of the tens of billions already poured down that rat-hole.
[The agency worried that the Bushies might believe their own propaganda, and feel safe attacking N.K. first.]
REUTERS
--------------
Meanwhile the Bushies refuse to spend the money needed for sensible anti-terrorist defenses: e.g., settting up adequate diagnostic facilities in our country's poor regions, where sensible terrorists would likely first launch a germ-war attack.

 
HOW MUCH SECURITY do U.S. troops provide?
After the beheading of Berg, worry is that civilian contractors will flee. Little reconstruction is now visible. Electric power is available only 12 hrs.per day in Baghdad; there is no visible road-building;the sewer system is collapsing.

Russia has advised its civilians to get out--but they say if they do, the electrical system will collapse.

50 civilians have been kidnapped since end of March. Bechtel hires 2 guards for every worker. Haliburton has had 34 killed.

There's still plenty of competition for very lucrative contracts--but it's harder to get people to sign medium-range or long-range contracts--and they're necessary to build and maintain infrastructure.
INDEPENDENT

The firms who get the contracts may be noted more for their workers' bravery (or foolhardiness) than for their competence.

Of course this guerilla activity is harming Iraq more than America; that's not the issue. The issue is how much security would Iraqis lose if U.S. pulled troops out?
----------
The current President of our Council just got blown up (17Aug) right near the front gate of the GreenZone, where our Bremerites cower.
This is the SECOND Council member whom the guerillas have managed to kill. Iraqis are bound to think, "The Yanks can't even protect their own TOP PUPPETS!" No wonder around half of Iraqis think they'd be SAFER after we got out.

 
COMPETING FOR SCARCE OIL: The world price of crude oil dropped for a day or so after Saudis called for increased production--[from themselves, since the other OPEC countries are already producing the maximum possible--and Iraq oil looks unobtainable for the near future.]

But then the price surged up again, as speculators realized that the world demand for oil is increasing faster than any supply could increase. FinTimes

Bob Woodward, super-respected journalist, said in his book that Bushies & Saudis had agreed to lower gas-prices just before election..but that doesn't mean they CAN !

SUV owners must be burning with rage as their big toys really cost plenty now--one hears the gas alone costs them 10 cents a mile. And there's evidence that part of the problem, as usual, is from gauging by U.S. energy corporations.

There's good reason to think these SUV owners (traditional Bush-backers, of course) will blame Bush for the crimp in their summer car-travel plans. That might damage his campaign more than any scandals or failure-news from Iraq .

World Oil futures have stayed about $41-per-barrel for 3 days now! It looks as if gas will stay expensive right thru November--unless U.S. oil companies lower price artificially just before the election. Would this ploy work?
--------
You'd think these SUV people would figure ways to use less gas--e.g., motor pools.
Instead, despite sky-high prices, U.S. gas demand for 1st 4 months was 3.3% higher than same time last year. (Similarly, higher prices for heroin don't always cut demand,either.)
NYTIMES

One sign of sanity; sales of new SUVs are sagging. But the nincompoops will keep buying USED SUVs. Recently I heard a slob say, "I don't like little cars; I'm an SUV KIND OF GUY!"