BUSH INFURIATED BY LEAK OF TOP SECRET INTELLIGENCE REPORT ON TERRORISM

IRAQ WAR DECLARED TO BE NUMBER ONE RECRUITER OF TERRORISTS

Bush and the NeoCons were warned, repeatedly, before the War On Iraq began that attacking and killing Muslims would turn Muslims in other nations against them, and would lead to further, greater acts of terrorism.

The War On Terror creates more terrorism. It's a simple, easily proved paradigm. But BushCo. have worked hard to keep this reality out of the mainstream media and out of the minds of as many Americans as possible.

The fact that such an explosive, and classified, report has been leaked shows that the US intelligence agencies are waging their own quiet low-boil war against BushCo., if only to get the truth out to the American public.

From the Washington Times :

An angry President Bush said yesterday that a secret terrorism assessment had been leaked for "political purposes" and disputed that the classified report had concluded the Iraq war is spreading Islamic extremism across the world.

The four-page section declassified yesterday calls the Iraq war a "cause celebre" for Islamic terrorists and says that despite U.S. troops' wreaking serious damage on al Qaeda leadership, the number of terrorists is spreading in number and geographic dispersion.

"If this trend continues, threats to U.S. interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide," the document says. "The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups."

Although the report -- completed in April and based on data collected through February -- states that the "global jihadist movement is decentralized, lacks a coherent global strategy and is becoming more diffuse," the document also says that new jihadist networks are increasingly likely to emerge and that they will be harder to track or infiltrate.

But at the White House, the president called critics who say the Iraq war was a mistake "naive."
"I think it's a mistake for people to believe that going on the offense against people that want to do harm to the American people makes us less safe," he said.

He also took issue with the conclusion that the Iraq war is responsible for creating new terrorists, saying that those who "see a rosier scenario with fewer extremists joining the radical movement" if not for the Iraq war are ignoring 20 years of history.

"We weren't in Iraq when we got attacked on September 11. We weren't in Iraq when thousands of fighters were trained in terror camps," Mr. Bush said. "We weren't in Iraq when they first attacked the World Trade Center in 1993. We weren't in Iraq when they bombed the Cole. We weren't in Iraq when they blew up our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania."

"We'll stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq, somebody trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy," Mr. Bush said. "Then everybody can draw their own conclusions about what the report says."

Although the redacted report had several bleak assertions, it also said:

•"Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight."

•"The underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the" next five years.

•A newly increased role of Iraqis in fighting al Qaeda could lead the terror group's veteran foreign fighters to focus their efforts outside the country.

•Iran and Syria are the most active state sponsors of terror, but many other countries will be unable to prevent their resources from being exploited by terrorists.

•Four underlying factors are fueling the spread of the jihadist movement -- entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation, and a sense of powerlessness; the Iraq war; the slow pace of real and sustained economic, social, and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations; and pervasive anti-U.S. sentiment among most Muslims.

"Exposing the religious and political straitjacket that is implied by the jihadists' propaganda would help to divide them from the audiences they seek to persuade," the report says.

From Time Magazine :

The report warns that the Iraq "jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives," and adds that fighters with experience in Iraq "are a potential source of leadership for jihadists." Its forecast about terrorism is stark: Current trends will mean "increasing attacks worldwide" over the next five years. The global terrorist network is "becoming more diffuse," and new cells "are increasingly likely to emerge" and will be "harder to find and undermine."

From the UK Guardian :

George Bush yesterday suffered a blow to his argument that the removal of Saddam Hussein had made Americans safer after he ordered the release of an intelligence report warning the war in Iraq had become a "cause celebre for jihadists".

Mr Bush's decision to declassify a small portion of a leaked National Intelligence Estimate, six weeks before the midterm elections, was seen as an attempt to get in front of Democratic critics, led by Bill Clinton, who accuse the administration of not doing enough to catch Osama bin Laden.

After five years of relative civility, the unspoken entente cordiale between the Bush and Clinton administrations to avoid assigning blame for the 9/11 attacks came to an abrupt end yesterday, with both leaders and their aides fighting for their respective legacies. But Mr Bush's "war on terror" narrative was contradicted by the report.

"The Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success [in Iraq] would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere," it said.

"The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world. If this trend continues, threats to US interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide."

The report, reflecting a consensus of 16 intelligence agencies, acknowledged some US success in disrupting al-Qaida. But it said these gains were outweighed by other factors, fuelling al-Qaida's spread: anger at corrupt Muslim regimes, anti-US sentiment, and a decentralised leadership that made it harder to penetrate.

Also from the UK Guardian :

The Iraq war has acted as a "recruiting sergeant" for extremists in the Muslim world, according to a paper prepared for a Ministry of Defence thinktank, which also said the British government sent troops into Afghanistan "with its eyes closed".

The paper, which describes the west as being "in a fix" and includes a savage attack on Pakistan's intelligence service, the ISI, was written by an officer attached to the Defence Academy, according to BBC2's Newsnight programme. Its release provoked a furious response from the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, who has been touring the US.

The MoD was quick to play down the significance of the report. However, the study reflects what the MoD, military commanders, and the Foreign Office, have been saying in private. What is embarrassing is the timing of the leak, a day after Tony Blair's defence of Britain's military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. The research paper blamed the ISI for indirectly supporting terrorism and extremism.

It adds: "The war in Iraq ... has acted as a recruiting sergeant for extremists across the Muslim world ... Iraq has served to radicalise an already disillusioned youth and al-Qaida has given them the will, intent, purpose and ideology to act."

On Afghanistan, the paper said Britain went in "with its eyes closed". It claims that a secret deal to extricate UK troops from Iraq so they could focus on Afghanistan failed when British military leaders were overruled.

From the New York Times :

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — Three years ago, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld wrote a memo to his colleagues in the Pentagon posing a critical question in the “long war’’ against terrorism: Is Washington’s strategy successfully killing or capturing terrorists faster than new enemies are being created?

Until Tuesday, the government had not publicly issued an authoritative answer. But the newly declassified National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism does exactly that, and it concludes that the administration has failed the Rumsfeld test.

Portions of the report appear to bolster President Bush’s argument that the only way to defeat the terrorists is to keep unrelenting military pressure on them. But nowhere in the assessment is any evidence to support Mr. Bush’s confident-sounding assertion this month in Atlanta that “America is winning the war on terror.’’

While the spread of self-described jihadists is hard to measure, the report says, the terrorists “are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion.”

It says that a continuation of that trend would lead “to increasing attacks worldwide’’ and that “the underlying factors fueling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities.’’

RUMSFELD SAYS HE CAN'T MEASURE IF TERROR IS GROWING

From YahooNews.com :

U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday there was no way to measure if more Islamic extremists were being created than killed in American-led operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Asked about a U.S. intelligence report that concluded the Iraq war had spread Islamic radicalism, Rumsfeld said intelligence could be faulty and sometimes "flat wrong."

Rumsfeld, who was speaking to reporters after a NATO meeting in Slovenia, would not comment on the details of the report, a portion of which was declassified by President George W. Bush.

Bush faced criticism from political foes after parts of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate leaked out, revealing intelligence experts' conclusion that Islamic extremists were "increasing in both number and geographic dispersion" due to the Iraq war.

The White House said the disclosures offered an incomplete assessment, and Rumsfeld deferred to Bush's statements.

Rumsfeld said there still was no clear way to determine if more extremists were being funded and trained than killed in current U.S. operations in Iraq and the war on terror.

"Are more terrorists being created in the world? We don't know," he said.

"The world doesn't know. There are not good metrics to determine how many people are being trained in a radical madrassa school in some country that's being funded by an extremist teaching young people to go out and kill people. There's no metric that you could gather all that information and pull it together and know what's being produced."

He said that while the impact of U.S. operations on the growth of terrorism could not be known, the numbers being killed and captured could.

"At any given day, at any given week, at any given month, is the pool going up or down?" he asked without answering.

"The implication that if you stop killing or capturing people who are trying to kill you that therefore the world will be a better place is obviously nonsensical," he said.

"Anyone who thinks that there is a single answer or a single reason or a silver bullet that can solve the problem can't be right. It's too complex. It's going to take time and it's going to take a lot of work by a lot of people who are patient and who believe in freedom," he added.

sadfdsf

THERE IS NO SILENT MAJORITY FOR BUSH WHEN IT COMES TO THE IRAQ WAR

GENERALS, COPS, DOCTORS AND VETERANS REPLACE HIPPIES AND FLAG BURNERS

An extremely interesting opinion piece below from the Washington Post.

Few journos in the United States have followed this line of argument about why the Republicans stand a good chance of losing their grip on power in the November mid-term elections.

The United States has changed dramatically since the last time its forces were caught up in a protracted, controversial and bitterly opposed foreign war. The difference this time, however, is that the right-wing media in theUS can't undermine the anti-war movement by claiming they hate soldiers and are a bunch of dope-addled hippies.

Retired three star generals, mothers of soldiers, veterans of the Iraq War, former White House insiders, prominent lawyers, doctors, religious leaders from across the spectrum and even the police now man the front lines of the anti-war movement.

And this is a massive problem for the Republicans, and Bush in particular :

What could prove to be the most important factor in the 2006 elections is overlooked because it is unseen: The Republicans cannot try to curry favor with a "silent majority" that favors the Iraq war because a majority of Americans, both vocal and quiet, have come to see the war as a mistake.

President Bush's defenders have cast opponents of the war as weak on terrorism. Yesterday, Vice President Cheney accused Democrats of "resignation and defeatism." But the charges have not taken hold, because most Americans don't agree with the premise linking the war on terror with the war in Iraq.

...the tone of the opposition to this war is quite different from the tenor of some sections of the movement against the Vietnam War. Reaction to "hippie protesters," as the phrase went, allowed President Richard Nixon to pit a hardworking, patriotic "silent majority" -- it was one of the most politically potent phrases of his presidency -- against the privileged, the young and the media, whom his vice president Spiro Agnew memorably characterized as "effete snobs" and "nattering nabobs of negativism."

As the historian and Nixon biographer Stephen Ambrose noted, tiny minorities -- "they numbered less than 1 percent of the demonstrators," he wrote of a 1969 rally -- "waved Viet Cong flags . . . and even burned American flags" and served as "magnets to the television cameras." They were used to exemplify an entire movement.

By contrast, critics of the Iraq war, deeply influenced by the post-Sept. 11 climate of national solidarity, have been resolutely patriotic and pro-military. They have often chastised the administration for offering American troops too little in the way of body armor and armored vehicles, and for shortchanging veterans.

Among the most visible critics of the administration's approach have been generals, vets, parents with sons and daughters in the military, and foreign policy realists who think of themselves as moderate or even conservative opponents of what they see as the administration's radical direction.

That is why news over the weekend of a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq is especially troublesome for Republican electoral chances. By finding that the war in Iraq has encouraged global terrorism and spawned a new generation of Islamic radicals, the report by 16 government intelligence services undercuts the administration's central argument that the Iraq war has made the United States safer.

Go Here To Read The Full Story

HOW BUSH'S PLANS TO REBRAND TORTURE WERE TAKEN APART BY REPUBLICANS

This story is more than a few days old by now, but it is an important part of the history of Bush's presidency, because it marked a clear and extremely public revolt by key members of his own party.

All this despite the fact that Bush basically still got most of what he wanted when it came to trying 'War On Terror' detainees in military tribunals and allowing the torture-driven, "forced confessions" from these detainees to be used as evidence against them in such trials :

From the Seattle Post :

Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham cornered their partner, Sen. John Warner, on the Senate floor...

Warner, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, had been trying for weeks to quietly work out the three Republicans' differences with the Bush administration's proposal to bring terrorism suspects to trial.

But McCain, of Arizona, and Graham, of South Carolina, who are on the committee with Warner, of Virginia, convinced him the time for negotiation was over.

The three senators, all military veterans, marched off to an impromptu news conference to lay out their deep objections to the Bush legislation. Warner then personally broke the news to Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, the majority leader, and the next day the Armed Services Committee voted 15-9 to approve a legislative rebuke to the president's plan to reinterpret the Geneva Conventions.

It was a stinging defeat for the White House, not least because the words of Warner, a former Navy secretary, carry particular weight. With a long history of ties to the military, Warner, 79, has a reputation as an accurate gauge of views that senior officers are reluctant to express in public.

Notably, Warner was joined by Colin Powell, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a rare public breach with the administration he served as secretary of state.

As Warner left his Senate office Friday, he carried a briefcase of material to prepare for a potential legislative showdown. At stake, he said, was more than the fate of "these 20-odd individuals," a reference to the high-level terrorism suspects awaiting possible trial at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

"It's how America's going to be perceived in the world, how we're going to continue the war against terror."

Democrats and Republicans alike had assumed that Warner, a smooth negotiator not given to public confrontation, would give in to the administration, especially considering the importance Republicans had placed on the legislation as midterm elections neared.

The thinking was that McCain, who was tortured as a Vietnam prisoner of war, would not budge, nor would Graham, a military lawyer and zealous guardian of military standards. But as Warner considered the consequences of the proposal, he decided to stick to his guns, saying he believed the nation's reputation was at stake.

Bush seems equally determined to win provisions he says are needed to interrogate and prosecute terrorism suspects. He and his allies are ratcheting up pressure on Senate Republicans who support alternate rules adopted last week by the Armed Services Committee.

One aide said Saturday the number of Senate Republicans behind the three senators was widening beyond the eight or 10 anticipated, with lawmakers — heavily influenced by Powell's stance — preparing to go public with their views.

In interviews, two senior Bush administration officials acknowledged that the White House had underestimated the depth of opposition. They also said they had focused mostly on gaining Graham's support.

A Republican senator separately described the clash between the White House and Warner's group as "a train wreck."

The administration officials and the Republican senator were granted anonymity because they would not otherwise openly discuss negotiations between the White House and Congress.

Warner's convictions about how military trials should proceed appear to stem largely from his experience, beginning with his Navy service in World War II.

"I'm a man that's been through a lot," Warner said, recounting his days as secretary of the Navy in the early 1970s when he was confronted with issues of military prisoners. "I've been through this before."

Graham has similarly drawn on his legal and military background in challenging the White House. "The Geneva Convention means more to me than the average person," he said.

Graham acknowledged that the political battle was bruising but said he could not tolerate a change in the American interpretation of the conventions if it meant short-term benefits at long-term costs.

"President Bush is very sincere in wanting the tools he needs to fight the war on terror," Graham said. "I don't want the tools they are given to become clubs to be used against our people."

In a letter sent Friday to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Graham also took issue with a provision of the administration's approach that would allow the use of secret evidence in trials of terrorism suspects.

"Where in American jurisprudence do you find support for the concept that a person accused can be tried and convicted on evidence which that person has no opportunity to see, confront or rebut?" Graham wrote.

The bonds among Warner, McCain and Graham were forged in difficult times. Warner and McCain first met when Warner was the Navy secretary and McCain was returning to his Navy career after his captivity. McCain and Graham became close during the 2000 primaries in South Carolina, when McCain came under attack from Bush Republicans. They teamed up last year in forcing the White House to accept a ban on torture.

After the Supreme Court struck down the administration's earlier plan for military tribunals in June, they joined with top military lawyers to form the chief bulwark against what they said were efforts to undermine military law and the 60-year-old protections of the Geneva Conventions.

"It's not a question of defiance or intransigence; it's the way we've worked," Warner said. "We've continued to indicate a willingness to look at situations — is there a bridge that we can build between certain provisions? And our core principles are very rooted in the three of us."

Graham added, "There are three branches of government, not one."

Warner sought to serve as a counterbalance to the occasionally combative McCain and Graham during a turbulent week that fractured the Republican majority on its signature issue, national security. It saw Powell enlisting with the three Republicans against Bush, and left Graham chewing out Gen. Michael Hayden, the CIA director, in a closed meeting.

Administration officials said they had focused on Warner as the key to overcoming Republican opposition in the Senate. When he raised a question with Hayden about the State Department's view on the matter, Warner received a call within hours from Rice.

Rice followed up with a letter to Warner, which administration officials distributed Thursday to counter the letter from Powell, which had objected to the administration's plan to redefine Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

But once it became clear that Warner was dug in, the administration began setting its sights on other senators, inviting them to the White House.

BUSH PRESIDENCY ENDS EARLY

REPUBLICANS PULL AWAY FROM THEIR PRESIDENT TO SAVE THEIR OWN POLITICAL CAREERS

Interesting opinion piece below, talking about how Republican senators appear to be pulling away from their president, and the never-ending controversy surrounding his backing of CIA torture of detainees, the War On Iraq and just about anything he's willing to put his name to.

Okay, that's a bit of an exageration, but it's abundantly clear that the president is fast becoming pure poison to his own party's chances of holding onto their congressional power monopoly in the November mid-term elections.

The Republicans have got to put up with Bush bringing down the party for another 28 or so months. That's an extraordinarily long time in Amerian politics, particularly considering the news out of Iraq, and now Afghanistan, is unlikely to get any better any time soon, and certainly not without some major crackdowns and confrontations by US Forces, which will result in much higher US Army death tolls.

Excuse the ramble, here's some selections from the story :

From BBC.co.uk :

In my neighbourhood in Washington, George W Bush's presidency is already over.

You can see it on the T-shirts, such as the one that simply says: "20 January 2009", the day Mr Bush will step down and hand power to whoever wins the 2008 election.

And you can see it on the bumper stickers.

....while his foes dream of the day Mr Bush's term actually ends, it may already be essentially finished for all practical purposes.

...two of Mr Bush's signature proposals of this political season are in trouble.

One dates back to the very early days of his presidency, if not before - a complete overhaul of America's failing immigration system.

As a Texan who has seen at first hand what Latin American immigrants have contributed to the country - and as an ally of business, which likes cheap immigrant labour - Mr Bush wanted a new system that would allow at least some of the illegal immigrants already here to become citizens.

The Senate backed him, but the House of Representatives disagreed strongly, passing a bill that would increase the penalties on illegal immigrants and those who help them.

The two chambers seemed unable to compromise, and by the beginning of September, immigration reform seemed dead, at least for this Congressional term.

More pressing matters had arisen, anyway.

The Supreme Court had struck down Mr Bush's plan to try suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay by military tribunals, and the president spent the final weeks of the summer pressing Congress to pass a law reinstating the commissions and allowing harsh interrogations.

This time, the House supported him, but the Senate rebelled - led by three senior members of the president's own Republican party.

With that issue deadlocked, what should crop up again but immigration? And when that battle was rejoined, all talk was of border controls, not of paths to citizenship: a setback for the president.

Then suddenly a "compromise" on interrogations was in the works - one that looks much more like the rebel Republicans' plan than the president's.

The president's approval ratings are low in the polls, suggesting he is no help to Congressional Republicans.

Congress is even less popular than the president, and pundits are talking ominously of 1994, the year the Democrats were swept out of power after decades of running the legislature.

This past week's agenda shows clearly what is on the candidates' minds. It is not the president's agenda.

It is saving their skins.

BUSH BLEW BILLIONS TO HOLD ONTO MID-EAST OIL FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE

US NOW LEFT BEHIND IN RACE TO DEVELOP ALTERNATE ENERGY

This writer argues that President Bush blew billions of dollars in his fight to secure the oil wells of Iraq, in an attempt to secure the future supply of US oil-based energy. But he could have better spent those hundreds of billions of dollars investigating and developing solar power, clean coal and safe nuclear energy, and made the world a safer place at the same time (excerpts below) :

It always comes back to oil. The continuing misguided interventions in the Middle East by the United States and the United Kingdom have their roots deep in the Arabian sand. Ever since Winston Churchill led the conversion of Britain's navy from coal to oil at the start of the last century, the Western powers have meddled incessantly in the affairs of Middle Eastern countries to keep the oil flowing, toppling governments and taking sides in wars in the supposed "great game" of energy resources. But the game is almost over, because the old approaches are obviously failing.

Just when one is lulled into thinking that something other than oil is at the root of current US and UK action in Iraq, reality pulls us back. Indeed, President Bush recently invited journalists to imagine the world 50 years from now. He did not have in mind the future of science and technology, or a global population of nine billion, or the challenges of climate change and biodiversity. Instead, he wanted to know whether Islamic radicals would control the world's oil.

Whatever we are worrying about in 50 years, this will surely be near the bottom of the list. Even if it were closer to the top, overthrowing Saddam Hussein to ensure oil supplies in 50 years ranks as the least plausible of strategies. Yet we know from a range of evidence that this is what was on Bush's mind when his government shifted its focus from the search for Osama bin Laden to fighting a war in Iraq.

It is ironic that an administration fixated on the risks of Middle East oil has chosen to spend hundreds of billions - potentially trillions - of dollars to pursue unsuccessful military approaches to problems that can and should be solved at vastly lower cost, through R&D, regulation, and market incentives. The biggest energy crisis of all, it seems, involves the misdirected energy of a US foreign policy built on war rather than scientific discovery and technological progress.

Go Here For The Full Story

BUSH BACKED DOWN WHEN FACED WITH CIA REVOLT OVER SECRET PRISONS

The 'quiet war' between the Bush White House and the CIA goes on. It current conflict began when shortly after 9/11, conservative journos and bloggers hammered the lie that it was the fault of "intelligence agencies", like the CIA, that more wasn't done to stop the terror attacks.

The fact is that the CIA, like the FBI, passed on clear warnings that an attack was imminent.

The 'quiet war' continues now as the CIA finds its international agents facing charges for abducting 'War On Terror' detainees from the streets of European cities, and possible lawsuits from those who were detained and tortured during renditions, while in the custody of the CIA.

The CIA claims that Bush's own attorney general told them they were legally clear to conduct renditions, but now there are some very, very nervous agents and operatives who know Bush Co. will toss them to the wolves to save their own skins.

Which is mostly why we are now seeing stories like the one below.

From the Financial Times :

The Bush administration had to empty its secret prisons and transfer terror suspects to the military-run detention centre at Guantánamo this month in part because CIA interrogators had refused to carry out further interrogations and run the secret facilities, according to former CIA officials and people close to the programme.

The former officials said the CIA interrogators’ refusal was a factor in forcing the Bush administration to act earlier than it might have wished.

When Mr Bush announced the suspension of the secret prison programme in a speech before the fifth anniversary of the September 11 terror attacks, some analysts thought he was trying to gain political momentum before the November midterm congressional elections.

The administration publicly explained its decision in light of the legal uncertainty surrounding permissible interrogation techniques following the June Supreme Court ruling that all terrorist suspects in detention were entitled to protection under Common Article Three of the Geneva Conventions.

But the former CIA officials said Mr Bush’s hand was forced because interrogators had refused to continue their work until the legal situation was clarified because they were concerned they could be prosecuted for using illegal techniques.

One intelligence source also said the CIA had refused to keep the secret prisons going.

Go Here For The Full Story

BUSH BACKS BILL THAT MAY SAVE HIM FROM IMPEACHMENT

There's a lot of big talk amongst US Democrats right now about what they'll do to President Bush if the Democrats gain control of the Senate in the November midterm elections.

War crimes prosecutions for Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld is the Democratic long shot. Few of them seem to have the guts to want to take their justice-delivering that far.

But there is no shortage of lawyers and privacy experts who claim that President Bush clearly broke the law when he gave consent to widespread wiretapping of American citizens.

It will come as no surprise, then, to learn that a new bill in the Senate, dealing with the wiretapping issues, includes an essential clause that may prove to save Bush from the humiliation of a full-blown impeachement.

From CNSNews.com :

A bill now pending in the Senate would make the Bush administration's enemy wiretapping program more practical and flexible, removing all doubt about its legality. But that worries some of Bush's fiercest critics.

According to one anti-Bush group, the bill "would pardon President Bush for breaking the law by illegally wiretapping innocent Americans without warrants."

In his weekly radio address on Saturday, President Bush urged Congress to "modernize" the nation's electronic surveillance laws.

Bush says the NSA wiretapping/surveillance program allows the U.S. to "quickly monitor terrorist communications between someone overseas and someone in America," and he says it has helped prevent attacks on U.S. soil.

"The principle behind this program is clear: When al Qaeda operatives are calling into or out of our country, we need to know who they are calling, why they are calling, and what they are planning," Bush said.

Bush apparently regards the 'revised' bill as being "essential to fighting the 'War on Terror'.

And saving his arse.

CHILDREN WORSHIP BUSH IMAGE AT MILITANT CHRISTIAN CAMP



The children can be found speaking in tongues, praying to God for abortions to end, weeping long and loud for their salvation, but perhaps most disturbing of all, these children worship a picture of President Bush.

The flood of young Christians into the US Army to fight for Jesus will take care of recruitment problems in the years to come.

But first they have to be indoctrinated.

And as all the great worldpowers have always known, you've got to get it into their heads while they're still children that they are going to be warriors.

The children's camp in the US where all this false-idol worshipping is going on is called 'Pastor Becky Fischer's Bible Camp'. The program is called....ahh, 'Kids On Fire'.

If the ultra-metal-gore rock band Cannibal Corpse tried to release an album in the US called 'Kids On Fire' it would be banned from Walmart.

Actually, none of the below story is funny. It sounds like they're talking about training American Christian kids to be as devoted and life-sacrificing to their god as Islamist suicide bombers.

From ABC News (America) :

"I want to see them as radically laying down their lives for the gospel as they are in Palestine, Pakistan and all those different places," Fisher said...

"A lot of people die for God," one camper said, "and they're not afraid."

"We're kinda being trained to be warriors," said another, "only in a funner way."

The evangelicals are the mostly non-violent American Christian version of what Bush calls 'Islamic extremists' - those who pull quotes (in and out of context) from their holy books and use the words as justification for exteme behaviour and beliefs.

The ABC News story describes what is happening in the US as a ..."intensifying evangelical youth movement."

Over the past decade and a half, enrollment at Christian colleges is up 70 percent. Sales of Christian music are up 300 percent. Tens of thousands of youth pastors have been trained.

Young people are targeted through Christian music festivals, skateboard competitions and rodeos.

A critic says the movement is infexible in its beliefs, and potentially dangerous :

"It's an absolute, straight-up us-against-them...It's, you're either with us or you're against us. … Not only are you a sinner, but you are working for the enemy -- the enemy being Satan."

"The Third Awakening"




From the Washington Post :

President Bush said yesterday that he senses a "Third Awakening" of religious devotion in the United States that has coincided with the nation's struggle with international terrorists, a war that he depicted as "a confrontation between good and evil."

Bush told a group of conservative journalists that he notices more open expressions of faith among people he meets during his travels, and he suggested that might signal a broader revival similar to other religious movements in history. Bush noted that some of Abraham Lincoln's strongest supporters were religious people "who saw life in terms of good and evil" and who believed that slavery was evil. Many of his own supporters, he said, see the current conflict in similar terms.

"A lot of people in America see this as a confrontation between good and evil, including me," Bush said during a 1 1/2 -hour Oval Office conversation on cultural changes and a battle with terrorists that he sees lasting decades. "There was a stark change between the culture of the '50s and the '60s -- boom -- and I think there's change happening here," he added. "It seems to me that there's a Third Awakening."

The First Great Awakening refers to a wave of Christian fervor in the American colonies from about 1730 to 1760, while the Second Great Awakening is generally believed to have occurred from 1800 to 1830.

Some scholars and writers have debated for years whether a Third Awakening has been taking place, although some identify other awakenings in U.S. history. Bush aides, including Karl Rove, have read Robert William Fogel's "The Fourth Great Awakening and the Future of Egalitarianism."

Bush has been careful discussing the battle with terrorists in religious terms since he had to apologize for using the word "crusade" in 2001. He often stresses that the war is not against Islam but against those who corrupt it. In his comments yesterday, aides said Bush was not casting the war as a religious struggle but was describing American cultural changes in a time of war.

"He's drawing a parallel in terms of a resurgence, in dangerous times, of people going back to their religion," said one aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was not open to other journalists. "This is not 'God is on our side' or anything like that."

From The Times of London :

Nine in ten Americans believe in God but how they vote, or regard the Iraq war, depends on the very different views they have about His personality, according to a detailed survey of religion in the US.

It found that Americans hold four different images of God — Authoritarian, Benevolent, Critical or Distant — and these views are far more powerful indicators about their political, social and moral attitudes than any of the traditional categories such as Protestant, Catholic or Evangelical.

The study also suggests that America is more religious than previously thought, with only 5.2 per cent of respondents calling themselves atheist and 91.8 per cent saying that they believed in God.

Researchers found that Americans hold four distinct views, and these “Four Gods” are remarkably accurate diviners of how an American thinks about everything from politics, abortion, taxation and marriage. “You learn more about people’s moral and political behaviour if you know their image of God than almost any other measure,” said Christopher Bader, one of the researchers.

Nearly a third of Americans, 31.4 per cent, believe in an Authoritarian God, angry at earthly sin and willing to inflict divine retribution — including tsunamis and hurricanes.

BUSH : THE WAR ON TERROR HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN

President Bush's 9/11 anniversary speech seems to have done little to ramp up his popularity with Americans. It was an almost desperate affair, outing himself over the non-existent links between Saddam Hussein and the events of September 11, 2001, and trying to fire up his fellow Americans over the importance of the 'War On Terror'.

It doesn't seem to have worked. That might have had something to do with his insistence that the 'War On Terror' is going to last a very, very long time indeed. It may just be Bush being totally frank, but war-weary America didn't want to hear this kind of talk.

And it has been extremely hard for Republicans and the Bush-Cheney cheerleaders in the media to over-ride the perception that Bush used the fifth anniversary of 9/11 as a political platform.

We'll take a closer look at his plethora of recent speeches in another post soon, but for now here's a take on it from 'The Australian' :

Declaring the world in the "early hours" of a struggle between tyranny and freedom, US President George W. Bush used a prime-time Oval Office address on the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks to try to bolster flagging public support for the war in Iraq.

"Whatever mistakes have been made in Iraq, the worst mistake would be to think that if we pulled out, the terrorists would leave us alone.

"They will follow us. The safety of America depends on the outcome of the battle in the streets of Baghdad." He added that the war on terrorism was "the calling of our generation".

The September 11 attacks on New York and Washington killed nearly 3000 people and galvanised the US into launching two wars which, along with other counter-terrorism initiatives, have cost Washington more than $US430 billion ($570 billion).

"America did not ask for this war, and every American wishes it were over," Mr Bush said. "The war is not over - and it will not be over until either we or the extremists emerge victorious."

'DEATH OF A PRESIDENT' MOVIE GET US RELEASE

The moment of impact. A 'virtual' President Bush takes a bullet in a key scene from the new movie, 'Death Of A President'.

It's sent American right wingers into a frenzy, it's recieved enthusiastic applause and reviews at the Toronto Film festival and it's earned the director enough death threats for him to now travel with a security detail.

'The Death Of A President', a fake documentary that follows the events of a successful assassination attempt on President Bush in 2007, is already generating so much controversy that it's being described as this year's 'Passion Of The Christ'.

A storm of anger and protest did little to hurt the box office of 'Passion', of course it only made people want to see it more. Which is probably why Newmarket, the distributor of 'Passion', has picked up 'Death Of A President' for a US cinema release.

This is what the director, Gabriel Range, had to say about his movie, and the reaction so far :

"People didn't know what to expect. Our film has a very striking premise but it is not sensational or gratuitous. I hope people will see it as a balanced film and compelling drama. It is an oblique look at the ways the United States has changed since 9/11. We use the lens of the future to explain the past."

"We portrayed the horror of assassination. I don't think anyone would get the idea of assassinating Bush from this film."

Just don't mention 'Taxi Driver' and President Reagan.

Here's a review of the movie.

BUSH REVEALS ON 9/11 HE "WANTED TO GO HOME"

ADMITS "ACTION PLAN" TO LAUNCH WAR WAS IN PLACE BEFORE THE ATTACKS BEGAN

THE WHITE HOUSE CLEARLY KNEW THE ATTACKS WERE COMING

President Bush gave an interesting interview to a reporter for ABCNews in the US, describing the events of 9/11 from his perspective.

Remember, he was infamously listening to a class full of children reading from a book while hijacked airliners were crashing into the World Trade Centre.

After being informed - "Mr President, we are under attack" - and then spending long minutes staring into space, he was whisked away by the Secret Service and then bounced around the country on Air Force One for most of the day.

What hasn't been revealed before is....He Wanted To Go Home.

Not White House 'Home'. But the ranch in Crawford, Texas home.

How did the president feel when he was sitting on Air Force One?

"There's a range of emotions. One from incredible sadness and horror as I looked right on that TV screen there and saw the World Trade Center buildings aflame...seeing the Pentagon burn, created a real sense of outrage as well...

So I was heartbroken, horrified and mad.

I'm mad because I recognize the people who attacked us, and we were going to do something about it.

So Bush is saying there he knew it was Bin Laden and Al Qaeda from virtually the moment it happened.

There is a fog of war. It was hard to get information. Communication systems were not as good as they should have been. In other words, I couldn't get information...

He's not kidding. The presidential-level security 'hot' phone link between Bush and the White House was down due to congestion, apparently. By the time he had arrived at an airport to board Air Force One, he was trying to get through Vice President Dick Cheney on a borrowed cell phone. No dice.

So Bush couldn't get information, but he could 'recognise' who was responsible for the attacks.

...I couldn't find out, you know, where, uh, trying to get a hold of the vice president at times...

I was constantly in touch with him, but they would have trouble getting him.

Whether Bush was actually in touch with Cheney was not even revealed by the 9/11 Commission Report.

Bush and Cheney refused to talk about this key fact, even in off-the-record discussions with the commission board members.

And hello to another classic Bushism :

"I was constantly in touch with (Cheney)...." but then, in the same breath, "They would have trouble getting him."

What he really wanted to do was go home.

Well, you know I tried to get home and the Secret Service said, "You're not going home. Matter of fact, you're heading to Omaha, Neb., where we will put you in a bunker."… And it frustrated me because, you know...

So the Commander In Chief says where he wants to go, and the SS over-rides his choice and directly tells him where he is going?

Not just the SS, but Cheney and a few other as well it appears.

....it was not just the Secret Service, the vice president suggested, others suggested, that it's probably best to let things cool down for a while, till we get enough information to understand. And I can understand that. You don't want to put the president in a situation that could jeopardize his life.

Particularly not when you're the president.

The following quote, see below, has Bush making it perfectly clear that a Plan For War was in place and ready to go, long before he got back to the White House :

I got back there, you know, at six in the evening, and it was plenty of time to start the action plan of dealing with, uh, what I knew was going to have to happen, and that is the United States needed to go on the offense.

Presumably this is because Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Bush had treated the early August, 2001, presidential daily briefing memo about Bin Laden planning to attack the US with hijacked aircraft utterly seriously. Israel's Mossad and the German secret service were among two other international intelligence agenices who passed on less clear warnings that something was coming in early September.

The Action Plan to go on the offense was in place and all that was needed was for Bush to "start" it.

The White House clearly knew the 9/11 attacks were coming and had made plans for a fast strike back.

But over the next 48 hours, Cheney and Rumsfeld were ramping up the hype for War On Iraq, and Bush was putting out feelers for any credible way to pin the 9/11 attacks on Saddam Hussein...even though Bush clearly knew Osama Bin Laden was responsible, while he was still being bustled around the country on Air Force One.

Like he said, he "recognised" who was responsible.

...one of my vows to the people...is we will stay on the offense. Because that's the only way, in the short term, to protect this country.

Short term?

Might the War On Terror not turn out to be the generational, decades long event that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have been claiming recently it has to be?

BUSH REMEMBERS 9/11....

BY STEPPING ON A SEPTEMBER 11 MEMORIAL DOORMAT (?)



As other bloggers are now pointing out, which will prove more offensive to the conservatives demanding flag desecration be punishable by new laws :

That President Bush and his wife stepped onto an image of the US flag?

Or that someone actually came up with the idea of combining the US flag and September 11 into some kind of memorial doormat?

This image did appear on Reuters, so there is a chance it could be another photoshop 'adventure'.

What's next? US flag toilet paper for the Air Force One?

UPDATE :

Yahoo has published a second image here :



Rueters and Yahoo have both run these images on their websites. But have any newspapers used them yet?

Thinking And Driving reminds non-Americans why treating the US flag in such a way is so damn offensive to many Americans, and illegal. T & D quotes from the Flag Rules And Regulations :

Section 8c - “The flag should never be fastened, displayed, used, or stored in such a manner as to permit it to be easily torn, soiled, or damaged in any way.”

Bush and his wife, Laura, were supposedly (according to Yahoo photo caption) visiting a NYC fire station on September 10.

What is so damn weird about these shots is that the president actually stepped ONTO the flag to pose for photos.

UPDATE : Still waiting for a good and solid debunking of the images....waiting...waiting...

GORE VIDAL ON AMERICA, AND BUSH, FIVE YEARS ON FROM 9/11

Gore Vidal is despised by many on the American Right, not simply because he is gay and outspoken, or a vastly influential critic of President Bush and what he calls the "Bush Junta" - Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz - but because Vidal knows American history better than just about any other living American.

He has seen Washington, DC from the inside as a young man, and viewed what he calls The Downfall Of The American Empire from a distance, living in Italy.

Vidal also knows Roman history better than anyone in the Bush administration, particularly the eight or so people in his key circle of influence, and control. Vidal has been warning, sometimes in a droning repetition, that the American Empire has well and truly fallen, starting in the mid-1980s. Now he claims it's going up in flames, and Bush is like Nero, ignorant of the inner destruction, all the while revelling in fantasies about his place in history.

Here's some (edited) Gore Vidal from the UK Independent on America And 9/11 Five Years On :

(On 9/11) The greatest nation in the country, as an American statesman once termed us, was attacked by a dozen or so Saudi Arabians who had, with astonishing ease, hijacked several airliners and flew two of them into a pair of New York skyscrapers as well as another into one of the five sides of the Pentagon at Washington, the heart of the greatest, most expensive military machine the world has ever known.

What, someone asked, was my first response. Amazement at how little protected we were ...

In the last five years American behaviour in the Middle East has been barbarous and will not soon be forgiven.

Meanwhile, the gas-oil junta has hijacked the old American republic through the artful use of great quantities of corporate and church cash in order to falsify the electoral tallies of easily hacked electronic voting machinery...

There is a good deal of grim comedy in the words if not the current deeds of the little president.

Now in an attempt to avoid blame for the Iraq war and further confuse the world about why Iran and Syria must be destroyed Old Rumsfeld and Old Cheney are trotting out dim garbled images of Hitler and appeasement as they pretend that the anti-war American majority favours Islamic fascism.

They pretend terrorism is a demonic person. And if we don't stop him in Tehran we'll have to stop him here.

This is ludicrous; unfortunately the junta is as ignorant of history and geography as they believe the public to be. Meanwhile, the little president worries about his "legacy" in the history books.

But should he get World War Three going there might not be any more history books...

Cheney Hammers Anti-War Democrats As Terrorist Appeasers

"A NEW LOW IN BUSH-HATED"

This columnist thinks the Bush Haters have gone too far, particularly when they start talking of President Bush being....'taken out', 'X-ed', you know, that word you can't say in the same sentence with the words 'President Bush' without setting off all sorts of freaky computer tracking programs in the NSA.

So we'll let this columnist say it instead :

Six years into the Bush administration, are there any new lows to which the Bush-haters can sink?

George W. Bush has been smeared by the left with every insult imaginable.

He has been called a segregationist who yearns to revive Jim Crow and compared ad nauseam to Adolf Hitler.

His detractors have accused him of being financially entwined with Osama bin Laden. Of presiding over an American gulag. Of being a latter-day Mussolini.

What else can they say about Bush? That they want him killed?

They already say it.

On Air America, talk show host Randi Rhodes recommended doing to Bush what Michael Corleone, in 'The Godfather, Part II,' does to his brother.

"Like Fredo," she said, `"somebody ought to take him out fishing and phuw!" -- then imitated the sound of a gunshot. In the Guardian, a leading British daily, columnist Charlie Brooker issued a plea: "John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr. -- where are you now that we need you?"

For the more literary Bush-hater, there is Checkpoint, a novel by Nicholson Baker in which two characters discuss the wisdom of shooting the president.

"I'm going to kill that bastard," one character fumes. Some Bush-hatred masquerades as art...

At Chicago's Columbia College, a curated exhibit included a sheet of mock postage stamps bearing the words ``Patriot Act" and depicting President Bush with a gun to his head.

There are even Bush-assassination fashion statements, such as the `KILL BUSH' T-shirts that were on offer last year at CafePress, an online retailer.

....has there ever been a president so hated by his enemies that they lusted openly for his death? Or tried to gratify that lust with such political pornography?

As with other kinds of porn, even the most graphic expressions of Bush-hatred tend to jade those who gorge on it, so that they crave ever more explicit material to achieve the same effect

Go here to read it all.

This geezer sounds angry.

HEY JOHN LENNON, IMAGINE THIS :

BUSH CO.'s ULTRA-SECRECY RATES LENNON'S 34 YEAR OLD FBI FILES A MATTER OF NATIONAL SECURITY

Long-haired musician, and ex-Beatle, John Lennon made a firm enemy in President Nixon with all his talk of "Give Peace A Chance" and trying to rally the youth of the US to register to vote in order to have the then president democratically shunted out of office in 1972.

The FBI dug deep on Lennon, and Nixon is alleged to have made sure that deportation proceedings moved forward to kick the ex-Beatle, and professional troublemaker, out of the US.

But just how secret could those FBI files on Lennon actually prove to be more than 30 years later?

Very, according to Bush Co. They won't let a handful of pages be released to the public through the National Archive :

We all know that a key to preventing future terrorist attacks is sharing intelligence with foreign governments. When Justice Department attorneys urge courts not to release national security information provided by a foreign government under a Freedom of Information Act suit, they argue that the courts should defer to the experts in the Department of Homeland Security and the White House.

But what if such intelligence isn't about today's terrorist threats? What if it's about the antiwar activities of a British rock star during the Vietnam War?

Bush claims that the inner workings of the government should be laid bare for the public to see just what they get up to. He even said the following in an Executive Order :

"Our democratic principles require that the American people be informed of the activities of their government"

But it's all crap. He doesn't mean it. Never did.

And Vice-President Dick Cheney is even more super-ultra-secretive.

He claims his files are off-limits, and he can classify whatever he likes, because...

Well, because he wants to and he believes the rules don't apply to him. Even an Executive Order from his own president.

From the LA Times :

The Freedom of Information Act is necessary because Democrats and Republicans alike have secrets they want to keep — secrets about corruption and the abuse of power. But now the White House wants to shield information from with a new rationale for secrecy — protecting the homeland from terrorists.

The administration acknowledges that it has dramatically increased the number of documents classified "confidential," "secret" or "top secret." Between the time Bush took office in 2001 and 2004, the most recent year for which figures are available, that number has nearly doubled. In 2004 alone, 80 federal agencies deemed 15.6 million documents off-limits.

Go here to read the full story.

NO MATTER HOW MUCH BUSH WANTS TO BE LIKE HIM

HE SURE AIN'T NO FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT

From RawStory.com :

In the face of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt implored the nation to defeat fear and to sacrifice for the common good, New York Times columnist Frank Rich writes in Sunday's paper.

George Bush invoked FDR after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and America proved its resilience, Rich recalls. Yet Bush called for no sacrifice, and instead pursued a tragically "selfish agenda."

Bush was asked at a press conference "how much of a sacrifice" ordinary Americans would "be expected to make in their daily lives, in their daily routines."

His answer: "Our hope, of course, is that they make no sacrifice whatsoever."

He, too, wanted to move on -- to "see life return to normal in America," as he put it -- but toward partisan goals stealthily tailored to his political allies rather than the nearly 90 percent of the country that, according to polls, was rallying around him.

This selfish agenda was there from the very start. As we now know from many firsthand accounts, a cadre from Bush's war Cabinet was already busily hyping nonexistent links between Iraq and the Qaida attacks.

The presidential press secretary, Ari Fleischer, condemned Bill Maher's irreverent comic response to 9/11 by reminding "all Americans that they need to watch what they say, watch what they do."

Fear itself -- the fear that "paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance," as FDR had it -- was already being wielded as a weapon against Americans by their own government.

Less than a month after 9/11, the president was making good on his promise of "no sacrifice whatsoever." Speaking in Washington about how it was "the time to be wise" and "the time to act," he declared, "We need for there to be more tax cuts." Before long the GOP would be selling 9/11 photos of the president on Air Force One to campaign donors and the White House would be featuring flag-draped remains of the 9/11 dead in political

And so here we are five years later.

Fearmongering remains unceasing. So do tax cuts. So does the war against a country that did not attack us on 9/11.

We have moved on, but no one can argue that we have moved ahead.

SENATOR ROCKERFELLER : BUSH DUPED AMERICA OVER REASONS FOR WAR ON IRAQ

CLAIMS IRAQ WOULD BE BETTER OFF WITH SADDAM STILL IN POWER (!)

President Bush continues to get hammered over the lies that led the majority of Americans, and more than 98% of America's senators, to support the War On Iraq.

A new Senate report goes into exhaustive detail as it demolishes the Bush Co. 'Case For War', and the release of the report has prompted the powerful Senator John Rockerfeller to make some extraordinary claims. Including that Iraq would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power.

From CBS News :

"[Saddam] wasn't going to attack us. He would've been isolated there," Rockefeller said.

"He would have been in control of that country but we wouldn't have depleted our resources preventing us from prosecuting a war on terror which is what this is all about."

Republicans say there was flawed intelligence to be sure, but they insist there was no attempt to mislead the public.

"The absolute cynical manipulation, deliberately cynical manipulation, to shape American public opinion and 69 percent of the people, at that time, it worked, they said 'we want to go to war,'" said Rockerfeller.

Go here to read the full story and get the links to the new reports.

HOW THE BUSH HATERS ARE HURTING AMERICA

Bill O'Reilly, of Fox News, believes :

All over the world, millions of people believe America is evil, worse than the terrorists. And the unrelenting hate-Bush media in this country fuels that ridiculous concept.

Quite simply, the Bush haters are out of control and are hurting the country.

And yet :

It is patriotic to responsibly disagree with the president or with any administration.

He just has a problem with public servants being smeared. Or something.

BUSH'S MILITARY TRIBUNALS FOR TERROR SUSPECTS REJECTED BY FELLOW REPUBLICANS

BUSH HAS A DIRTY SECRET

Now President Bush has admitted publicly that the CIA has run a network of secret prisons and rendition flights to move prisoners around the world, there's a growing anger in European nations about just where these prisons are, and who has lied to them.

Because the leaders of many European countries, like Poland, like Romania, directly asked Bush, "Do you run a secret prison in our country? Do you have secret CIA fights going through our airports?" And Bush clearly told them all, "No, of course not."

But now, apparently without informing anyone such a disclosure was coming, Bush has announced that one of the biggest conspiracies of the 'War On Terror' is true. The CIA runs secret prisons. The CIA, and it's freelancers, abduct terror suspects and fly them around in CIA-hired planes.

It's a truly startling admission, regardless of the US-related politics, or theories that Bush only confirmed these conspiracy theories so he could get his way with the military tribunal trials.

Did President Bush decide to get the facts down on record, before he was pinned with the bad news? Some extraordinary events are taking in Washington, DC, at this time.

Is Bush about to get dumped with the very worst crimes and accusations of the past five years? From authorising torture to somehow being complicit in advance knowledge of the 9/11 terror attacks?

It's certainly starting to sound like it.

There's already been plenty of fallout over the CIA Secret Prisons disclosures, and there's much more to come.

From the UK Guardian :

Not many people will have been taken aback by George Bush's admission that the CIA has been secretly holding suspected terrorists at "black sites" across the world.

Nor will many feel that it represents a fundamental change of heart about the morality, legality and political wisdom of aspects of the US "war on terror."

The methods used in these facilities, were "tough but lawful", the president asserted, even as the Pentagon was announcing that methods such as hooding, electric shocks and "waterboarding" - torture by any definition - are to be outlawed in future.

And these prisons, reported to be in Romania and Poland as well as Arab allies such as Morocco and Egypt, have not been closed.

It would now be useful to know, as Euro MPs insisted yesterday, just who has been telling lies about this and the related issue of extraordinary renditions.

And President Bush's Grand Plan to try terror suspects in military tribunals at Guantanamo Bay is now facing a revolt in the US Senate...from his fellow Republicans. Amazing stuff. They know Bush is poison and they're rushing to save their own skins, before the November mid-term elections.

This, also, from the UK Guardian :

President George Bush yesterday faced growing opposition from his fellow Republicans to a pillar of his war on terror: his plans to prosecute detainees at Guantánamo at military commissions.

Mr Bush had hoped to use the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on Monday to shift the focus of November's congressional elections away from the war on Iraq to national security.

But the strategy misfired with key Republicans balking at a White House proposal for legislation on military tribunals that would deny Guantánamo detainees the right to see classified evidence against them.

Under the White House plan the fate of Guantánamo defendants would be decided by a jury of five military officers - 12 if the charges carry the death penalty. As well as the use of classified evidence off limits to the defendant, the prosecution could use hearsay and evidence obtained through coercion.

"It would be up to the judge to determine, based on an argument by the accused, whether he believed something was torture and needed to be prohibited..."

The Key Quote :

"I am not aware of any situation in the world where there is a system of jurisprudence that is recognised by civilised people where an individual can be tried and convicted without seeing the evidence against him..."

Try looking at what's happening with the terror trials in Australia.

REPUBLICAN MOVE TO STRIP BUSH OF HIS COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF CONTROL OF THE MILITARY

THE GENERALS' REVOLUTION SHIFTS INTO HIGH GEAR

President Bush has raved for days now that he will not withdraw US forces from Iraq "until the mission is complete".

But one of the most powerful Republican senators overseeing the US armed forces is moving to strip Bush of his commander-in-chief powers and hand control of the military to the generals, where it belongs.

This is a continuation of the 'April Revolution', when a string of retired generals hit the media to shred Bush's credibility on his reasons for going to War On Iraq, and to ram home to Americans just how costly the war has been to the military, and the credibility of the United States around the world.

Now comes the capper to the 'April Revolution'. It's bound to get ugly :

From HillNews.com :

The second-ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committe...has drafted a resolution that would give military commanders — instead of President Bush or Secretary of Defense Don Rumsfeld — decision-making authority over when American troops should return home.

The resolution would express the sense of the House that military commanders should put in place a system of criteria to assess the capability of Iraqi security forces. Once those criteria are met, the mission in Iraq would be considered complete and the president could begin withdrawing troops.

In an interview, Weldon said his resolution “clearly says that the decision will be made by the commanding generals in the theater [of war]. They’re the ones we’re paying to do the job. They know what the criteria are, they’re the best to assess the readiness of the Iraqi brigades.”

“They determine the timetable for bringing the troops back home,” said Weldon of the commanders. “There’s no armchair politician back here making those decisions, whether it’s an elected member of Congress or even the secretary of the defense.”

Expect much talk of "We still support the President" and "We still believe in the War". It's all cover. The US military is in a state of growing revolution, and the generals are ready to pull the plug on the Iraq War, regardless of the consequences.

BUSH STILL APOLOGISING FOR BRAIN-MOUTH DISCONNECTS

"BRING THEM ON" CALL TO IRAQI INSURGENTS HAUNTS BUSH 2400 DEAD AMERICANS LATER

President Bush still finds himself having to apologise for his 2003 challenge to Iraqi insurgents to attack American forces. That and saying he wanted to catch Osama Bin Laden "Dead Or Alive". And, of course, the whole the dark-reality sexual torture hell of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal.

In a prime-time TV interview last night, Bush was asked if there was anything he would do differently during his presidency, given the chance to go back and change history :

Q : When you look back on the last five years, President Bush, is there anything that you wish you had done differently?

Bush : Yeah. I mean, I wish, for example, Abu Ghraib didn't happen. That was a stain on our nation's character and it sent a signal about who we're not to a lot of people around the world. I probably could have watched my language a little better, you know.

Q: And in terms of saying --

Bush : "Bring it on," for example...Sometimes I try to explain myself in plain terms and sometimes the terms are too plain."

But this wasn't what Bush said, and the difference of one word makes all the difference to the challenge he laid down to Iraqi insurgents.

"There are some who feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that there. My answer is they can attack usbring them on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."

President Bush at a press conference, July, 2003.

There's a good and simple reason why Bush repeatedly misquoted himself.

He wants people, and the historical record, to forget what he actually said and what the challenge truly meant.

Bush specifically refers to insurgent attacks on American forces in Iraq and then says, "Bring THEM On", meaning bring on more attacks, not simply bring on more Iraqi insurgents.

Since that challenge to the insurgents was issued by Bush In July, 2003, thousands of Americans have died in insurgent attacks in Iraq, with the maimed and disabled toll stretches somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000.

This most famous Bush-Iraq quote is usually misquoted as "Bring It On", and the masters of the right wing media message-massage, Fox News for example, were the amongst the first to misquote him, and continue to do so to this day.

But Bush also, purposely, misquoted himself within days of an eruption of anger from the families of soldiers who clearly understood what Bush was saying and what it could mean for their sons and daughters in Iraq. Bush moved fast, and so did his masters of spin.

The key word was no longer "Them", it quickly became "It", and the focus of the media controversy in the next few days was about whether Bush had gone too far in saying "Bring It On". In other words, the spin worked.

He also misquoted himself during his first major apology session for "Bring Them On" and Abu Ghraib during this press conference with Tony Blair :

Q Mr. President, you spoke about missteps and mistakes in Iraq. Could I ask both of you which missteps and mistakes of your own you most regret?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Sounds like kind of a familiar refrain here -- saying "bring it on," kind of tough talk, you know, that sent the wrong signal to people. I learned some lessons about expressing myself maybe in a little more sophisticated manner -- you know, "wanted dead or alive," that kind of talk. I think in certain parts of the world it was misinterpreted, and so I learned from that. And I think the biggest mistake that's happened so far, at least from our country's involvement in Iraq is Abu Ghraib. We've been paying for that for a long period of time.

President Bush has always refused to apologise or even show regret for misleading the American public, and in turn the world, over the necessity for the Iraq War.

The lack of WMD evidence doesn't concern him, because he knew from the beginning it was simply a cover story to convince the world that invading and conquering Iraq was necessary "to spread of freedom and liberty" across the Middle East.

The Iraq War was a goer from Day Three of the Bush White House in the first weeks of 2000. The 9/11 attacks simply moved the War On Iraq plans to the top of the pile.

"Bring Them On" and "Osama : Wanted Dead Or Alive" are not the stupidest things Bush has ever said. He has laid down a strong challenge over his decades in the media glare for anyone to pick his most absurd, vacuous or most offensive quote.

Here's a few more charmers he has probably never considered apologising for :

"Boy, they were big on crematoriums, weren't they?"

- after touring the Auschwitz death camp, Chicago Sun-Times, 29th January 1992


"I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully."

- September. 29, 2000


"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."

- CNN, 18th December 2000


"This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while."

- White House press conference, September 16, 2001


"First, let me make it very clear, poor people aren't necessarily killers. Just because you happen to be not rich doesn't mean you're willing to kill."

- Washington, D.C., May 19, 2003


"You're free. And freedom is beautiful. And, you know, it'll take time to restore chaos and order - order out of chaos. But we will."

- Message to Iraqi people, Washington, April 2003


"The vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice."

- 28th October, 2003


"The world is more peaceful and more free under my leadership." George W Bush,

- October 28, 2003


"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful - and so are we, they never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people - and neither do we."

- Pentagon meeting, August 2004


You work three jobs? … Uniquely American, isn't it? I mean, that is fantastic that you're doing that."

- Bush talking to a divorced mother of three, Omaha, Nebraska, Feb. 4, 2005

Sources for qotes : Bushquotes, Bushisms,

BUSH QUOTES BIN LADEN, PUMPS UP AL QAEDA THREAT REPEATEDLY IN NEW SPEECH

AS PAKISTAN ANNOUNCES BIN LADEN CAN GO FREE TO "LIVE IN PEACE"

By Darryl Mason

President Bush chose the wrong day to cut loose with a string of powerful quotes from Osama Bin Laden, the former "Most Wanted Man In The World."

Bush delivered one of the most comprehensive speeches of his presidency on exactly what he believed constituted the greatest threat to the US, and peace in the world.

Lots of talk of Al Qaeda and "Fascist Islam" being the new Nazism and/or Communism. He rolled out a snapshot of the rise of Lenin and Hitler to explain how Bin Laden could one day be just as powerful, influential and devastating to the lives of millions of people.

He also explained why countries like Pakistan were such important allies in fighting the threat of Islamic terrorism....Just one major problem.

Around the same time Bush's speech transcript hit the web, another major story was breaking.

This one :

Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan, press secretary to the president of Pakistan, tells ABC News that -- if found -- Osama bin Laden won't be arrested, as long as he promises to behave like a "peaceful citizen."

"If he is in Pakistan, bin Laden 'would not be taken into custody...as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen...as long as one is being like a peaceful citizen, one would not be taken into custody....One has to stay like a peaceful citizen and not allowed to participate in any kind of terrorist activity."

If Pakistan is a key ally in the War On Terror, and Osama Bin Laden is a new kind of Hitler, than Pakistan's decision to grant Osama a parole-like amnesty from prosecution for his crimes would be like a key World War II ally of the West declaring "Hitler can hang out around here, as long as he stops this whole 'Let'sTake Over Europe And Kill All The Jews' business."

It truly is one of the most remarkable events in the War On Terror thus far, for all the wrong reasons. And thus far, easily one of the most unreported.

The second part of the story, which you can read about on the 'Your New Reality' blog here, details how Pakistan has negotiated a kind of truce with the Taliban forces in the region.

Below you will find the key Bush quotes from his speech earlier today, including Bin Laden information previously classified, or not disclosed.

It is indeed curious to see that Bush (as Rumsfeld and Cheney have done in the past few weeks) is now divvying up responsibility for the Al Qaeda and Militant Islamic threat between "terrorists" and "extremists".

The Islamo-Fascist tag is gone, presumably after geniune anger from the Saudis, people that Bush Co. listen to very closely. Like Father, like Son.

The prominent use of the descriptive "extremists" is part of the preparations, and the laying of ground work, for the second part of the Fourth World War, once enough terrorists have been taken care of - the War On Extremists.

By jumbling 'terrorists' and 'extremists' into the same Mega-Threat category, and tagging the two words together, as Bush did repeatedly with Iraq/Saddam and 9/11 - using Iraq and 9/11 in the space of one sentence, and one clear thought expressed - it gives the listener the impression that there is little that separates a terrorist and extremist from each other.

But exactly what constitutes extremist behaviour, or beliefs, is an extremely grey territory right now.

The legal definition of terrorism changes between the laws of the US, the UK and Australia, but killing people, or blowing things up, is pretty straightforward definition of what a terrorist is and what a terrorist does, or intends to do, for most of us.

But extremism? What exactly is extemist in these days of perpetual war?

Are Greenpeace extremists? How about bloggers who rage against Israel's civilian slaughter in Lebanon and Gaza? What about soldiers who torture prisoners?

What about people who stand up in the streets of our cities in front of protesting crowds and undermine the credibility of a sitting government, or the enforcers of law?

Are all these things the behaviour of extremists?

And if they are, do such actions really deserve to be bunkered down with terrorism?

The US, however, like Australia and the UK, now has a vast variety of new laws to cope with whatever they decide "extremist threats" may be. And most of these laws, many still to be challenged in the courts, were all introduced on the back of the threat of terrorism, or in the aftermath of terrorist attacks. Very interest.

Here's the key Bush quotes from today's speech :

"History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake. Bin Laden and his terrorist allies have made their intentions as clear as Lenin and Hitler before them. The question is: Will we listen? Will we pay attention to what these evil men say?"

"We see a day when people across the Middle East have governments that honor their dignity, and unleash their creativity, and count their votes. We see a day when across this region citizens are allowed to express themselves freely, women have full rights, and children are educated and given the tools necessary to succeed in life. And we see a day when all the nations of the Middle East are allies in the cause of peace."

"The terrorists who attacked us on September the 11th, 2001, are men without conscience -- but they're not madmen. They kill in the name of a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs that are evil, but not insane. These al Qaeda terrorists and those who share their ideology are violent Sunni extremists."

"The goal of these Sunni extremists is to remake the entire Muslim world in their radical image. In pursuit of their imperial aims, these extremists say there can be no compromise or dialogue with those they call "infidels" -- a category that includes America, the world's free nations, Jews, and all Muslims who reject their extreme vision of Islam. They reject the possibility of peaceful coexistence with the free world..."

"History teaches that underestimating the words of evil and ambitious men is a terrible mistake. In the early 1900s, an exiled lawyer in Europe published a pamphlet called "What Is To Be Done?" -- in which he laid out his plan to launch a communist revolution in Russia. The world did not heed Lenin's words, and paid a terrible price. The Soviet Empire he established killed tens of millions, and brought the world to the brink of thermonuclear war."

"In the 1920s, a failed Austrian painter published a book in which he explained his intention to build an Aryan super-state in Germany and take revenge on Europe and eradicate the Jews. The world ignored Hitler's words, and paid a terrible price."

"And now, freedom is once again contending with the forces of darkness and tyranny. This time, the battle is unfolding in a new region -- the broader Middle East. This time, we're not waiting for our enemies to gather in strength."

Bush Quotes Bin Laden :

"(September 11 was) an unparalleled and magnificent feat of valor, unmatched by any in humankind before them."

"Death is better than living on this Earth with the unbelievers among us."

"The most serious issue today for the whole world is this third world war that is raging in Iraq. ... The whole world is watching this war and that it will end in victory and glory or misery and humiliation."

" The confrontation… calls for… the dialogue of bullets, the ideals of assassination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and machine gun."

".,..al Qaeda spent $500,000 on (September 11)...while America… lost -- according to the lowest estimate -- $500 billion… Meaning that every dollar of al Qaeda defeated a million dollars (of the US economy)”

"America is definitely a great power, with… unbelievable military strength and a vibrant economy, but all of these have been built on a very weak and hollow foundation,,,,Therefore, it is very easy to target the flimsy base and concentrate on their weak points, and even if we're able to target one-tenth of these weak points, we will be able [to] crush and destroy them."

*(In 2002, Bin Laden planned to launch)...a media campaign… to create a wedge between the American people and their government....their government [will] bring them more losses, in finances and casualties...they are being sacrificed… to serve… the big investors, especially the Jews..."

"I now address… the whole… Islamic nation: Listen and understand… The most… serious issue today for the whole world is this Third World War… [that] is raging in [Iraq].....(this is) a war of destiny between infidelity and Islam...The whole world is watching this war...(it will end)...in victory and glory or misery and humiliation."

"The war is for you or for us to win. If we win it, it means your defeat and disgrace forever."

President Bush obviously wanted to use Bin Laden's own words and threats and ideology to remind Americans of the threat of Al Qaeda, but in doing so Bush gave the words Bin Laden massive exposure and a presumably unintended credibility.

How is this not incredibly dangerous thing for Bush to do?

He literally disseminated Bin Laden propaganda in an attempt to Fear Up his audience. Something that has been well proven not to work at all well in previous Bush speeches.

How many angry, not-yet-militant Muslims in the US may have watched this Bush speech, already hating Bush, and thought, 'You know, Bin Laden's right. We can destroy America.'

Hopefully none. But it was downright disturbing to hear Bin Laden's words coming out of Bush's mouth like that.

It is also clear that Bush wanted to use Bin Laden quotes in a dirty attempt to drive an even larger wedge between those Americans who disagree with the War On Iraq and the methodology of fighting the War On Terror and the remaining few who support President Bush entirely.

And so, after all that from Bush, Pakistan goes and announces Bin Laden will not be hunted down (if he gives up violence) and details a truce with Taliban fighters and leaders across the border.

Not what you would call a great day for President Bush, or the War On Terror.

Go here to read the full Bush speech.