Though there are many interacting factors, the immediate issue that lies behind the latest US-Israeli invasion of Lebanon remains, I believe, what it was in the four preceding invasions: the Israel-Palestine conflict. In the most important case, the devastating US-backed 1982 Israeli invasion was openly described in Israel as a war for the West Bank, undertaken to put an end to annoying PLO calls for a diplomatic settlement (with the secondary goal of imposing a client regime in Lebanon). There are numerous other illustrations. Despite the many differences in circumstances, the July 2006 invasion falls generally into the same pattern.

Among mainstream American critics of Bush administration policies, the favored version is that "We had always approached [conflict between Israel and its neighbors] in a balanced way, assuming that we could be the catalyst for an agreement," but Bush II regrettably abandoned that neutral stance, causing great problems for the United States (Middle East specialist and former diplomat Edward Walker, a leading moderate). The actual record is quite different: For over 30 years, Washington has unilaterally barred a peaceful political settlement, with only slight and brief deviations.

The consistent rejectionism can be traced back to the February 1971 Egyptian offer of a full peace treaty with Israel, in the terms of official US policy, offering nothing for the Palestinians. Israel understood that this peace offer would put an end to any security threat, but the government decided to reject security in favor of expansion, then mostly into northeastern Sinai. Washington supported Israel's stand, adhering to Kissinger's principle of "stalemate": force, not diplomacy. It was only 8 years later, after a terrible war and great suffering, that Washington agreed to Egypt's demand for withdrawal from its territory.

Meanwhile the Palestinian issue had entered the international agenda, and a broad international consensus had crystallized in favor of a two-state settlement on the pre-June 1967 border, perhaps with minor and mutual adjustments. In December 1975, the UN Security Council agreed to consider a resolution proposed by the Arab "confrontation states" with these provisions, also incorporating the basic wording of UN 242. The US vetoed the resolution. Israel's reaction was to bomb Lebanon, killing over 50 people in Nabatiye, calling the attack "preventive" - presumably to "prevent" the UN session, which Israel boycotted.

The only significant exception to consistent US-Israeli rejectionism was in January 2001, when Israeli and Palestinian negotiators came close to agreement in Taba. But the negotiations were called off by Israeli Prime Minister Barak four days early, ending that promising effort. Unofficial but high-level negotiations continued, leading to the Geneva Accord of December 2002, with similar proposals. It was welcomed by most of the world, but rejected by Israel and dismissed by Washington (and, reflexively, the US media and intellectual classes).

Meanwhile US-backed Israeli settlement and infrastructure programs have been "creating facts on the ground" in order to undermine potential realization of Palestinian national rights. Throughout the Oslo years, these programs continued steadily, with a sharp peak in 2000: Clinton's final year, and Barak's. The current euphemism for these programs is "disengagement" from Gaza and "convergence" in the West Bank - in Western rhetoric, Ehud Olmert's courageous program of withdrawal from the occupied territories. The reality, as usual, is quite different.

The Gaza "disengagement" was openly announced as a West Bank expansion plan. Having turned Gaza into a disaster area, sane Israeli hawks realized that there was no point leaving a few thousand settlers taking the best land and scarce resources, protected by a large part of the IDF. It made more sense to send them to the West Bank and Golan Heights, where new settlement programs were announced, while turning Gaza into "the world's largest prison," as Israeli human rights groups accurately call it. West Bank "Convergence" formalizes these programs of annexation, cantonization, and imprisonment. With decisive US support, Israel is annexing valuable lands and the most important resources of the West Bank (primarily water), while carrying out settlement and infrastructure projects that divide the shrinking Palestinian territories into unviable cantons, virtually separated from one another and from whatever pitiful corner of Jerusalem will be left to Palestinians. All are to be imprisoned as Israel takes over the Jordan Valley, and of course any other access to the outside world.

All of these programs are recognized to be illegal, in violation of numerous Security Council resolutions and the unanimous decision of the World Court any part of the "separation wall" that is built to "defend" the settlements is "ipso facto" illegal (U.S. Justice Buergenthal, in a separate declaration). Hence about 80-85% of the wall is illegal, as is the entire "convergence" program. But for a self-designated outlaw state and its clients, such facts are minor irrelevancies.

Currently, the US and Israel demand that Hamas accept the 2002 Arab League Beirut proposal for full normalization of relations with Israel after withdrawal in accord with the international consensus. The proposal has long been accepted by the PLO, and it has also been formally accepted by the "supreme leader" of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei. Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah has made it clear that Hezbollah would not disrupt such an agreement if it is accepted by Palestinians. Hamas has repeatedly indicated its willingness to negotiate in these terms.

The facts are doctrinally unacceptable, hence mostly suppressed. What we see, instead, is the stern warning to Hamas by the editors of the New York Times that their formal agreement to the Beirut peace plan is "an admission ticket to the real world, a necessary rite of passage in the progression from a lawless opposition to a lawful government." Like others, the NYT editors fail to mention that the US and Israel forcefully reject this proposal, and are alone in doing so among relevant actors. Furthermore, they reject it not merely in rhetoric, but far more importantly, in deeds. We see at once who constitutes the "lawless opposition" and who speaks for them. But that conclusion cannot be expressed, even entertained, in respectable circles.

The only meaningful support for Palestinians facing national destruction is from Hezbollah. For this reason alone it follows that Hezbollah must be severely weakened or destroyed, just as the PLO had to be evicted from Lebanon in 1982. But Hezbollah is too deeply embedded within Lebanese society to be eradicated, so Lebanon too must be largely destroyed. An expected benefit for the US and Israel was to enhance the credibility of threats against Iran by eliminating a Lebanese-based deterrent to a possible attack. But none of this turned out as planned. Much as in Iraq, and elsewhere, Bush administration planners have created catastrophes, even for the interests they represent. That is the primary reason for the unprecedented criticism of the administration among the foreign policy elite, even before the invasion of Iraq.

In the background lie more far-reaching and lasting concerns: to ensure what is called "stability" in the reigning ideology. "Stability," in simple words, means obedience. "Stability" is undermined by states that do not strictly follow orders, secular nationalists, Islamists who are not under control (in contrast, the Saudi monarchy, the oldest and most valuable US ally, is fine), etc. Such "destabilizing" forces are particularly dangerous when their programs are attractive to others, in which case they are called "viruses" that must be destroyed. "Stability" is enhanced by loyal client states. Since 1967, it has been assumed that Israel can play this role, along with other "peripheral" states. Israel has become virtually an off-shore US military base and high-tech center, the natural consequence of its rejection of security in favor of expansion in 1971, and repeatedly since. These policies are subject to little internal debate, whoever holds state power. The policies extend world-wide, and in the Middle East, their significance is enhanced by one of the leading principles of foreign policy since World War II (and for Britain before that): to ensure control over Middle East energy resources, recognized for 60 years to be "a stupendous source of strategic power" and "one of the greatest material prizes in world history."

The standard Western version is that the July 2006 invasion was justified by legitimate outrage over capture of two Israeli soldiers at the border. The posture is cynical fraud. The US and Israel, and the West generally, have little objection to capture of soldiers, or even to the far more severe crime of kidnapping civilians (or of course to killing civilians). That had been Israeli practice in Lebanon for many years, and no one ever suggested that Israel should therefore be invaded and largely destroyed. Western cynicism was revealed with even more dramatic clarity as the current upsurge of violence erupted after Palestinian militants captured an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, on June 25. That too elicited huge outrage, and support for Israel's sharp escalation of its murderous assault on Gaza. The scale is reflected in casualties: in June, 36 Palestinian civilians were killed in Gaza; in July, the numbers more than quadrupled to over 170, dozens of them children. The posture of outrage was, again, cynical fraud, as demonstrated dramatically, and conclusively, by the reaction to Israel's kidnapping of two Gaza civilians, the Muamar brothers, one day before, on June 24. They disappeared into Israel's prison system, joining the hundreds of others imprisoned without charge -- hence kidnapped, as are many of those sentenced on dubious charges. There was some brief and dismissive mention of the kidnapping of the Muamar brothers, but no reaction, because such crimes are considered legitimate when carried out by "our side." The idea that this crime would justify a murderous assault on Israel would have been regarded as a reversion to Nazism.

The distinction is clear, and familiar throughout history: to paraphrase Thucydides, the powerful are entitled to do as they wish, while the weak suffer as they must.

We should not overlook the progress that has been made in undermining the imperial mentality that is so deeply rooted in Western moral and intellectual culture as to be beyond awareness. Nor should we forget the scale of what remains to be achieved, tasks that must be undertaken in solidarity and cooperation by people in North and South who hope to see a more decent and civilized world.
(c) 2006 Noam Chomsky is a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author, most recently, of Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance. And "Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World," and "Imperial Ambitions: Conversations on the Post-9/11 World" published by Metropolitan Books.

IN HIS latest speech, which infuriated so many people, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad uttered a sentence that deserves attention: "Every new Arab generation hates Israel more than the previous one."

Of all that has been said about the Second Lebanon War, these are perhaps the most important words.

The main product of this war is hatred. The pictures of death and destruction in Lebanon entered every Arab home, indeed every Muslim home, from Indonesia to Morocco, from Yemen to the Muslim ghettos in London and Berlin. Not for an hour, not for a day, but for 33 successive days - day after day, hour after hour. The mangled bodies of babies, the women weeping over the ruins of their homes, Israeli children writing "greetings" on shells about to be fired at villages, Ehud Olmert blabbering about "the most moral army in the world" while the screen showed a heap of bodies.

Israelis ignored these sights, indeed they were scarcely shown on our TV. Of course, we could see them on Aljazeera and some Western channels, but Israelis were much too busy with the damage wrought in our Northern towns. Feelings of pity and empathy for non-Jews have been blunted here a long time ago.

But it is a terrible mistake to ignore this result of the war. It is far more important than the stationing of a few thousand European troops along our border, with the kind consent of Hizbullah. It may still be bothering generations of Israelis, when the names Olmert and Halutz have long been forgotten, and when even Nasrallah no longer remember the name Amir Peretz.

IN ORDER for the significance of Assad's words to become clear, they have to be viewed in a historical context. The whole Zionist enterprise has been compared to the transplantation of an organ into the body of a human being. The natural immunity system rises up against the foreign implant, the body mobilizes all its power to reject it. The doctors use a heavy dosage of medicines in order to overcome the rejection. That can go on for a long time, sometimes until the eventual death of the body itself, including the transplant.

(Of course, this analogy, like any other, should be treated cautiously. An analogy can help in understanding things, but no more than that.)

The Zionist movement has planted a foreign body in this country, which was then a part of the Arab-Muslim space. The inhabitants of the country, and the entire Arab region, rejected the Zionist entity. Meanwhile, the Jewish settlement has taken roots and become an authentic new nation rooted in the country. Its defensive power against the rejection has grown. This struggle has been going on for 125 years, becoming more violent from generation to generation. The last war was yet another episode.

WHAT IS our historic objective in this confrontation?

A fool will say: to stand up to the rejection with a growing dosage of medicaments, provided by America and World Jewry. The greatest fools will add: There is no solution. This situation will last forever. There is nothing to be done about it but to defend ourselves in war after war after war. And the next war is already knocking on the door.

The wise will say: our objective is to cause the body to accept the transplant as one of its organs, so that the immune system will no longer treat us as an enemy that must be removed at any price. And if this is the aim, it must become the main axis of our efforts. Meaning: each of our actions must be judged according to a simple criterion: does it serve this aim or obstruct it?

According to this criterion, the Second Lebanon War was a disaster.

FIFTY NINE years ago, two months before the outbreak of our War of Independence, I published a booklet entitled "War or Peace in the Semitic Region". Its opening words were:

"When our Zionist fathers decided to set up a 'safe haven' in Palestine, they had a choice between two ways:

"They could appear in West Asia as a European conqueror, who sees himself as a bridge-head of the 'white' race and a master of the 'natives', like the Spanish Conquistadores and the Anglo-Saxon colonists in America. That is what the Crusaders did in Palestine.

"The second way was to consider themselves as an Asian nation returning to its home - a nation that sees itself as an heir to the political and cultural heritage of the Semitic race, and which is prepared to join the peoples of the Semitic region in their war of liberation from European exploitation."

As is well known, the State of Israel, which was established a few months later, chose the first way. It gave its hand to colonial France, tried to help Britain to return to the Suez Canal and, since 1967, has become the little sister of the United States.

That was not inevitable. On the contrary, in the course of years there have been a growing number of indications that the immune system of the Arab-Muslim body is starting to incorporate the transplant - as a human body accepts the organ of a close relative - and is ready to accept us. Such an indication was the visit of Anwar Sadat to Jerusalem. Such was the peace treaty signed with us by King Hussein, a descendent of the Prophet. And, most importantly, the historic decision of Yasser Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian people, to make peace with Israel.

But after every huge step forward, there came an Israeli step backward. It is as if the transplant rejects the body's acceptance of it. As if it has become so accustomed to being rejected, that it does all it can to induce the body to reject it even more.

It is against this background that one should weigh the words spoken by Assad Jr., a member of the new Arab generation, at the end of the recent war.

AFTER EVERY single one of the war aims put forward by our government had evaporated, one after the other, another reason was brought up: this war was a part of the "clash of civilizations", the great campaign of the Western world and its lofty values against the barbarian darkness of the Islamic world.

That reminds one, of course, of the words written 110 years ago by the father of modern Zionism, Theodor Herzl, in the founding document of the Zionist movement: "In Palestine...we shall constitute for Europe a part of the wall against Asia, and serve as the vanguard of civilization against barbarism." Without knowing, Olmert almost repeated this formula in his justification of his war, in order to please President Bush.

It happens from time to time in the United States that somebody invents an empty but easily digested slogan, which then dominates the public discourse for some time. It seems that the more stupid the slogan is, the better its chances of becoming the guiding light for academia and the media - until another slogan appears and supersedes it. The latest example is the slogan "Clash of Civilizations", coined by Samuel P. Huntington in 1993 (taking over from the "End of History").

What clash of ideas is there between Muslim Indonesia and Christian Chile? What eternal struggle between Poland and Morocco? What is it that unifies Malaysia and Kosovo, two Muslim nations? Or two Christian nations like Sweden and Ethiopia?

In what way are the ideas of the West more sublime than those of the East? The Jews that fled the flames of the auto-da-fe of the Christian Inquisition in Spain were received with open arms by the Muslim Ottoman Empire. The most cultured of European nations democratically elected Adolf Hitler as its leader and perpetrated the Holocaust, without the Pope raising his voice in protest.

In what way are the spiritual values of the United States, today's Empire of the West, superior to those of India and China, the rising stars of the East? Huntington himself was compelled to admit: "The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do." In the West, too, women won the vote only in the 20th century, and slavery was abolished there only in the second half of the 19th. And in the leading nation of the West, fundamentalism is now also raising its head.

What interest, for goodness sake, have we in volunteering to be a political and military vanguard of the West in this imagined clash?

THE TRUTH is, of course, that this entire story of the clash of civilizations is nothing but an ideological cover for something that has no connection with ideas and values: the determination of the United States to dominate the world's resources, and especially oil.

The Second Lebanon War is considered by many as a "War by Proxy". That's to say: Hizbullah is the Dobermann of Iran, we are the Rottweiler of America. Hizbullah gets money, rockets and support from the Islamic Republic, we get money, cluster bombs and support from the United States of America.

That is certainly exaggerated. Hizbullah is an authentic Lebanese movement, deeply rooted in the Shiite community. The Israeli government has its own interests (the occupied territories) that do not depend on America. But there is no doubt that there is much truth in the argument that this was also a war by substitutes.

The US is fighting against Iran, because Iran has a key role in the region where the most important oil reserves in the world are located. Not only does Iran itself sit on huge oil deposits, but through its revolutionary Islamic ideology it also menaces American control over the near-by oil countries. The declining resource oil becomes more and more essential in the modern economy. He who controls the oil controls the world.

The US would viciously attack Iran even it were peopled with pigmies devoted to the religion of the Dalai Lama. There is a shocking similarity between George W. Bush and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, The one has personal conversations with Jesus, the other has a line to Allah. But the name of the game is domination.

What interest do we have to get involved in this struggle? What interest do we have in being regarded - accurately - as the servants of the greatest enemy of the Muslim world in general and the Arab world in particular?

We want to live here in 100 years, in 500 years. Our most basic national interests demand that we extend our hands to the Arab nations that accept us, and act together with them for the rehabilitation of this region. That was true 59 years ago, and that will be true 59 years hence.

Little politicians like Olmert, Peretz and Halutz are unable to think in these terms. They can hardly see as far as the end of their noses. But where are the intellectuals, who should be more far-sighted?

Bashar al-Assad may not be one of the world's Great Thinkers. But his remark should certainly give us pause for thought.
(c) 2006 Uri Avnery Gush Shalom

Appeasement and Munich are favored neocon themes to promote and justify more war. In a dangerous trend, they are being picked up by more columnists. Strange that the more force that the U.S. applies in the Middle East, the more that the neocons wail appeasement and the more force they demand. Strange, because repeated applications of force, the opposite of appeasement and applied in the name of avoiding appeasement, have brought no tangible gains. They have brought losses, and losses should be cut. Once again, neocons can't think straight. One should not throw good money after bad. The U.S. can't win in the Middle East. It should take its chips off the table. It should never have sat down at the table.

Neocons now call for armed confrontation with Iran in order to prevent it from obtaining nuclear weapons. They want the U.S. to stand up to Iran and fight if necessary, starting a war if need be. If rhetoric and public fears launched wars, we'd already be in another one. And Congressional resolutions and sanctions have in fact moved us closer to war. This is a war that the U.S. cannot win physically. It is a war that is morally lost the instant that the first bombs are dropped on Iran. This is a war that leads to hundreds of years of future warfare setting Islamic peoples against the West.

There is no end to how much force neocons wish to apply, and anything less than total war is regarded as appeasement by them. Some take this position because they believe that anything less than overturning Iran and preventing it from obtaining nuclear weapons means the destruction of Western civilization. The neocon position has matters backwards. Trying to overturn Iran by force will itself hasten the destruction of the West.

Neocons argue that Iran wants to bring down the entire West no matter what. They infer that U.S. disengagement and negotiations are therefore useless and war is necessary. They are incorrect on all counts. Not all Iranians want to see the West destroyed, and not all are inflexible in their views. But suppose that Dr. Ahmadinejad is one of the inflexible ones. Suppose that he is indeed a "certifiable apocalyptic" (see Gary North). He can be restrained by those mullahs who do not share his beliefs or who have more realistic expectations.

It makes sense to play for time and attempt to divide the Iranians. It does not make sense to play into Dr. Ahmadinejad's hands and bring on the conflict that he might desire or believe that he is called upon to instigate.

The neocon position entails the utter destruction of all Iranians who wish to see the West destroyed. What they do not realize is that it also entails the continued destruction of anyone else who takes their place after they are destroyed. And we can expect that initiating war on Iran will radicalize not only Iranians but also many other sympathetic Muslims.

WHAT APPEASEMENT?

On the face of it, the appeasement position is incredible. Where's the appeasement? The U.S. has plenty of force and has not been reluctant to use it. Where are the U.S. concessions? There haven't been any. Where's the Munich agreement? It doesn't exist. Where's the Iranian industrial power comparable to Hitler's or the comparable ability to place a very large well-trained and equipped armed force into combat well beyond one's borders? Iran is incapable of destroying the West.

Where's the nuclear arsenal of Iran? Even if it had one, which it does not, it could not destroy the West without itself being destroyed.

Where's the history of aggressions and annexations by Iran that compare to Hitler's? Iran has supported Hizbullah which managed to get the Israelis out of Lebanon for awhile and has used and supported terror tactics. So have many nations. So have many dictators that the U.S. has supported. We condemn all such actions, but the question is whether they add up to a record like Hitler's. They do not. Why is Tehran so interested in negotiating with Washington, in a clear break with the past? Could it be that it sees a danger of being attacked?

When Washington spurns Iran's overtures, the first in 25 years, is this appeasement? Of course not. And if Washington agreed to negotiate in good faith, would this be appeasement? Of course not.

Meeting with Iranians and Ahmadinejad has many immediate benefits. We gain information about what Iranians want. We gain information about their divisions and the strength of their preferences. We delay hostilities. We learn more about Dr. Ahmadinejad. We raise our moral stature. We have a chance to change some of their minds. The two sides might actually agree on a few further steps that lead away from war. What do we lose? Iran gains time to pursue its nuclear ventures. There is little we can do to stop that anyway, short of war. Sooner or later, if Iran wants nuclear weapons, it will get them. If starting a war with Iran is as bad as I think it is, with very negative long-term consequences, then meeting with Iranians is a very good investment.

The neocons simply want to ratchet up the level of violence to remake the Middle East. Their argument is that if we do not, we'll be destroyed by Iran or by some pan-Islamic combine. This is ridiculous. The U.S. nuclear arsenal deterred the Soviet Union. It can deter Iran. The neocon answer to this is that Iran is led by hate-filled fanatics who will not face a reality like seeing their country effaced from the earth by hydrogen bombs.

How credible is that assumption? Should U.S. policy be based upon such an assumption? Not all Iranians are impervious to realities. Many Iranian leaders have a definite political agenda. Not all are expecting the imminent return of the Mahdi. Iranian goals run up against American ambitions in the Middle East, and this is a basic source of conflict, not an abstract desire to destroy Western civilization and be destroyed in the process.

Churchill said "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject." If we rely on the extreme beliefs of our homegrown neocon fanatics, whose own ideas are impervious to change, and who can't propose any course of action except war, then we shall ourselves destroy our own civilization.

LOSING IS NOT APPEASEMENT.

The neocons do not realize that force is a great weapon so long as it's not used. They did not understand that once the U.S. embarked on a policy of force in Iraq, it risked more than its initial stake. Losing Iraq lost the U.S. prestige and credibility everywhere else in the region, and wherever else it might be confronted. It strengthened Iran's hand. It weakened Israel's. Practically speaking, the American people and the military are much less likely and capable of underwriting another venture on the heels of a failed one.

Once an initial application of force goes wrong, as in Iraq, defeat and withdrawal begin to look like appeasement in the face of other threats, real or imagined. In other words, what merely seems like appeasement to the neocons now is a direct consequence of resorting to force in the first place and losing. A U.S. weakened by its missteps and unable to make good on its threats will indeed be more inclined to pull back.

If it does, it won't be appeasement. It will be the result of losses and seeking to stem further losses. This will be neither the end of the world nor Western civilization. It will, however, be attributable to the long-term (flawed) U.S. policy of trying to control the Middle East and to the specific neocon policies that included attacking Iraq, sanctions and threats against Iran, a diplomacy of pressure, and attacking Lebanon.

THE LEBANON FIASCO . . .

If Israel ever attacks Iran, it means the U.S. attacks Iran. The U.S. has to restrain Israel if it is to avoid setting fanatic against fanatic, and launching a hundred or more years war.

From this standpoint, the U.S. miscalculated badly in encouraging Israel to attack Lebanon. Neocons hoped that Israel would take out Hizbullah and reduce its threat. They hoped for a widening of the war to include Syria and Iran.

If Israel failed, the risk was that Hizbullah would be strengthened and Israel weakened. Now that Israel has lost and Hizbullah won, the loss has exposed Israel's weak and vulnerable position. Israel is surrounded by foes with renewed spirit and hope.

The balance of power has shifted in favor of Hizbullah, Iran, and Syria. Hizbullah's political position in Lebanon has been strengthened. Even if it has been temporarily weakened by loss of men, material, and position, it can quickly rebuild its operations and resupply its guerillas. Israel won't be able to stop the flow of weapons or prevent recruiting and training.

Israel's foes have several advantages. Hizbullah's leaders can decide when they want to apply pressure. They can bide their time. They can decide how much pressure to apply and in what forms. They have allies in Gaza. They can maintain guerilla tactics and avoid outright massed attacks on Israel. The odds are that they will stay with tactics of attrition, threat, terror, and political pressure, hoping to weaken Israel or gain concessions. Some types of concessions that weaken it as a Jewish state might effectively, over time, spell the doom of Israel in its present form. The game is a long-term game in which changes in the demographics in Israel can play a part. Even out- migration of Jews from Israel can play a part.

RESTRAINING ISRAEL . . .

Iran is a state that aspires to be the Middle Eastern hegemon while the U.S. opposes Iranian dominance. Iran and Syria have the advantage of Hizbullah, which buffers their direct involvement. Israel's advantage is that it can use surprise attack, but against whom and will it succeed? It didn't work against Lebanon.

Israel will try to block Hizbullah's resupply efforts while avoiding an expansion of hostilities. It will try to rebuild its credibility. A direct attack on Syrian territory would bring Syria into the war and then Iran, its treaty ally. Once Iran is in, the U.S. would come in. A major war would result. The U.S. military cannot rationally support such a costly and risky war. Therefore Israel (rationally) should be restrained by the U.S. Will it be?

The U.S. urged Israel on in Lebanon. Influential interest groups like AIPAC that have no concern for U.S. interests will be urging the U.S. to support whatever Israel does to the hilt. And our current leadership seems only to anxious to comply with pro-Israel lobby, partly because they are operating under one neocon illusion after another anyway. This situation could not be more dangerous. The U.S. support of Israel's attack on Lebanon has only made it more dangerous and has only shown us once again that U.S. policy is on a disastrous course. Appeasement is not the problem whatsoever. Stupidity is.

The U.S. shouldn't even contemplate allowing Israel pre-emptively to bomb Iran for any reason. This is the same as a U.S. attack. What sort of world will we have after such an event? Such an attack would be long-term suicide for Israel and mean endless war for the U.S. Unfortunately, although the U.S. military cannot rationally recommend an Israeli air strike upon Iran, this does not mean that it could not happen. The U.S. has blundered numerous times in the Middle East (and elsewhere) and can again.

CONCLUSION

The U.S. hasn't appeased any country in the Middle East. It has done just the opposite. America's missteps in the Middle East have weakened its position. All is not lost. The U.S. can stop playing the foolish neocon war game, pull back, rebuild credibility, rebuild its financial and other strengths, take a breather, tone down the rhetoric, talk with its foes, rebuild its moral stature, and play for time. This is the smart course to take, as opposed to setting the world ablaze.

The two main issues in the Middle East are oil and Israel. U.S. can buy oil without controlling the politics of the Middle East. It can deregulate energy, including nuclear energy, and resolve its energy problems without war. The Israel issue can't be resolved as easily. Israel in its current political form is doomed. It makes no sense for the U.S. to start a world war in order to preserve Israel. It makes no sense for the Israeli tail to wag the U.S. dog. The U.S. has to control Israel.

America got into this mess and only America can get out of it. America has little choice but strongly to control Israel, if it can, to control negotiations, if it can, and to lead the way in settling all the outstanding questions surrounding Israel's existence and political nature. The alternatives are that Israel will gradually be worn down anyway and/or that the U.S. will engage in the great folly of a major war.

Take school. Sure, there are ads in the hallways, on classroom televisions, and even in some of the text books. But, I ask you, what about school buses? Yeah, I know that there are ads on the outside of many buses - but, hey, the kids are on the inside. And they're just goofing off as they ride to school in the morning and as they return home after school. That's a prime advertising opportunity going to waste.

Not for long, though. Two professional ad hucksters have had a brainstorm that they hope will blow more ads into the developing minds of our school kids. Calling it BusRadio, their dream is to pipe an hour-long program - including eight minutes of advertising - into the buses, which they say will be "a unique and effective way to reach the highly sought after teen and tween market."

Yeah, get 'em while they're captives in a bus and can't get away from rank commercialism!

Well, say BusRadio promoters, our motives are not merely monetary, but also to provide a social service. They claim that BusRadio can be a behavioral nanny, that students are more likely to be quieter and follow the rules while the radio is on. And if they get a little boisterous, by gollies the bus driver can cut off the radio to punish them. However, as one watchdog group notes, we also could keep the kids quiet "if we gave them cigarettes, but that doesn't mean we should."

This is Jim Hightower saying... This isn't about providing a service, and it isn't even about radio - it's about using our educational system to compel children to absorb the commercial messages of corporations. Yet, BusRadio is planning to go national next year. It hopes to reach a million students, some as young as five. To help bring this runaway bus to a stop, call Commercial Alert: 503-235-8012.

In describing the situation in Nigeria, Eghare presents us with a microcosm of a modern Inferno, Purgatorio, e Paradiso (about which there is little divine or comic). In the timeless struggle between the "haves and "have nots", alarming numbers of "useless eaters" ("have nots") are sliding from Purgatorio into the abyss of abject poverty's Inferno.

And what heinous transgression did they commit that necessitated their banishment into the Inferno? They were born, of course. Most of those experiencing the misery of indigence had the misfortune to enter this world bearing a losing lottery ticket.

From their birth, the psyches of the poor and homeless in the "developed" nations and those of the impoverished in the "developing" nations are battered with the hopelessness and despair of their harsh realities. (Realities carefully created and perpetuated in a variety of ways by their "betters").

After spending their formative years pitted against nearly overwhelming economic and social forces, the message many of them internalize probably reads something like this:

Sorry, washout. You are the wrong color, ethnicity, caste, social class, or nationality. Surviving to age 40 will be no small task for you. And if you manage to do so, your chances of significantly bettering your situation are quite slim. After all, the lottery winners invest a great deal in maintaining structural barriers to hold you down. But the good news is that you can add meaning to your miserable existence by working for slave wages( or simply withering and dying) to ensure that the tiny percentage of humanity enjoying economic Paradiso continues to do so and that the shrinking number of fortunates in Purgatorio experience a degree of comfort and security.

To gain some perspective on the extent of human suffering, avarice, and depravity associated with the gross imbalance in wealth and power, weigh these facts:

1. More than half of the 6.5 billion human souls populating Earth subsist on less than $2 per day. 790 million of the deeply impoverished suffer from chronic malnutrition (while 65% of US Americans are overweight).

2. 20% of the human race does not have access to clean water and 31% of the world's population has no electricity.

3. Combining the gross domestic products of the 48 poorest nations (representing 25% of global population) yields a figure that is less than the wealth of the three richest people in the world.

4. "Developed nations" account for 80% of the world's consumption and 20% of the world's population.

5. The wealth gap between the richest and poorest countries went from 3 to 1 in 1820 to 72 to 1 in 1992.

6. Corporations account for over half of the 100 wealthiest entities in the world.

7. And most tragically:

"According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they "die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death."

That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years of age, each year."

(Thanks to Global Issues.org for the above information)

Earth's ruling oligarchs and plutocrats have created and perpetuated a socioeconomic dynamic in which the destitute have little or no access to education, basic healthcare, decent employment, or even basic necessities. From the United States to sub-Saharan Africa to Southeast Asia, those isolated in despairing communities with crumbling or non-existent infrastructures find themselves mired in impoverished breeding grounds for crime, high birth rates, substance abuse, and AIDS.

Perhaps an apt message for those impoverished children arriving in this world with three strikes against them would be:

"Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate", which is most commonly translated as "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."

How humane and politically correct those monopolizing Earth's bounty have become. Monarchy has essentially been relegated to the dustbin of history. Empire building through brute force is becoming an increasingly rare event. Certainly the ruling elite maintain potent militaries to exercise their right to "defend themselves" (as they are doing in Iraq and Lebanon). But more often then not, the masters of the human race have learned to wield their economic power like a heavy cudgel, capable of battering their foes into submission with a few swift strokes.

New age dawning?

As humanity basks in the nurturing rays of a long-awaited sunrise marking the dawn of a glorious new paradigm, a determined privileged class is determined to make utopia a reality for themselves. Ushering in a veritable paradise of free trade, "robust economies", "ownership societies", "freedom and liberty", and unprecedented profits generated by massive companies unfettered by frivolous government regulation, predatory human beings now issue their edicts from corporate skyscrapers rather than moated castles.

Wage slaves and sweat shop laborers have supplanted serfs and chattel slaves. Five major corporations comprise 90% of the mass media in the United States. What are their specialties? Shaping public opinion to maintain the illusion that one of the world's most rapacious and bellicose nations is a "benevolent superpower" and enticing those who fall prey to their charms to experience a virtually insatiable desire to acquire more material possessions. A brain-washed complacent citizenry perpetually ready to go on a buying binge is a wet dream for the ruling elite.

For many, the survival of their families depends upon the meager pay they receive from corporate behemoths like Wal-Mart. More fortunate wage slaves earn enough to cover the cost of necessities and to attain the goods the corporate media push like Ecstasy. Shopping....what a rush!

Between the US Americans who have high discretionary income and the easy credit issued to those who don't, demand for consumer goods is nearly infinite. With grossly unfair laws (protecting consumers, the environment, and workers) squeezing their profits, those ingenious devils amongst the ruling elite concluded they would locate in "developing" countries where they could truly rape, pillage and plunder. Hence the worsening plight of those beholden to their corporate masters both in the United States and abroad.

Where is the wealth?

And just how heavily are the world's assets concentrated into the hands of the elite? While the United States is by no means home to the entire world's de facto aristocracy, it is the "leader of the obscenely rich world" and by default is the "leader of the (ostensibly) free world".

For example, Professor G. William Domhoff of the University of California at Santa Cruz wrote in 2001:

"In terms of types of financial wealth, the top 1 percent of households have 44.1% of all privately held stock, 58.0% of financial securities, and 57.3% of business equity. The top 10% have 85% to 90% of stock, bonds, trust funds, and business equity, and over 75% of non-home real estate. Since financial wealth is what counts as far as the control of income-producing assets, we can say that just 10% of the people own the United States of America."

And thanks to the Bush administration, that 10% is maintaining a firm grasp on what they own.

Pernicious and Enduring Lies

The predator class pacifies its subservient underclass with the myth that in the United States and the satellite "free market economies" it has established (at gun-point or through the subversive activities of the CIA), everyone can become a successful entrepreneur by starting their own business. Yet like the lie that all impoverished individuals except widows, orphans, and the infirm are responsible for their own circumstances, this malicious fairy tale ignores several realities. Like the fiction about the impoverished, it assumes that all people are on a level playing field. However, that notion is far removed from reality. Some people have a higher quality education than others. Individuals receiving a high degree of support from friends and family are much more likely to succeed than those who have little or no support. While some starting a business have financial resources behind them, others have virtually nothing but their drive and ideas. Market forces, weather patterns, competition, health, and many other variables can serve to make or break a "budding capitalist". And no two people are alike or face the same conditions.

Approximately 150 million of those young and healthy enough to work in the United States earn a wage or salary. (Versus a relatively paltry figure of 20 million who are self-employed). 85% of small businesses fail within 5 years. Corporate leviathans like Wal-Mart and Microsoft have defied anti-trust laws to crush myriad competitors, including many small entrepreneurs. Horatio Alger success stories are none too plentiful in the "land of opportunity". And the grim reality is that the Goliath corporate giants usually prevail against the David small businesses.

In 2003, the average worker in the United States was netting $517.00 per week. How much were CEO's taking home at that time? A mere $155,000. 52 times per year. That is a staggering 301 to 1 differential. In 1982 the ratio of CEO to average worker pay was "a mere" 42 to 1. From 1990 to 2003 US corporate profits rose 128%.

To further appreciate the obscene avarice of the world's plutocracy, consider that the average garment worker in Bangladesh earned 13 cents per hour in 2004. The "10% of the people who own the United States" and their counter-parts in nations around the globe are doing very well thanks to the blood, sweat, and tears of the remaining 6 billion or so human beings on the planet.

Incorporating their Avarice

Corporations are the Holy Grail for the rich and powerful. They provide moneyed individuals investment vehicles which afford them extremely limited personal liability, financially and criminally. By the late 19th Century in the United States, corporations had acquired many of the legal rights of a human being. Despite their roots in British colonialism and the deep apprehensions of founders like Thomas Jefferson, corporations have come to dominate the United States and much of the world culturally, politically, and economically.

Jefferson's _expression of concern to George Logan in 1816 was well-founded:

"I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government in a trial of strength, and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

Not only was the aristocracy of moneyed corporations born. Its power has grown to such monstrous proportions that it has virtually crushed the life from a still relatively nascent social experiment based on democratic ideals and Constitutional law.

According to the Center for Public Integrity, the pharmaceutical industry alone has spent $675 million lobbying the government to shape public policy over the last seven years. The insurance industry spent even more if one includes campaign donations. Through their corporate proxies, the moneyed elite invest a great deal in the United States' political system. They expect and receive a great deal in return.

"Defending" the predator class is an expensive proposition

Spending at a clip of $600 billion per year (including Iraqi Occupation costs), the United States accounts for 50% of the world's military spending. As George Bush (the current public face of the world's plutocracy) so sagely reminded us, "Free nations are peaceful nations." To manufacture the many instruments of peace which prove how free we are, the United States relies on 737 defense contractors, sometimes known as the military-industrial complex. Of those 737 contractors, a mere five have received government contracts totaling $284 billion over the last six years. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics do quite well at the public trough. Halliburton has also fared nicely since former CEO Dick Cheney took office and helped lie the United States into the Iraqi Occupation. Facilitating killing is their business, and business is good.

Sedating the masses with consumerism, spin, fear-mongering and historical revisions; lobbying heavily; donating huge sums to political campaigns; and maintaining the military industrial complex are powerful means of securing the seats of power in DC and Tel Aviv. However, the predator class has yet another weapon at its disposal: the revolving door between government and major corporations. Men like Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are but two stalwarts of the privileged class who have traversed back and forth from roles of great influence in major corporations to positions of power within the government. But they are not pioneers. Theirs is a path blazed by many before them and almost certain to be followed by many after them.

A glimpse of the ugly reality of pathological avarice in action...

To move beyond an abstract analysis of the machinations of the oppression and exploitation of most of the human race by a select and privileged few, consider one of many specific examples. For years, British and US oil interests have enjoyed the complicity of the criminal ruling elite in Nigeria in plundering an incredibly valuable natural resource. In return a majority of the indigenous people have received land too polluted to farm, brutal attacks by government forces, and extreme poverty.

According to an article written for Amnesty International:

"It's 10 years since the Nigerian Government executed the well-known Ogoni writer and human rights campaigner Ken Saro-Wiwa. But little has changed for the people of the Niger Delta, reports Seth Jordan....

...Oil was discovered in the Ogoni region in the late 1950s by the Royal Dutch/Shell Group....by the 1990s an estimated US $30 billion worth of oil had already been extracted, and oil revenues accounted for over 98 per cent of Nigeria's foreign exchange earnings; the 550,000 local farmers and fishermen who inhabited the coastal land had received little except a ravaged environment. Once fertile farmland had been destroyed by uncontrolled pollution, and virtually all fish and wildlife had vanished. Only a handful of local people were employed by the oil companies or benefited economically in any way....

"On 4 February 2005, soldiers from Nigeria's Joint Task Force fired on protesters from the Ugborodo community at the Escravos oil terminal run by Chevron Nigeria. One man was shot and later died from his injuries. Thirty other demonstrators were injured by blows from rifle butts and other weapons. Neither the government nor the oil company provided adequate medical care or helped to transport the injured."

Nigeria provides a potent example of the blatant abuses of the impoverished masses by the privileged few. But sadly, it is but one of many such cases. While the rapacious individuals who wield the power in this world have stacked the deck heavily in their favor, there are glimmers of hope. The United States and Israel are both failing in their wars of aggression in the Middle East. A wave of democratic socialism is beginning to sweep South America. A populist leader may still win the presidency in Mexico. Joe Lieberman was ejected. And checks and balances were at least temporarily restored in the United States when a federal judge ordered George Bush to obey the Constitution.

Readers in the UK perusing the New York Times yesterday ran across an intriguing headline about new facts coming out in the "bomb terror plot" that recently shook the island kingdom: "Details Emerge in British Terror Case." Hmm, what does America's "paper of record" have to say about this vital subject? Let's click the headline and see...er, let's click again and...Where's the story? What's this message?

On advice of legal counsel, this article is unavailable to readers of nytimes.com in Britain. This arises from the requirement in British law that prohibits publication of prejudicial information about the defendants prior to trial.

Yes, that's right: British users of the great universal information system of the age are being blocked from reading a story in America's most venerable and venerated newspaper - blocked not by government censorship, but by the newspaper itself. Who needs the KGB or the Stasi if the media watchdogs of a "free country" willingly snap the muzzle on themselves and lie down whimpering, thumping their tails at the bootheels of power?

And it wasn't just this newfangled internet gizmo that was blocked: "the shipment of yesterday's paper to London was stopped. The story was also omitted from the International Herald Tribune, the NYT's European sister paper," as the Guardian reports.

What accounts for this extraordinary situation? The Guardian explains:

...It is believed to be the first time that the paper has stopped British readers accessing one of its articles because of worries about UK law. Earlier this month, the home secretary, John Reid, and the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, issued a joint warning to the media to avoid coverage of the current terror investigations which might prejudice future trials. The statement threatened possible contempt proceedings against publications that failed to show appropriate "restraint".

That would be the same John Reid - the former Stalinist enforcer turned rightwing Blairite bullyboy in Labour's "four legs good, two legs better" regime - who immediately after the alleged bomb plot was uncovered took to the airwaves and spoke in no uncertain terms of the predetermined guilt of the terrorist suspects. It was Reid himself who prejudiced the case, in the most spectacular fashion. Reid's little confab with Lord Goldsmith - the legal eagle who cravenly reversed himself on the obvious illegality of the Iraq War after the White House and Blair leaned on him - had nothing to do with "protecting the rights" of the bomb plot suspects. (Blair after all has called for "rethinking" Britain's legal commitment to Europe's Human Rights Law, because of the "restrictions" this puts on his regime's maniacal drive to overturn the Magna Carta.)

No, what Reid (and the ever-acquiescent attorney general) want to do is intimidate the press from probing too deeply into the terror plot, from which the Blair government has tried to make so much political hay. (Without success, by the way; Blair, like Bush, is in free fall at the polls. His cynical mendacity and bloodthirsty lockstep with Bush have produced a true political miracle in Britain: the resurrection of the hated Tory Party, which had almost disappeared as a political force since 1997. Now the Conservatives are soaring in the polls, leading Labour by nine points.)

And so the New York Times is aiding and abetting this attempt to throttle the free flow of information in a supposed democracy. What is truly sinister about this cowardice is the precedent it sets for the paper's future policy. Hearken to the strange black-and-white rationale of this self-censorship delivered by George Freeman, vice president and assistant general counsel of the New York Times Company:

"...We're dealing with a country [the UK] that, while it doesn't have a First Amendment, it does have a free press, and it's our position that we ought to respect that country's laws."

Dig the pretzel logic: because the UK has a "free press," we should bend our knee to its laws that, er, restrict the freedom of the press. "We ought to respect that country's laws."

So when will the New York Times start blocking Chinese readers from reading stories that might violate "that country's laws"? (Those Chinese readers who have somehow circumvented the Reidish restrictions that Beijing's enforcers have clamped on the internet, that is.) Hey, the United States has a "free press," too; should the New York Times stop publishing stories using leaks of classified information that might violate "that country's laws?" If you're going to bow down to John Reid, why not to George Bush too while you're at it? Are Britain's press-restriction laws somehow more honorable than the shackles Bush, Al Gonzales and the whole sick crew are trying to put on America's media?

But you can be sure the next time the New York Times is under fire from the White House and the rightwing echo chamber for publishing classified material from a whistleblower (or from some savvy player in the Regime's own internecine warfare), the paper will send out the call: "Stand up for us, friends! The freedom of the press is being attacked! Help us defend our sacred liberties! Help us speak truth to power and cast a torchlight on the darkness of government skullduggery!"

I guess it's OK to kill the freedom of the press - as long as it's suicide, not a whack job from outside. We can campaign for "net neutrality" and maintaining the unrestricted, gloriously anarchic freedom of the internet from government encroachment until we're blue in the face; we can pour our hearts and souls into it, lobby Congress, write letters, lead protest marches and what all - but it's not going to mean a damn thing if the media itself is going to fall down and grovel in a paroxysm of trembly "respect" whenever they're confronted with the onerous press restrictions of the various principalities and powers of the world.

This is a major defeat for press freedom - a craven surrender offered up meekly without even firing a shot.
(c) 2006 Chris Floyd

The U.S. news media always makes light of George W. Bush's tendency to put down others through disparaging comments about their personal appearances or by assigning them silly nicknames. It's just the "inner frat boy" coming out, we're told.

So, when U.S. News cited "a top insider" describing how Bush likes to fart in the presence of junior White House staffers as a joke on them, the item was given the boys-will-be-boys title: "Animal House in the West Wing."

According to U.S. News, Bush was just "a funny, earthy guy who, for example, can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides." Bush was described, too, as someone who "loves to cuss [and] gets a jolly when a mountain biker wipes out trying to keep up with him." [ U.S. News, Aug. 20, 2006]

But Bush's behavior could be viewed in a less sympathetic light. Given his famous thin skin whenever he feels slighted, his eagerness to demean others could be interpreted as a sign of his dynastic authority, a modern-day droit du seigneur in which he can humiliate others but they can't return the favor.

Indeed, this tendency to assert his superior position over others by subjecting them to degrading treatment has been a recurring part of Bush's persona dating back at least to his days as an "enforcer" on his father's presidential campaigns.

In 1986, for instance, Bush spotted Wall Street Journal political writer Al Hunt and his wife Judy Woodruff having dinner at a Dallas restaurant with their four-year-old son. Bush was steaming over Hunt's prediction that Jack Kemp - not then-Vice President George H.W. Bush - would win the Republican presidential nomination in 1988.

Bush stormed up to the table and cursed Hunt out. "You fucking son of a bitch," Bush yelled. "I saw what you wrote. We're not going to forget this."

Later in the campaign, when Newsweek ran a cover story with the image of George H.W. Bush on a boat with the headline, "Fighting the Wimp Factor," a furious George W. Bush enforced a year-long punishment of Newsweek by barring the magazine's reporters from access to key campaign insiders.

'Don't Kill Me'

Sometimes Bush's sense of entitlement had an even nastier edge.

As Texas governor, Bush would mock people on Death Row. In a famous interview with conservative pundit Tucker Carlson, Bush imitated condemned murderess Carla Faye Tucker's unsuccessful plea for clemency. "Please don't kill me," Bush whimpered through pursed lips, mimicking the woman he had put to death.

In another example of Bush's put-down humor, the Texas governor lined up with a group of men for a photo and fingered the man next to him. "He's the ugly one!" Bush laughed, before realizing that the incident was being observed by a reporter. [NYT, Aug. 22, 1999]

Other times, Bush showed how prickly he can be when facing criticism. During a campaign stop in Naperville, Ill., Bush groused to his running mate, Dick Cheney, about what Bush considered negative coverage from New York Times reporter Adam Clymer.

"There's Adam Clymer - major league asshole - from the New York Times," Bush said as he was waving to a campaign crowd from a stage in Naperville, Ill.

"Yeah, big time," responded Cheney. Their voices were picked up on an open microphone.

During a presidential debate in 2000, Bush was back to making light of Texas executions. While arguing against the need for hate-crimes laws, Bush said the three men convicted of the racially motivated murder of James Byrd were already facing the death penalty.

"It's going to be hard to punish them any worse after they're put to death," Bush said, with an out-of-place smile across his face. Beyond the inaccuracy of his statement - one of the three killers had received life imprisonment - there was that smirk again when discussing people on Death Row.

Bald Guys

Bush's demeaning humor carried over into his presidency as he enjoyed razzing people about their looks, often in public when they could do nothing but blush and look down at their feet.

At a press conference at his Crawford ranch on Aug. 24, 2001, Bush called on a Texas reporter who had covered Bush as governor. Bush said the young reporter was "a fine lad, fine lad," drawing laughter from the national press corps.

The Texas reporter then began to ask his question, "You talked about the need to maintain technological ..." But Bush interrupted the reporter to deliver his punch line:

"A little short on hair, but a fine lad. Yeah."

As Bush joined in the snickering, the young reporter paused and acknowledged meekly, "I am losing some hair."

Bush's joy in mocking bald men didn't stop with reporters.

At a joint White House press conference May 16, 2006, with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, Bush slipped in a couple of zingers about Howard's bald head and supposed homeliness.

Bush joshed, "Somebody said, 'You and John Howard appear to be so close, don't you have any differences?' And I said, 'yes, he doesn't have any hair.'"

Getting a round of laughs from reporters, Bush moved on to his next joke: "That's what I like about John Howard," Bush said. "He may not be the prettiest person on the block, but when he tells you something you can take it to the bank."

Howard played the role of gracious guest, smiling and saying nothing in response to the unflattering comments about his physical appearance.

Neck Rub

Besides publicly embarrassing people about their looks - while they are in no position to return the favor - Bush also demonstrates his power by invading personal space, cupping his hand behind a man's neck or - in the case of German Chancellor Angela Merkel - giving her an unwelcome neck rub at the G-8 summit in St. Petersburg, Russia.

In a generally flattering portrait of Bush in the 2003 book, The Right Man, former Bush speechwriter David Frum acknowledged that Bush often used sarcasm to dress down his subordinates as well as his political opponents.

Bush is "impatient and quick to anger; sometimes glib, even dogmatic; often uncurious and as a result ill informed," Frum wrote. When referring to environmentalists, Bush would call them "green-green lima beans," according to Frum.

Other times, Bush's harsh humor has complicated U.S. foreign policy, including the tense relations with North Korea. During a lectern-pounding tirade before Republican leaders in May 2002, Bush insulted North Korea's diminutive dictator Kim Jong Il by calling him a "pygmy," Newsweek reported. The slur quickly circulated around the globe.

While many Bush backers find his acid tongue and biting humor refreshing - the sign of a "politically incorrect" politician - some critics contend that Bush's casual insults fit with a dynastic sense of entitlement toward the presidency and toward those he rules.

Dynasty

The Bushes show no modesty about their extraordinary political dynasty. At family events, George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush wear matching caps and wind-breakers emblazoned with the numbers 41 and 43, identifying their presidencies.

George W. Bush also relished the fawning news coverage that followed the 9/11 attacks, complete with suggestions from the likes of NBC's Tim Russert that Bush's selection as President might have been divinely inspired.

In a round-table discussion on Dec. 23, 2001, Russert joined New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick and First Lady Laura Bush in ruminating about whether divine intervention had put Bush in the White House to handle the crisis.

Russert asked Mrs. Bush if "in an extraordinary way, this is why he was elected." Mrs. Bush disagreed with Russert's suggestion that "God picks the President, which he doesn't."

This hagiographic treatment of Bush might have been intended to boost his confidence in the face of a national crisis. But the flattery instead seems to have fed an egotism that devoured any remaining self-doubts.

The swelling of Bush's head was apparent in his interview for Bob Woodward's Bush at War, .which took a largely flattering look at Bush's "gut" decision-making but reported some disturbing attitudes within the White House.

"I am the commander, see," Bush told Woodward. "I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the President. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they need to say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

So, Bush had come to see himself as beyond accountability, much as ancient royalty viewed their own powers as unlimited under the divine right of kings. In the traditional droit du seigneur, a nobleman had the right to deflower the bride of a male subject on their first night of marriage.

If the neoconservatives were not so adept at claiming the patriotic high ground for themselves -- and convincing the nation that they are interested only in advancing the security of America and Israel and the cause of democracy -- it might be time to start asking which of them are actually agents of Iran. The question is pertinent because "objectively," as they like to say, neoconservative policy has resulted in enormous profit to the Iranian mullahs, at grave cost to the United States and with little or no benefit to Israel.

The most obvious example, of course, is the American invasion and occupation of Iraq, which has conveniently eliminated Iran's chief military rival in the region, and replaced Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime with a weak government dominated by Shiite Islamist parties friendly to Tehran. The only certain outcome of our misbegotten effort is that the Iranians have finally gotten what they could not achieve during eight years of war with Iraq, despite the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of millions of dollars. And we delivered the prize to them at no cost -- except what we have lost in thousands of dead and wounded U.S. troops and hundreds of billions of dollars.

Oddly enough, they don't seem any more grateful than the Iraqis.

Remember that the war's chief instigator, aside from the neoconservatives themselves, was their friend and collaborator Ahmed Chalabi, who has since proved to be a more reliable ally of the Iranians than of his former American sponsors. With much help from domestic propagandists, Chalabi oversaw dissemination of the disinformation about Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" that served as the rationale for war. The original neocon plan was to enthrone him in Baghdad as a strongman ruler, at least on a temporary basis. He had promised, among other things, that the new Iraq would grant diplomatic recognition to Israel. Things haven't quite worked out that way.

Could the neocons truly have been so dense and clueless about the consequences of an American invasion of Iraq? Not if one believes their constant flattery of their own seriousness and sagacity. They did do an excellent job of misleading the American public about how the war would proceed, from their promises that the costs would be underwritten by Iraqi oil, to their predictions that a "new democratic Iraq" would radically improve the prospects for regional peace and progress, to their assurances that Shiite domination would prove benign. William Kristol, the Weekly Standard editor whose magazine so assiduously promoted war, brushed aside any concerns about empowering the Shiites during an April 2003 interview with National Public Radio's Terry Gross:

"And on this issue of the Shia in Iraq, I think there's been a certain amount of, frankly, Terry, a kind of pop sociology in America that, you know, somehow the Shia can't get along with the Sunni and the Shia in Iraq just want to establish some kind of Islamic fundamentalist regime. There's almost no evidence of that at all. Iraq's always been very secular." For a man who by then had spent almost 10 years arguing for war in Iraq, he was either stunningly ignorant or intentionally deceptive.

It would be easier to believe that Kristol and his fellow war enthusiasts were merely misinformed or stupid if all of their mistakes did not so consistently benefit Tehran. But consider the results of the policies pursued by the White House at their insistence.

By constantly threatening Iran and proclaiming a policy of "regime change" that may someday be imposed militarily, the Bush administration has gravely weakened the domestic opposition to the mullahs. This loud, clumsy approach has made the U.S. so unpopular among the Iranian people that exile groups seeking democratic reform dare not identify themselves with us. Actually, the excessive belligerence of the neoconservatives is a great boon to the otherwise unpopular mullahs, creating an external threat that unites the Iranians and distracts from their domestic misery. And the threat of an attack by the United States has given Tehran an excellent reason to continue seeking a nuclear deterrent.

In the same vein, Tehran profited from the original Bush policy of refusing to negotiate with Iran over its nuclear ambitions, which divided the United States from its traditional allies in Europe and allowed the mullahs to play Russia and China off against the West. Indeed, the overarching Bush policy of breaking apart our alliances and acting unilaterally has aided all of our adversaries, especially Tehran, by dividing and weakening us. (See Iraq war, above.) Meanwhile, the failure to unite the world behind sanctions much sooner has allowed Iran to accelerate its nuclear program.

The Iranians have also enjoyed the fruits of an incredibly reckless decision by the Bush administration -- again encouraged by the neoconservatives -- to back Israel's bombardment of Lebanon. Tehran's friends in Hezbollah are now the toast of the Arab world, and they are well on their way to destabilizing Iran's enemies (and America's allies), destroying any chance to revive the peace process, and radicalizing Muslims around the world. What benefit, if any, the U.S. or Israel derived from this latest misadventure is hard to see.

At still another level of policy, the Bush administration has fought to prevent the imposition of automobile fuel economy standards or other conservation measures that would begin to free us from Iranian threats to withhold oil. While the White House occasionally pretends to be interested in new energy technologies, the government has done little or nothing to pursue real energy independence. But then, that is simply the inevitable result of electing George W. Bush as president, a failed oilman more concerned with chopping brush and making fart jokes than foreign policy.

And then there's Dick Cheney, the real author of these disastrous policies. It is the vice president who has provided the bureaucratic muscle behind the neoconservatives, whose patronage he has long enjoyed at the American Enterprise Institute. Cheney too has a curious history with Iran, as the former chief executive of Halliburton, a company that blithely and repeatedly violated U.S. sanctions against Iran through foreign subsidiaries. As a congressman, Cheney was also the most outspoken apologist for the secret arms trading with the Iranian mullahs, despite their record of supporting terrorism against American troops, that almost brought down the Reagan administration.

But Cheney is an opponent of Tehran, as are his comrades at the Weekly Standard, in the Pentagon and elsewhere in the ranks of neoconservatism. They aren't secretly trying to give aid and comfort to Tehran.

Will government-contracted private firms ever charge us for emergency services?

The Red Cross has just announced a new disaster response partnership with Wal-Mart. When the next hurricane hits, it will be a co-production of Big Aid and Big Box.

This, apparently, is the lesson learned from the government's calamitous response to Hurricane Katrina: Businesses do disaster better.

"It's all going to be private enterprise before it's over," Billy Wagner, emergency management chief for the Florida Keys, currently under hurricane watch for Tropical Storm Ernesto, said in April. "They've got the expertise. They've got the resources."

But before this new consensus goes any further, it's time to take a look at where the privatization of disaster began, and where it will inevitably lead.

The first step was the government's abdication of its core responsibility to protect the population from disasters. Under the Bush administration, whole sectors of the government, and particularly the Department of Homeland Security, have been turned into glorified temp agencies, with essential functions contracted out to private companies. The idea is that entrepreneurs, driven by the profit motive, are always more efficient than government.

We saw the results in New Orleans: Washington was weak and incompetent in part because its emergency management experts had fled to the private sector and its technology and infrastructure had become positively retro. In a crisis, government looks frighteningly inept ( "doing a heckuva job") while the private sector can seem modern and competent, at least by comparison.

In truth, when it comes to reconstruction, contractors are hardly wizards. "Where has all the money gone?" ask desperate people from the Persian Gulf to the Gulf Coast. One place a great deal of it has gone is into major capital expenditures for the private corporations. Largely under the public radar, billions of taxpayer dollars have been spent on privatized disaster-response infrastructure: the Shaw Group's new state-of-the-art Baton Rouge headquarters, Bechtel's battalions of earthmoving equipment, Blackwater USA's 6,000-acre campus in North Carolina (complete with paramilitary training camp and 6,000-foot runway).

Call it the Disaster Capitalism Complex. Whatever you might need in a serious crunch, these contractors can provide it: generators, water tanks, cots, port-a-potties, mobile homes, communications systems, helicopters, medicine, men with guns.

This state within a state has been built almost exclusively with money from public contracts, yet it is all privately owned. Taxpayers have absolutely no control over it. So far, that reality hasn't sunk in because when these companies are getting their bills paid by government contracts, the Disaster Capitalism Complex provides its services to the public free of charge.

But here's the catch: The U.S. government is going broke, in no small part thanks to this kind of loony spending. The national debt is $8 trillion; the federal budget deficit is at least $260 billion. That means that sooner rather than later, the contracts are going to dry up. And no one knows this better than the companies themselves. Ralph Sheridan, chief executive of Good Harbor Partners, one of hundreds of new counter-terrorism companies, explains that "expenditures by governments are episodic and come in bubbles."

When the bubbles burst, firms such as Bechtel, Fluor and Blackwater will lose their primary revenue stream. They will still have the ability to respond to disasters - while the government will have let that precious skill wither away - but now they will sell back the infrastructure built at public expense at whatever the market will bear.

If current trends continue, here's a snapshot of what could be in store in the not too distant future: helicopter rides off of rooftops in flooded cities ($5,000 a pop reflects typical fees for such a service, $7,000 for families, pets included), bottled water and "meals ready to eat" ($50 per person - steep, but that's supply and demand) and a cot in a shelter with a portable shower (show us your biometric ID, developed on a lucrative Homeland Security contract, and we'll track you down later with the bill).

Before you say "not in America," ask yourself this: Where else but in America? The model is the U.S. healthcare system, in which the wealthy can access best-in-class treatment in spa-like environments while 46 million Americans lack health insurance. The model also fits the global AIDS emergency, in which private-sector prowess has helped produce lifesaving drugs that the vast majority of the world's infected cannot afford. If that is the private sector's track record on slow-motion disasters, why should we expect different values to govern fast-moving disasters, such as hurricanes and even terrorist attacks?

The fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks is less than two weeks away, but the avalanche has already begun. Oliver Stone's film "World Trade Center" has been advertised in all corners and is being screened across the nation. CNN has announced that it intends, on the 11th, to rebroadcast all of the coverage of the attacks from 8:30 a.m. until midnight. If you don't have cable, they say, you can watch it for free on the CNN web site.

ABC intends to mark the occasion in far more grand a fashion. Starting September 10th and ending September 11th, the network will show a miniseries titled "The Path to 9/11." According to reports from early screenings, the writer/producer of the miniseries, Cyrus Nowrasteh, has crafted a television polemic intended to blame the entire event on President Clinton.

Nowrasteh, an outspoken conservative of Persian descent whose family fled Iran after the fall of the Shah, spoke last year at the Liberty Film Festival, described by its founders as Hollywood's first conservative film festival. Govindini Murty, actress, writer, and co-director of the Liberty Film Festival, wrote a review of "The Path to 9/11" for the right-wing online news page FrontPageMag.com.

In the review, Murty states, "'The Path to 9/11' is one of the best, most intelligent, most pro-American miniseries I've ever seen on TV, and conservatives should support it and promote it as vigorously as possible. This is the first Hollywood production I've seen that honestly depicts how the Clinton administration repeatedly bungled the capture of Osama bin Laden."

FrontPageMag, it should be noted, held a symposium back in May to argue that the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, which were never found despite being the main reason for invasion, were actually spirited out of Iraq by Russia on the eve of the 2003 attack. So it goes.

Leaving aside the wretched truth that the far right is once again using September 11 to score political points, the facts regarding the still-lingering effort to blame the Clinton administration for the attacks must be brought to the fore. Nowrasteh, at several points in his miniseries, rolls out a number of oft-debunked allegations that Clinton allowed Osama bin Laden to remain alive and free before the attacks.

Roger Cressy, National Security Council senior director for counterterrorism in the period 1999-2001, responded to these allegations in an article for the Washington Times in 2003. "Mr. Clinton approved every request made of him by the CIA and the U.S. military involving using force against bin Laden and al-Qaeda," wrote Cressy. "As President Bush well knows, bin Laden was and remains very good at staying hidden. The current administration faces many of the same challenges. Confusing the American people with misinformation and distortions will not generate the support we need to come together as a nation and defeat our terrorist enemies."

Measures taken by the Clinton administration to thwart international terrorism and bin Laden's network were historic, unprecedented and, sadly, not followed up on. Consider the steps offered by Clinton's 1996 omnibus anti-terror legislation, the pricetag for which stood at $1.097 billion. The following is a partial list of the initiatives offered by the Clinton anti-terrorism bill:

* Screen Checked Baggage: $91.1 million
* Screen Carry-On Baggage: $37.8 million
* Passenger Profiling: $10 million
* Screener Training: $5.3 million
* Screen Passengers (portals) and Document Scanners: $1 million
* Deploying Existing Technology to Inspect International Air Cargo: $31.4 million
* Provide Additional Air/Counterterrorism Security: $26.6 million
* Explosives Detection Training: $1.8 million
* Augment FAA Security Research: $20 million
* Customs Service: Explosives and Radiation Detection Equipment at Ports: $2.2 million
* Anti-Terrorism Assistance to Foreign Governments: $2 million
* Capacity to Collect and Assemble Explosives Data: $2.1 million
* Improve Domestic Intelligence: $38.9 million
* Critical Incident Response Teams for Post-Blast Deployment: $7.2 million
* Additional Security for Federal Facilities: $6.7 million
* Firefighter/Emergency Services Financial Assistance: $2.7 million
* Public Building and Museum Security: $7.3 million
* Improve Technology to Prevent Nuclear Smuggling: $8 million
* Critical Incident Response Facility: $2 million
* Counter-Terrorism Fund: $35 million
* Explosives Intelligence and Support Systems: $14.2 million
* Office of Emergency Preparedness: $5.8 million

The Clinton administration poured more than a billion dollars into counterterrorism activities across the entire spectrum of the intelligence community, into the protection of critical infrastructure, into massive federal stockpiling of antidotes and vaccines to prepare for a possible bioterror attack, into a reorganization of the intelligence community itself. Within the National Security Council, "threat meetings" were held three times a week to assess looming conspiracies. His National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, prepared a voluminous dossier on al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, actively tracking them across the planet. Clinton raised the issue of terrorism in virtually every important speech he gave in the last three years of his tenure.

Clinton's dire public warnings about the threat posed by terrorism, and the actions taken to thwart it, went completely unreported by the media, which was far more concerned with stained dresses and baseless Drudge Report rumors. When the administration did act militarily against bin Laden and his terrorist network, the actions were dismissed by partisans within the media and Congress as scandalous "wag the dog" tactics. The news networks actually broadcast clips of the movie "Wag the Dog" while reporting on his warnings, to accentuate the idea that everything the administration said was contrived fakery.

In Congress, Clinton was thwarted by the reactionary conservative majority in virtually every attempt he made to pass legislation that would attack al-Qaeda and terrorism. His 1996 omnibus terror bill, which included many of the anti-terror measures we now take for granted after September 11, was withered almost to the point of uselessness by attacks from the right; Senators Jesse Helms and Trent Lott were openly dismissive of the threats Clinton spoke of.

Specifically, Clinton wanted to attack the financial underpinnings of the al-Qaeda network by banning American companies and individuals from dealing with foreign banks and financial institutions that al-Qaeda was using for its money-laundering operations. Texas Senator Phil Gramm, chairman of the Banking Committee, gutted the portions of Clinton's bill dealing with this matter, calling them "totalitarian."

In fact, Gramm was compelled to kill the bill because his most devoted patrons, the Enron Corporation and its criminal executives in Houston, were using those same terrorist financial networks to launder their own dirty money and rip off the Enron stockholders. It should also be noted that Gramm's wife, Wendy, sat on the Enron Board of Directors.

Just before departing office, Clinton managed to make a deal with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to have some twenty nations close tax havens used by al-Qaeda. His term ended before the deal was sealed, and the incoming Bush administration acted immediately to destroy the agreement.

According to Time magazine, in an article entitled "Banking on Secrecy" published in October of 2001, Bush economic advisors Larry Lindsey and R. Glenn Hubbard were urged by think tanks like the Center for Freedom and Prosperity to opt out of the coalition Clinton had formed. The conservative Heritage Foundation lobbied Bush's Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, to do the same.

In the end, the lobbyists got what they wanted, and the Bush administration pulled out of the plan. The Time article stated, "Without the world's financial superpower, the biggest effort in years to rid the world's financial system of dirty money was short-circuited."

ABC's miniseries skates right over this, and likewise refuses to address the myriad ways in which the Bush administration failed completely to defend this nation from attack. All the efforts put forth by the Clinton administration were cast aside when Bush took office, simply because they wanted nothing to do with the outgoing government. Condoleezza Rice, by her own admission, did not even bother to look at the massive compendium of al-Qaeda data compiled by Sandy Berger until the morning of September 11.

After the attacks, virtually every member of the Bush administration put forth the talking point that, "No one could have anticipated anyone using airplanes as bombs." The facts tell a different story.

In 1993, a $150,000 study was undertaken by the Pentagon to investigate the possibility of airplanes being used as bombs. A draft document of this was circulated throughout the Pentagon, the Justice Department, and to the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In 1994, a disgruntled Federal Express employee invaded the cockpit of a DC10 with the intention of crashing it into a company building. Again in 1994, a pilot crashed a small airplane into a tree on the White House grounds, narrowly missing the building itself. Also in 1994, an Air France flight was hijacked by members of a terrorist organization called the Armed Islamic Group, who intended to crash the plane into the Eiffel Tower.

The 1993 Pentagon report was followed up in September 1999 by a report titled "The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism." This report was prepared for the American intelligence community by the Federal Research Division, an adjunct of the Library of Congress. The report stated, "Suicide bombers belonging to Al Qaida's martyrdom battalion could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House."

Ramzi Yousef was one of the planners and participants in the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993. Yousef's right-hand man, Abdul Hakim Murad, was captured and interrogated in 1995. During that interrogation, Murad described a detailed plot to hijack airplanes and use them as weapons of terrorism. The primary plan was to commandeer eleven commercial planes and blow them up over the Pacific Ocean. The secondary plan was to hijack several planes, which would be flown into CIA headquarters, the World Trade Center, the Sears Tower, the White House and a variety of other targets.

Ramzi Yousef eluded capture until his final apprehension in Pakistan. During his 1997 trial, the plot described by Murad resurfaced. FBI agents testified in the Yousef trial that, "The plan targeted not only the CIA, but other U.S. government buildings in Washington, including the Pentagon."

Abdul Hakim Murad described plans to use hijacked commercial airplanes as weapons in 1995. Ramzi Yousef's trial further exposed the existence of these plans in 1997. Two reports prepared by the American government, one from 1993 and another from 1999, further detailed again the existence and danger of these plots. The Federal Express employee's hijacking attempt in 1994, the attempted airplane attack on the White House in 1994, and the hijacking of the Air France flight in 1994 by terrorists intending to fly the plane into the Eiffel Tower provided a glaring underscore to the data.

This data served to underscore the efforts made by the Clinton administration to combat international terrorism and attacks against the United States. Unfortunately, the data and the work that inspired it was not followed up on.

A mission statement from the internal FBI Strategic Plan, dated 5/8/98, describes the FBI's Tier One priority as 'counterterrorism.' The FBI, under the Clinton administration, was making counterterrorism its highest priority. The official annual budget goals memo from Attorney General Janet Reno to department heads, dated 4/6/2000, detailed how counterterrorism was her top priority for the Department of Justice. In the second paragraph, she states, "In the near term as well as the future, cybercrime and counterterrorism are going to be the most challenging threats in the criminal justice area. Nowhere is the need for an up-to-date human and technical infrastructure more critical."

Contrast this with the official annual budget goals memo from Attorney General John Ashcroft, dated 5/10/2001. Out of seven strategic goals described, not one mentions counterterrorism. An internal draft of the Department of Justice's plans to revamp the official DoJ Strategic Plan, dated 8/9/2001, describes Ashcroft's new priorities. The areas Ashcroft wished to focus on were highlighted in yellow. Specifically highlighted by Ashcroft were domestic violent crime and drug trafficking prevention. Item 1.3, entitled "Combat terrorist activities by developing maximum intelligence and investigative capability," was not highlighted.

There is the internal FBI budget request for 2003 to the Department of Justice, dated late August 2001. This was not the FBI's total budget request, but was instead restricted only to the areas where the FBI specifically requested increases over the previous year's budget. In this request, the FBI specifically asked for, among other things, 54 translators to transcribe the backlog of intelligence gathered, 248 counterterrorism agents and support staff, and 200 professional intelligence researchers. The FBI had repeatedly stated that it had a serious backlog of intelligence data it has gathered, but could not process the data because it did not have the staff to analyze or translate it into usable information. Again, this was August 2001.

The official Department of Justice budget request from Attorney General Ashcroft to OMB Director Mitch Daniels is dated September 10, 2001. This document specifically highlights only the programs slated for above-baseline increases or below-baseline cuts. Ashcroft outlined the programs he was trying to cut. Specifically, Ashcroft was planning to ignore the FBI's specific requests for more translators, counterintelligence agents and researchers. It additionally shows Ashcroft was trying to cut funding for counterterrorism efforts, grants and other homeland defense programs before the 9/11 attacks.

Along with these new priorities, which demoted terrorism significantly, there were the warnings delivered to the Bush administration about potential attacks against the United States. Newspapers in Germany, France, Russia and London reported in the months before September 11th a blizzard of warnings delivered to the Bush administration from a number of allies.

The German intelligence service, BND, warned American and Israeli agencies that terrorists were planning to hijack commercial aircraft and use them as weapons to attack important American targets. Egypt warned of a similar plot to use airplanes to attack Bush during the G-8 summit in Genoa in June of 2001. This warning was taken so seriously that anti-aircraft missiles were deployed around Columbus Airport in Italy.

In August of 2001, Russian intelligence services notified the CIA that 25 terrorist pilots had been trained for suicide missions, and Putin himself confirmed that this warning was delivered "in the strongest possible terms," specifically regarding threats to airports and government buildings.

In that same month, the Israeli security agency Mossad issued a warning to both the FBI and the CIA that up to 200 bin Laden followers were planning a major assault on America, aimed at vulnerable targets. The Los Angeles Times later confirmed via unnamed US officials that the Mossad warnings had been received.

On August 6, 2001, George W. Bush received his Presidential Daily Briefing. The briefing described active plots to attack the United States by Osama bin Laden. The word "hijacking" appeared in that briefing. Bush reacted to this warning by continuing with his month-long vacation in Texas.

Richard Clarke, former Director of Counter-Terrorism for the National Security Council, has worked on the terrorist threat for the Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, and Bush Jr. administrations, amassing a peerless resume in the field. He became a central figure in the commission investigating the September 11 attacks. Clarke has laid bare an ugly truth: The administration of George W. Bush did not consider terrorism or the threat of al-Qaeda to be a priority prior to the attacks.

Clarke, along with former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who as a member of the National Security Council was privy to military strategy meetings, indicated that the Bush administration was obsessed with an invasion of Iraq from the day it arrived in Washington. This obsession continued even after the attacks, despite the fact that the entire intelligence community flatly declared that Iraq was not involved.

Five years later, the questions surrounding what exactly happened on September 11, and why they were allowed to happen, remain unsettled. A recent national poll conducted by Scripps Howard/Ohio University states that more than one third of Americans believe that Bush's government either actively assisted in the 9/11 attacks, or allowed them to happen so as to create a justification for war in the Middle East.

The New York Post, reporting on this poll, stated, "Widespread resentment and alienation toward the national government appears to be fueling a growing acceptance of conspiracy theories about the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Seventy percent of people who give credence to these theories also say they've become angrier with the federal government than they used to be."

"Thirty-six percent of respondents overall," continued the Post, "said it is 'very likely' or 'somewhat likely' that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them 'because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East.' 'One out of three sounds high, but that may very well be right,' said Lee Hamilton, former vice chairman of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (also called the 9/11 Commission). His Congressionally-appointed investigation concluded that federal officials bungled their attempts to prevent, but did not participate in, the attacks by al-Qaeda five years ago. 'A lot of people I've encountered believe the U.S. government was involved," Hamilton said. 'Many say the government planned the whole thing.'"

The passage of time will, in all likelihood, finally expose the truth behind exactly what happened on September 11, and why. Until the moment of final revelation comes, however, we are all best served by a systematic analysis of the facts surrounding that dark day. Efforts such as this ABC miniseries to use 9/11 as a partisan club should be shunned, and hard data should be highlighted instead.

Heil Bush,

Dear Deputy Fuhrer Rumsfeld,

Congratulations you have just been awarded the 'Vidkun Quisling Award' for 2006! Your name will now live throughout history with such past award winners as Marcus Junius Brutus, Judas Iscariot, Benedict Arnold, George Stephanopoulos, Ralph Nader, Vidkun Quisling and last year's winner Volksjudge Johnny (the Enforcer) Roberts.

Without your lock-step calling for the repeal of the Constitution, your support of our two coup d'etats, your constant lerdership through two failed wars and your ability to compare with a straight face Iraq War protesters with Hitler appeasers, Iraq and these many other profitable oil wars to come would have been impossible! With the help of our mutual friends, the other "Junta Whores," you have made it possible for all of us to goose-step off to a brave new bank account!

Along with this award there will be an Iron Cross first class with diamond clusters presented by our glorious Fuhrer Herr Bush at a gala celebration at "der Fuhrer Bunker" formally "The White House" on 10-31-2006. We salute you Herr Rumsfeld, Sieg Heil!

Signed,
Vice Fuhrer Cheney