NPR: Exclusive Interview With General Petraeus.

General Petraeus commands US forces in Iraq & Afghanistan. He talks with NPR about the challenges ahead.....

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AP-Pentagon Official: U.S. Soldier Kills 5 Comrades

The five were killed in a shooting Monday at Camp Liberty near Baghdad International. The toll was the highest for U.S. personnel in a single attack since April 10.....

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Bush: A Legacy of Deception, Wars, Torture & Global Economic Collapse.

New-Orleans Post Katrina
Photo by Gilbert Mercier
All Rights Reserved.

When a US President takes residence in the White House, he is supposed to be serving the interests of America & the American people. It is usually not the case, but during the reign of George W. Bush it was even less so.

I would like to make an analogy. Let's say George W. Bush is a guest at your house. What he would do is use the bathroom without flushing the toilet. He would likely proceed to raid your fridge and eat all of your food. Then, when you are not watching he would kick your dog and put your cat in the washing machine just for fun. He would also steal your mail and fight with your neighbours.

As the tenant of the White House for eight years, Bush was the guest of the American people. The way Bush behaved during that time is illustrated in my previous analogy. Except it is on a much bigger scale. Bush is the kind of guest that would set your house on fire by " accident ", if given the opportunity.

Bush's trail of destruction and misery is epic in scope. Some accused him of applying a "shock doctrine " theory, in order to create a constant chaos justifying authoritarian policies. I don't really buy it, as a plan thought process. I think, the chain of events was a series of very unfortunate accidents, the main one been, of course, the "decider" himself.

General De Gaulle once said:" You may be sure that the Americans will commit all the stupidities they can think of, plus some that are beyond imagination". This quote applies perfectly to George W. Bush, and to the million of Americans that elected him, not once but twice.

Bush is likely to go down in history books as the worst US president ever. To me, it is too kind. Bush has managed in a short 8 years to wreck not only America, but the global economic well being of the planet. I think he belongs to a league of his own as far as disastrous world leaders. He is on par with Nero; the mad Roman Emperor who watched Rome burn from his own hands while playing the fiddle. Bush was not even an " accident waiting to happen", he was the accident.

Bush is currently working on his memoirs. He said that it would have 12 chapters that are the " most difficult decisions he made during his Presidency".

The accidental president should have stopped at chapter zero, the one when the author stares at the blank page and realizes he was never fit for the job.

UK:Secret Emails Show Iraq Dossier Was 'Sexed Up'.

The evidence are piling against Blair and his manipulation of "intelligence" to justify the Iraq war...

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The Real Cost of Wars:Global Economic Collapse.

Since 9/11/2001,the combined cost of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and the regular budget of the Pentagon have reached the astronomical amount of $ 4.5 Trillion Dollars.The policies of George W.Bush have made us insolvent,creating the global financial meltdown. The money didn't vanished into black hole, but was spent on wars.Can Americans do the math?

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Iraq: " The surge is working" ? Not quite.

By Andrew Gray BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The new U.S. military commander in Iraq must find ways to keep improving security while American troop levels are falling, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Monday as two Baghdad bombings served as a reminder that security in Iraq is still very precarious.

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Al-Qaeda: Winning or Losing?

Al-Qaeda has made its reach truly global.7 years into the US " war on terror ", the result remains inconclusive. The safe haven lost in Afghanistan has been replaced by one in Pakistan and Al-Qaeda can recruit suicide bombers from Indonesia to the Maghreb. In 2003 Rumsfeld asked: " Are we winning or losing the war on terror"? Still no clear answer.

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Are we heading for a world wide depression worse than 1929?

8 years of the Bush administration mismanagement of the US economy is about to bankrupt not only America but also the rest of the world. The two wars ( Iraq & Afghanistan ) that we can't either afford ( 1 trillion so far) or win are fought with money borrowed to China. Bin Laden's ultimate goal was to cripple the US economy. He is succeeding.

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General Petraeus warns of long struggle ahead for US in Iraq

Listening to Bush, McCain and the " surge is working " slogan, one would think that " victory" is right around the corner in Iraq. Not so fast, said General Petraeus. With things getting worse in Afghanistan/Pakistan, may be Americans will realized, sooner than later, that handling two wars at the same time is almost an impossible task.

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Why are we still paying for Iraq's Reconstruction?

Iraq has being posting record profit from oil revenues, almost 80 billion in the current fiscal year. It is time for the US to scale down its financial help for Reconstruction and military assistance and let the Iraq's government take control of their own future.

However, because of the large exodus of Iraqis' professional (around 3 million left Iraq) and the dismantling of the Baath party by the US in the early stage of the invasion, Iraq has a lack of competent administrators to deal with the budget surplus and make life of Iraqis citizens better.

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In 'Way Of The World,' Fabricating A Case For War

In The Way of the World: A Story of Truth And Hope In An Age of Extremism, author Ron Suskind alleges that the Bush administration knew Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and eventually fabricated intelligence assets to support its case for war. The White House and the CIA deny his claims.

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The Military-Industrial Complex: It’s Much Later Than You Think.

Since 1961, there has been too little serious study of, or discussion of, the origins of the military-industrial complex, how it has changed over time, how governmental secrecy has hidden it from oversight by members of Congress or attentive citizens, and how it degrades our constitutional structure of checks and balances.

With the Bush administration and its private army of Blackwater...it got even worse. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been a blessing for the military-industrial complex, it has to some extend driven the ideology of the neo-cons.

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How are we doing on the " war on terror"?

The 7th anniversary of 9/11 is right around the corner. Nobody can contest that the tragedy was the defining moment of the Bush administration, it was at the very core of most decisions made from the wars in Afghanistan & Iraq to the Patriot Act and the massive spying on American people.

One would argue that it made the Bush administration into a horse with blinders, narrowly focused on only one goal: Make sure an event like 9/11 would never happened again.


The fact that we did not have a terrorist attack will become the key argument for McCain in November. You can count on his campaign, the GOP, FOX news and all the usual suspects in the art of spinning fiction into reality to make it the corner stone of his presidential bid. They will build up on fear and paranoia to convince American people that only " McCain can keep America safe".


However, what Americans should keep in mind, before they cast their ballots in November, is the dramatic increase of terrorism world wide. Today a bomb exploded in Istanbul, yesterday it was a few in India.....people barely pay attention to it unless it is very deadly or completely original in its technical execution. It has sadly become a way of life in most countries on the planet. Some governments in Europe are considering terrorism more a policing issue as opposed to a problem that can be handled by military force alone.

It is also very hard to fight a " war " against an enemy that is not clearly identified. In our case of the so called " war on terror ", we are dealing with threats that are polymorphic and shift constantly from one part of the globe to another. The Bush administration has being claiming for years that " Iraq is the center of the war on terror"; of course it wasn't the case before the US invasion but did become one for a while. It appears that, right now, the real " hot spot " is again Afghanistan and could become sooner than later Pakistan.

The critical question here is this: Assuming that the " war on terror" can have an end-game , are we winning it? The goal of the attack of 9/11 by Osama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization was to set up the 1st phase in an elaborate psychological warfare. It seems likely that Bin Laden knew a swift retaliation would come from the US and NATO in the form of an invasion of Afghanistan. Bin Laden couldn't predict the invasion of Iraq, but it became quickly an opportunity for him to get America trapped in a very costly quagmire.

The real objective of Bin Laden and his associates was an attack on America' s economy....this is probably why he picked the World Trade Center towers to be the first targets, for the symbolic aspect of it. The current crisis of the US and Europe's economy can be linked to two wars with a price tag of 1 trillion. We have our " war on terror ", the global terror originated by Al Qaeda is a war on the world's economy and prosperity. At this juncture, it is hard to tell who is winning.

Could another " New Deal " be what America needs?

After almost 8 years of incredible mismanagement by the Bush Administration, America is in a state of complete shamble. Last year, I took a photographs of a graffiti sprayed on a crumbling house in the lower 9th ward in New-Orleans; it said " America needs help". This is probably, in a nutshell, the most accurate political statement of today.

The numbers can make one's head spin. Our budget deficit is 9 trillion, the dollar has reached record low against currencies such as the Euro, the Yen, and the Pound.The low dollar is not really helping our manufacturing sector either, it is more or less gone thanks to the strategy of corporation such as Wall Mart of exporting jobs to India and China. The jobs left to maximize corporate profit and they won't come back.In this insane hyper-capitalist logic Americans were supposed to be the eternal consumer with a credit card never maxed out.

Well, guest what, Americans ( except the super wealthy ) are going broke. Since the burst of the real estate bubble, they can not borrow on their houses any longer. In the mean time, the skyrocketing oil prices is triggering inflation. In the last few weeks, the Feds had to take over a Bank and are tracking a few on their " at risk " of going under list.

The so call economical " stimulus" from the Bush administration ( remember the $600.00 you spent already) was insulting, inefficient and pure political pandering. Another symptoms of the drastic economical misconception of this administration. Bush wanted people to spend the money....well they should have saved the money instead.

Americans have been spending money they don't have for too long consuming stuff they quite often don't need. It is time to re-think our behavior or face the consequences. What we have being doing for years with our own financing management reflect at a much smaller scale the " economic model" of the Bush crack team. The best example is the two wars on installment plan ( with money borrowed from China and Japan) at a cost of 1 trillion combined and counting.

What the next president will have to do to prevent America to become a 2nd or even a 3rd world country is to revisit the type of ideas that FDR implemented to take America out of the great depression in the " New Deal". The next president and the next Congress will have to put a real stimulus plan together, not based on consumer spending but one focusing on fixing the infrastructure of the countries ( roads, bridges, levees, sewage systems, ports, public transportation).
Our country is falling apart, and spending on infrastructure generate much more growth than cutting taxes.

We also need to re-think our conception of " free market" in the long run. It is a paradox that the Bush administration, now a day, is practicing a socialized capitalism consisting of private gain and public losses. With just happened with Fannie & Freddie is an illustration of this point.

It is time to spend money in America not on wars that we can't either afford or win.

Al Maliki wants the US troops out of Iraq.

This is the transcript of Der Spiegel's interview of Iraq's prime minister Al Maliki.He agrees with the time table proposed by Obama, it would have most troops out within 16 months. This is bad news for the Bush administration and also McCain. You can count on the GOP's spin doctors to say that Maliki supports Obama.

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Bush: Cheerleader in chief or completely delusional?

Today, Bush had a quickly arranged press conference to address the growing anxiety of the American people.

In the last few days, the crisis in the mortgage and financial market has reach a critical mass. On Friday, the Feds had to take over Indy Mac,a mortgage lender and saving institution, based in California. The institution is FDIC insured, but Monday at the crack of dawn, hundred of customers were lining up to withdraw their money. What most of them didn't know is that the Fed guarantee only up to 100,000 dollars...above that you are on your own. A man, who got in line early, still lost 40% of his entire life saving after 40 years of hard work. The scene at the bank was a reminder of the 1930's and the great depression.

An even bigger problem is the state of disarray of giants mortgage co. Fannie and Freddie. The two private institutions are traded on the stock market and hold 5 Trillion worth of mortgages in the US market. A collapse of the two institutions would have catastrophic consequences and the Feds, over the week-end, made an explicit commitment to bail them out if needed. Later today, their stocks took a dive of 26%....I guess the share holders do not really trust the Bush administration.

How about trusting " the market to regulate itself", Pres. Bush? Right now, the Bush administration is doing exactly the opposite. The rule is simple: In good time the profit stays private and go to the very top, the top executives at Fannie & Freddie are very well compensated. In bad time, it becomes everyobody's problem and we all pick up the tab.

Pres. Bush this morning kept saying that things were " tough " for Americans right now but that we were not in a recession and we had to stay " optimistic". He used the word " psychological" a few times, as if he wanted to give Americans the sense that everything would be OK. Another point that he made over and over was the validity to " drill for oil " to solve the high gas prices. He conceded that it wouldn't solve any problem in the short term, but once again he brought up the " psychological impact" it would have on the rest of the world.

What I find ironic about this is the symbolic aspect of it: The Bush administration has put America in a giant hole of debts ( 9 Trillion and counting). We are fighting two wars, with borrowed money, that we can't neither afford nor win and yet the Democrats' controlled Congress is still funding the wars and all the " tools needed"( by a delusional administration) to fight the so call " war on terror". Thanks to Bush's policies we are in a giant hole, yet in his absurd logic, the " Decider" wants to digg( drill) more.

What I got from Bush' s press conference was a feeling of panic, the sense of someone even less focus than usual, lost and quite frankly almost on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Could it be that he is drinking again?
If Bush was planning to be America's President/ Dr. Phil today, I don't think the " mission was accomplished".

Social Darwinism in America.

Since Bush took office the gap between have and have not has reached an obscene level. We are fighting a war ( at a cost of 650 billion) that we can't neither afford nor win. Yet, we can't take care of the basic needs of American people at home. Americans are losing they jobs, houses and even hope .Is the American dream becoming a nightmare ?

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Iraq insists on U.S. withdrawal timetable: official

By Ahmed Rasheed and Mohammed Abbas BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq will not accept any security agreement with the United States unless it includes dates for the withdrawal of foreign forces, the government's national security adviser said on. Bad news for the Bush Administration and of course John McCain.

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Is a world wide depression worse than 1929 in the forecast?

The month of June was the worse month on Wall Street since 1930. With the financial sector still shaky, price of oil at record high and the US dollar at record low against the Euro, how can the US afford two wars at a cost of 1 trillion,so far? Are George W. Bush's policies bankrupting the US economy and bringing down the world wide economy?

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Is Senator Obama alienating the Progressive Democrats?

Obama, like any Democrats who wants to be elected for president, is making a move towards the " center " on various issues. The 2ND Amendment's Supreme court ruling, FISA court issue. The progressive Dems, his core support during the primary, are not happy about it. He would lose they support if he makes a shift on withdrawing from Iraq.

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