My Thoughts on Changes

From Sam Crane’s blog:

The Useless Tree: Bush Lost the War – Pass it on

It seems to me that the simplest, most direct response to the continuing efforts of the Bush administration to deflect responsibility for the fiasco that Iraq has become, is to say: Bush Lost the War. If many just said that, whenever confronted with the dissembling and lying and evasions, it would remind us all of the one clear fact in all of this: Bush Lost the War. He lost it in a variety of ways, but surely he lost it, not the media, not the Democrats, not Iran, not the liberal professorate; no, none of these. Bush Lost the War.

Technorati Tags: bush, war, iraq, irak

Kudos to Soros and his article in the New York Review of Books. It is about time that the State of Israel steps down its high war horse and starts seeing things from the ground level. Only then would fellow human beings be able to relate to each other’s problems. Furthermore, if last year’s reactionary invasion and destruction of much of Lebanon –an exercise in futility if the goal was to eradicate or even teach a lesson to Hizballah– is an indication of how ineffective Israel policies have become, people in power, bent south of Armageddon, should start reconsidering their positions and find a path to peace.

On Israel, America and AIPAC – The New York Review of Books

The Bush administration is once again in the process of committing a major policy blunder in the Middle East, one that is liable to have disastrous consequences and is not receiving the attention it should. This time it concerns the Israeli–Palestinian relationship. The Bush administration is actively supporting the Israeli government in its refusal to recognize a Palestinian unity government that includes Hamas, which the US State Department considers a terrorist organization. This precludes any progress toward a peace settlement at a time when progress on the Palestinian problem could help avert a conflagration in the greater Middle East.

The United States and Israel seek to deal only with the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, in the hope that new elections would deny Hamas the majority it now has in the Palestinian Legislative Council. This is a hopeless strategy because Hamas has said it would boycott early elections, and even if their outcome would result in Hamas’s exclusion from the government, no peace agreement would hold without Hamas’s support.

It is always easier to discard criticism off-hand rather than taking the time to lower arrogance and finding the roots of it…

Washington – The White House rejected Sunday Russian President Vladimir Putin’s criticism of United States policy in a speech to the international security conference in the German city of Munich.

‘We are surprised and disappointed with President Putin’s comments. His accusations are wrong,’ spokesman Gordon Johndroe was quoted in US media reports as saying.

…but I never claimed to have a Red Phone connection with the Almighty (or with the Netherworld, for that matter). If Pat Robertson was anybody but who he is, he would be committed to a mental institution and medicated with anti-psychotic drugs.
As for predicting a “terror attack”, isn’t that what the Department of Homeland Security has been saying for years and been working on to stop it? Hey, if it happens at last I know my tax dollars were used to predict something real.
The most scary thing of the whole affair is the kind of gullible revival that would occur if the man is vindicated in some twisted way. Be scared, very scared; of that, if nothing else.
Pat Robertson:�God told me of ‘mass killing’ in 2007 – CNN.com

VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (AP) — Evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson said Tuesday that God has told him that a terrorist attack on the United States would cause a “mass killing” late in 2007.”I’m not necessarily saying it’s going to be nuclear,” he said during his news-and-talk television show “The 700 Club” on the Christian Broadcasting Network. “The Lord didn’t say nuclear. But I do believe it will be something like that.”Robertson said God told him about the impending tragedy during a recent prayer retreat. God also said, he claims, that major cities and possibly millions of people will be affected by the attack, which should take place sometime after September.

Shocker!! You know, is like one of those guys you meet and think “hmmm, he’s really in touch with his feminine side”, about two shades above metrosexual… May we live in interesting times…

DEBKAfile – DEBKAfile: Olmert breaks Israel’s nuclear silence in response to US defense secretary’s nuclear stance and Iran’s Holocaust denial conference

DEBKAfile’s military sources report that Olmert decided on this step in response to US defense secretary Robert Gates’ listing of Israel as among the nuclear states surrounding Iran to explain Tehran’s search for a nuclear deterrent of its own. He was the first American official to confirm Israel had a nuclear weapon and did so without consulting Jerusalem.
Olmert chose his journey to Germany, which coincided with the opening in Tehran of a conference negating the Holocaust, for his shock disclosure. This conference is taken in Israel as a vehicle for attacking Zionist legitimacy and so justifying Iran’s ambition to destroy the Jewish state. Olmert used the opportunity to remind Iran’s rulers that Israel possesses a large stock of nuclear weapons capable of not only smashing Iran’s nuclear facilities but also disabling its infrastructure.

This “commodore” is pissed because, among other things, the deposed Prime Minister wanted give amnesty to the generals that orchestrated another coup in 2000? Hmm, I wonder if he would be pissed when another PM  down the road wants to grant him amnesty for this coup…

BBC NEWS | Asia-Pacific | Fiji military coup is denounced

Commodore Bainimarama has dismissed PM Laisenia Qarase, who said the army had brought “shame to the country”.
Cmdr Bainimarama accused the prime minister of corruption and leading Fiji on a path of doom.
The two have long been in dispute, largely over the commodore’s opposition to a proposed amnesty for those responsible for a 2000 coup he helped put down.

Well, yes, it doesn’t make any sense. Mr. Putin has nothing to win by having this guy out of the way and much to lose if something like this is somehow connected to his administration. Mr. Putin has pissed off a lot of people on the way up, most of them people with as much money as a Saudi prince. Unfortunately, money is fuel and grease in the present we live in… Mind you, I’m not a fan of his policies, heavy handedness and the control of the press he exerts. He can appear to be a precursor of a new wave of Tzars, sans the nobility claims (that I know of…) On the other hand, I believe a country with the history that Russia has, needs a strong hand such as his. Russia can do much worse than Putin.

Anti-Russian conspirators killed KGB spy : HindustanTimes.com:

“The potential list of those who stood to benefit from Litvinenko’s death is a long one,” said a typical analysis in the daily Komsomolskaya Pravda last week. “One thing is certain, however. A scandal such as this one was not in the interests of the Russian authorities.”

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