READING BETWEEN THE LINES

Interview with President Bush

5/13/08

THE PRESIDENT:

Michael, welcome.

Question:

Thank you for having us into this amazing place.

THE PRESIDENT:

Glad you're here.

[And I’m glad I’m here]

Question:

Congratulations, father of the bride.

THE PRESIDENT:

I am the father of the bride [And of War and Destruction], and was real pleased with the way the wedding went. It was an amazing experience, Mike, to see a little girl I dearly love be so happy. It was — I think the wedding went exactly the way she hoped it would go.

[Dick Cheney didn’t shoot anybody, and the barbecued armadillo was just terrific]

Question:

Mr. President, the one thing we don't see in here is a computer, and we know that you went cold turkey off email for security reasons. What are you looking forward to when you finally get your computer back?

THE PRESIDENT: Emailing to my buddies.

[And going to my XXX places]

Question:

Mr. President, we know you're a man of intense faith. And I wonder, what was a moment in this room over the past eight years when you needed that most?

THE PRESIDENT:

Michael, I'd say daily. I mean, part of the faith walk is to understand your weaknesses and is to constantly try to embetter yourself [and butter yourself] and get closer to the Lord [not of the Flies]. And that's a daily occurrence. Obviously there's been some tough moments in here.

[And inside here---pointing to the head---and when Barney peed and pooped on the Oval Office carpet]

When you know that somebody lost their loved one as a result of a [bad] decision that I made, that's a tough moment. If you're a faithful person you try to empathize with the suffering that that person is going through [Because of my deceitful war].

On the other hand, there is a knowledge that the good Lord can comfort during these moments of grief. And that's what I ask for in my prayer.

[My prayers for forgiveness from the good Lord will have to wait; but the good Lord is a patient guy]

Question:

Consequential. That’s what you want---

PRESIDENT:

Consequential — if that's how it turns out to be, that's a good word, because I didn't want to come to Washington, D.C. and just hold the office for the sake of holding it.

[Or stealing it]

I wanted to come to Washington, D.C. and help be a transformative President. And I think history, when they look back

[In anger and horror]

will say this is a fellow who knew how to make decisions, and made some

tough ones, stood

by them, wasn't driven by the latest opinion poll, but was driven by some core principles from which he would not deviate.

[And was a devious fellow whose deviant and megalomaniacal

decisions drove core principles into the dirt and sent a nation to its damnation]

Question:

Mr. President, for the record, is global warming real?

THE PRESIDENT:

Yes, it is real, sure is.

[The sun warms the globe real good every day]

Having said that, the solutions have got to be measured and realistic -- you can't have a solution to global warming unless China and India are part of any international pact.

[It’s like in baseball:

Take your bats and balls home if you don’t want to play my game and by my rules]

If the major emitters of greenhouse gases are not a part of a solution, then those who are part of a solution are acting in a way that's simply not going to -- it will affect their own economies, but it won't affect the overall global warming issue.

[What the hell did I just say?]

Question:

Mr. President, turning to the biggest issue of all, Iraq. I wonder if you -- various people and various candidates talk about pulling out next year. If we were to pull out of Iraq next year, what's the worst that could happen, what's the doomsday scenario?

THE PRESIDENT: Doomsday scenario of course is [and was set by me when I invaded and bombed Iraq]

that extremists throughout the Middle East would be [and have already been]

emboldened [by my invasion and occupation]

which would [and will]

eventually lead to another attack on the United States.

The biggest issue we face is -- it's bigger than Iraq -- it's this ideological struggle against cold-blooded killers who will kill people to achieve their political objectives.

[Not just economic and strategic geo-petroleum objectives like mine]

Iraq just happens to be a part of this global war.

[Just happens to be a part BECAUSE I HAPPENED TO PRE-EMPTIVELY BOMB THE HELL OUT OF THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION]

Iraq is the place where al Qaeda and other extremists have made their stand.

[Not a lemonade stand]

They'll be defeated through military action,

[After all, I am the war president…and this last sentence is in support for all

of our fine DEFENSE INDUSTRIES that are profiting from building all of the fine munitions that will continue to FUEL MY GODLESS WAR WITHOUT END!]

but they'll also be defeated as this young democracy takes hold.

[Take hold of what is another question]

United States pulling out of Iraq or pulling out of the Middle East or not maintaining a forward presence would send all kinds of signals throughout the Middle East.

[One signal would be that the United States is for Peace]

Question:

Mr. President,

Do you feel that you were misled on Iraq?

THE PRESIDENT:

I feel like -- I felt like there were weapons of mass destruction.

[Like the feelings in that song called Feelings, I had feelings…and feelings can be strong…but should any nation go to war based on feelings?]

You know, "mislead" is a strong word,

[But it is the right word to describe what I did to the American people and the world]

it almost connotes some kind of intentional -- I don't think so, I think there was a -- not only our intelligence community,

[More darn non-sequiturs and sentence fragments!]

but intelligence communities all across the world shared the same assessment.

[The fixed assessment that I gave them!]

Question:

Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT:

It's been a pleasure.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

WHO WILL WIN?

THE GAME IS NOT OVER UNTIL THE GAME IS OVER

I’m watching the NBA Playoffs.

Detroit at Orlando.

There’s 19.6 seconds left in the fourth quarter.

The Pistons lead the Magic 87 to 84.

Time is running out.

Time just ran out.

The Pistons won 91 to 86.

There was no voting…

No delegates…

No Super Delegates...

No debates...

But the game was over.

THERE CAN ONLY BE ONE WINNER.

TIME IS RUNNING OUT; BUT THERE IS PLENTY OF TIME.

EASIER SAID THAN DONE.

The race between Clinton and Obama is getting more and more interesting.

Make some popcorn.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

Q & A

Why does John McCain remain popular in light of sharply falling support for the Republican party?

The country as a whole is still jittery about new attacks from…
Saudi Arabians?
(Remember.
Fifteen of the nineteen alleged terrorists came from the Bush family’s buddies in Saudi Arabia).
NOT IRAQ.
NOT EVEN AFGANISTAN.
Bush’s invasion and occupation of Iraq has inspired and agitated the evildoers
(And a million or more families who have lost aunts, uncles, cousins, sisters, brothers, fathers, mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers.)
The Bush regime has done a good job of catapulting its propaganda that the ENEMY is Al-Qaeda.
Yes, AL-Qaeda is AN ENEMY…a vicious and loathsome one that indiscriminately kills…in response to the U.S. occupation.
(Of course, there is the matter of power and who can obtain it.)
Do Iraqis want the U.S. out of its country? Yes.
Are they fed up with the U.S. occupation?
Yes.
Do Iraqis like Al-Qaeda?
No.
Bush casually---and with casuistry---exclaims that it is only Al-Qaeda that must be eliminated….now that he has cultivated their existence in Iraq.
The fear card will continue to be played by the GOP and John McCain because it's the strongest card left in Bush's (half deck).
Americans might also feel more comfortable with having an older person for their president...this time...since Bush’s regime is such a huge tragedy.
This is true even though McCain would be the oldest person to become president.
The fear factor under the umbrella of terror probably supersedes the fear people have about McCain's health and age.
Obama will press hard on McCain's stand on Iraq.
It will be hard for McCain to convince voters that he isn't glued to Bush’s policies, even though McCain is critical of some of them.
The final debates between each party's candidate will be the deciding factor for me, and hopefully a decision can be made without any October surprises.

Are there wounds in the Democratic Party that just won’t heal?

NONSENSE.
THIS IS JUST WHAT THE GOP WOULD LIKE US TO BELIEVE.
THE SQUABBLE AND CONTESTED RACE BETWEEN CLINTON AND OBAMA MIGHT EVEN BE A PLUS IN THE FOLLOWING WAY:
VOTERS WILL BE EVEN MORE ANXIOUS---AND INTERESTED---TO SEE WHO CAN CAPTURE THE NOMINATION---EVEN IF IT COMES DOWN TO THE LAST DROP OF SWEAT.
AT LEAST WE’LL KNOW FOR SURE WHO SHOULD GET THE NOMINATION.
ON THE OTHER HAND, MAYBE HILLARY SHOULD REALIZE THAT THE MATH SAYS THAT SHE CAN’T POSSIBLY WIN, AND LEAVE NOW WITH SOME GRACE AND DIGNITY.

Should Barack Obama offer Hillary Clinton the number two spot on the ticket as a way of getting her to quit the race now?
It's not going to happen.
And the correct auxiliary verb is would and not should.
Obama wouldn't select Hillary.
It would make him look weak.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

AN OLD CONVERSATION THAT WAS RECOVERED

GWB: Is this Dick?
DC: Quack.

GWB: What are you doing to hide our war plans?

DC: Well, Mr. President, we’ve got a computer server system in place so that our emails will not be recoverable.

GWB: Good. What else?

DC: Well, of course, you signed the bill that got rid of the Automatic Records Management System (ARMS).

GWB: Right. What else?

DC: Not much. But Congress won’t do much investigating on Iraq because they don’t want to be labeled as weak on terrorism. And when rising gas prices pour into the psyches of the American people, they won’t care about our fabrications.

GWB: 10-4. Keep up the good work. Bye.

DC: Quack.

GWB: Laura, bring me some more beer and pretzels! I want to celebrate getting away with murder.

Mad Plato

IT’S THE OIL STUPID!

***

	Bush Iraq Emails Not Recoverable By Matt Renner t r u t h o u t | Report Wednesday 07 May 2008 A late-night court filing by the White House on Monday revealed that official administration emails about the run up to the invasion of Iraq and the initial occupation may never be recovered. Whistleblowers have accused the White House of destroying email records from their internal servers. The Bush administration disputes this accusation, claiming instead that many emails were stored incorrectly. The storage system came under harsh criticism from former employees who called it "primitive" and said it had deep security flaws that would inevitably lead to destruction of records. In September 2002, the Bush administration dismantled the Automatic Records Management System (ARMS) put in place by the Clinton administration and never replaced it. Presidents are responsible for preserving all historical records during their time in office under the Presidential Records Act. Congress is conducting an investigation into possible violations of this act, including the destruction of at least ten million White House email records. In response to a judge's orders, the White House Office of Administration (OA), which manages the networks and email systems in the White House, filed a statement (PDF Page 20), which revealed that no emails were saved between March 1 2003 and May 22, 2003. "Office of Administration is preserving 438 disaster recovery backup tapes that were written to between March 1, 2003 and September 30, 2003. Of those 438 tapes, the earliest date on which data was written ... is May 23, 2003," according to the Bush administration filing. This time period is perhaps the most historically significant of the entire Bush administration. It includes the run up to the invasion of Iraq, diplomatic jockeying to try and rally United Nations support for war, the possible planning for retaliation against former diplomat Joe Wilson, who was accusing the administration of lying about Iraq weapons of mass destruction claims, the use of harsh interrogations in the so-called "War on Terror", as well as the formation of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) - the ruling body in Iraq after the invasion - and the controversial policy decisions the CPA undertook. The filing was issued as part of an ongoing lawsuit by two government watchdog groups in an attempt to force the Bush administration to preserve the backup tapes and any email records contained on them. "We have likely lost for all time a critical piece of our nation's history. This latest filing by the White House is yet more evidence of an administration committed to secrecy and delay at all costs," said Anne Weismann, chief counsel for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), and a lead attorney in the lawsuit. The Bush administration previously revealed backup tapes for the period of September 30, 2003 through October 6, 2003 were also destroyed. This period coincides with the beginning of the Department of Justice investigation into the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson. In March, the White House disclosed many of the computer hard drives that would have contained email records and forensic data were physically destroyed as a part of a so-called "refresh program" undertaken by the White House to replace older computers. The suggestion to examine all the individual workstations came after the White House admitted to "recycling" or taping over some of the emergency backup tapes that record email records. In previous investigations by Congressional committees, the examination of email records has been the most powerful tool in determining responsibility for potentially illegal acts committed by members of the Bush administration. During a hearing on possible violations of the Presidential Records Act in February, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Congressman John Sarbanes (D-Maryland) implied the email archiving system had been intentionally destroyed by the Bush administration to allow White House staff to cover their tracks and erase evidence of wrongdoing. "I have to believe that [American citizens] would find it completely implausible that this amount of email would just disappear by accident. And I mean to imply what I'm implying," Sarbanes said. Matt Renner is an assistant editor and Washington reporter for Truthout. ------- Jump to today's Truthout Features: Today's Truthout Features -------------- Matt Renner | Bush Iraq Emails Not Recoverable FBI Agents Sweep Office, Home of Government Watchdog McCain Vows to Name More "Alitos" and "Robertses" Iraq Prepares for Baghdad Exodus William J. Astore | The Air Force Above All Call for Inquiry Into US Role in Somalia Arielle Thedrel | The European Right's Powerful Push Protege in Russia Is Sworn In Simona Perry | Matters of Political Inconvenience: Scientists in the Public Service Obama Wins North Carolina; Clinton Wins Indiana Lawyers for Guantanamo Inmates Accuse US of Eavesdropping US Executes First Inmate After Moratorium Whole Towns Wiped Out as Burma Death Toll Soars Marines Ignore Poppy Crops to Pacify Afghan Locals Senate Prepares for GI Bill Showdown Christopher Kuttruff | A Party and Country United 100,000 May Have Died in Myanmar Cyclone Bush Vows to Veto Housing-Relief Bill Bill Moyers Journal | Health Care -------------- t r u t h o u t Home Print This Story E-mail This Story
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AT A PRESS CONFERENCE

John McCain: I was recently accused of losing my bear rings.

My friends, I will tell you now that I don’t have any bear rings and never will. When I get any bear rings, you will be the first to know.

Joe Lieberman (Sotto voce): John, I think you want to say bearings---those little metal balls---not rings for bears.

John McCain: Oh…Right.

My friends, I have been told that I misunderstood the term bearings.

I stand corrected.

But I still stand by my earlier statement: I don’t have any bears, nor do I have any rings where I keep my bears.

I do own a bicycle, however, so I know that I’ve got some bearings.

Thank you.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

AT A WEDDING

On Saturday, first daughter Jenna Bush is set to wed Virginia native Henry Hager in Crawford, Texas, at the 1,600-acre Bush family ranch.

The weekend is filled with events -- a rehearsal dinner Friday and a barbecue lunch in addition to a wedding ceremony and reception Saturday.

More than 200 friends and family are expected to attend festivities.

GWB: Well, Jenna, it looks like this is it. You’re tying the Gordian Knot

and I’m losing a prodigy.

JB: Don’t you mean progeny?

GWB: Yeah…whatever.

JB: Daddy! It’s not like it's the end of the world, or that I’m leaving the planet.

GWB: The second part's not true, but the world just might end before I’m done being the Decider.

JB: Then why am I getting married?

GWB: Honey, I’m just pulling your leg; but keep Cheney away from the Football.

JB: The what?

GWB: The Nuclear Football…the President's Emergency Satchel…The Button…The Black Box…

JB: I think Dick just likes to shoot ducks.

GWB: Or lawyers.

JB: Right. Well, I’ve got to check on final details of the reception.

GWB: Alright. Make sure there’s lots of beer and pretzels!

IT'S THE OIL STUPID

AT A CROSSROADS

"I sometimes have a feeling that the United States is going to wage war against the entire world."

Mikhail Gorbachev

Certain it is that a great responsibility rests upon the statesmen of all nations, not only to fulfill the promises for reduction in armaments, but to maintain the confidence of the people of the world in the hope of an enduring peace.

Frank B. Kellogg

A politician thinks of the next election. A statesman, of the next generation.

James Freeman Clarke

Moreover, war has become a thing potentially so terrible and destructive that it should have been the common aim of statesmen to put an end to it forever.

Arthur Henderson

Mailer's evocations of Kennedy as nominee, candidate, and president are studded with effects of style and imagery that echo Scott Fitzgerald's portraiture of his own heroes. Kennedy is a resurgent image of "Renaissance man,...handsome as a prince in the unstated aristocracy of the American dream." Kennedy is a "hero" because by sheer beauty and glamor and force of personality he draws to himself the love and commitment of others even as he stands aloof and apart from them. And he is the "existential hero" because in his magnetism and his mystery, he has the capability of becoming the gathered thrust of a whole people's new and powerful and undirected life-energy into an uncharted future. For this reason, the election itself is an existential venture in ultimate and perhaps fearful choosing between the known and the unknown.

[From "Interpretation of Dreams" by Leo Bersani]

***************

Who can best lead us

Out

of

the

Darkness?
Who can best lead us

Into

the
Brightness

of

Day?
Is WAR Humanity’s unstoppable Footprint?
Will the boots of men forever stomp and destroy each other…
And this precious planet?
Is our fate already written?
In the stars?
In the Bible?
In the Mayan calendar?
In the Great Pyramid of Egypt?
In the quatrains of Nostradamus?
Or...
Is it our choice?
Yours and mine?
The current race to the White House (and all of the other metaphorical names from the world of sports that are given to this race) is an enormously important choice for the future of our children and their destinies.
Or (being negative again)...
Is it too late?
Have we already "blown it"?
I don't know.
What do you think?

Mad Plato


IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

*******

The Sea of Faith

Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore

Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.

And we are here as on a darkling plain

Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,

Where ignorant armies clash by night.

[From "Dover Beach" by Matthew Arnold]

Q & A

Considering Barack Obama’s lead, how important are Indiana and North Carolina?

Obama will become the Democratic candidate if he wins Indiana and North Carolina. Any other outcome will keep the ball rolling to Denver. Super delegates will become the key factor that determines who will run against McCain.

Is Hillary Clinton’s comment that the U.S. could "obliterate" Iran if it attacked Israel with nuclear weapons appropriate?

NO.
Obama said, "We would respond forcefully".
Obama is more like a statesman.
Our nation requires a president whose words are measured, even if the message or action might not be.
Bush has been obliterating Iraq, our pocketbooks, our liberty, and our tired psyches for seven long years.
I don't think I can stand any more obliteration---in its rhetorical or actual forms.

Is America fading from its position as the most powerful nation in the world?
Yes and No.
America has the world's most powerful weapons of war, so it is not fading in this category.
America has faded as the world's most powerful moral leader.
George W. Bush gets all of the credit.
His lies and funny dancing have faded the RED, WHITE AND BLUE of America to a ghostly and ghastly hue.

SO WRONG FOR SO LONG

I have just finished

SO WRONG FOR SO LONG:

HOW THE PRESS, THE PUNDITS---

AND THE PRESIDENT---

FAILED ON IRAQ

[UNION SQUARE PRESS/2008]

by Greg Mitchell, Editor of EDITOR & PUBLISHER.

Below are some quotes that I found interesting.

Page 10:

Will Rogers once said that the first thing you do when you find yourself in a hole is quit digging. In regard to the Iraq catastrophe, the media not only helped create the hole, it did not do nearly enough to help America dig out.

Greg Mitchell

Page 25:

This government, like in Vietnam, is lying us into a war. Like Vietnam, it’s a reckless, unnecessary war, where the risks greatly outweigh any possible benefits. I’d make this argument to insiders: Don’t do what I did. Don’t keep your mouth shut when you know people are being lied to. Tell the truth before the bombs are falling, while there’s still a chance to do something about it.

Daniel Ellsberg

Page 27:

The U.S. Secretary of State did everything but perform cornea transplants on the countries that still claim to see no reason for forcibly disarming Iraq.

The Dallas Morning News

Page 32:

Why did the U.S. edit the 12,000-page Iraqi weapons report (as recently revealed) to the U.N. Security Council, removing all names of U.S. companies that sold weapons materials to the Iraqis in the past?

Greg Mitchell

Page 33:

How do you respond to radio commentator Daniel Schorr’s statement that the “coalition of the willing” is actually a “coalition of the billing”?

Greg Mitchell

Page 34:

Anthony Shadid in The Washington Post revealed that “In public and private conversations, many Baghdad residents volunteer that they see U.S. forces as an invading, rather than liberating, army.”

The Post also reported that broadcast news consultants in the U.S. were “advising news and talk stations across the nation to wave the flag and downplay protest against the war.”

Greg Mitchell

Page 67:

Our soldiers do not know who is on our side---who they should save and who they should shoot. Sound familiar?

Greg Mitchell

Page 124:

From Sept. 1, 2004, until Feb. 28, 2005, 559 Americans and Western allies died, but readers of the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Washington Post, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution did not see a single photo of a dead U.S. serviceman. Nor did readers of Time and Newsweek. The Seattle Times carried a photo three days before Christmas of a dead U.S. soldier, killed in the mess hall bombing, but his body was covered.

Greg Mitchell

Our military has done everything that has been asked of them, the U.S. can not accomplish anything further in Iraq militarily. It is time to bring them home.

Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.)

Page 170:

Appearing on CBS news, a former top CIA official, Tyler Drumheller, said that Bush was told before the war by a high-level Iraqi informant that Saddam did not possess WMD. Meanwhile, Seymour Hersh raised new fears by reporting in The New Yorker that the U.S. had plans in place for the possible bombing of Iran.

Greg Mitchell

Pages 177-178:

The next six months in Iraq---which will determine the prospects for democracy-building there---are the most important six months in U.S. foreign policy in a long, long time.

Thomas Friedman

[November 30, 2003]

What we’re gonna find out, Bob, in the next six to nine months is whether we have liberated a country or uncorked a civil war.

Thomas Friedman

[Oct. 3, 2004]

We’ve teed up this situation for Iraqis, and I think the next six months really are going to determine whether this country is going to collapse into three parts or more or whether it’s going to come together.

Thomas Friedman

[Dec. 18, 2005]

I think we are in the end game. The next six to nine months are going to tell whether we can produce a decent outcome in Iraq.

Thomas Friedman

[March 2, 2006]

Well, I think that we’re going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months---probably

sooner---whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we’re going to have to just let this play out.

Thomas Friedman

May 11, 2006

Page 221:

The scourge of suicides among American troops in Iraq is a serious, and seriously underreported, problem, as this column has observed numerous times in the past three years. One of the few high-profile cases involved a much-admired Army colonel named Ted Westhusing. A portrait of Westhusing written by T. Christian Miller for the Los Angeles Times in November 2005 (which I covered) revealed that Westhusing, before putting a bullet through his head, had been deeply disturbed by abuses carried out by American contractors in Iraq, including allegations that they had witnessed or even participated in the murder of Iraqis.

His widow, asked by a friend what killed this West Point scholar, had replied simply: “Iraq.”

Now a new article reveals---based on documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act---that Westhusing’s apparent suicide note included claims that his two commanders tolerated a mission based on “corruption, human right abuses and fears.” One of those commanders: the new leader of the “surge” campaign in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus.

Greg Mitchell

A SHORT LETTER TO THE WASHINGTON POST

I was taken aback by the concluding paragraphs in Bruce Ackerman's and Oona Hathaway's piece called “The War's Expiration Date” (Saturday, April 5, 2008).

They did a very good job of describing how Bush's presidential authority to continue the Iraq war will stop January 1, 2009.

Then they (incredibly) advise that the U.N. should extend the legal basis for this mendacious war.

It IS an illegal war, in my opinion, because Bush lied to the world for his rationale (that was quite irrational!) to bomb Iraq.

Don't continue this occupation.

Neither the U.N. nor the U.S. Congress should give George W. Bush or the next president any "legal" authority to stay in Iraq.

I know that this would be terrible news for all of the contractors and other snakes writhing in the sands of Iraq.

This illegal occupation by Bush has become the Raison d'être for Global Terrorism, and for

Osama bin Laden (if he is alive), who cheers in the amen corner with George W. Bush.

IT'S THE OIL STUPID!

***

Just as the US government launched its illegal invasion of Iraq on the back of lies about weapons of mass destruction and mushroom clouds, the US government claims it must attack Iran or Iran will build a nuclear weapon. The Bush Regime has learned never to discard a lie as long as it works. The lie works for the US Congress, the US media and much of the US public, but it is breaking down abroad. On April 27 the British newspaper, the Independent, responded to the recent US government claim that the Syrian facility attacked last September by Israel in an act of naked aggression was a nuclear reactor built by N. Korea: "There is no independent way to verify any of this, especially since the installation has now been destroyed. We must rely on the integrity of the Israeli and US intelligence. That is where we hit a problem. The former US Secretary of State Colin Powell presented similar evidence to the United Nations Security Council in February 2003 showing what we were told was strong evidence of Iraqi storage of weapons of mass destruction. As we all know, that intelligence turned out to be bogus." A needless war, a country destroyed, all for bogus intelligence. Why must we repeat our crime in Iran? Why do we persist in our crime in Iraq? On April 27 McClatchy Newspapers reported that 50 Iraqi political leaders representing numerous political groups including Sunnis went to Sadr City to protest the siege by the US military. Why is al Sadr under seige? He called for a halt to bloodshed between Iraqis, for a "liberation of ourselves and our lands from the occupier," for "a real government and real sovereignty." However, for the Bush Regime, rhetoric about "freedom and democracy" is but a mask behind which to impose a US puppet government. Real Iraqi leaders like al Sadr are "terrorists" who must be eliminated. Why do the American people and "their" representatives in Congress continue to tolerate a criminal Bush Regime that uses lies and propaganda to mask its acts of naked aggression, war crimes under the Nuremberg standard? Why does the rest of the world continue to receive political representatives from a war criminal government? What if the rest of the world told the US to close its bases, its embassies, its CIA operations and to go home? Self-righteous Americans would regard such demands as effrontery! We own the world. From The Iraq War Morphs Into The Iran War By Paul Craig Roberts 5-2-8 Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

WHAT'S FOR DINNER? A CONVERSATION BETWEEN TWO ORANGU-TANS

ORONE: 

I’m hungry.

ORTWO: 

Me too.

ORONE: 

What do you feel like eating?

ORTWO:

 Fish.

ORONE: 

Again? Let’s eat something else today. We’ve had fish almost every day.

ORTWO:

 Is Chimp & Burgers open?

ORONE:

 Yeah, but we’d have to swing in the trees for an hour to get there.

ORTWO:

 O.K. I guess it’s going to be fish again.

ORONE: 

I’ll go get my spear

ORTWO:

I’ll go see if any humans are fishing.

ORONE:

 Right. It’s easier to grab their fish than spearing our own.

ORTWO:

 Plus, we don’t have to swim

ORONE:

 O.K. No more monkey business! Let’s go get some fish.

orangutan

1699, from Du. orang-outang, from Malay orang utan, lit. "man of the woods," from orang "man" + utan, hutan "forest, wild." It is possible that the word originally was used by town-dwellers on Java to describe savage forest tribes of the Sunda Islands and that Europeans misunderstood it to mean the ape. The name is not now applied in Malay to the animal, but there is evidence that it was so in 17c.

Swimming orang-utans’ spearfishing exploits amaze the wildlife experts

Lewis Smith

April 28, 2008

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article3828123.ece

Orang-utans have confounded naturalists by learning to swim across rivers and to fish with sticks.
Naturalists were shocked to see the apes swim across a river to gain access to some of their favourite fruits at a conservation refuge on Kaja island in Borneo. Orang-utans were previously thought to be non-swimmers. The wildlife experts were equally surprised to see an orang-utan pick up a tree branch and stun a fish before eating it. Other apes introduced to the island were seen trying to spear fish with sticks after watching fishermen using rods. The naturalists also noted that the apes quickly worked out that it was even easier to steal fish from unattended lines used by the humans on the island. The unexpected behaviour has been captured in photographs published in the book Thinkers of the Jungle — the Orang-utan Report, by Gerd Schuster, Willie Smits and Jay Ullal, of the Borneo Orang-utan Survival Association. The pictures are thought to be the first to show an orang-utan using a tool for hunting. The apes live in Borneo and Sumatra and are regarded by some as second only to humans in intelligence. They are threatened with extinction as their habitats diminish.

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