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‘War criminal Bush persona non grata’

A senior Lebanese cleric has called on Arab and Muslim countries to declare George W. Bush persona non grata and sue him for 'war...

Is Bush Losing Control Of The Military?

U.S. Navy report undermines Bush's drive to isolate Iran TEHRAN: The U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet has released a statement saying it cannot say with any...

‘Bush violates Palestinians’ rights’

A Palestinian lawmaker has said that Bush's proposal of denying refugees' right of return to their homeland violates UN resolution 194. The resolution 194...

List of Bush Administration Scandals

List of Scandalized Administration Officials By Paul Kiel Boy, was it time for an update. Late last year we decided to take stock of all the Bush...

Criminals In The Bush Administration

Criminals In The Bush Administration By- Suzie-Q TPM´s Great List of Scandalized Administration Officials Boy, was it time for an update. Late last year we decided to take...

Syrian MP threatens Dimona

As Bush and Sarkozy lose patience with Assad, Syrian MP threatens Dimona A Syrian member of parliament thought to be familiar with the thinking of...

Bush to make first trip to Israel, West Bank

WASHINGTON (AFP) – US President George W. Bush will make his first trip to Israel and the West Bank in January, hoping to help...

British Investigator Is Subject of Probe

By Joby Warrick He has criticized British officials in nuclear smuggling case.     A British customs agent who investigated the nuclear smuggling network of Pakistani scientist Abdul...

Britain bows out of a war it could never have won

By Patrick Cockburn Britain handed over security in Basra province yesterday, bringing a formal end to its ill-starred attempt over almost five years to control...

Congressmen urge impeachment

US Vice President Dick Cheney (L) Three senior US Democrats in Congress urge the immediate commencement of hearings on the impeachment of Vice President...

Ron Paul: Bush no authority to rule world

Presidential hopeful Ron Paul says President Bush has started empire-building by invading Iraq and Afghanistan and beating the drums of war with Iran. ...

In London, the world gathers against war

In the end, New Labour ended up returning to the old discredited territory of the British Empire by occupying Iraq and Afghanistan. Derrick O'Keefe Earlier this...

Afghanistan: The Dollar Line

Chimes of Freedom The Battle of Musa Kala is supposedly over and the city is once more in the hands of NATO forces. There...

Britain’s breach of honour over Iraq interpreters

More than half the Iraqi interpreters who applied to come to live in Britain have had their applications rejected, drawing accusations that the Government...

Pat Tillman Soldier Death In Afganistan War By M16

Patrick Daniel Tillman was born on 6th November, 1976 in San Jose, California and was into football. He was an American, who quitted sports...

NIE report final nail in Bush coffin

Former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, attacks a recent intelligence report that discredited Washington for its policies on Iran. US intelligence services...

8 Senior Republican Appointees Challenge 9/11 Story

Eight Senior Republican Appointees Challenge Official Account of 9/11 - "Not Possible", "a Whitewash", "False" Eight former senior Republican administration appointees have severely criticized the...

The CIA Destroyed Torture Tapes & 9/11 Connection

The CIA's Destroyed Interrogation Tapes and the Saudi-Pakistani 9/11 Connection Gerald Posner On December 5, the CIA's director, General Michael V. Hayden, issued a statement disclosing...

The Star of the Magi: Old Story, New Gifts

By Courtney Roberts RINF Alternative News   The year having come full circle, Christmas is upon us, once again. Each Christmas, we are faced with the familiar,...

Petroleum and terrorism

Beppe Grillo 11 September 2001. Since then we have been one of the nations at risk of Islamic attacks. More than six years have passed...

US Roman Catholic Bishop: 9/11 was inside job

RenewAmerica Bishop Richard Williamson, seemingly the most outspoken and controversial bishop of the Society of St. Pius X, asserted in a recent talk that...

China tells Bush to Sling his Hook

AP Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi told President George W. Bush on Wednesday that Beijing's refusal to let a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier into Hong...

US signs deal for long-term occupation of Iraq

By Jerry White President Bush and the Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki signed an agreement Monday paving the way for the long-term occupation of the...

The Neoconservative Agenda to Sacrifice the Fifth Fleet

The Neoconservative Agenda to Sacrifice the Fifth Fleet — The New Pearl Harbor  By Michael Salla The U.S. plans for an attack on Iran envision to...

The Bush Family Gets Away with Crimes

The Bush Family Gets Away with Crimes That Would Land Anyone Else in Jail The Bush Rules of Evidence

Halliburton Concentration Camps Already Constructed

On February 17, 2006, in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld spoke of the harm being done to...

Time to break free

The Middle East's oil exporters should end their currencies' peg to the dollar IN THE past week Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has damned it as...

One Million Dead in Iraq: Our Own Holocaust Denial

Institutionally unwilling to consider America's responsibility for the bloodbath, the traditional media have refused to acknowledge the massive number of Iraqis killed since the...

Coup D’Etat Rumblings in Venezuela

By Stephen Lendman RINF Alternative News The Bush administration tried and failed three prior times to oust Hugo Chavez since its first aborted two-day coup attempt...

Saudi minister warns of dollar collapse

The dollar could collapse if Opec officially admits considering changing the pricing of oil into alternative currencies such as the euro, the Saudi Arabian...

Dems Stay Silent on Bush White House Crimes

It’s Treason: Dems Stay Silent on Bush White House Crimes By Richard W. Behan Lying to the people and the Congress was the most despicable violation...

Bush Stands by His Dictator

By Robert Scheer "The war on terror” made me do it. That’s the excuse that works for George W. Bush to rationalize his assaults on...

Blowback, Pakistan-style

Mark LeVine The carnage that greeted Benazir Bhutto, the former Pakistan prime minister, upon her return to the country may have occurred in Karachi, but...

Administration officials see few options for U.S.

By Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Helene Cooper For more than five months the United States has been trying to orchestrate a political transition in Pakistan...

My enemy’s enemy shouldn’t always be my friend

By Brian Vogt The outlook is looking increasingly gloomy for democracy in Pakistan. Our erstwhile ally in the war on terror, General Musharraf is looking...

The Spy Who Wants Israel to Talk

By David Ignatius Efraim Halevy, the former head of the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad, titled his memoirs "Man in the Shadows." But now that he's...

Gangster Giuliani: The GOP’s Worst

By Margaret Kimberley If a potential Giuliani presidency in any way resembles a Giuliani mayoralty, then the country would be in for a truly awful...

Our Man in Islamabad

Stephen Lendman RINF Alternative News The Islamic Republic of Pakistan was established in August,1947 when its majority Muslim population separated from British-controlled India and became a...

Deadliest Year for US Troops in Iraq

BAGHDAD (AP) - The U.S. military announced six new deaths Tuesday, making 2007 the bloodiest year for American troops in Iraq despite a recent...

A Toxic Mix of Neoliberal & Neocon

Sarko comes across as a neoconand, like Bush, driven by the concept of a New World Order Both Left and Right dislike the direction HyperSarko is taking...

Momentum built for Cheney impeachment

Congressman Dennis Kucinich says he will offer a resolution to the House of Representatives to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. The Democratic lawmaker who...

Bush defense spending highest since WWII

 Hey, $1 billion here, $1 billion there, who's counting? Not the State Department, which admitted this week that it can't say "specifically what it...

Congressional Shame and Duplicity

By Stephen Lendman RINF Alternative News The latest October Reuters/Zogby Index shows record low approval ratings for George Bush and Congress - 24% for the president...

Ex-MI6 chief: Too much weight on Iraq intelligence

· Government 'used details to gain support for attack' · Links between al-Qaida and Saddam 'not true' Richard Norton-Taylor The Guardian The head of MI6 at the time...

Expert blows the cover on 9/11 inside job

Iraq war veteran and experienced demolitions expert blows the cover on 9/11 inside job Meet Torin Wolf. He has a broad and varied background as...

Ruling By Decree

By Jacob Hornberger Immediately after he denounced Fidel Castro for being a dictator, President Bush unilaterally decreed new sanctions against Iran, moving the United States...

Neocon Tells Audience To ‘Shut Up’

Paul Joseph Watson Prison Planet Arch-Neo Con Norman Podhoretz’s book reading at a recent Barnes and Noble appearance in New York turned into a hostile affair...

Torture, Paramilitarism, Occupation and Genocide

By Stephen Lendman RINF Alternative News On October 5, George Bush confronted a public uproar and defended his administration claiming "This government does not torture people."...

Nobel Hypocrisy

By Stephen Lendman RINF Alternative News Alfred Nobel was a wealthy nineteenth century Swedish-born chemist, engineer, inventor of dynamite, armaments manufacturer and war profiteer who remade...

Will George W. Bush Stay in Power after 2008?

With so many political pundits in a nervous tizzy about the future political plans of Russian President Vladimir Putin, too few are scratching their...

Straitjacket Bush

The president's warmongering remarks on the Iranian threat suggest he is psychotic. Really. Rosa Brooks Forget impeachment. Liberals, put it behind you. George W. Bush and Dick...

How deceitful is the BROWN Government? How about 350 tonnes worth?

By J A Blacker, Science Correspondent RINF Alternative News Remember the 350 tonnes of Ultra High Explosive which Mysteriously “Disappeared” at the start of the Iraq...

Nukes Over America: All a Stupid Mistake. Sure It Was

dlindorff The Air Force’s Friday report on the August 29-30 nuclear weapons incident which saw six armed cruise missiles flown across the continental US...

The War on Afghanistan Was Wrong, Too

By Jacob G. Hornberger While most Americans have turned against the Iraq War, many of them still think that the war on Afghanistan was morally...

Open Letter to the Government from an AWOL Soldier

By James Circello, Iraq Veterans Against The War To those Businessmen and women holding seats in Congress, To the Highest Court of America, To every Department within...

Bush World War III rant shows he’s really lost it now

George W. Bush put his foot in his mouth again when he warned of the possibility of World War III breaking out. The irresponsible...

History will see us all as Bush’s “Good Germans”

Six years ago France's Le Monde titled "Nous sommes tous Américains ! - We are all Americans ! " Six days ago the German...

UN document confirms Israel hit Syrian nuclear reactor?

Update: UN caught redacting document; Update: It was a translation error, claims UN By Allahpundit Via Dan Riehl, Fox News has picked up the scent of...

Russian Press Blasts Anglo-Saxon Terrorist Controllers

Webster Griffin Tarpley www.tarpley.net In the wake of the terrorist atrocity at a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, in the Russian Federation, Russian President Vladimir Putin...

Who Watches the CIA Watchers?

Katrina vanden Heuvel In the cloak and dagger, smoke and hall of mirrors that is the CIA, we have more evidence that it's dangerous to...

A Nuclear Nightmare — The Portland Plot

By Captain Eric H. May Forward and Forewarning The satiric article below is only hypothetical, an attempt to write what could be the news on Friday,...

Top 25 Censored Stories of 2008

#1 No Habeas Corpus for “Any Person” Sources: Consortium, October 19, 2006 Title: “Who Is ‘Any Person’ in Tribunal Law?” Author: Robert Parry http://consortiumnews.com/2006/101906.html Consortium, February 3, 2007 Title: “Still No...

Jimmy Carter: U.S. Tortures Prisoners

AP The U.S. tortures prisoners in violation of international law, former President Jimmy Carter said Wednesday, adding that President Bush makes up his own definition...

Reviewing James Petras’ “Rulers and Ruled in the US Empire”

By Stephen Lendman RINF Alternative News James Petras is Binghamton University, New York Professor Emeritus of Sociology whose credentials and achievements are long and impressive. He's...

PETER HITCHENS: North Korea, the last great Marxist bastion, is a real-life Truman show

A rare and remarkable dispatch from inside the secret world of Kim Il Sung Last week's summit between the leaders of North and South Korea...

Ultimate Video WMD Lies From Bush

Ultimate Video WMD Lies From Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell to Sell Attacking Iraq …is Iran Next? [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYI7JXGqd0o] Thanks to Jim Gregorich for submitting...

Britain ‘no longer closest Bush ally’

By Toby Harnden The White House no longer views Britain as its most loyal ally in Europe since Gordon Brown took office and is instead...

Seven CIA Veterans Challenge 9/11 Commission Report

Official Account of 9/11 a “Joke” and a “Cover-up” September 23, 2007 — Seven CIA veterans have severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and...

A Culture of Violence

By Stephen Lendman RINF Alternative News What do you call a country that glorifies wars and violence in the name of peace. One that's been at...

Hizbullah: If Israel attacks Syria, we’ll respond

Senior members of Lebanese, Palestinian organizations vow to stand by Damascus if Jewish state launches war. 'Doors will be open which have not been...

Revealed: script for Bush’s mangled words

By David Usborne There is nothing mysterious about George Bush when he comes to the annual General Assembly of the United Nations. He comes, he...

Hypocrite Bush hits out at tyrants and human rights abuse

Editors note: One word - Guantanamo George Bush yesterday launched a fierce attack on countries which he accused of human rights abuse. The president used a UN...

The BBC – How Did It Get So Bad?

By Adrian Morgan This article by Adrian Morgan (Giraldus Cambrensis of Western Resistance) appeared today in Family Security Matters and is reproduced with their permission....

Israel Says Tension with Syria Subsiding

By Robert Berger Israel is playing down tensions with its arch-enemy to the north - Syria. As Robert Berger reports from VOA's Jerusalem bureau, there...

Sanity in Tiny Nibbles

The abyss between "crime against humanity" and "we'll have to look into this" may be all but unfathomable -- deep as a mass grave...

Syrian official: Damascus eager to respond to Israel flyover

Senior Ba'ath official tells Arab-Israeli reporter there is growing consensus among Syrian leadership for need to retaliate to reported Israeli violation of Syrian airspace...

Arabs push through nuclear vote against Israel

AFP Arab states on Thursday pushed through a resolution at the UN atomic agency clearly aimed at Israel, calling for a Middle East free of...

Reviewing Naomi Klein’s “The Shock Doctrine”

By Stephen Lendman RINF Alternative News Naomi Klein is an award-winning Canadian journalist, author, documentary filmmaker and activist. She writes a regular column for The Nation...

Calls grow for Bush war crimes trial

U.S. President George W. Bush will definitely be tried at an international tribunal, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei said in...

“Unrecognized” Palestinians

By Stephen Lendman RINF Alternative News Israel's population today is about 7,150,000. About 5.4 million are Jews (76%) plus another 400,000 Jewish settlers in over 200...

US agrees further British withdrawal from Iraq

· Petraeus and UK officials give upbeat assessment · Announcement could come next month Richard Norton-Taylor and Ian Black The Guardian General David Petraeus holds talks with British...

Bush calls for permanent US military occupation of Iraq

By Barry Grey President Bush’s nationally televised speech, delivered Thursday evening from the Oval Office, was the low point of a week of lies and...

PUT BUSH ON TRIAL

By Jon Leyne The supreme leader of Iran has launched a scathing attack on United States President George W Bush. Speaking at Friday prayers, Ayatollah...

Syria says Israel aims to torpedo peace

By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - Syria's U.N. ambassador said on Wednesday that Israel's motive in flying warplanes into its airspace was to torpedo...

The Coincidence Theorist’s Guide to 9/11

There are no coincidences The Coincidence Theorist’s Guide to 9/11 -That governments have permitted terrorist acts against their own people, and have even themselves been perpetrators...

US confirms Israeli air strike on Syria

By Tim Butcher in Tel Aviv A US official has confirmed that Israeli warplanes carried out an air strike "deep inside" Syria, escalating tensions between...

Guantanamo: “Ghost” Prisoners Speak At Last

The Guantánamo Transcripts: “Ghost” Prisoners Speak After Five And A Half Years, And “9/11 hijacker” Recants His Tortured Confession By ANDY WORTHINGTON In another resounding...

US troops who criticised Iraq war strategy killed in Baghdad

· Article claimed Bush's policy was total failure · Deaths reported on eve of presidential address Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Thursday September 13, 2007 The Guardian Two US soldiers...

From Dallas to 9/11 to Iraq: The War on the Truth

By Daniel Hopsicker It’s déjà vu all over again. Its enough to give anyone old enough to remember Vietnam a nightmarish sense of having been right...

Author under gag order assails producer, ABC for ‘Path to 9/11’

Peter Lance Last Wednesday, in a front page LA Times Calendar piece “Clinton and the missing DVD,” reporter Martin Miller gave voice to the latest...

US ‘delayed UK pull-out from Basra’

By Thomas Harding in Basra The split between the UK and the US over Iraq was further inflamed last night after a senior British officer...

Has anyone lost any Plutonium?‏

By Ace Hoffman Carlsbad Well, well, well. Bombs over America. Bombs in our backyard. Bombs away! While MS-NBC was reporting five nuclear warheads were accidentally...

Age of the cyber spy

By Adam Lusher and Tim Shipman At first the air force administrator just thought it was strange. ”Checking the computer systems, he found a file listing...

Middle East Madness

By Stephen Lendman RINF Alternative News Administration rhetoric is heated and the dominant media keep trumpeting it. It signals war with Iran of the "shock and...

Cheney, the survivor without challengers

By Edward Luce and Andrew Ward Dick Cheney once jokingly referred to himself as Darth Vader - such was his dark reputation with the mainstream...

War and the ‘New World Order’

By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya “We are now at the year 1908, which was the year that the Carnegie Foundation began operations. And, in that year,...

Marines Ordered To Execute Civilians In Nazi-Like Slaughter

Steve Watson Infowars.net Editorial With evidence having emerged that marines were ordered by superiors to massacre women and children in Haditha in Iraq two years...

Long List of 9/11 Criminal Coconspirators

Skeptics claim you couldn't hide a conspiracy as large as a 9/11 without it being uncovered. It has been uncovered and here are the...

Pot Growers Are New Target in “War on Terror”

Under Bush, terror has become a justification for any and every abuse of power. By Scott Thill Last time we checked in on the bizarro nexus...

Bush’s brand-new poodle

By Pepe Escobar He was impregnably armored by his good intentions and his ignorance. - Graham Greene, The Quiet American PARIS - With former British prime...

The state Theft of Children – So called British Justice – Even a murderer...

The Dark Heart Of England English authorities take newborn babies for adoption - this compares how their legal system treats a pregnant woman and...

The CIA’s open secrets

By Joseph Weisberg When a federal judge dismissed Valerie Plame's lawsuit against the Central Intelligence Agency earlier this month, she ruled that the agency was...

US intelligence report points to Iraqi government’s removal

By Peter Symonds The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq released last week reflects a growing consensus not just among the US spy agencies, but...

A new intelligence report paints a bleak picture of Iraq

By Warren P. Strobel and Leila Fadel A new assessment of Iraq by U.S. intelligence agencies provides little evidence that the American troop "surge" has...

Robert Fisk: Even I question the ‘truth’ about 9/11

Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience — just one — whom I call the...

Market Efficiency Hokum

By Stephen Lendman RINF Alternative News You know the story triumphantly heard in the West. Markets work best when governments let them operate freely - unconstrained...

America and Venezuela – Constitutional Worlds Apart

By Stephen Lendman RINF Alternative News Although imperfect, no country anywhere is closer to a model democracy than Venezuela under President Hugo Rafael Chavez Frias. In...

Why Rove and Cheney Really Are That Bad

By Don Williams Remember Scott Ritter, the US arms inspector and military man accused of being a traitor and much worse for reporting there were...

Ian Brown – Illegal Attacks

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pqfBH1IJkWo] (Feat. Sinead O'connor) So what the fuck is this UK Gunnin’ with this US of A In Iraq and Iran and in Afghanistan...

BUSH TERROR weapons – Murders untold civilians, many children – states Doctor

By Dave Lindorff The idea that the U.S. could be considering classifying the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a "terrorist" organization, based upon...

Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army

By Jeremy Scahill Blackwater is a private company that does the dirty work for America in various wars, both covert and those we know about...

Military commanders tell Brown to withdraw from Iraq without delay

By Raymond Whitaker and Robert Fox Senior military commanders have told the Government that Britain can achieve "nothing more" in south-east Iraq, and that the...

Wikipedia ‘shows CIA page edits’

By Jonathan Fildes An online tool that claims to reveal the identity of organisations that edit Wikipedia pages has revealed that the CIA was involved...

The Anti-Empire Report

Separation of oil and state On several occasions I've been presented with the argument that contrary to widespread opinion in the anti-war movement and on...

A scary assault on civil liberties

By Lance Dickie As historians tally the incompetence, profligacy and lawless opacity of the Bush administration, a shorthand is already emerging: Katrina, Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu...

Bush Wants Microchipped Society

Newsbuster The Bush administration tells us the main reason for warrantless wiretapping and searches is, warrantless searches and spying are necessary in order to keep...

Myths of Mideast Arms Sales

By William D. Hartung The Bush administration’s proposal to send $20 billion worth of arms and $43 billion in military aid to U.S. allies in...

Iraqi government on brink of collapse following cabinet walkouts

By James Cogan The political survival of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is in doubt following the withdrawal from his cabinet of two political blocs that...

Gitmo closure not easy says Bush

Reluctance by other countries to take custody of terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay is delaying Washington's ability to shut the widely criticised prison...

Rudy Giuliani’s Five Big Lies About 9/11

On the stump, Rudy can't help spreading smoke and ashes about his lousy record By Wayne Barrett Nearly six years after 9/11, Rudy Giuliani is still...

Red Cross confirms Bush administration, CIA used torture in interrogations

By Patrick Martin A confidential report by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) suggests that Bush administration officials may have committed war crimes...

Weapons Given to Iraq Are Missing

GAO Estimates 30% of Arms Are Unaccounted For  By Glenn Kessler The Pentagon has lost track of about 190,000 AK-47 assault rifles and pistols given to...

Protests at UK embassy in Tehran

Petrol bombs and rocks have been thrown at the British embassy in Tehran during a rally supporting the detention of 15 British sailors and...

Fake Maritime Boundaries

Craig Murray The British Government has published a map showing the coordinates of the incident, well within an Iran/Iraq maritime border. The mainstream media and...

American raid and arrests set scene for capture of marines

Patrick Cockburn At 3am on 11 January US military forces raided the Iranian liaison office in the Kurdish capital Arbil and detained five Iranian officials...

Democrats pass “anti-war” bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

Barry Grey After weeks of public posturing and behind-the-scenes maneuvering, Democrats in the House of Representatives secured passage Friday of an emergency spending bill that...

The War Against Strawmen

by Harry Browne
by Harry Browne

The Bush Administration continues to maintain that its war in Iraq, and its adventures anywhere else, are aimed at ending worldwide terrorism.

But such a feat is not only impossible, it is absurd.

Terrorism is a crime, not a war. Terrorism is committed by gangs of criminals — not soldiers representing a sovereign government. And no one in his right mind can believe that our government can eliminate every criminal gang in the world.

If our government could do that, why wouldn’t it start with the drug gangs that terrorize areas of Washington, D.C.? What a perfect opportunity for the politicians to demonstrate their crime-fighting abilities.

On October 4, 2001, I wrote:

Because the September attacks were a crime, the government's job is to locate and bring to trial any perpetrators who didn't die in the attacks. If some of them are located in foreign countries, our government should request extradition — not threaten to bomb the foreign country if we don't get our way.

I was criticized by some people, who asked, "But what if all the ‘criminals’ aren’t caught"

And yet, here we are four years later, tens of thousands of people have died, and still not all the criminals have been caught regardless. Osama Bin Laden not only hasn’t been apprehended, he isn’t even talked about anymore. As I said in 2001:

If not all the criminals are found and brought to trial, it doesn't mean that bombing innocent people would have brought the criminals to justice.

So why do the politicians talk about a War on Terrorism that makes no sense?

Because it opens the door to all sorts of aggressions against foreigners and Americans.

And it allows the politicians — most notably the leading members of the Bush administration — to pose as noble warriors against enemies that are really only Strawmen.

Charley Reese, in a recent LewRockwell.com article, quoted Dick Cheney as claiming a U.S. pullout from Iraq would leave it in the hands of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Osama Bin Laden, and/or Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Charley points out that "Zarqawi is a Jordanian, not an Iraqi; he has been denounced by his tribe and his family; and he has killed more Iraqis than Americans. It is just a matter of time before some Iraqi drops a dime on him and he’s packed off to Islamic hell."

But he’s a worthy Strawman, a bogey man, whose name is worth a hundred million dollars or more in Congressional appropriations.

Charley goes on, "As for bin Laden and his Egyptian adviser, they are — assuming they’re still alive — hiding out in some cave or rat-infested village in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan. They could not control a small town, much less a country of 25 million people of which neither of them is a native."

As we all know, the U.S. government has since World War II been financing and arming various foreign dictators — such as Saddam Hussein, Manuel Noriega, the Shah of Iran, and others — only to denounce and attack them once they become wealthy and aggressive enough to be worthy Strawmen.

It’s also true that the U.S. government has financed and armed various opposition groups that supposedly represent the opportunity to topple the mean old dictators. Often these groups oppose each other, and engage in violence against one another. But no matter, the object of our government is to be doing something to fight a Strawman.

Robert Dreyfuss, in another excellent LewRockwell.com article, catalogs a number of the groups that opposed Saddam Hussein and are now battling for control of Iraq. There is far more than the Iraqi National Congress. The strongest groups are SCIRI (the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution), Al Dawa (The Islamic Call), SCIRI’s paramilitary arm, the Badr Brigade, the Muslim Brotherhood , represented by IIP (the Iraqi Islamic Party) — not to mention Al-Qaeda. The first three originated and are based in — guess where — Iran. In fact, SCIRI was founded in 1982 by Ayatollah Khomeini.

Today these groups are fighting each other as much as they’re fighting Iraqi insurgents, Americans, or Iraqi civilians. They regularly practice torture, assassinations, and other dastardly deeds upon one another. They are fighting to become the rulers of the new Iraq — the "democracy" that George Bush claims to be creating.

Is this what 2,000 Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis have died for? Is this what $200 billion dollars has financed? Is this why we have given up so much of our freedom?

And whoever wins the battle to rule Iraq will eventually become Strawmen against whom the Bush administration can get on its horses and ride off to protect us.

There is no War on Terrorism. There is only a War on Strawmen, a War on Shadows, a War on Fantasies — allowing George Bush to do whatever he, or his advisors, choose to do.

It is time to quit pretending that the War in Iraq serves any purpose relating to world peace, democracy in the Middle East, the first line against terrorism, or any other salutary goal.

It is simply part of the War on Strawmen.

December 14 , 2005

Harry Browne [send him mail], the author of Why Government Doesn't Work and many other books, was the Libertarian presidential candidate in 1996 and 2000. See his website.

Copyright © 2005 Harry Browne

Harry Browne Archives

BBC reports explosions heard in Tehran near missile facility

jpost.comMay 7, 2013 Three explosions were heard in western Tehran on Tuesday, in an area where Iran carries out missile research and storage, according to...

Israeli Bombing of Syria and Moral Relativism

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See for Yourself: Syrian Government Likely Did Not Use Chemical Weapons

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U.S. Currently Fighting 74 Different Wars … That It Will Publicly Admit

Washington’s BlogMay 11, 2013 And Many More Covert Wars Without Congressional Oversight … Let Alone Public...