SHARM EL-SHEIK, Egypt (AP) - President Bush lectured the Arab world Sunday about everything from political repression to the denial of women’s rights but ran into Palestinian complaints he is favoring Israel in stalled Mideast peace talks. “Freedom and peace are within your grasp,” Bush said despite scant signs of progress.

Winding up a five-day trip to the region, Bush took a strikingly tougher tone with Arab nations than he did with Israel in a speech Thursday to the Knesset. Israel received effusive praise from the president while Arab nations heard a litany of U.S. criticisms mixed with some compliments.

“Too often in the Middle East, politics has consisted of one leader in power and the opposition in jail,” Bush said in a speech to 1,500 global policymakers and business leaders at this Red Sea beach resort.

Can anyone explain to me exactly WHY George Bush believes in preaching democracy to the Arab world?? Does he see himself as some kind of Christian King in shining armor, on a valiant crusade for God and Country, riding off to save the day on a big powerful steed, followed by his trusted Knights of the Realm??

Mr. Bush, I hate to burst your bubble at this late stage of the game, and I am fairly convinced that it IS just a game, one in which you are attempting to build some sort of legacy for yourself, other than the one of dismal failure you have so far managed to garner, but the Arabs have been the way they are for centuries, they consider you to be even more useless than the 70% of the citizens of the USA that are anxiously awaiting your departure, your weak efforts at becoming are peace maker are nothing more than a waste of time and more U.S. tax dollars…

As far as the Arab and Islamic world is concerned, we are the Great Satan and their only desire is to milk us dry with their oil prices and once our money is gone, we become useless to them and they will attempt to overtake this nation with Islamic dominance…

“I call on all nations in this region to release their prisoners of conscience, open up their political debate and trust their people to chart their future,” Bush said.

A grand and noble idea Mr. Bush, and one that I am sure historians will look upon a few hundred years from now and ask, “What the hell was he thinking?”…

Apparently Bush doesn’t realize that for any of this to happen, Arabs must 1st denounce the Quran and Islam, as well as the way it is practiced and taught, and that’s just not going to happen…

Mr. Bush has it in his head that ALL people should immediately embrace his views of freedom and democracy, but Bush just can’t grasp the fact that democracy and Islam don’t go together, it’s like oil and water, they will not mix, and some of the best political minds of our time, as well as brilliant global advisers can’t seem to get that through to the president…

Bush headed back to Washington with little to show for the trip. Saudi Arabia rebuffed his plea for help with soaring oil prices, Egypt’s leader questioned his seriousness about peacemaking and there was not enough progress in the peace talks to warrant a three-way meeting of Bush with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

And so we end another episode of George’s Big Adventure on the American Taxpayers Dime, tune in next trip and watch as Bush stutters and stammers and makes the USA look even worse to the rest of the world as he attempts to reverse the trends of antiquity…

Full Story Here:
Bush lectures Arab world on political reform, women’s rights

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KUWAIT CITY (AP) - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Tuesday the Bush administration explicitly warned former President Jimmy Carter against meeting with members of Hamas, the Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip and which is regarded by the U.S. as a terror group.

Rice, attending a regional meeting on Iraq’s security and future, contradicted Carter’s assertions that he never got a clear signal from the State Department. Rice told reporters that the U.S. thought the visit could confuse the message that the U.S. will not deal with Hamas.

“I just don’t want there to be any confusion,” Rice said. “The United States is not going to deal with Hamas and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help” further a political settlement between Israel and the Palestinians.

Full story Here:
Rice says Carter was warned against meeting with Hamas

Dr. Rice needs to remind Mr. Bush, she needs to think back, if she has the ability to recall, many National Security advisers from DoD, CIA, NSA, as well as members of Congress and the Senate told Bush that Iraq was NOT where we needed to go!!

I’m not defending Carter, not in any way, I think he’s a disgusting old bastard that needs to be shot for his recent actions, but in ALL fairness, Bush was warned too, and HE ignored those warnings…

Pot, meet kettle…

The bookshelf of history is going to be a very crowded place in a few hundred years, you know, that bookshelf where they keep the award for WORST President in U.S. history, Carter and Bush will be side by side…

Remember this:

WASHINGTON — The war in Iraq has become “a major debacle” and the outcome “is in doubt” despite improvements in security from the buildup in U.S. forces, according to a highly critical study published Thursday by the Pentagon’s premier military educational institute.

The report released by the National Defense University raises fresh doubts about President Bush’s projections of a U.S. victory in Iraq just a week after Bush announced that he was suspending U.S. troop reductions.

The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and was based in part on interviews with other former senior defense and intelligence officials who played roles in prewar preparations.

It was published by the university’s National Institute for Strategic Studies, a Defense Department research center.

“Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle,” says the report’s opening line.

At the time the report was written last fall, more than 4,000 U.S. and foreign troops, more than 7,500 Iraqi security forces and as many as 82,000 Iraqi civilians had been killed and tens of thousands of others wounded, while the cost of the war since March 2003 was estimated at $450 billion .

Full Story Here:
Pentagon institute calls Iraq war ‘a major debacle’ with outcome ‘in doubt’

“Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle,” says the report’s opening line.

I’ll bet all the little Bush Bots just cringed when that one hit, it’s not some helter-skelter attack piece from a left wing moonbat nut job bunch that’s anti-war for the sake of being anti war, it’s from the Pentagon’s premier military educational institute, imagine that, from The University, and they say Iraq is a DEBACLE, the Pentagon institute, the most top shelf think tank the Pentagon has at it’s disposal, and they call Iraq a DEBACLE, I’ll just be damned, who would have ever thought??

As any regular reader of this blog knows, I have called this thing The Debacle in Iraq for a long time now, and the Bots all said I didn’t know what I was talking about, they said I never knew what really went on in Iraq and that I had no clear picture of The Debacle in Iraq, yep, that’s what they said, I wonder, what will they be saying now??

This report reads like it was written by me, of at least with me as a consultant or contributor, you see, this report has been coming for a long time, and some folks knew it was coming, it had to, the REAL tale of the tape HAD to be told, and we tried to tell folks that truth about what was really happening in Iraq, but the Bush Bots tried their very best to shout us down, to discredit me and a few others, simply because we didn’t kiss Bush’s ass and because we had the gall to speak the truth and not the feel good bullshit that gets handed out in the press briefings…

I suspect that the Queen of the Bush Bots will do her level best to discredit Joseph Collins, the author of the report, he will be called a demented detractor, a Bush hater,, an enemy of this nation, a closet Islamic supporter, and God forbid, he may be called a paid shill, one that was put in place by the Democrats just to try and make Bush look bad, like Bush needs help in that department…

OK, sarcasm aside, this report is nothing less than personal vindication, and it gives serious citation for MY statements and opinions as posted on this blog…

You see, some of us are in the know, some of us are still connected to the right people, people that are still in Baghdad, people that DO see the BIG picture, and this report has been long, long overdue, let the lamentations of the Bots begin, this report says almost everything I have been saying for months now, we never should have gone to Iraq, we can’t walk away from Iraq, and there appears to be NO end in sight to The Debacle in Iraq, not a satisfactory ending, not one that our current president is prepared to execute…

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BAGHDAD (AP) - The Iraqi government has dismissed about 1,300 soldiers and policemen who deserted or refused to fight during last month’s offensive against Shiite militias and criminal gangs in Basra, officials said Sunday.

Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said 921 police and soldiers were fired in Basra. They included 37 senior police officers ranging in rank from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general.

The others were dismissed in Kut, one of the Shiite cities where the fight had spread.

Last month, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki ordered the security forces to confront armed groups in Basra, Iraq’s second largest city.

But they met fierce resistance and the attack quickly ground to a halt as fighting flared across the Shiite south and Baghdad.

Full Story Here:
1,300 Iraqi Troops, Police Dismissed

1,300 Iraqi troops and police are dismissed?? For desertion?? DISMISSED??

They deserted in time of WAR, they should be lined up and SHOT!!

That’s numbers coming close to being half of a combat brigade folks, a brigade is 3,500 troops, and we have many brigades in Iraq, and they are waiting on the Iraqi army to STAND UP so that they can come home, but the Iraqis have desertions in these kinds of numbers, and ALL that gets done is a dismissal, a mere slap on the wrist??

These are the people that OUR troops are fighting and dying for, our sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, moms, dads, husbands and wives, and many friends as well, and this is what we can expect from the Iraqi army and police??

It’s time to re-think this Debacle in Iraq, I have NEVER voted for a Democrat in my life, but if that’s what it takes to get our troops OUT of Iraq, then by God I WILL vote Democrat this go round, and make NO mistake, I know that over all, a vote for the Dems is a bad thing, but voting for a Democrat is exactly what you’ll be doing if you vote for John McCain, a Democrat without the name, a candidate that is nothing more than a RINO, and the one thing that John McCain guarantees is this, we’re going to stay in Iraq, fighting and dying for a people that will NOT stand and fight for themselves…

We were attacked by the Taliban and their cohorts on 9-11-01, and I never balked so much as once when we went to Afghanistan to take on that bunch of thugs, but Iraq was NOT about the Taliban or al-Qaida, not in it’s inception, Iraq was simply George W. Bush having a temper tantrum because Saddam defied his wishes and threatened ‘Daddy’, and after several changes of mission statement and definition, we’re still there, in Iraq, an entire nation that is NOT worth the life of so much as ONE of our fine men and women in uniform…

I know there will be many that disagree with this post, but quite frankly, I DON’T CARE, if you can’t open your eyes and see what us being in Iraq has done to this nation, and what George W. Bush has brought upon this nation by taking us TO Iraq, then you are truly one of the blind Bush Bots, and if that offends you, feel free to click out of this blog and stay clicked out!!

I personally feel that those who support the Debacle in Iraq are doing a dis-service to our military members, if we are going to go to war, anywhere in this world, we owe it to our men and women in uniform to prosecute that war in the most expeditious manner possible, and to get them home safely, as soon as possible, and that has NOT been the case in Iraq, we are still conducting a tit for tat, a travesty which we have no apparent desire to end…

And once again the war fighting skills of the Iraqi army make it quite apparent as to exactly WHY we rolled over Saddam and his Republican Guard in such short order, the Iraqis WILL NOT FIGHT, they will conduct insurgent and guerrilla operations, they WILL persecute defenseless people, they will dominate and murder those that won’t fight back but IF there is a challenge made against the Iraqi army, they, as a whole, show their true colors and run like dogs…

Any nation or people that refuses to fight for it’s own freedom is NOT worth fighting FOR, not by us or any other nation, a people that will not stand in their own defense are not worth defending!!

Support Iraqi Freedom?? Screw Iraq AND it’s freedom, bring our troops home NOW, or deploy them to a place where they can actually do some good in the War on Terror, and not leave them act as stand-ins and IED fodder for some insurgency and their civil war!

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WASHINGTON (AP) - Americans’ confidence in the economy fell to a new low, dragged down by worries about mounting job losses, record-high home foreclosures and zooming energy prices.

According to the RBC Cash Index, confidence dropped to a mark of 29.5 in April, down from 33.1 in March. The new reading was the worst since the index began in 2002. It marked the fourth month in a row where confidence has fallen to an all-time low.

“Consumers are very pessimistic,” said Mark Vitner, economist at Wachovia. “There are not a lot of happy campers out there.”

Over the past year, consumer confidence has deteriorated significantly. Worsening problems in housing, harder-to-get credit, financial turmoil on Wall Street and lofty energy prices have put people in a much more gloomy mind-set. Last April, confidence stood at 85.4. The index is based on results from the international polling firm Ipsos.

Full Story Here:
Consumer Confidence Falls to New Low

More airlines either file for bankruptcy or Chapter 11 protection, Frontier Files for Bankruptcy Protection, the price of gas is through the roof, Gas Prices Could Hit $4.00 Per Gallon, and I guess this could be looked at as a sort of bright spot, Oil prices ease back from $112-a-barrel peak but today the stock market, the Dow, is off by over 250 points, NASDAQ is off by 61 points and the S&P’s are down 27, so, maybe it’s not that good a news story or the economic stimulus we need…

Meanwhile, home loans are almost a thing of the past, Home loans are harder to get, and this, Overextended U.S. home loans, and automobile owners are defaulting on their loans at a record pace, Defaults soar on auto loans in pattern likened to mortgage crisis, as the Moron in Chief tells his loyal followers, U.S. is not headed for recession..

Most Americans, something like 70% of ALL Americans, are not stupid, we see what’s happening to our dollars and this nation, and we’re not falling for the BS coming from the Bush White House, most of us I say because then there’s folks like the one in the following, a reader that told me recently, “The House and the Senate are to blame for Bush’s light tread, I think. He was put in a terrible position, and he has been a strong leader in the face of the rudest and meanest Congress a President could have. He has had little loyalty, including from McCain.”..

And to that I have to ask, what planet are YOU living on?!?!

Bush may not be to blame for ALL the ills of America, but to claim that he is the victim of a “rude and mean” Congress is nothing more than outright lunacy, and an attempt to deflect blame away from your hero, this has ALL happened on the Bush watch, Bush had a DREAM setup in the House and Senate and HE turned that dream into a nightmare, he had a Republican House and Senate, a Conservative majority SCOTUS as well as huge U.S. and world support for the actions in Afghanistan, so what does he do next??

The Moron in Chief takes us into his Debacle in Iraq, an action that we had NO business engaging in, and by doing so he lost focus on the REAL battle in the War on Terror, Afghanistan, not to mention the fact that his approval ratings and support level fell to all time lows, both domestically and world wide…

What Bush has done for the American people is this; he has taken the USA and it’s citizens to the very brink of financial disaster, we are all but bankrupt, we are owned by the Chinese, for crying out loud folks, we have to borrow money from other nations to pay OUR debts, yet we continue to spend BILLIONS of dollars in Iraq, a venture that has not, and quite likely will NEVER yield any financial gain to us, in any way…

But Mr. Bush says we’re not heading into a recession, so, it must be true, just ask any Bush Bot…

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BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) — The 101st Airborne Division took command of American forces in eastern Afghanistan on Thursday, helping to boost U.S. troop levels in the country to their highest number since the 2001 invasion.

Marching in step, paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne retired the unit’s flag during a ceremony under a light rain beside the main runway at Bagram Air Field. Then 101st paratroopers unfurled their flag, officially marking the start of their 15-month tour.

The 101st has 7,200 troops in Afghanistan, several hundred more than the 82nd. Its arrival, coupled with the deployment of some 3,500 Marines to the country’s south, has pushed the total number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan to over 32,000, part of a steady rise in force levels as violence has increased over the last two years.

The top American commander in Afghanistan has requested three more brigades — about 7,500 more troops — and the Pentagon has promised that more troops will be sent next year.

Following the 2001 ouster of the Taliban, the U.S. had fewer than 10,000 troops in the country, and no real presence in the volatile south.

Full Story Here:
Troop levels reach record high in Afghanistan

Pay special attention to that last line, “Following the 2001 ouster of the Taliban, the U.S. had fewer than 10,000 troops in the country, and no real presence in the volatile south.” because the next line is the payoff, “What has become clear as the insurgency has picked up steam over the last year or two is that an increasing number of forces are needed to clear and hold territory,” said Seth Jones, an analyst who follows Afghanistan for the RAND Corp. “In fact, I think a significant number more are needed. I would like to see those U.S. numbers come up.”…

In my opinion George W. Bush, and his desire to traipse off to Iraq and take on Saddam is the very reason that Afghanistan has escalated once again, we didn’t complete the job we needed to in Afghanistan, we hit the Taliban and we hurt them, but we didn’t destroy them and their capability to wage guerrilla warfare, and all the while the Bush Bots continued to chirp that al-Qaida IS in Iraq, well, YES, they are, NOW, because WE went there and they came to fight US, they were NOT in Iraq before Saddam was deposed…

The Bush Bots cry that al-Qaida IS the reason we went TO Iraq, forgetting that the Senate, Congress and the Defense Department have ALL published reports on their studies that have determined that Saddam had nothing to do with the attacks of 9-11 nor any serious association with al-Qaida or the Taliban…

So, here we go again, we have to go back and do a job all over again, and this time it’s not because the Iraqi army couldn’t hold a position, it’s all because our illustrious leader has the attention span of a 3 year old, and he is NOT smarter than a 5th grader…

Don’t take this the wrong way, I am glad to see our troop buildup in Afghanistan, I was terribly disappointed when troops were withdrawn from Afghanistan to be re-tasked to The Debacle in Iraq, maybe this time our guys will be allowed to do the job they were sent to do, maybe they will be ordered to wipe out the Taliban and al-Qaida once and for all…

Yeah, I know, but a guy can dream can’t he??

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