So this is the meaning of "power", eh? I knew once Bush set foot in Iraq he planned on staying there. He doesn't care at whose expense it comes at as long as it isn't him; the almighty powerful one.

I do think Bush is expecting an uprising in this country and they are totally prepared for it. What makes a difference killing those that oppose Bush in Iraq or here? It is all one in the same.

Take a quick look at senator Gravel passionately lashing out at his fellow democratic candidates ... (at" crooksandliars.com). I stood up and and cheered. Finally someone speaking from the heart of his soul about the black insanity this country has slipped into.... and with out a thought or care about what his political handlers might say.
Well, he probably fired his political word smiths 30 years ago..... God, I'm this close ____ to sending him a hundred bucks..... His sparks could ignite some of the stale deadwood in the democratic camp..... Bring it on, we want our country back!

George W Bush is insane! He has lit the fuse in the middle east that is likely to be the end of us. But, he keeps agitating to start another war with Iran! It's a terrible thing to think let alone voice! But, I think the American public is going to have to take matter's into their own hands. They are going to have to get this "nut case" out of office before he destroys us! It's obvious he doesn't have a gram of good common sense or we wouldn't be in the mess! He was told before he invaded Iraq what the end result was likely to be! But, he would not listen as always. Well, surprise...surprise! It's come to pass. We have mess on our hands that is growing and we are powerless to stop unless we nuke the whole area! That isn't going to solve anything either! We already are criminal's in even invading a country that was no threat to us!

America is the new global terrorist and threat to world peace

This is not altogether a bad thing. History has shown time and again that ignorance, incompetence and irrational behavior eventually saves humankind. For instance Hitler's downfall came mainly because his ignorance, incompetence and irrational behavior by his regime and only marginally due to the valor of the allies.

It seems that if someone suddenly destroyed the white house and the pentagon, that the whole world would rejoice.

Senator Gravel Offers Plan To End The Iraq War
May 17, 2007

SENATOR GRAVEL OFFERS A PLAN GUARANTEED TO END THE WAR IN IRAQ

Former United States Senator and Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Gravel introduced the United States Armed Forces Withdrawal From Iraq Act, a tough law with sobering consequences to finally get the Bush Administration's full attention. Gravel will also outlined in detail a very tough legislative strategy to close out the war by Labor Day and have American troops home by Christmas. The only requirement is congressional leadership.

The Senator said, "The Congress must stop acting alone on the war issue and bring the American People into the fray to adjudicate the constitutional confrontation between the Congress and the President, if we are to end the mess Bush created before January 2009."

"Constitutionally the Congress is the superior power. The President can only enforce the law and obey it like any other citizen. Congressional timidity over the years encouraged by political partisanship has unleashed an imperial presidency. When the presidency falls into the hands of a messianic true-believer like Bush the result is a morally questionable foreign policy and a domestic disaster threatening the nation's safety." The Senator pointed out.

The essence of the Gravel Plan: the congressional leadership must draw-out over days and weeks, if necessary, repeated daily cloture votes in the Senate and repeated daily veto override votes in both chambers to give American voters time to weigh-in and force two-thirds of their Senators and Representatives to vote to override the President's veto of the American will.

Gravel added: "In the face of a President oblivious to human suffering and death, the voting public is the only power that can stop the war. The Congress can and must energize this citizen's power. Timidity, compromise, comity and politics as usual are not viable alternatives to LEADERSHIP when Americans and Iraqis are dying every day."

MSM has not changed a bit. CBS is a prime example, and I fear most people are still eating it up hoping a "win" is around the corner. Still havn't a clue what a win means.

The idiots convention could have come up with the same conclusions the think tank did except they are to busy in their Bu$h administration jobs.

Everyone is fiddling while the planet burns. Wars solve nothing. They just create more unrest and dispossessed, homeless humans with nothing to lose who have a grudge and join the 'terrorist groups'. The war we have to win is climate change.

If our planet fails we are all going to suffer. The more wars that are started, the more dispossessed and homeless there will be and the more recruits there will be for the 'terrorist groups'. Humans were born with brains....when will they use them. We are all human beings.

Who cares what an individual believes. Too many believe in a deity that they have no proof exists. This planet exists...it is our common support system. Stop destroying the planet and let us all work towards making our only habitable planet a real garden of Eden.

TM

Basically the Chatham House conclusions have been familiar to us skeptics for a long time, yet the US keeps on and on. Why? Sure, it's the oil and the shred of a dream of American control of the Middle East from our Iraq bastion. But it's also the sheer stubborness and vanity of Bush-Cheney and the neo-cons who don't have the integrity to admit they have been wrong from the beginning. They made a hideous error in invading Iraq and they have screwed up constantly ever since. There's hubris for you! Let hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of young Americans die, and rack up a bill that will cripple future generations of Americans, but just plug away and hope something might happen so the world won't see how stupid and inept the Bushies are.

It seems to me with the trade deficits and the budget deficits that pressure is building on the Wall Street elites to inject trillions of dollars of new cash into the system to prevent the whole house of cards from tumbling down. The fiasco in Iraq, the attempted Greatest Oil Robbery on Earth (GORE), has a sense of desperation to it, and I just wonder whether the Bush criminal gang believes that the US economic system is much closer to collapse than they are willing to let on (which would not concern them except that their personal fortunes would suffer as well). Paul Craig Roberts, an economist who was an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, has written extensively on the likelihood of an impending collapse, and he is not alone.

Of course, there is also the explanation that the Bush gang and the corporate leaders supporting them are nothing more than a group of bloodthirsty, greedy thieves and arrogant, callous miscreants, and that could account for pretty much all that has transpired as well.

Iraq poses a terrible problem for our ruling class. There is no "winning." It is a hopeless situation that can only be made better by a US withdrawl and the longer we stay, the more harm is done to this country BUT Iraq has the best untouched oilfields on the planet at a time when other oilfields are at or past peak and is a geographic center for both oil and water. They can't let it go and they can't have it.

Perhaps Osama bin Laden should run for president in Iraq's next election.

Helix

I agree, the United States has no plans on leaving. The only people leaving Iraq are the Iraqis and in the millions ... "up to 50,000 Iraqis flee sectarian violence every month" and "four million Iraqis" have already fled their homes.
http://www.chycho.com/?q=node/341

In 38 years there will be no one left in Iraq except for American and occupying troops, the 18,000+ Iraqis illegally held in jails and prison camps, oil company employees, and of course the so called 'Terrorists'

Welcome to the United States of the Middle East

We will definitely leave Iraq. Eventually, it will happen. Although the private contractors, banks, oil companies, American corporations and multination companies are making billions and billion at the expense of Iraq and our own treasury, it WILL end. Wars are used facilitate a simple transaction that serves to transfer/steal wealth from the lower and middle class in this country to the Elites. Americans pay taxes, money is put into the US Treasury and from there George Bush writes blank checks to his billionaire buddies (a lot of those checks are in the form of no bid contracts without oversight. Companies take US tax-payers money to rebuilt this or provide this service. Problem is that they take the money and run.)

We are currently spending roughly $10 Billion a month for wars, this can't be sustained. Especially when you consider we spend more on the military than the rest of the world combined. US manufacturing sectors have been gone oversees, we don't produce any goods, we just consume on credit. All these things in combination will eventually bankrupt our country. Wars and outsourcing will eventually economically bleed us to death. The typical American will feel the impact; the rich are and will be laughing all the way to the bank. This war is not benefiting any one. Not the Iraqis, no the world, not Americans. Only the Elites, who have high jacked this country and are determining foreign policy, are benefiting. They regard the Iraq war as complete success and now the want to move on, like parasites, and invade Iran.

macchendra,

I sent my note to the speaker. What good it will do -- who knows. I'd be surprised if I even get a response. But at least, I tried. You know, the "good ole democratic" way. The good ole "US" way.

Wow. This is crazy. How much longer can it go on?

Ken Hausle, a.k.a. buffalo_ken

A MULTI-DECADE occupation by us only brought Cuba and the Phillipines Batista and Marcos!
3/4 of the Iraqi's want us out now!

Write Pelosi:

http://www.speaker.gov/contact/

Who are these elites?
I say, they are NOT what they think they are.

Who is running this country? Have we no dignity? You individuals in the government agencies - is this the country you want?

You individuals in the DC house of representatives. Remember this - you are nothing but a representative and if this time marks the beginning of the end you will be culpable because you could have done something for the people you are supposedly representing. Are Dennis Kucinich and those others who have signed on to H.Res 333 the only ones who are courageously seeking remedy and a better way? Is it not obvious that impeachment of the offensive perpetuators is the patently obvious way to turn things around. Have you no dignity?

It is time to bring the troops back home. They should have never left in the first place, but now we know for sure. And it is also time to change the leadership of this country before it is too late.

IAH,
Ken Hausle, a.k.a buffalo_ken

In the name of the USG, and the ones that went before, well over a million of iraqis have lost their lives: either indirectely through savage sanctions, or directly by bombs and guns and other kinds of weapons.

In the millions.

Plenty more have fled to other countries.

Infrastructure, under saddam hussein at first world levels, has been smashed to pieces, probably further back than even third world countries.

A wonderful peace-loving people have had their country ransacked and smashed to bits by the USA (with a bit of help from the UK and Australia).

I know there are plenty of compassionate individual americans in the USA, but the nation as a whole drips with greed, lust for violence, and pure selfishness. It is absolutely on the path of human and life destruction.

It's been this way for a few decades now. When will the US stop killing the world?

The Congress does not discuss, at least not openly, the agreements Iraq is to sign with oil companies in order to satisfy a "benchmark." The administration does not discuss these agreements, preferring to talk only about another portion of the oil bill that discusses sharing oil revenues with each Iraqi citizen.
These agreements would effectively put Iraq's oil under the control of US and UK corporations for 25-30 years and would give these companies the lion's share of all profits. These agreements are, to me, the real reason for the largest embassy in the world and the permanent military bases. The companies and the oil infrastructure would have to be protected for decades by us or by mercenaries paid by us.

On the other hand, if the Iraqis told the US to take both its agreements and its military out of their country, I believe Iraq's neighbors would step in to train its armed services and would help Iraq restore its oil infrastructure.

Peace IS possible in Iraq, but not as long as we stubbornly and stupidly insist on staying there. Every occupation is met with resistance; this one is no different. And that resistance grows and grows as it lengthens. Thank you chycho for the estimates of deaths resulting from the terrible neocon dreams that guide the actions of our so-called leaders.

as for how many people will be dead if the US continues with this plan of creating a new middle east

I've estimated that by 2017 over 8 Million people in Iraq will be dead
http://www.chycho.com/?q=2017

And by 2012, 220 million will be dead globally
http://www.chycho.com/?q=degrees

It's time to get out of Iraq and Afghanistan before its too late

Unfortunately the "MAP OF THE NEW MIDDLE EAST" which was exposed in 2006 by Lieutenant-Colonel Ralph Peters is becoming a reality... See the following story for more detail

Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a "New Middle East"
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NAZ20061116&articleId=3882

Iraq just happens to be the beginning ...just imagine what chaos will be unleashed when the USA goes after Iran or Pakistan or even Turkey?

Many Civil Wars . . . Sounds very bad to me. From what I can gather even attacks on "The Green Zone" have increased.

If you can't have it, then why would you hold onto it. Just to keep someone else from having it? That seems kind of petty and beneath someone of dignity. When it comes to Iraq, it seems to me that the country of the US is way down on the list of those who can lay claim. Have we no dignity?

Geepers, this is ridiculous. When will it be readily acknowledged that trying to dominate by force is fruitless, worthless, and only makes things worse for those who come after us.....at least in the long run, and I think we are here now. This is the moment. This is the opportunity. I say "Choose Life".

Ken
a.k.a. "buffalo_ken" (kjh-es.com)

chycho,

The US will never leave Iraq.

Well, OK, never say never. But the bottom line is, there's a heck of a lot of oil there. Too much oil for the US to turn its back on. At today's prices, Iraq's oil reserves could total over $20 trillion. This is 40% of the net worth of all families in the United States. Given the vastly smaller population in Iraq, this means that the average Iraqi would be nearly five times as wealthy as the average American should the oil revenues accrue to them. The capability given to Iraq's government by control of such stupendous wealth would be stunning -- and totally unacceptable to the US.

Did I mention those permanent bases that we're building over there? Bases that can be used to project US military power to nearly two thirds of the world's known oil reserves in a matter of minutes?

Iraq is now a colony of the United States. There are only two things that will bring us to leave: either it will become financially or politically infeasible to stay, or we will have pumped their oil fields dry.

Until then, enjoy the war.