The biggest terrorist cabal resides in the great white house. Birds of a feather flock together.

Ever since, especially following WWII, truer today than ever, the U.S. & Spook Company has been surreptitiously funding and supporting Fascist Dictators where ever their big foot landed, in the interests of the Corporate State. When these business partners, as with Saddam begin seeing the light, turn sour, the U.S. initiates "Operation Foreclosure", followed by the sending in of troops with Very Large Weapons of Mass Destruction in support of "Kingdom Towing", the repossession of material goods for lack of payment.

As it was suggested in the Wizard of Oz, it is time that Dorothy took a peek behind frail and tattered curtain.

Peace, Best Wishes and Hope
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=amunaor

As far as the tax thing...

How many people participating would it take for us to feel safe withholding our taxes? 20 million? 1 million, 500,000?

People would go to jail and be made examples of, no doubt. But not 1 million.
and there's the rub...who and who is willing to gamble?

What about a petition format of with a declarative statement about why we are withholding our taxes...illegal war bla bla bla

On a different note is it to early to predict war with Pakistan?

rtdrury:

Before you canonize the "Founding Fathers" regarding national taxes, read up on the history of the Whiskey Rebellion.

Looking around for someone to tax in order to repay the debts of the Revolution, Washington and Hamilton settled on the farmers living in the west (Pennsylvania and Virginia mostly.) These farmers were converting their corn into whiskey as a value-added measure. A mule could carry the same weight of liquor as corn, and wouldn't drink the whiskey!

Probably the reason the "Founding Fathers" seized upon taxing the farmers of the developing west was that they weren't part of the rich eastern elite, and therefore neither organized or connected to the political insiders like Washington, Jefferson, Hancock, Franklin, etc.

Governments tax whomever they can. Always.

""You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time," said Bush, the President and Commander in Chief of the US Military
doh!"

He just meant the Uniform, silly...
[Mushmouth just needs to have his tailor whip-up some pseudo-militaristic threads like Bush is so fond-of -- and maybe he won't even need the stuffing/Codpiece that BoyGeorge did...?]

Yup Pakistan continues to back the Taliban. There was a suicide bomber in a Northern Afghanistan sugar factory that killed 90 people this week. Taliban and Pakistan deny responsibility but Afghans know its the ISI and Pakistan are behind this one. Karzai is right to blame Pakistan. No one listens and the Afghan people continue to suffer.

"On terrorism, Pakistan helped nurture the Taliban," the 9/11 Commission reported, adding: "Many in the government have sympathized with or provided support to the extremists. Musharraf agreed that Bin Laden was bad. But before 9/11, preserving good relations with the Taliban took precedence." Oh Jeez how disingenuous; there's me thinking that the Taliban and Bin Laden were actually amerikan made "nutcases".

Weren't those nasty anti dvd and cassette tape nomads with the funny hats and shoulder blanket accessories (to hide their amerikan weapons no doubt) with things crawling around their beards being groomed by Karzai's Unocal in Texas before the twin tower shit hit the fan so to speak? Good thing that amerika has a case of selective alzheimer's considering the Hitlerian mounds of corpses stacked in the wake of its puny history but sheeet when short-term memory span can't get back behind holy holocaust 9/11 then I would say that's a senile duddering old patient not long for this world.

The racist attitude of Scheer once again come though clear in this article. He objects to Mush's actions now because it does not serve US interests. He implicitly assumes that Pak's nuclear quest is illegitimate and does not recognize Pak as a sovereign nation.

gyptian,

I got to know more about India once I married a woman whose folks came from Northern India. She may be white like myself but to me color didn't and never will matter. And don't forget that the train bombings in Madrid despite smaller casualties got all the attention while Mumbai got scant and in fact America blamed India alone, well at least government and the media anyway since most people in this country hardly know who really funds the Taliban and terrorist groups in the first place.

As for Kashmir, it used to be a beauty land but unfortunately, the US and Britain happily and still do back the militants in Pakistan doing their utmost best to RAPE that land and so far just like they've already done to Pakistan, they're doing a heckuva job unfortunately.

Despite maxpayne's frothing-at-the-mouth comments he/she does have a point. The support given by Musharraf to the fundamentalists in Kashmir (India) is responsible for thousands of deaths in the Kashmir valley. But ofcourse it doesnt really matter to us because brown-skinned south asians dont count as much as white-skinned americans in our deviant psyche.

Com-n-sense

I love it.

This April send your tax form back blank save for a bloody hand-print (fake of course). Let's do a Boston Tea Party on steroids!

They don't listen to our voices and take our money. So, now maybe they'll listen.

After all, the Federal Reserve isn't federal anyway, they're a privately owned bank that illegally took our government's right to print it's own money, then loans the government back - our own money - at interest rates a loan-shark would envy. Hence the IRS is nothing more than a glorified illegal collection agency. Anyone that's been following the Ron Paul campaign knows this by now. So, screw em! What would they do if 20 million of us gave them the "hand"? Arrest us?

Hell, the way things are going they're going to arrest us soon anyway.

No one has bothered to bring up that the Pakistani government has and still does support and arm the Taliban. Where would Georgie Boy be wothout them?

starofthesea 1:56 pm

"Danial David, Please read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States."

praise be to shiva, god, allah, zeus, loki, and any other god or goddess that might be listening/reading so as not to offend and bring further blight upon this once great land now apparently so cursed.

I would like to be the first to point out that Daniel seems to be learning that there is more than one note!

and starofthesea, I should like to thank you for the kind words of the other day, not being able to reply at the moment, but that it is a communal endeavor, and that it is you I would commend.

Perhaps you''ve fallen behind current semantics and have confused ''radical populism'' (government of the people, by the people, for the people) with modern ''democracy'' (unfettered ''free market'' capitalist exploitation). Please try to keep up.

LOL, thanks for the heads up, Arvy. I'm clear on that now. According to the MSM, democracy = state terrorism, and the MSM are always promoting democracy. My bad.

Interesting discussion between Shrub and Musharraf today. Shrub vehemently emphasizes to Musharraf "you can't be president and head of the military at the same time!" "You ought to have elections soon, and you need to take off your uniform." Shrub also said "Pakistan is on its way to democracy." (Please understand that I really am trying to contain my laughter as I type this). Well, I will let all of you conclude.

[quote]Ostrogoth November 7th, 2007 4:45 pm -- The third rail alternative to supporting state terrorism is to support democracy, but our government and the MSM don't like to talk about it.[/quote]

Really?! I would have sworn that ALL foreign involvements are characterized by US public proponents via ALL media as supporting democracy. It seems to me that they talk about it that way incessantly.

Perhaps you've fallen behind current semantics and have confused 'radical populism' (government of the people, by the people, for the people) with modern 'democracy' (unfettered 'free market' capitalist exploitation). Please try to keep up. ;-)

"Is Scheer implying that we should support state terrorists like Musharraf if they're efficient state terrorists? If that's his premise, it's typical of MSM analysis of US foreign policy." - Ostrogoth

Scheer understands the problem but his BLATANT ommission of the whole truth about the US's support of Pakistan from both the Left and Right and his BLATANT omission of the MAJOR TERRORIST attack in Mumbai that killed thousands more people thereby dwarfing 9/11 PISSES me off and makes me wonder if he's a RACIST after all !

"But he was our dictator, kind of a modern, even westernized one who could stand up to all those bearded Islamic terrorists."

Is Scheer implying that we should support state terrorists like Musharraf if they're efficient state terrorists? If that's his premise, it's typical of MSM analysis of US foreign policy.

Americans don't have to support state terrorists against non-state terrorists. That's a false dilemma our dear leaders always try to force on us. The third rail alternative to supporting state terrorism is to support democracy, but our government and the MSM don't like to talk about it. Democratically elected leaders are never as manageable or reliable as state terrorists, whose lives and power depend on ruthless subordination of their own country's interests to the wishes of the empire.

The downside to supporting state terrorism is that it inevitably aggravates non-state terrorism instead of suppressing it. Over the long-term, for every act of government repression, there's an equal and opposite act of popular resistance, which is where we're at now in Pakistan. If we had actually spent all those billions promoting democracy and free elections instead of on our good buddy Pervez, we probably wouldn't be in the predicament we're in right now. Non-state terrorism doesn't gets much traction in popular regimes, even if they elect guys who don't shave.

Looks like it's time to send in the Marines. Whoopsy! they're busy crushing popular resistance in Iraq. Uh-ooohhh.

Scheer does get most of his facts right. However, I don't like to show my anger like this but, the author DUMBFUCKS himself by BLATENTLY omitting India entirely and ought to be SHOT for FAILING to mention 7-11-06 which actually dwarfed 9/11 unless Scheer is a MOTHERFUCKING RACIST! Here's a better article which REALLY uncovers the dirty rotten nature of the MISleadership in Pakistan and the plight of the people and why the Left FAILS to get it and in the process allows the "Right" to RAPE them on the issue of "terrorism" :

Saturday, July 15, 2006
Mumbai - Why America Looks The Other Way
On Tuesday, as part of a post of my thoughts on the Mumbai bombings, I made a prediction.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has way too much political capital and way too much arms-trade loot invested in Pakistan to do any kind of about face on its relationship with that nation. Expect there to be no mention of the Indian allegations of Pakistani complicity - the possibility just doesn't exist for the Bush White House. Yet again and as usual, foreign policy will be determined by the needs of domestic policy - and admitting such a close relationship with a state sponsor of Islamist terrorism would be a domestic poison pill.
I was mostly right and sort of wrong - the Bush administration itself has been careful not to mention Pakistan in any way whatsoever. However, rightwing pundits, commentators and opinion-makers have been almost zealous in their attempts to exonerate Pakistan of any blame whatsoever - to the extent of being blind to facts and to parallels with other situations in many cases. Amazingly, mainstream liberal comment has also been of the "sweep Pakistan's involvement under the rug" kind. Like being for the invasion of Iraq before they were belatedly against it, establishment liberals are doing their best not to talk about an obvious longterm policy mistake for as long as possible in the hope that it will go away. In so doing they have formed yet another foreign policy 'consensus of errors' with the Bush administration.

That bipartisan establishment consensus has been best articulated by Xenia Dormandy in the Washington Post. Dormandy was director for South Asia at the National Security Council where her main responsibility was the India/Oakistan peace process. She is now an executive director of a broadly liberal think-tank, the Belfer Center, which is part of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The conclusion of her op-ed runs as follows:

Now is a moment when Pakistan really needs to respond. It wants to be taken seriously as an important player on the international scene. It has repeatedly asked the United States for a nuclear energy deal similar to the one we are working on with India. But until Pakistan -- and this means not only President Pervez Musharraf but also the military, the people and the political parties, including the religious party, the MMA -- gets serious about shutting down, arresting and otherwise dismantling the militant groups that operate from its territory, it cannot expect to be treated as a responsible player in the region. Pakistan is working on it, but it could do so much more.
A good -- or at least stable -- India-Pakistan relationship is one of the most important elements for long-term global stability. Given that both are nuclear powers, their region is one of the most dangerous in the world. And with attacks such as this, it is also one of the most volatile. India has taken great strides to tamp down this volatility. Pakistan needs to do more.
In return, India would need to step up in a real, substantive way on bilateral issues such as Kashmir. The third round of the high-level composite dialogue taking place next week, assuming it is still on, is the place to do it.
In a nutshell, India should offer concessions to a nation which has talked the talk far more often than it has walked the walk. There is no mention anywhere in the piece of Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI, and its alleged sponsoring of terror groups in Kashmir, Afghanistan and India.No mention of the tens of thousands of Taliban and Al Qaida trained militants in Pakistan (Jane's estimated 20,000 such in Karachi alone). No mention of Pakistan's inability (reluctance) to capture Osama bin Laden or Mullah Omar - and other major terror/crime figures such as Dahwood Ibrahim - who are certainly hiding on their territory. The establishment simply does not want to talk about these things.

In a way that's understandable, if reprehensible. For at least six years policymakers from both camps have touted Pakistan as an ally in the 'war on terror'. Hundreds of statements have been made to that effect and have been backed by votes and decisions giving Pakistan billions in taxpayer's funds as well as some of the most sophisticated weaponry on the planet. To do an about-face now and admit that Pakistan is a state sponsor of terrorism - a rogue state which has duped those policymakers into thinking it was an ally with some token assistance on basing, some captures of lesser terror figures who are instantly replaceable and clever rhetoric concealing active backing of terror groups - would be a political disaster of monumental proportions for both parties.

To see how bad it could be, compare the establishment position on Pakistani supported terrorism in India with positions on Iran and Syria's support for Hizboullah attacks on Israel. Or rhetoric over Iran's supposed nuclear weapons program. Very few in the political establishment have any problem in accepting Israel's unsubstantiated allegations of Iranian/Syrian planning and personnel being behind Hizboullah or Hamas attacks - because it is clear both nations are funding said terror groups. (Ditto Shia militias in Iraq.) The American political establishment has broadly stepped back from condemning Israel's unbalanced response - an overwhelming invasion of Palestine and Lebanon which has targeted infrastructure and used indiscriminate attacks which have led to many civilian deaths. In the main, both parties have even given Israel a pass to extend their belligerence to Syria and Iran should it wish to. "Intelligence" from the most unbelievable of sources - like the MeK and a discredited former Iranian spy - has been touted as proof positive of Iran's weapons program and formed the basis for broadly bi-partisan policy. Denials are rejected with "well, they would say that, wouldn't they" no matter what evidence points towrds the denials being genuine.Yet when the Indian or Afghani governments categorically state that Pakistani intelligence is providing funding, weaponry and planning to various Islamist terror groups their assertions are rejected out of hand (when such statements are considered at all) even though the Pakistani Ministry of Defense admits the ISI is a law unto itself. There aren't even calls for the evidence to be made available for scrutiny. India is told that it cannot use Cheney's One Per cent Doctrine or Bush's Doctrine of Pre-emption at all - instead it should make concessions and accept Pakistan's doubtful word on non-involvement. Indian politicians no doubt see the double standard - it is no wonder they have postponed peace talks indefinitely. One can only wish that Israel would be held to such a high standard of behaviour.

Were America's politicians to publicly accept that Pakistan is indeed a state sponsor of terrorism, much of the "narrative" for policies on Israel, Iran, Syria, Iraq and counter-terrorism would disappear overnight and disappear in an embarassingly obvious way. Domestic trust in the competence of those politicians would be badly hurt - but on the international stage any such admission and the knock-on effect into parallel issues would be a blow from which American prestige and authority might never recover. No matter which party was in charge.Unfortunately few American politicians, who have backed Pakistan for six years, are going to do the "right thing" when political expediency beckons. It is just so not going to happen.

Then there is the chattering class of think-tankers, op-ed writers and political bloggers. The main thrust of pundits' writings on Pakistan's support for terrorism, especially from the cheerleading political Right, seems to be outright disbelief. Why, they ask, would Pakistan do such a thing? What's in it for them? By asking this, they reveal an ignorance of the history and motivations of the Pakistani ruling elite - the military - of such a depth that one suspects it is a deliberate ignoring of facts rather than simply not knowing them. Yet again, the potential embarassment of admitting they were wrong outweighs the actuality and their minds refuse to contemplate it.

Throughout their histories - which have included more than war with their neighbour - India and Pakistan have been burdened by extremists who define themselves in terms of opposition to their neighbour and in supremacist religious rhetoric. Both have always had to cope with militant portions of their own military and political spectrums who define themselves in terms of a perceived military threat from the other nation. In India's case, although offtimes these factions have gained ascendancy, the democratic process has kept their influence from being total. Pakistan, on the other hand, has been a military dictatorship more often than it has been even slightly democratic and even when a democracy was constantly threatened by coups from one of its two militant factions - the religious and military extremists. Accordingly, the military has made a de facto trade off with the Islamists. The military runs the nation and the Islamists use it as a safe base to preach, recruit and stage their worldwide Jihad. Neither rocks the other's boat all that much and so a balance of power has evolved, teetering on a precipice of civil war which spills over locally from time to time or swings into temporary co-operation (e.g. the A.Q. Khan nuclear syndicate). Neither group has any incentive to change this equation.

The "war on terror" does not presently provide that incentive. Pakistan's military rulers very swiftly discovered that no-one in power in the West is looking all that closely at them as long as basing is provided, a bunch of lesser figures is rounded up from time to time, they eagerly buy Western weaponry and generally keep up a pretense that they are doing everything they can to wage a war against those who could most easily topple them from power. In return for largely preserving the internal status quo, the Islamist militants receive covert aid - which is entirely deniable or can be attributed to "rogue elements" - in their operations in neighbouring countries. They also get largely left alone in the unseen hinterlands to set up training camps and staging areas. In India, Afghanistan and elsewhere, the aims of both factions work in harmony. Pakistan, because of the needs of those factions, is a state-sponsor of terrorism.

The Pakistani military has always had one primary mission - India. While India must worry about the other regional power, China, Pakistan has always co-operated with China both militarily and politically on the local stage - the two nations develop fighter jets together, exercize together, vote together in local forums. India was the only reason why Pakistan developed a nuclear arsenal (India worried about Pakistan and China) and you can be sure that every nuclear weapon in Pakistan's inventory is assigned to an Indian target and to no other - something that it is doubtful is the case for India's weapons. Recently, Pakistan arranged the purchase of advanced Harpoon maritime weapons from the U.S. - yet the only possible target for those missiles is the Indian Navy. No other potential foe has any kind of navy at all. The current $5 billion plan to sell Pakistan advanced F-16 fighters is, according to Pakistani public statements, entirely aimed at a possible conflict with the sophisticated Indian air force. The disputed region of Kashmir has always provided an excuse for belligerence rather than being a problem to be solved peaceably. It is noteworthy that in at least three out of the four major armed conflicts between the two nations (1947, 1965, 1971,1999) Pakistani regular forces have been the first State aggressors.

This isn't to say that India is entirely innocent, mind you - nor are other nations who blithely contribute to the gunpowder pile that is the sub-continent. India has its fair share of Hindu supremacists and military hawks. The current U.S./India nuclear deal is the most dangerously destabilizing development in the region for years. It not only creates a nuclear arms race which even Japan may join but also makes a mockery of international non-proliferation efforts. Indian hawks are more than happy to push for even greater concessions from America as the deal is processed and have no intention of allowing their political leadership to give up a perceived advantage over Pakistan or China. The U.S. and others have been just as zealous in selling advanced weaponry to India as to Pakistan - and one must surely question the wisdom of any move that arms both sides of such a dangerous potential conflict.

Be it establishment politicians or supposed "watchdogs of democracy", any ability for American opinion-drivers to admit Pakistan is a "rogue state" is terminally undermined by the political, financial and military capital that has been invested in that nation over the last six years and more - all the way back to the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Further, admitting that status for Pakistan would make decades of Middle East policy seem a black joke at best. Indians wondering at American under-reaction to the Mumbai atrocity should realise that it isn't the color of the victim's skin that makes America uninterested. It is in the vested interests of those who could make America notice that it looks the other way.

Robert is correct about Pakistan's support of the Taliban. The Afghans hate Musharraf and the Pakistani gov't. I hear anti-Pakistan jokes all the time from Afghan friends. Afghans are angry. The Pakistani backed Taliban worked to destroy Afghan culture from banning Afghan music and Afghan television media (Afghans buried their TV sets in their backyards in Kabul to avoid getting a beating from the Taliban for pocessing them), to outlawing soccer and kite flying, forcing women to suffer under the Burqa/chador and not allowing them to go to school or work, and destroying the beloved Bamiyan Buddha's which were the pride of the Afghan people (the Buddha's were in the Afghan children's testbook's as a symbol of their noble history and were most loved). I feel for the Pakistani moderates though as living under Musharraf is a hell I wouldn't wish on anyone and the Islamists in Pakistan are equally scary!

There are websites that give a good idea about tax protest. The founding of the nation had the mark of slavery but at least it did not have the mark of corporations, standing armies or federal taxes. These amount to enslavement of the whole population. The founders of the nation would advise tax protest today and then some, including slave reparations, and management of everything of, by and for the people.

The founders would advise writing a letter to the IRS explaining one's individual tax protest. They would advise first minimizing one's tax obligation. The founders would advise banishing K St., banishing corporations, banishing standing armies, banishing all privatizations of public services, banishing everything remotely connected to "laissez-faire" capitalism and the far right agenda. They would advise upholding the US Constitution, including the Copyright Clause, and the Impeachment Clause, TODAY, NOW.

"You can't be the president and the head of the military at the same time," said Bush, the President and Commander in Chief of the US Military

doh!

Simply another example to those who are STILL having trouble realizing that the United States could care less about democracy or the so-called "spread of democracy". If we honestly cared about democracy so much, aide would be cut to Pakistan and stronger language would be used demanding Pakistan return to civilian rule.

Well for those that are unaware of the pipeline that is being constructed and goes from Iraq through Afganistan which is land locked except through Pakistan. Check out a map. Terrorists have nothing to do with this whole fisco. It all works around getting the oil out of Iraq. Wake up folks . . . Where have you all been. Just take one look at a map and you can figure it out yourself. If Bush bombs Iran we will still need the oil and that can then come out through Pakistan. Of course Bush and Cheney haven't figured out what to do if Pakistan desides to turn off the spicket. But more than likely more money will open it again. Or at least some more planes and bombs will make it flow again. Where do you think the trucks are currently running and hauling the oil as we sit here reading and listening to the propaganda.

There's at least a 50-50 shot Condiliar will convince the good democracy-lovin' General to "remove the uniform." Aside from that, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, Russia, China, and Venezuela will continue flipping Cheneybush the bird until they and their ever-deadlier psychosis is but a hellish memory.

On a side note: No. The government, esp. this one, does not recognize "tax protesting." Which is all the more reason to DO IT! If the government "allowed" it, it wouldn't be a protest dingdong. Or is our situation not yet desperate enough to call for desperate measures?

[quote]iowairish November 7th, 2007 2:10 pm -- I've been wondering the same myself. Is non-payment of taxes a legitimate form of political protest? ...[/quote]

The problem in a nutshell. People continue to insist on finding answers that lie within the bounds of rules established for the very purpose of perpetuating a totally corrupt system. There aren't any. It's as if the country's original rebels had bound themselves to only those 'legitimate form[s]' of protest that the imperial laws of that day would permit.

It's very doubtful that standing in front of tanks, or on top of them, is 'legitimate' protest, but, unless Americans are prepared to exhibit at least as much guts as the Chinese and Russians, the only alternative is abject surrender. And, based on everything I've observed to date, I fear that the latter is the more probable outcome in the 'greatest democracy on earth.'

I can't believe Robert Scheer would be so naive. The US wouldn't stop supporting Pakistan because they supported the Taliban. So did we. Remember the Bush administration sent $43,000,000 of US taxpayer money to the Taliban in early 2001. Also, the US taxpayers paid to print the jihad textbooks that the muhjadeen used to teach their children.
The US helped arm the muhjadeen from 1979, (yes, when the sainted Carter was president) to overthrow the progressive Afghan government that the USSR supported.
Then the US supported them going into Bosnia in the 1990's.
Bin Laden is a US agent, and that is why he hasn't been "found". 9-11 was an inside job to galvanize Americans to support US imperialism over the planet and into space, and to institute fascism here in the homeland.

FreeDumbFighter [quote]: "at what point do stop paying taxes?"

I've been wondering the same myself. Is non-payment of taxes a legitimate form of political protest? I've been told that 'they' will come after me with big fines and penalties, etc. so is there something 'formal' that needs to be on file - like a letter stating that I'm not paying taxes because of the illegal war - started on te basis of lies - that the current administration is conducting?

Any good tax people out there who can advise us?

Danial David, Please read Howard Zinn's People's History of the United States. Your post indictates you're skeptical to a degree. But the fundamental problem of our foreign policy is that it is and always has been morally bankrupt while at the same time, in the height of hipocracy, trying to claim some sort of moral high ground. Sorry, but this imperialist policy may have been named different things in different times, but the duopoly supported it equally, and continues to do so to this day.

at what point do stop paying taxes?

Democrat apologists are even worse than that lowliest of scum, the right-wing neo-con Republicans and the bible-thumping dickwads in the South. Every Democratic government has pursued identical foreign-policy objectives as the Republicans. There is no difference. ACtually the only difference is the Republicans tell you they will screw you and the Democrats enable the Republicans to do just that.

A re-alignment in objectives in terms of which dictator to support does not constitute a difference in policy objectives. The Democratic party destroyed the Progressive movement in this country. If you have any respect for yourself you wouldnt vote for any of these two parties. If i dont have a choice other than these two, ill throw away my vote because its a clear indication that we do not live in a Democracy.

conservativism=authoritarianism=dictatorship

"Not even I am that trusting of the Democrats, yet I'd like to give them a try"

Absolutely not! This has been tried and tried and tried. The more we the people agree to settle for the 'less evil', the greater the 'less evil' becomes in the future.

It's far from the stated ideals of us kept-out-of-the-loop citizens when in the 70's our leaders thought we needed to back the Shah of Iran (oops, didn't work), and thought we needed to help Bin Laden et.al. and the Afghan freedom fighters against the Soviets, and thought we needed to help Saddam against Iran, then rely on a coup government in Pakistan and a can't-admit-the-old-genocide government in Turkey to help make our post-9/11 WoT logistically possible. It's unsavory business, but again and again it seems we find ourselves compromising some principle or other to cooperate with whoever is seated on certain real estate, oil, weapons or "intelligence."

I wish I could believe that improving both security for all the world's citizens plus restoring America's image was as easy as changing the party in control of American foreign policy in 2008. Not even I am that trusting of the Democrats, yet I'd like to give them a try. Giuliani, after all, constantly promises his audiences he will keep America "on the offensive" in the WoT, a prescription, it would seem, as assuring that we remain seen in the world's eyes as "offensive."

We're probably going to see the Pakistan political struggle play out before we make our ballot choices, now scheduled for one year from yesterday.

Gee, Iran is working on developing nuclear weapons, so Bush says. Pakistan already has them, so Bush doesn't say.

As usual the Pakistani people get screwed in the bargain. Lets not forget Musharraf was also responsible for dangerously escalating the tensions against neighbouring India. The constant and repeated calls by the Indian government to reign in this rogue fell on deaf ears because we were too busy deepthroating this dickhead.

Its really hard for me to believe the U.S. government is unaware of everything that happens in Pakistan. What bush and his dick are doing is strictly short-term in nature. Fix the problems till OUR elections and screw the Pakistanis.

Earlier this week I was listening to the radio and heard Condi say that "the $10 billion was given to the people of Pakistan, not its government".

Will everybody who believes that story please raise your hand.