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bushit .....

‘"Dictatorships, and there are plenty to choose from,
are referred to as rogue states and threatened vociferously with military
strikes, including the deployment of nuclear weapons. But it only further
stabilizes the fundamentalist power systems in those countries.

"Whether the term `axis of evil' is used
to refer to Iran or North Korea or Syria, politics could not be more stupid and
hence more dangerous. Yet the entire world is watching and pretending to be
powerless."  

Grass quotes liberally from the blistering
speech given last year by British playwright Harold Pinter in accepting the
Nobel Prize for Literature: "The United States supported and, in many
cases, engendered every right-wing military dictatorship in the world after
World War II - Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the
Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador and, of course, Chile ...  

"Hundreds of thousands of deaths took
place in those countries ... but you wouldn't know it. The crimes of the U.S.
have been systematic, constant, vicious, and remorseless but very few people
have actually talked about them.  

"You have to hand it to America. It has
exercised quite a clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading
as a force for universal good. It's brilliant, even witty, a highly successful
act of hypnosis. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be
described as a mass murderer and a war criminal?"  

Having cited Pinter, Grass adds his own
condemnation of "the hypocritical method of keeping the body count"
in Iraq and Afghanistan.  

"Although we meticulously keep count of the victims of terror
attacks - terrible though their number is - nobody bothers to count the dead
caused by American bombs or rocket attacks." 

Nobel
Laureate Flays Bush

Playing the field...

From the Moscow Time (soon on Empire Burlesque....)

Global Eye

The Alchemists

By Chris Floyd
Published: June 23, 2006

This week an interesting story appeared in The Washington Post -- buried on page 16, of course, lest anyone think it was of the slightest importance. It revealed that documentary proof has now emerged confirming the fact that in the spring of 2003, the regime of President George W. Bush -- flush with its illusory "victory" in Iraq -- spurned a wide-ranging peace feeler from Iran that offered "full cooperation" on every issue that the Bushists claim to be concerned about in regard to Tehran: "nuclear programs, acceptance of Israel and the termination of Iranian support for Palestinian militant groups."

In other words, everything that Bush says he wants from the Iranians now, he could have had for the asking -- three years ago. What then can we conclude from the rejection of this extraordinary initiative? The answer is obvious: The Bush faction is not really interested in curbing nuclear proliferation or defusing the powder keg of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the regional and global terror that it spawns.

What are they interested in? This answer too is obvious, to anyone who's been paying the slightest attention to the faction's words and actions over the years: They are interested in loot and dominion. What they want from Iran is nothing less than its return to quasi-colonial control by the crony conquistadors of the West. And they're willing to play a (reasonably) long game to get it.

read more at the Moscow Times...

update from hell .....

‘Pretend you live in Iraq. The
day starts, as it usually does, with you wondering what will happen because of
the bombings and killings the day before. Several members of a Shiite family
were mowed down by gunmen in the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad yesterday, and
three others were shot to death in an ice cream shop. A Sunni cleric was shot
to death yesterday, and several people died when a Baghdad mosque was bombed.
Four children were killed by mortars in the capital. Outside Baghdad, three US
Marines died when their convoy was bombed in al-Anbar.

You hear about all this - Shiites
killing Sunnis, Sunnis killing Shiites, the mosque getting bombed and the
Marines getting killed - and you know what you knew the day before, and the day
before that: someone, somewhere is going to try to exact revenge today for the
mayhem of yesterday. It could be Shiite revenge, Sunni revenge or American
revenge, but the arc always arrives at the same spot. Someone is going to die
today, and you hope it isn't you.

You attempt to go about your
business, but that is hardly a simple task. Every neighborhood you pass through
is barricaded and patrolled by "neighborhood governments" who are
armed to the teeth and murderously distrustful of outsiders. Kidnappings happen
all the time. Islamic fundamentalists, once a rarity in Iraq, now patrol the
streets doling out punishment to anyone deemed to be dressed improperly.”

A Day In The Life