UPDATE: Was there any doubt that Bill Keller adores Christopher Hitchens? Bullies that give their thuggery an intellectual gloss, like Paul Wolfowitz as well, make him swoon. I'd love to hear what Hitchens privately thinks of Keller. I can't imagine that it's very flattering.

INITIAL POST: Krugman concisely condemns Keller's self-absorbed rationalization for his mistaken support for the invasion of Iraq, and posts it to his New York Times blog on the morning of 9/11:

How many of our professional pundits — people who should have understood very well what was happening — took the easy way out, turning a blind eye to the corruption and lending their support to the hijacking of the atrocity?

Within the overall context of the post, which specifically indicts those who exploited 9/11 for the purpose of generating public support for the invasion of Iraq, it is hard to see this statement as anything other than a thinly veiled criticism of those at the New York Times, like Keller, who publicly advocated for the invasion. He may well have decided to post it after reading Keller's evasion of responsibility earlier in the week. Refreshingly, Krugman, unlike Keller, is able to reach his own conclusions about such matters in the absent of manipulative references to his children.

One can certainly quibble about Krugman's statement. He doesn't object to the invasion and ongoing occupation of Afghanistan as well. At the time, he wasn't much of a voice against going forward with either invasion. To quote Patrick Buchanan, he hid out in the tall grass. Regardless, he pissed all over the sentimental, sanctimonious coverage of the tenth anniversary of 9/11 by the Times, and he did it with an extraordinarily timed post as the ceremonial events were taking place: The memory of 9/11 has been irrevocably poisoned; it has become an occasion for shame. And in its heart, the nation knows it.

Labels: 9/11, Iraq War, Mainstream Media, Neoconservatives, New York Times, Occupation of Iraq

No wonder Richard Perle, Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi considered it important to establish a connection to Muammar Gaddafi:

Libya has proven oil reserves of 44 billion barrels, the largest in Africa, according to the International Energy Agency.

The country has used this burgeoning oil wealth to invest close to $100bn (£61.6bn) around the world since economic sanctions were lifted in 2004.

Libya's overseas investments include a portfolio of UK properties as well as a 3% stake in Pearson Group, which makes it one of the biggest shareholders in the owner of the Financial Times.

The Libyan Investment Authority is the country's main financial vehicle, with an estimated $70bn of assets, according to the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute. In June 2009 it paid £155m for Portman House, a 146,550 square foot shopping complex on Oxford Street which houses retailers including Boots and New Look. Five months later the LIA spent £120m on an office at 14 Cornhill – opposite the Bank of England – and in September 2010 Libya set up a joint venture to develop a hotel and retail complex in Maple Cross, Hertfordshire.

The LIA, set up in 2006, has also made a series of investments in Italy, where prime minister Silvio Berlusconi enjoys a close relationship with Gaddafi. Libya owns about 2% of Fiat, 7.5% of Juventus Football Club and has a 2% stake in – and joint venture with – Italian aerospace and defence group Finmeccanica. It owns 7.5% of UniCredit, one of Italy's largest banks, and is a shareholder in Fortis, the Belgian-Dutch bank.

Libya has also made investments through other state vehicles, such as the Libyan African Investment Portfolio, which was set up in 2006 and is worth an estimated $8bn, according to the Sovereign Wealth Institute. This entity is behind FM Capital Partners, a hedge fund set up last year in Knightsbridge to execute a range of investments.

Another Libyan fund, known as the Long Term Asset Portfolio, was set up in 1982 and has an estimated $10bn, which is mainly invested in property and investment funds operated by other banks.

In addition, Libya's ruling elite – led by Gaddafi – has untold billions of dollars of funds around the world, according to Alistair Newton, senior political analyst at Nomura, the Japanese bank. This is a country that is so un-transparent I couldn't even begin to guess just how much money the ruling elite has [but] I would be very surprised if it didn't run into billions, Newton said.

Given that Libya has, by and large, been ignored by both the commercial and alternative media in the US, the scope of the activities of the kleptocracy are truly amazing. It provides us with an insight as to the exponentially greater investment activities of Sunni kingdoms in the Gulf, and the fear that will envelop global financial markests if substantial protests erupt there. Meanwhile, as for Libya, if the populace prevails, then, perhaps, the country's tremendous oil wealth can be used to benefit them.

Labels: American Empire, Italy, Libya, Neoconservatives, Neoliberalism, Tony Blair

UPDATE 2: Richard Perle and the many neoconservative friends of Muammar Gaddafi:

Perle traveled to Libya as a paid adviser to the Monitor Group, a prestigious Boston-based consulting firm with close ties to leading professors at the Harvard Business School. The firm named Perle a senior adviser in 2006.

The Monitor Group described Perle’s travel to Libya and the recruitment of several other prominent thinkers and former officials to burnish Libya’s and Qadhafi’s image in a series of documents obtained and released by a Libyan opposition group, the National Conference of the Libyan Opposition, in 2009.

The Monitor Group did not return phone calls left at its Boston offices Monday. But Monitor describes, in a series of documents published by the National Conference of the Libyan Opposition in 2009, an action plan to introduce and bring to Libya a meticulously selected group of independent and objective experts who would be invited to Libya, meet senior officials, hold lectures, attend workshops, and write articles that would more positively portray Libya and its controversial ruler.

A 2007 Monitor memo named among the prominent figures it had recruited to travel to Libya and meet with Qadhafi as part of the Project to Enhance the Profile of Libya and Muammar Qadhafi Perle, historian Francis Fukuyama, Princeton Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis, famous Nixon interviewer David Frost, and MIT media lab founder Nicholas Negroponte, the brother of former deputy secretary of state and director of national intelligence John Negroponte.

Hat tip to Louis Proyect

UPDATE 1: Meanwhile, in Bahrain:

More than 100,000 protesters poured into the central Pearl Square here on Tuesday in an unbroken stream stretching back for miles along a central highway in the biggest antigovernment demonstration yet in this tiny Persian Gulf kingdom.

The protesters, mostly members of the Shiite majority, marched along the eastbound side of Sheikh Khalifa Bin Salman Highway in a wide, unbroken column of red and white, the country’s colors. Men of all ages walked with women and children waving flags and calling for an end to the authoritarian government of King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa.

In a nation of only a half a million citizens, the sheer size of the gathering was astonishing. The protest, organized by the Shiite opposition parties, began in the central Bahrain Mall, two miles from the square and seemed to fill the entire length of the highway between the two points.

INITIAL POST:

lenin explains:

Even at this late hour, it would be foolish to underestimate Gadaffi's ability to just hang on, to clench Libya in a rigor mortis grip. As crazed as he manifestly is, he has demonstrated considerable shrewdness in his time. For example, as soon as the Islamist opposition started become a real threat to his regime in the late 1990s, he started to look for ways to be accepted by the US-led caste of 'good guys'. The collapse of the USSR as a supplier of military hardware, trade, and ideological and moral leadership for Third Worldist states, would also have had something to do with this. The transition was made easier after 2001, and completed in 2004 partially at the best of Anglo-American oil. Gadaffi went so far, in his attempts to win over his erstwhile opponents, as to participate in anti-Islamist counterinsurgency operations in the Philippines with international support, lavish intelligence on US agencies and even compensate the victims of Lockerbie for a crime that Libya had not committed. The Bush administration might still have resisted such serenading were it not for the eager rush of European capital into Tripoli. So, Bush and Blair turned it into a story of Gadaffi seeing the light and giving up his non-existent WMD programmes, which charade Gadaffi duly participated in. This whole sequence of events was bizarre and improbable, but it worked: the subsequent oil contracts, amid a global oil price spike produced by Bush's wars, made him and his regime very wealthy. He was also able to hang opponents in public under the pretext of a fight against 'radical Islamists'. Joining the camp of American client dictatorships enabled Gadaffi to survive until this moment.

lenin further asserts that the US and the UK find Gaddafi preferable to the revolutinary alternative. If so, that might explain these live updates today from Al Jazeera:

8.34pm: Al Jazeera's White House correspondent Patty Culhane noted that Barack Obama has himself been silent about Libya for a few days, even though he had made public statements during Egypt's similar unrest.

8.32pm: John Kerry, a US politician, called the Libyan government's use of force beyond dispicable. He called on Barack Obama to reconsider sanctions against Libya, and said he hoped these were Gaddafi's last hours in power. Kerry said the international community must send a message to Gaddafi that his cowardly actions will have consequences.

8:29pm: PJ Crowley, US department of state spokesman, calls on Libya to respect rights of the thousands of US citizens in the country. He said the White House has grave concerns over the Libyan government's response to protests.

Grave concerns. Now, that's a strong condemnation. And, what precisely are these concerns? Concerns over the brutalities inflicted upon the protesters, or concerns about the extent to which the Libyan government's response increases the prospect of a successor regime more independent of the US? Note that, as in Tunisia, Egypt and Bahrain, the US has failed to call upon leadership of the country to step down, sticking with the political line of reform to be administered by them. Policymakers can't seem to grasp the the notion that Gaddafi, like Mubarak, no longer has the legitimacy to carry out reforms because of his recourse to violence.

There is also the possibility that Libya is perceived by Gulf states like Saudi Arabia as a test as to whether protests in Bahrain and, potentially, even on the peninsula itself, can be effectively suppressed through violence, if necessary. For now, the jury is still out as to whether the alternative strategy of draining the energy of the revolutionaries through negotiation and the implementation of innocuous reforms, as is currently being attempted in Egypt and Bahrain will ultimately succeed. Hence, the importance of the uprising in Libya. In Libya, unlike elsewhere, Gaddafi and his apparatus have nowhere to go, they must stand and fight or die. So, Libya becomes an example of what the ruling families of the Gulf can anticipate if they believe that they can only retain power through the ruthless suppression of the populace. Gaddafi's reliance upon mercernaries is particularly significant in this context. So far, the results from Libya are not encouraging, even if the outcome is far from clear.

Labels: "War on Terror", American Empire, Gulf States, Libya, Neoconservatives, Political Violence

Sadly, the Angry Arab, As'ad Abukhalil is correct, the crowd of protesters would have been larger if Peretz weren't primarily known for his bigotry towards Muslims. But, a more serious question is how such a loathsome person rises to such a position of prominence in this society.

Labels: American Empire, Islam, Neoconservatives, Palestine, Racism, YouTube, Zionism

More from Chris Brooke (again, best read from the bottom up):

Blair, p. 653: I met a very bouncy Sarkozy at the start of his Presidential campaign and told him that he sounded like Napoleon.

Blair, p. 645: And on social exclusion, you shd concentrate on dysfunctional families, not on poor people or young people in general.

Blair, p.644: in these speeches I gave lessons to my successors, eg that to deal with the criminal underclass you need draconian powers.

Blair, p. 634: Twice I thanked God for the independence of the British judiciary, over cash for honours and the Hutton inquiry.

Blair, p. 607: Putting campaign donors in the Lords is a murky business, but it is the system as it has operated for a long, long time.

Blair, p. 602: But it wasn't that I didn't get public opinion on Lebanon, nor that I cdn't have articulated it... I didn't agree with it.

Blair, p.600: If I condemned Israel, it wd be more than dishonest; it wd have undermined the worldview I had come to hold passionately.

Blair, p. 598: In Sept 2006 I visited Beirut... Unsurprisingly, I was not popular with many Lebanese people.

Blair, p.597: The occupation of Palestinian land may be an injustice, depending on yr viewpt, but this is a region w plenty of injustices.

Blair, p. 596: Israel is a government with a well-armed & well-trained army & air force. They do not target civilians.

Blair, p. 594, on the Israel / Lebanon war in 2006: That event, & my reaction to it, prob. did me more damage than anything since Iraq.

Blair throws around stupid metaphors, p. 592: the bazooka of outrage, the blowpipe of ridicule.

Blair, p. 591: Politicians shag around bc of the supreme self-control you have to exercise to be at the top.

Blair, p.585, thinks abt pensions, wanting a framework that over time wd...tilt the responsibility for provision from state to individual.

Blair, p. 577: Academies were great, because they were freed from extraordinarily debilitating & often politically correct interference.

After wading through these tweets, I have a number of observations. First, Blair's reflexive support for Israel, and, by extension, state violence generally, as expressed in similar remarks about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is remarkable. One gets the sense that there is no act of state violence that he would condemn, including the use of nuclear weapons. Although he apparently does not address it, Blair's perspective on the wars in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan suggest he believes that the US use of nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was appropriate, and would probably support their use again, such as, for example, in an attempt to destroy Iran's nuclear research and power program.

Second, Blair reveals himself to be an autocratic figure in the tradition of late 19th Century and early 20th Century progressives as it relates to the working class and lower income people. He believes that workers should pay their own pensions with no state assistance, placing him squarely among those in the US who want to reduce Social Security and Medicare benefits, and consistently describes the lives of many low income people in pathological terms. Recall his comment, posted here yesterday: The right-wing phrase, underclass, was ugly, but it was accurate. People at the bottom had dysfunctional lives, full stop. Today, we get more elaboration: to deal with the criminal underclass you need draconian powers.

In this, Blair brings to mind the perpetual urban renewal efforts of the last century, most prominent in the 1930s and 1960s. Such efforts were usually justified by reference to the purported urgency of eliminating blight, an antiseptic term that identified lower middle income and low income communities as disease infested, crime ridden areas that must be destroyed so that they could be replaced by modern middle class neighborhoods. As a result, many vibrant lower middle income and lower income communities were forever lost, with their residents cast to the winds. Most recently, as noted by Yusef, the same sad transformation has taken place in post-Katrina New Orleans.

But Blair is more aggressive in his approach as he approved the installation of public surveillance equipment, greater police power and increased criminal penalties. In this, he again acted upon his adoration of the US, which has pioneered such measures as a solution to social disorder. Hence, he perceives the state as beset by threats from within and without, an international Islamic insurgency that will take decades to overcome, and an internal class of lumpenproletarians that invariably threaten to disrupt the lives of its citizens if not strictly controlled. While not explicit, he seems to perceive immigration as something that intensifies both threats, as he elsewhere states that the post-Holocaust asylum policy was no longer tenable. In effect, Blair possesses an extreme vision of a utopian, middle class consumer society, perhaps even more extreme than the one promoted by Thatcher and Reagan, as Blair lacks the residue of libertarian values, however slight, that motivated them. Of course, it can only be implemented by recourse to coercion and violence, which he readily embraces.

Labels: "War on Terror", American Empire, Iraq War, Iraqi Deaths, Islam, Neoconservatives, Neoliberalism, Police, Postmodernism, Racism, Religion, Tony Blair, United Kingdom

An amazing accomplishment by Chris Brooke, a page by page Twitter summarization of Blair's memoirs. The banality of Blair would be truly hysterical, if it hadn't contributed to the deaths of so many people.

Some excerpts (please note that they are best read from the bottom up):

Blair, p. 516: If Condi Rice has a fault, it is that she is probably too decent for the world of politics.

Yes, Blair really does call Ariel Sharon, p. 515, a big man in every sense.

Blair, p.513: Even Gitmo, a policy that was both understandable &, done in a different way, justifiable was seen as anti- the rule of law.

Blair, p, 501: Gerhard Schroeder was a really tough cookie.

Blair, p, 482: Top US universities were the best in the world plainly & inescapably due to their system of fees.

Blair, p. 467: on the pics from Abu Ghraib, no doubt they were exceptional incidents, and the offenders were prosecuted.

Blair, p. 458: The reception was ecstatic. They got up and applauded throughout, a total of thirty-five times.

Blair, pp.457-8, quotes at length from his speech to the US Congress, one of the most important and, in my judgement, best speeches I made"

Blair, p. 410: Even people who didn't like me or agree with me still admired the fact I counted, was a big player, was a world... leader.

Blair, p. 409: But Cheney's manner of doing it was incomplete. We needed to win the war at the level of ideas, by engaging Muslims.

Blair, p. 408: Cheney is the object of so much conspiracy theory that it's virtually impossible to have a rational discussion about him.

Blair visits Crawford, TX, April 2002, p. 399. It is pretty much in the middle of nowhere.

Blair, p. 394: George had immense simplicity in how he saw the world.

Blair, p. 387: the Middle East was urgently in need of modernisation.

Pre-9/11 terrorism, Blair calls, p. 343, the price that America paid for being America.

Blair, p.204: The right-wing phrase, underclass, was ugly, but it was accurate. People at the bottom had dysfunctional lives, full stop.

Blair, p. 116: I wanted to preserve, in terms of competitive tax rates, the essential Thatcher/Howe/Lawson legacy.

Blair says, p. 88, that it wd have been wickedly irresponsible to send his kids to an average state school.

For the full, rich experience, you have to read Brooke's dissection in its entirety. It has the riveting quality of a compelling work of experimental fiction. He has about 170 pages to go before completing the task that he has set for himself.

Labels: American Empire, Iraq War, Iraqi Deaths, Neoconservatives, Neoliberalism, Postmodernism, Religion, Tony Blair, United Kingdom

UPDATE: lenin reminds us of everything that was horrible about Blair, but who knew that one of his role models was . . . Princess Diana? Rarely has someone so openly exposed the vacuity of their thought and their relationships with others:

Blair's fat little compendium of pseudo-revelations, attacks on personal acquaintances and colleagues, self-justifying circumlocutions, political polemic, and narcissistic reflections, comes with its own self-destruct button. Comparing himself to the people's princess, he says: We were both in our ways manipulative people, perceiving quickly the emotions of others and able instinctively to play with them. Elsewhere, he informs astonished readers that sometimes politicians must conceal the full truth ... bend it and even distort it. This being the case, you might suspect that he is not always being honest with his readers, and that the impression he tries to give of opening up and being fully frank is as counterfeit as his intelligence on Iraq. You might wonder what is the point of your parting with a portion of your spending power even for one of the thousands of half price copies that your local WH Smith will be shoving in your direction, if all that's going to happen is that Tony Blair lies to you. Again. When all he's ever done is lie to you, at taxpayers' expense. Will there come a time, you might wonder, when we will stop paying Tony Blair to lie to us?

INITIAL POST: Today, the memoirs of Tony Blair went on sale in the United Kingdom. Needless to say, there has been a media frenzy. Given Blair's return to the spotlight, if only for a few days, I thought it appropriate to repost my film review of the 2007 movie, The Queen, in so far as it addresses Blair.

Please note that the reference to Frears is shorthand for the director, Stephen Frears, while the reference to Morgan alludes to the scriptwriter, Peter Morgan. Both of them fulfilled their responsibilities in stellar fashion in regard to the film generally and most particularly in their characterization of Blair, along with the actor who played the role, Michael Sheen:

. . . Another pleasant suprise was Michael Sheen's performance as Tony Blair. Indeed, the film is actually as much about Blair and his abandonment of his Labour idealism as it is about the crisis within the royal family after Diana's death. Blair had just been installed as Prime Minister when Diana died, and his closest advisors are startled by his increasing identification with the conservative royals as the media circus intensifies. Sheen, again assisted by Morgan's top drawer script, portrays Blair sympathetically, but accurately, as a middle class man who aspires to political power so that he can attain social acceptance by the elite. Through such a well rounded, empathetic presentation, Sheen (and Morgan) indict Blair as a cogenial little man who would cheerfully sell out anyone or anything for his self-aggrandizement, and it is an indictment far more compelling than any issued by the left.

In a telling scene near the end, a scene that highlights the allegorical aspect of this part of the story, the Queen, after having been subjected to the most brutal personal insults by her subjects, finds herself, to her dismay, being consoled by Blair. Never mind, he says, the bond between you and your subjects is now stronger than ever. The Queen, not so sure, demurs, and warns, someday, Mr. Blair, you may also find yourself equally reviled by the public. Blair, of course, ever supremely confident of his hold over the populace (and, at times, even the royals), expresses his disagreement through his body language. Frears and Morgan, with benefit of hindsight, recognized that such arrogance lead inevitably to the catastrophe in Iraq.

Not surprisingly, consistent with his attainment of his petty aspirations, he supports the ruthless budget cutting of the Tory/Liberal Democrat coalition, and urges an attack upon Iran if it continues to develop nuclear weapons.

For someone born and raised in the United Kingdom, it is rather odd to realize that Blair most closely resembles a small town social climber out of a Sinclair Lewis novel, like Babbitt or Elmer Gantry, with the absence of any capacity for self-reflection. Accordingly, he is more akin to the self-serving evangelist Gantry than the emotionally adrift real estate agent George Babbitt. Like Gantry, Blair exploited religion, but in the related field of politics, where there is also a demand for messiahs:

The strongest support for Bush's war came from Tony Blair, Britain's most religious leader since Gladstone. Like Bush, Blair prays. He keeps a Bible by his bed and says he will only answer to my maker for British deaths in Iraq. When David Frost asked if he and Bush prayed together on Iraq, Blair declined to answer.

Blair has been notoriously described by many as Bush's poodle, but, in fact, the relationship was the other way round, as recognized years ago by Richard Gott. Just as Joseph Lieberman can be accurately described as the person most responsible for the current orientation of the Democratic Party, Blair is the person who most effectively proselytized the neoconservative values of the war on terror, introducing them into the mainstream discourse, as it were, commencing his effort, as did the participants of the Project for a New American Century, before 9/11.

Labels: "War on Terror", American Empire, Iraq War, Iraqi Deaths, Neoconservatives, Neoliberalism, Religion, Tony Blair, United Kingdom

After his death, people, when asked to describe the essential characteristics of Pope Benedict, will emphasize his dishonesty:

The Vatican played down Pope Benedict's teenage membership of the Hitler Youth Tuesday after it was highlighted by Jewish critics of remarks he made about the Holocaust during his continuing visit to Israel.

An official spokesman withdrew an initial statement that the German-born pope had "never, never, never" been in the Hitler Youth after reporters pointed out that Benedict himself had said he was -- in a 1996 book on the then cardinal, Joseph Ratzinger.

Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, revised his statement to say that the pope had been signed up against his will and did not take an active part in the Nazi Youth movement.

"He was enrolled involuntarily into the Hitler Youth but he had no active participation," Lombardi said. "The Hitler Youth is not a significant experience in his life because he was not an active participant. It was just something that was done."

You'd think that the Vatican would have figured out how to deal with this by now, after all, the notion that resistance to Nazis was impossible, as asserted by Benedict's brother, has never been very persuasive:

There is absolutely no reason to think that Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, is now or has ever been secretly a Nazi. Nothing he has ever said or done even remotely suggests the slightest sympathy with any of the basic Nazi ideas or goals. Any claim that he is a Nazi is implausible at best. However, that is not the end of the story.

While Ratzinger was not a Nazi in the past and Benedict XVI is not a Nazi now, there is more than enough reason to question his handling of his past. It appears that he hasn’t been honest with others — and probably not honest with himself — about what he did and what he could have done.

It’s simply not true that resistance was impossible at the time. Difficult, yes; dangerous, yes. But not impossible. John Paul II participated in anti-Nazi theater performances in Poland, yet there is no evidence of Joseph Ratzinger even doing this much.

Ratzinger may have done more than many others to resist, but he also did far less that some. It’s certainly understandable that he wouldn’t have had the courage to do more and, were he any average person, that would be the end of the story. But he isn’t an average person, is he? He’s the pope, a person who is supposed to be the successor of Peter, head of the Christian Church, and symbol of unity for all Christendom.

You don’t have to be morally perfect to hold such a position, but it’s not unreasonable to expect such a person to have come to terms with their moral failings, even the moral failings that occurred in youth when we don’t usually expect a great deal. It was an understandable mistake or failing not to do more against the Nazis, but still a failing that he hasn’t come to terms with — it sounds rather like he is in denial. In a sense, he has yet to repent; yet he was still considered the best of all the candidates for the papacy.

Through the selection of Benedict, the Church highlighted obedience to authority instead of a willingness to challenge injustice. Someone like Benedict, someone who acquiesced to the power of those bent upon the most horrific atrocities, was considered a superior candidate for Pope than someone who had displayed a willingness to confront it at great personal risk.

Not surprisingly, Benedict, despite his professed opposition to the war in Iraq, received Bush at the Vatican, taking him on an unprecendented tour of the Vatican Gardens. By making deference to authority a primary consideration in the selection of a Pope, the Church now finds itself embroiled in one embarassment after another, embarrassments frequently associated, as here, with a deliberate misrepresentation of the historical record. Or even worse, attempts to show the Church off to advantage by playing upon bigotry against the practitioners of other religions.

Labels: Israel, Neoconservatives, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion

From The Guardian:

Officials of Barack Obama's administration have drafted a letter to Iran from the president aimed at unfreezing US-Iranian relations and opening the way for face-to-face talks, the Guardian has learned.

The US state department has been working on drafts of the letter since Obama was elected on 4 November last year. It is in reply to a lengthy letter of congratulations sent by the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, on 6 November.

Diplomats said Obama's letter would be a symbolic gesture to mark a change in tone from the hostile one adopted by the Bush administration, which portrayed Iran as part of an "axis of evil".

It would be intended to allay the ­suspicions of Iran's leaders and pave the way for Obama to engage them directly, a break with past policy.

State department officials have composed at least three drafts of the letter, which gives assurances that Washington does not want to overthrow the Islamic regime, but merely seeks a change in its behaviour. The letter would be addressed to the Iranian people and sent directly to Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, or released as an open letter.

Will the letter be sent? We will just have to wait and see. Now that the drafts have been publicized, there will undoubtedly be intense opposition from the usual suspects to prevent it. If sent, a small step to be sure, but one that starts a journey down the road to more normalized relations, relations based upon the boundaries of disagreement and conflict, instead of threats of regime change and military action. It would also suggest movement towards a less confrontational relationship with Chavez and Morales in South America as well. If it isn't sent . . . well, let's not think about that too much for now.

Labels: "War on Terror", American Empire, Neoconservatives, War with Iran

For the neoconservatives, 9/11 was an episode of orgasmic wish fulfillment. After all, it was the Project for a New American Century, the preeminent neoconservative think tank, that promoted the need for imperial conquest by stating, Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event––like a new Pearl Harbor.

On 9/11, they got it, and they quickly focused their attention upon what they considered to be most important, Iraq:

With the intelligence all pointing toward bin Laden, Rumsfeld ordered the military to begin working on strike plans. And at 2:40 p.m., the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying he wanted "best info fast. Judge whether good enough hit S.H." – meaning Saddam Hussein – "at same time. Not only UBL" – the initials used to identify Osama bin Laden.

Now, nearly one year later, there is still very little evidence Iraq was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. But if these notes are accurate, that didn't matter to Rumsfeld.

"Go massive," the notes quote him as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not."

By the afternoon of 9/11, the victims were no longer very important, except to the extent that they could be exploited to initiate open-ended conflicts around the world.

9/11 remains central, however, to the neoconservative attempt to create an enduring symbolism, the equivalent of a national holiday, like Veterans Day or Memorial Day, to fuse the American civic identity with overt wars of conquest. If yesterday was any indication, that effort has failed.

All around the country, rememberances were subdued, with lower attendance than in the first years after the attacks. By and large, it appears that they were deliberately depoliticized. From the accounts that I have seen, there were few, if any, attempts to associate the war in Iraq with 9/11. It seems that, paradoxically, the administration and their allies in the media are permitted to dishonestly defend the invasion of Iraq as necessitated by 9/11 every day of the year except 9/11 itself.

Needless to say, such reticence is not conducive towards the creation of a new patriotic holiday to inspire the populace towards greater and greater sacifices in the prosecution of the purported war on terror. The media is, naturally, apprehensive about this development. In the days before 9/11, reporters emphasized, with an undercurrent of anxiety, that most people were disinterested.

While tempting, it is not possible to solely explain this phenomenon in terms of the catastrophic failure of the invasion of Iraq. Going back to the infamous PNAC quote, the neoconservatives would have liked the public to embrace 9/11 as a generation embraced remembrances of Pearl Harbor, but they have fundamentally misunderstood the context of the public commemorations of what happened in Hawaii on December 7, 1941.

Pearl Harbor is not something that the post-World War II generation remembered as a defeat, as a moment of victimization, but rather, they understood it as an event that ignited the participation of the US in World War II. Pearl Harbor set in motion the US victories in both the European and Pacific theatres of the conflict. Pearl Harbor is therefore an episode, albeit a very important one, within a large, grand narrative of US success, a success so great that the US, upon the conclusion of the war, was one of the world's two remaining superpowers.

By contrast, one cannot incorporate the attacks of 9/11/2001 within such a story. 9/11 is a manifestation of defeat and despair, a defeat in Iraq that worsens with each passing day, and despair over the inability to capture Osama Bin Laden, an embarrassment that he underscored with the release of a video tape and an audio message.

If there was any unifying theme in the 9/11 remembrances that took place all around the country, it was the helplessness of individuals involuntarily caught up in the intensification of global violence over which they have no control. The victims of 9/11 are therefore the kindred spirits of the people who have died in US airstrikes and suicide bombings in Iraq, the dirty wars of the Caucasus, Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon and the religious turmoil in Kashmir.

Labels: "War on Terror", American Empire, From the Archives, Mainstream Media, Neoconservatives, PNAC, Political Violence

An excerpt from a straightforward, thoughtful exposition of the failings of the US political system by Werther, a northern Virginia based defense analyst:

To explain why the American political class invades the wrong countries, indemnifies criminals, picks people like Joe Biden for responsible positions, and engages in so many other destructive acts, we modestly propose Werther's Law, or the Iron Law of Adverse Political Selection: in decadent political systems the most damaging policy option tends to be the one chosen.

To explain how Werther's Law works, we need reference to another political rule of thumb, the Iron Law of Oligarchy, which states that all organizations tend to develop into hierarchies with oligarchs at the top. We submit that those oligarchies over time tend to become inbred, either literally (think Bush family), or because they select members based on obedience to hierarchy, a groupthink mentality, and ability to self-censor. The rewards for correct behavior are lucrative: not only the thrill of wielding power when in office but a virtual ironclad guarantee of well-remunerated lifetime employment as a lobbyist, a board member of a defense contractor, or a holder of an endowed chair at a foundation.

Making serious mistakes, or even pursuing disastrous policies, are no impediment to one's career moving onward and upward. "Failing upward" (known cynically in Washington as "f*ck up and move up") is an occurrence as frequent in Washington as the common cold. How else to explain Paul Wolfowitz's horrific tenure at the Department of Defense being rewarded with a plum job as president of the World Bank, where he could make further business contacts that would keep him well-paid even after he failed in that job? It is no sin to be incompetent; it is a sin to be competent and diligent in one's job if it involves blowing the whistle on malfeasance in one's organization. The fate of whistleblowers in the Bush administration is abundant evidence of this. No one with a mortgage likes to be demoted, fired, or blackballed from future employment.

Of course, there is more, much more in this highly informative, entertaining column, so, again, go here to read it in its entirety. And while you are over at antiwar.com, the place where this piece can be found, don't forget to make a tax deductible donation to show your appreciation.

Labels: American Empire, Libertarians, Neoconservatives, Neoliberalism

From the Angry Arab News Service:

"Bush allegedly ordered the CIA to forge a handwritten letter from the head of Iraq's intelligence service to Saddam Hussein that purported to link the Iraqi dictator to the ringleader of the hijackers who toppled the Twin Towers on 9/11, according to news accounts of Suskind's new book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. Such use of an intelligence service to influence domestic political debate could be an impeachable offense, Suskind writes."

The Bush team probably forged the letter in English before experts and clones of Israeli Orientalists realized that they speak Arabic in that part of the world.

Posted by As'ad at 12:52 PM

My guess is that Richard Perle was the one who first noticed the mistake. If not him, Bernard Lewis.

Labels: 9/11, American Empire, Bush, Iraq War, Neoconservatives

Glenn Greenwald published a post over at Salon on Monday that it got a lot of play in the liberal blogosphere. He catalogued the pathetic performance of the Democratic Congress elected in 2006 in regard to the war in Iraq, a possible war with Iran and civil liberties, and then proceeded to speculate how to pressure the Democrats to abandon their collaboration with the Republicans.

Needless to say, Greenwald's solution did not include urging people to support other, non-Democratic Party candidates who actually support his perspective. But you probably already knew that, and, anyway, that's not the reason that I'm highlighting his post. I have a different purpose in mind. First, let's look at his list of instances of Democratic facillitation of Bush policy:

Since that overwhelming Democratic victory, this is what the Democratic-led Congress has done:

Repeatedly funded -- at the White House's insistence -- the Iraq War without conditions;

Defeated -- at the White House's insistence -- Jim Webb's bill to increase the intervals between deployments for U.S. troops;

Defeated -- at the White House's insistence -- a bill to restore habeas corpus, which had been abolished by the Military Commissions Act, enacted before the 2006 election with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous GOP support;

Enacted -- at the White House's insistence and with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous Republican support-- the so-called Protect America Act, vesting the President with extreme new warrantless eavesdropping powers;

Overwhelmingly approved the Senate's Kyl-Lieberman Resolution, to declare parts of the Iranian Government a "terrorist organization," an extremely belligerent resolution modeled after those which made "regime change" the official U.S. Government position towards Iraq;

Deleted from a pending bill -- at the direction of the House Democratic leadership and at the insistence of the White House -- a provision merely to require Congressional approval before the Bush administration can attack Iran;

Overwhelmingly enacted -- at the White House's insistence, and with substantial Democratic and virtually unanimous GOP support -- the "FISA Amendments Act of 2008," to vest the President with broad new warrantless eavesdropping powers and to immunize lawbreaking telecoms, all but putting an end to any chance for a real investigation and judicial adjudication of the Bush administration's illegal NSA spying program;

Confirmed, with the indispensable support of two key Democratic Senators, Bush's nominee for Attorney General, Michael Mukasey, despite his support for radical Bush theories of executive power and his refusal to oppose torture;

Stood by passively and impotently while Bush officials flagrantly ignored their Subpoenas and refused to comply with their investigations.

Certainly, not a pretty picture, and it raises a more profound question that has been missed by the emphasis upon the difficulty of seeking change within our sclorotic two party system. Through these actions, the Democrats have been approving and financing neoconservative policies, thus raising the question, does the term neoconservative have any meaning, beyond its historic context? After all, if the President and the Congress are walking together on these issues, what use, if any, does it have for enhancing our understanding of the way by which this country is governed?

By way of background, wikipedia provides with a good introductory definition of the term:

Neoconservatism is a political philosophy that emerged in the United States from the rejection of the social liberalism, moral relativism, and New Left counterculture of the 1960s. It influenced the presidential administrations of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, representing a realignment in American politics, and the defection of some liberals to the right of the political spectrum; hence the term, which refers to being 'new' conservatives. Neoconservatism emphasizes foreign policy as the paramount responsibility of government, maintaining that America's role as the world's sole superpower is indispensable to establishing and maintaining global order.

Most of you are probably aware that the foreign policy roots of neoconservatism stretch back to Scoop Jackson, and that their aggressive stance in relation to Russia during the Cold War was transferred to new enemies like Saddam Hussein's Iraq, Iran, and, more subtlely, even China and Russia (yes, hard for them to let the Russians go, isn't it?). They have aggregated themselves to push their borderline paranoid views in influential groups like the Project for a New American Century, which played an indispensable role in exploiting, and, indeed, even anticipating, 9/11 as a way of inducing the invasion of Iraq, and the Committee on the Present Danger.

Until around 2002 or 2003 and the impending invasion of Iraq, the term neoconservative was not in common circulation. It was significantly because of the efforts of the libertarians at antiwar.com, and Justin Raimondo in particular, that the term entered the popular consciousness after a failed attempt by neoconservatives to preserve their relative anonymity by making the absurd claim that such a designation constituted anti-semitism.

But this is, as they say, ancient history. As I said, if the President and the Congress are walking together in the passage and implementation of neoconservative policy (a current example being the fast movement of a resolution urging expanded sanctions and the interdiction of Iranian shipping in attempt to stop Iran's nuclear program), then what use is the term neoconservative in today's contemporary context? By continuing to use the term as a way of explaining US foreign policy, are we accidentally deceiving people into believing that our policies in Iraq, the Middle East and elsewhere are the consequences of the influence of a small, influential, entrenched group, when, in fact, there is general unanimity through the US social and political elite?

Labels: American Empire, Democrats, Iraq War, Neoconservatives, War with Iran

Over the weekend, I heard that Tony Snow, Bush's former press secretary and FOX News commentator, had died from cancer. Is it such a terrible thing to note that his major achievement was propagandizing for the killing of Iraqis, and then, after we started doing it, perpetually justifying it? He maligned those who questioned the conflict as traitors and defeatists. He was a stereotypical example of a sort of perverse professionalism whereby anything that promotes your career, no matter its consequences for others, is considered smart, hardnosed and admirable. One would like to believe that his death induced some reflection about what it means to lose a loved one amongst his friends and family, a flash of recognition that the Iraqis that he so cynically exploited experience death as painfully as them. Perhaps, they even felt discomfort at the attention his death received while Iraqis, for the most part, have died anonymously. But I doubt it.

Labels: Iraqi Deaths, Mainstream Media, Neoconservatives, Obituaries, Occupation of Iraq

The Pentagon is opposed to a US attack upon Iran? Just let Israel do it. Apparently, the US plans to assist the operation as covertly as possible:

The activities and traffic of warplanes- especially at nights- has lately increased in the US airbases in Nasiriya southeast of Baghdad and Haditha a city in the western Iraq province of Al Anbar, the Iraqi residents and sources said.

They said the US fighters, cargo planes, helicopters and unmanned planes have intensified their flights in the last three weeks.

The US military officials have imposed severe security measures around the bases, they said.

They said some aircraft suspected to be Israeli warplanes coming from Jordan, have landed in the US controlled al-Assad airbase near Haditha.

It is believed that these activities are parts of a joint Israeli-US training, preparation and coordination to launch an air raid against Iran's nuclear plants.

Hopefully, the Iranians are prepared for whatever may be directed against them, and possess the capability to effectively retaliate.

Labels: Israel, Neoconservatives, Occupation of Iraq, US Military, War with Iran

Nothing is more enervating for people that actually care about the substance of political and social issues than a presidential campaign year. During the primaries, the candidates, like circus magicians, purvey the illusion that the campaign is really about issues of importance, that we face electoral decisions of grave importance, even as they creatively repackage predictable positions.

Once the nominees become apparent, however, the dialogue, such as it was, is even more circumscribed. Recognizing the power of the corporate media in regard to framing the issues and defining the candidates for a credulous public, any pretense of engaging the public about fundamental questions that affect our lives is abandoned. After all, a presidential campaign is primarily a media driven exercise in mythology. It is more important to present oneself to the media as innocuous, as yet another in a line of safe, conformist political figures, so that the media can, paradoxically, present the candidate as larger than life, capable of forging a profound emotional bound with the public so that he can comfortably assumes powers of near omnipotence.

This is what we observe transpiring on a daily basis with Barack Obama. He's getting tougher on Iran, he's signalling a willingness to be flexible about how he will withdraw US troops from Iraq, he's now for the death penalty even in instances without the loss of life and he wasn't willing to fight to prevent Congress from granting immunity to telecommunications companies that illegally wiretapped US citizens at the direction of the White House. It's all about showing how reasonable he is, you see. It's a long way from working as a community organizer in Chicago, but Obama probably draws upon similar skills to effectively disarm his media critics.

Obama closed the deal as they say when he willingly played the game of stigmatizing black men for social dysfunctionality found across the racial spectrum. Whites are allowed to have children out of wedlock without comment, but blacks are not, and Obama displayed his knowledge of this double standard, and the essential role that it plays in justifying racial bias towards African Americans. Tim Russert and his mentor, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, would have been proud.

For a brief period, there was an opening that suggested that this stale politics could be shattered, but Obama's defeat in Texas and Ohio, primarily at the hand of working class whites, closed it. It did not deny him the nomination, as I thought it would, but it did force him to abandon any radical notions that he may have had about transforming the US political system. Since then, Obama has scrupulously followed the rules, as he will do when he enters the White House. Obama recognizes that he cannot pursue even a palled progressive agenda of demilitarization, an agenda that is an unavoidable precondition to confronting the declining standard of living for middle income, lower middle income and poor Americans, if it is opposed by the proletarian base of the Democratic Party.

As for the rest of us, it means millions of more American foreclosed out of their houses, driven to the unemployment lines and pushed to the margins of this credit dependent economy, with an increasing likelihood that Obama will be just as willing to attack Iran as McCain to divert attention from this catastrophe. Because, having left the forces within this country dictating these interrelated outcomes unexposed and untouched, Obama will soon discover that he is just as much a prisoner of them as you and I. Like Bush, he will govern symbolically instead of realistically, because the alternative is politically suicidal in the absence of a social movement to support it.

Labels: Barack Obama, Elections, Neoconservatives, Postmodernism

I was thinking about the holiday a few days ago, and recalled my stereotypical response: a day meant to honor the values of a new nation state announced in 1776 has degenerated into yet another time to genuflect before the altar of US militarism. And, indeed it has, obscuring the fact that the creation of the social consciousness required to support a new country was a profoundly political achievement.

Given the way the holiday is currently celebrated, one is tempted to say that the Declaration of Independence starts with an invocation of Maoist intimidation, Power flows from the barrel of a gun, in place of an exaltation of enlightenment humanism, We hold these truths to be self evident. But the militaristic displays current in vogue are closer to the truth than we want to admit. One of the primary reasons that people in the colonies wanted to secede from Britain was the refusal of the British to permit colonists to cross through the Cumberland Gap into the Ohio River Valley. Colonists wanted to seize Native American lands for privatization and settlement, preferably through coercion but through violence if necessary.

Nor was it long before the American elite had developed an appetite for new acquisitions. As I observed in my November 12, 2006 review of Sidney Lens' book, The Forging of the American Empire, the revered Alexander Hamilton could be described as the first neoconservative, because he was already engaged in intrigues for the purpose of seizing Florida and potentially the rest of the Caribbean in the mid 1790s. In other words, the US had imperial aspirations since its inception, and acted promptly to realize them. Jefferson's decision in 1803 to purchase the enormous Louisiana Territory from France ensured that the US would eventually stretch from the Atlantic to the Pacific. His decision to overthrow the ruler of the Barbary States, and the method by which he accomplished it, foreshadowed the interwoven exercise of soft and hard power in the Middle East in the 20th Century.

The question as to when the US aspired to become an empire with global influence is not one for academics, it has contemporary relevance as I noted in my book review:

First, and most importantly, Lens exposed the myth that the United States did not display imperial aspirations, and act upon the, until much later, say, 1898, with the Spanish American War. It is important, because there remains a belief to this day that the US was originally a republic devoid of territorial ambitions. It was, in other words, an idealized place where farmers, merchants and shippers sought commerce with much of the rest of the world despite the obstruction of foreign mercantilist powers. Echoes of it can be found among libertarians, Gore Vidal and even Chalmers Johnson. Lens emphasizes that many prominent political figures openly expressed, since the country's inception, the urgency of obtaining large territories to the north, south and west, by war, if necessary.

Based upon such an erroneous understanding, there is a tendency to believe that if we could just return to our republican roots, the US could take its place in the world without seeking to militarily and economically dominate others. Or, to put it differently, there is a positive alternative associated with the founding of the country that provides a way to escape the violent, militaristic cul-de-sac we find ourselves trapped within today. There's just one problem: it isn't true.

Economic values that we now call neoliberalism were also a prominent feature of the country upon its birth. Again, as I said in the book review:

Hamilton also simultaneously possessed neoliberal qualities as well. He funded the national debt as Secretary of the Treasury, and, here, we observe the beginnings of a system whereby debt interest serves the dual purpose of promoting the primitive accumulation of capital, by redistributing income from laborers to financiers through taxation required to make bond payments, contributing to the outbreak of the Fries Rebellion in 1796, and, quite predictably, rendering these same laborers more economically vulnerable and constricting the ability of the government to assist them. He also, according to Lens, extolled the virtues of child labor, much like transnationals traverse the globe today, looking for the most impoverished places to obtain a docile workforce, including children, to manufacture and assembly their products.

Regrettably, if we want to make the world a better place, a world wherein we overcome the brutalities of neoconservatism and neoliberalism, we are going to have be more creative in our search for the implements to do so than romanticizing an American past that never existed.

Labels: American Empire, Neoconservatives, Neoliberalism

From ABC News:

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, who was in Israel over the weekend, issued a strong warning today about the dangers of a military attack on Iran.

At a Pentagon press conference, Mullen was asked, "How concerned are you ... that Israel may undertake a unilateral strike against Iran by the end of the year?"

"My strong preference, here, is to handle all of this diplomatically with the other powers of governments, ours and many others, as opposed to any kind of strike occurring," he answered. "This is a very unstable part of the world. And I don't need it to be more unstable."

Mullen refused to talk specifically about what was said in his talks with the Israelis, but he made it clear wants to avoid military confrontation.

"I've been pretty clear before that from the United States' perspective, the United States' military perspective in particular, that opening up a third front right now would be extremely stressful on us," he said. "That doesn't mean we don't have capacity or reserve. But that would really be very challenging and also the consequences of that sometimes are very difficult to predict."

Mullen said there needs to be better "dialogue" on the Iranian nuclear issue. Asked what he meant, Mullen responded, "When I talk about dialogue -- actually, I would say very broadly across the entirety of our government and their government.

"But, specifically, that would be -- need to be led, obviously, politically and diplomatically," he said. "And if it then resulted in military-to-military dialogue, I think that part of it certainly could add to a better understanding of each other.

"We haven't had much of a dialogue with the Iranians for a long time," Mullen said. "It takes two people to want to have a dialogue, not just the desire on one part."

Where to begin? Mullen's remarks are jaw dropping because they expose the unwillingness of the Pentagon to support an attack upon Iran. It leads one to believe that there is currently a very live, very contentious debate about whether the US or Israel should launch an attack upon Iran before the end of the Bush presidency. It is possible that a decision may be made within weeks or even days.

Mullen, as head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is publicly opposing neoconservative policymakers within the administration who have been aggressively advocating such an attack. Furthermore, he expressly calls for negotiations to resolve the dispute! And, if the excerpts of his quotes convey an accurate impression, he doesn't even blame the Iranians for the lack of communication, after all, he knows that the Iranians sought to negotiate with the US on a broad range of regional issues in 2003. His remarks suggest that the Pentagon perceives an institutional peril if it is associated with a catastrophic attack upon Iran.

The Joint Chiefs want to go on the record now in the hope that it can be stopped. If it can't be stopped, the Pentagon can say, it's not our fault, blame the civilians in the Defense Department and the White House. For those with a particularly dystopian turn of mind, you can even read his comments as a preemptive effort to preserve the credibility of the military in the event of possible domestic social unrest in the aftermath of an attack.

Mullen's remarks also implicitly dismiss claims of Iranian support of the Iraqi insurgency as propaganda, or, at the very least, a problem so marginal that it can easily be resolved through dialogue. As I said last week, the Pentagon is our last line of defense against another war in the Middle East. One gets the sense that Mullen either wants Obama to be President, or expects him to be the next one. It is hard to imagine John McCain being in agreement with what he said.

Labels: American Empire, Neoconservatives, US Military, War with Iran

From the Guardian:

Martin Van Creveld, Israel's leading military historian, said there were some in the Israeli government who were indeed serious about a military option. But he said the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would probably not be affected by Israel flexing its military muscles. 'I would be very surprised if the Iranians cave in. I think they are going to follow the same road as every nuclear country has followed since the 1960s [including Israel]; namely they are going to build nuclear weapons without admitting it,' he said. 'And I don't see this made the world into a worse place. I am convinced the outcome is going to be a balance of power and I personally think that a nuclear Iran may not be such a bad thing for the world... Iran is a third-world country. I don't see why people are so afraid of it.'

But the neoconservatives will be pushed into the dustbin if the Middle East moves away from US/Israeli hegemony into a balance of power relationship. Yet another reason why war is becoming more probable by the day.

Labels: American Empire, Neoconservatives, War with Iran, Zionism

Apparently, the Pope isn't going to let over a million dead Iraqis and millions of Iraqi refugees get in the way of good relations with his ideological soul mate:

Pope Benedict gave George W. Bush an unprecedented welcome in the tranquility of the Vatican Gardens on Friday before the U.S. president resumed his campaign to rally European support for sanctions against Iran.

Under tight security, Bush was driven from the bustle of Rome into the idyllic setting. As birds chirped, the two entered a restored medieval tower and held 30 minutes of private talks.

"Such an honor, such an honor," Bush said to the pope.

After the meeting in the tower, they stood on a terrace to take in the view of 44 hectares (108 acres) of manicured gardens, buildings, ancient walls and St Peter's Basilica that make up Vatican City.

Bush asked: "How big is it?" A Vatican aide responded: "Not quite as big as Texas." Bush then said: "Yes but more important ... this is spectacular."

The talks in the tower, walk in the gardens and a performance by the Sistine Choir as the two sat on wooden lawn chairs were a break with normal protocol.

It was the first time a meeting with a head of state at the Vatican was not held in the pope's private study and was meant to repay Bush for the warm White House lawn reception the pope got in April on his 81st birthday.

Perhaps, there is nothing ideological about the visit at all. Could it be, as the last sentence of the quoted article suggests, that the Pope is just vain?

Doubtful. Instead, the honors underscore a profound personal and political affinity between the two men. Clearly, the Church's reactionary struggles against reproductive rights and gay rights, basically the notion that individuals possess the capability of making their own sexual decisions without recourse to the heavy handed autocratic morality of the Church, take precedence over the horrors of the occupation of Iraq.

One wonders if this visit will result in another embarassing black eye for this Pope and the Church. As the article states, the Pope provided this unique honor to Bush during the course of his travels through Europe to solicit support for sanctions against Iran. The global media is full of stories about the prospect of an impending attack upon Iran to be launched by either the US or the Israelis. And, yet . . there is Bush, trading pleasantries with Benedict as they walk through the Vatican Gardens. So much for the doctrine of papal infallibility.

Labels: Neoconservatives, Occupation of Iraq, Pope Benedict XVI, Religion, War with Iran