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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (620510)	9/9/2004 1:33:30 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 769670

The war on terror is being lost The greatest obstacle to reducing the threat is the US administration Richard Norton-Taylor Wednesday September 8, 2004 The Guardian Forget all the arguments about Iraq, we are told. We have had Hutton and Butler, Tony Blair won't apologise for misleading the public and parliament, and it is time to move on. But how can we possibly move on? The invasion of Iraq has cost the lives of more than 1,000 American and more than 60 British soldiers. Put on one side the failure to find any weapons of mass destruction and the fact that Saddam Hussein's Iraq posed less of a threat to its neighbours - let alone the west - last year than when western governments were supplying his regime with WMD precursors right up to the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. For Blair, as well as Bush and his neocons, an invasion of Iraq would topple a vicious dictator, help the "war on terror" by preventing nasty weapons getting into the hands of al-Qaida sympathisers and promote democracy in the Middle East and neighbouring central Asia. We have just witnessed the latest manifestation of the so-called war on terror in the Caucasus. Further east, across the oil-rich Caspian, lies Uzbekistan, where the US turns a blind eye to serious human rights abuses in return for military bases for the same war on terror. They were initially used to attack the Taliban and al-Qaida in Afghanistan, where elections are due next month - an event the US has done little to prepare for, wary of upsetting warlords, while leaving responsibility for security to its European Nato allies, which are unwilling or unable to provide. In Iraq - described with out irony by the Bush administration as the new "front line" in the war on terror - the US has installed a government of placemen. As the respected Iraq expert Toby Dodge observes in Survival, the International Institute for Strategic Studies journal, it has "a high proportion of formerly exiled politicians in the cabinet and a prime minister closely associated with the intelligence arms of both the British and American governments". The insurgency, he writes, is a home-grown phenomenon, springing from the political and security failures of the occupation. Foreign troops, he suggests, will be needed "for many years to come if anarchy is to be avoided". Dodge adds pointedly: "In the 20s and 30s, the hegemonic power seeking to recreate Iraq was Britain. The 1920 revolt made the occupation extremely unpopular with the British people and led to a change in government in London. The result was that state-building in Iraq was sacrificed at the altar of British domestic politics." Blair insists his government will not walk away from countries it has helped occupy. The bigger question is how he will achieve his stated objectives of promoting democracy and human rights in the Middle East (as well as the road map to a peace deal between Israel and Palestine), fighting poverty, and giving a much-needed boost to a UN-focused internationalism. All this would help, much more than military occupation, in the fight against terrorism. In a telling comment last week, Mai Yamani, of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, described the annual get-together at Oxford University of the Project for Democracy Studies in Arab Countries. The participants, she wrote in the International Herald Tribune, represented the "lost resources of an Arab world that is fast becoming isolated by illiteracy, ignorance, and repression". A new generation "denied the opportunity to participate in a range of democratic institutions or other vehicles for public self-expression, is finding more dangerous outlets for its passions". Yamani quoted a Saudi researcher at an English university as remarking: "It's easier for a young Arab to blow himself up than sweep outside his house. He doesn't feel he belongs to anything." It is hard not to conclude that one of the greatest obstacles to the kind of better world Blair says he wants - one with less cause for terrorism, even if terrorists will always be around - is the Bush administration, and notably the likes of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. They have consistently dismissed British interests and embarrassed a prime minister who has attached himself so closely to the president with such little reward. What did Blair think when delegates at last week's Republican convention booed speakers who mentioned the UN? How much longer can Blair, or his ministers, accept to be led by a US administration that denigrates everything they say they stand for? Asked at his press conference yesterday whether the war on terror can be won, Blair replied: "We can win it and I believe ultimately we will win it. But it is going to require emphasis not only on security, but tackling other issues as well." There is absolutely no sign he is succeeding in tackling them, not least because his closest ally, the US president, is simply not interested. guardian.co.uk

To: tejek who wrote (620510)	9/9/2004 1:49:33 AM
From: Skywatcher	Respond to of 769670

lies.com CC

To: tejek who wrote (620510)	9/9/2004 8:57:07 AM
From: BubbaFred	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

Barnes Upset About Helping Bush Avoid War Wed Sep 8, 8:25 PM ET Add Politics - AP to My Yahoo! By JIM VERTUNO, Associated Press Writer AUSTIN, Texas - Former Texas House Speaker Ben Barnes' recollections over how he helped President Bush (news - web sites) get into the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War have evolved over the years from fuzzy to distinct, with him now expressing remorse for what he did. Barnes, a Democrat who was one of the most powerful politicians in Texas in the '60s and '70s, said at an Austin campaign rally for Democrat John Kerry (news - web sites) that he was "ashamed" for helping Bush and sons of other wealthy Texans avoid service in Vietnam. "I got a young man named George W. Bush into the National Guard ... and I'm not necessarily proud of that, but I did it," Barnes said in a video clip recorded on May 27, which was posted on the Internet and touted to media organizations last month just before the start of the GOP National Convention. Barnes plans to talk more about his role on "60 Minutes" Wednesday night. In excerpts released by CBS, Barnes said he shouldn't have had the power "to choose who was going to Vietnam and who was not." "Reflecting back, I'm very sorry about it, but you know, it happened and it was because of my ambition, my youth and my lack of understanding," he said. Through a spokeswoman, Barnes on Wednesday declined an interview with The Associated Press, but he told the AP on Aug. 28 that the video "speaks for itself." Barnes' story has developed since Bush's first presidential election campaign. In 1998, Barnes said he couldn't recall helping Bush in 1968 — at the height of the Vietnam War. Barnes was Texas House Speaker at the time, and later became lieutenant governor. "I had a lot of requests," Barnes told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. "Nobody ever could (recall), and my staff was divided if I did or did not," help Bush. By 1999, his memory was much clearer when he was called to testify in a lawsuit over the firing of Texas Lottery director Lawrence Littwin in 1997. Littwin's lawyers wanted to question Barnes, who worked as a lobbyist for GTECH, the contractor that operates the Texas Lottery, about whether the company was allowed to keep its contract in exchange for Barnes' silence on the guard matter. Barnes dismissed the allegation. Although he denied getting a direct request for help from the Bush family, Barnes said he helped a lot of children from influential Texas families get in the Guard. He said he was contacted by the now-deceased Sidney Adger, a Houston oilman and friend of Bush's father, former President George H. W. Bush, who was a congressman at the time, about recommending the younger Bush for a pilot position with the Air National Guard. Barnes said he called Gen. James Rose, the Texas Air Guard commander, and made the recommendation. Rose died in 1993. "Neither Congressman Bush nor any other member of the Bush family asked Barnes' help," the statement from his attorneys said. "Barnes has no knowledge that (Bush or his family) knew of Barnes' recommendation." President Bush served as a jet pilot in the guard from 1968 to 1973, with a transfer to the Alabama Guard in late 1972 to work on the political campaign of a family friend. Questions have been raised about Bush's service in Alabama and whether he reported for duty. Bush has said he is proud of his service and that neither he nor his father asked for help in finding the Guard opening. At the time Bush was admitted to the Guard, he was just days away from losing his student draft deferment upon graduation from Yale. Thousands of men were on the Guard waiting list, and in Texas it took more than a year to get admitted. Bush was not the only son of rich and powerful families, from both parties, to get a spot in the Texas Guard. His unit near Houston was sometimes called the Champagne Unit because of its famous names. Lloyd Bentsen III, a first lieutenant and son of the future senator and Cabinet secretary, was there, as was Capt. John Connally III, son of the former governor and Cabinet secretary. Barnes said at the Austin rally that he became ashamed of helping Bush after walking through the Vietnam Memorial earlier this year and looking at the names of people who died. "I got a lot of other people in the National Guard because I thought that was what people should do when you're in office, you helped a lot of rich people," he said. " ... I'm very sorry of that and I'm very ashamed of it and I apologize to the voters of Texas for that." story.news.yahoo.com