Is leaving Australia anything like leaving Las Vegas? Just worlds of curious, that's all.

How long are these God damned cowards in the Democratic party going to let Bush play games with the law? These bastards aren't MY representatives, thats for sure. Just who the hell are they representing?

http://www.tpmmuckraker.com/archives/003957.php#more

BTW, Steve, too bad about your timing. It ends up Albert is playing Sidney on the 23rd.

hmm, he's a funny guy. very blunt, not too diplomatic, but also quite smart. sure he gave you quite an earful.

It's a slow time, so let me pose a conundrum. It has been obvious for a long time that Steve (along with most politicians and the foreign policy elite/national security mob) avoid the subject of oil like the plague, except to suggest from time to time that we ought to be looking for alternatives.

You have to wonder, are they blind to an elephant in the middle of the room, one that just happens to be driving foreign policy? If so, they must surely have missed the decline in American power, noted most forcefully by Russia last April: "the myth about the unipolar world fell apart once and for all in Iraq." Oil has been key to Iraq and to the decline, which Dilip Hiro describes over at http://www.tomdispatch.com/.

So what's the deal? Are are the foreign policy elite/national security mob caught in a pernicious syndrome where they actually believe the Bush administration? Can they only hear what the administration says it is doing, instead of seeing what it is actually doing? Or are they willfully blind, bound by their pay checks to be complicit with their in silence? Being insiders, how could they have missed the administration's obsession with oil, documented by David Strahan: http://www.lastoilshock.com/?

Whatever the cause, the credibility and integrity of the entire foreign policy/national security community is at stake. Every day more and more ordinary people can see the elephant that the foreign policy community cannot.

JohnH wrote:

"are the foreign policy elite/national security mob caught...where they actually believe the Bush administration?"

I assume your point is rhetorical.

If you're holding a big mortgage, college bills, retirement funds -- are you believing in whoever fashions your "needed" policy/security job?

Have a good trip!

Pauline. Good point. What's amazing to me is the extent of group think. Apparently the whole lot have been co-opted, whether they work for the administration and their allies or not. You would think that some respected independents would come forward with honest, critical thinking, similar to what Jimmy Carter, Mearsheimer and Walt have published recently on Israel.

Instead of sitting silent on the sidelines, the New America Foundation could have made signficant contributions to America's understanding of the Bush administration's true, underlying ambitions.

Instead, we get a constant stream of drivel, reacting to Bush's framing of the issues. For example, the foreign policy elite argues about whether we should bomb or negotiate with Iran to get them to reign in their nuclear program (perpetually 5-10 years away from a bomb). In fact, the real issue is how to get Iran to produce as much oil and gas as a thirsty world needs. Would bombing and occupation accomplish anything? The experience in Iraq suggests not. So why not debate the real problem and try to find a real solution to our energy consumption problem?

The group think elite are doing us a real disservice by distracting us with phony issues.
Fortunately there is thoughtful analysis written in English, much of it coming out of the UK--Greg Palast, David Strahan, Dilip Hiro, etc.

War is dirty money -- and billions of it.

The bush warmongers bow down so deeply to AIPAC, the military-industrial complex and the international bankers, one might consider investing in "Doan's Back Pain Reliever, Extra Strength" stock/bonds.

Political philosophy is tossed into political speeches just for hiding the deception of what is really happening to this country.

(My totally uninformed neighbor thinks all is a-ok with bush and the terrorists and democrats are the ones creating all the country's woes. No matter what sourced news I bring her, it's always back to "the terrorists and democrats". How many millions are like her?)

Money doesn't talk -- it swears.

"Whatever the cause, the credibility and integrity of the entire foreign policy/national security community is at stake. Every day more and more ordinary people can see the elephant that the foreign policy community cannot."

Funny you should bring that up. The oil issue is the predominate determining factor about which direction our so-called "foreign policy" in regards to Iraq goes. Everyone is gushing over what the bullshit September "progress report" is going to say, when the REAL determining factor is the "oil law" that Bush and his scumbag compatriots are trying to shove up the Iraqi's asses, sans vaseline. The successful privatization, (theft), of Iraq's oil assets will be the cue to start bringing the troops home, and the reason for the army of Blackwater mercenaries will then become apparent, as they shift roles and become the protectors of the stolen booty, under the employ of the global oil conglomerates.