FURTHER SIGNS OF IMPENDING U.S. WAR AGAINST IRAN

Seymour Hersh has an article in The New Yorker talking about secret destabilizing efforts by Bush and Cheney against Iran and its government.

The really upsetting part of a possible U.S. war against Iran is how Congress has been so docile and meek in letting those war mongers Bush and Cheney get their way. Congress seems to rubber-stamp any and all imperialistic and militaristic moves emanating from the White House, without hardly a peep.

It is up to the American people, not Congress, to stop this march towards starting a war with Iran. Bush and Cheney must not be allowed to do this.

DAVID ADDINGTON & JOHN YOO TESTIFY (?) AT CONGRESSIONAL HEARING, SAY NOTHING

Did anyone see the House hearing with David Addington and John Yoo the other dayon C-SPAN?

Addington is Cheney's right hand man. He is not a nice guy. No wonder that many believe that he is responsible for the implementation of waterboarding and other methods of torture at Guantanamo and other despicable things in those dark CIA prisons. You could see his dripping contempt for members of Congress and his supreme displeasure at having to testify.

John Yoo came off as a nicer guy, but he was no more helpful than Addington. Yoo refused to answer most questions on the 2002 Memo that he helped craft justifying techniques short of causing organ failure or death, claiming that the Department of Justice, his former employer, had told him not to testify.

When you consider that these are the guys who are running the country, you can more easily understand how the "home of the free and the land of the brave" has become tarnished with works of torturers and war mongers.

DEMOCRATS REJOICE - GUN ISSUE NEUTRALIZED BY TODAY'S DECISION

The decision today by Justice Scalia striking down the gun laws in the District of Colombia (District of Colombia v. Heller) should not be taken too sourly by Democrats. Even though the Scalia argument is somewhat shallow and specious, the overall Scalia result prevents the right from being able to claim that a liberal Supreme Court is the issue. Let Wayne La Pierre and the other gun nuts salivate over this "victory." Their argument about being persecuted for their constitutional "rights" has just be neutralized for the 2008 elections.

ATTACK AGAINST IRAN WOULD DEVASTATE U.S. MARKETS

Imagine what would happen to the U.S. stock market and economy if either Bush or Olmert attacks Iran:

1. Gold would go from $800 to $2,000 per ounce
2. Stocks in the U.S. would plummet
3. The value of the U.S. dollar would crash
4. Foreign currencies like the Swiss Franc would double in value
5. Oil would go from $130 to $500 per barrel
6. The U.S. economy would go into deep recession if not depression

The U.S. should not be led into a war with Iran by Israel. Instead of keeping "all options on the table," code for bombing Teheran, both Bush and Olmert should publicly declare that neither the U.S. nor Israel will use military force against Iran or its government.

DON'T ATTACK IRAN

The European Union has voted to apply additional sanctions on Iran pending acceptance of a package deal to remove uranium processing from Iranian hands.

How about agreeing that every country has the right to develop nuclear power for peaceful purposes. The Iranian authorities have given their word that their nuclear power program is not to build nuclear weapons or bombs. What is so hard about accepting their word?

After all, Iran has never attacked another country with nuclear weapons or threatened another country with imperialistic armed forces.

Bush and Cheney and Olmert want to organize a military strike against Iran and Iranians. The world cannot let this happen. There is no legitimate grounds for killing Iranians or bombing their country. There is no proof Iran is going against its word.

Until Bush and Cheney and Olmert leave office, the whole world is in danger of a huge conflict starting in the Middle East and spreading to other countries. Attacking and invading Iraq was a huge mistake. Attacking Iran would be 100 times worse.

MORE WAR DRUMS BY NEO-CONS FOR WAR WITH IRAN

Think Progress alerted me to statements today made on Sunday TV shows by those neo-cons Bill Kristol and John Bolton to the likelihood that George Bush will attack Iran before the end of this year.

Both of them mention the greater probability of a Bush attack if it is clear that Barack Obama will win the presidency.

Bush and his group are dangerous madmen. They would just as soon start a perpetual war in the Middle East with Iran than ever use negotiation and diplomacy to resolve disputes.

DOCTOR ATOMIC REMINDS THAT ONLY U.S. HAS USED ATOMIC WEAPONS AGAINST CITIES AND CIVILIANS

This afternoon I listened to a WFMT broadcast of Doctor Atomic, Lyric Opera of Chicago's production of the opera by John Adams and Peter Sellars.

Doctor Atomic tells the story of the development of nuclear weapons by a team of American scientists, principally Robert Oppenheimer, in the early 1940s.

The opera ends seconds before the first bomb is exploded in the Nevada deserts in the summer of 1945. Overtones of Japanese residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki burned from the nuclear bombs sounds in the background together with electronic noise from the count-downs.

The United States likes to say that it is the home of the free and the land of democracy. Americans think that their country is exceptional, the beacon to the rest of the world.

Yet the dropping of nuclear bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are in start contrast to the American sense of "manifest destiny" and purity of purpose. No other country has used an atomic weapon against civilians or against populated cities. Each bomb took 100,000 lives, women, children, men, elderly, boys, girls.

No wonder Americans hardly remember in their collective historical consciousness what happened in 1945. No one talks about how president Harry Truman proved himself to be a war criminal, using weapons of war, in this first case of nuclear weapons, against civilians and cities. If the definition of a war crime par excellence is killing civilians indiscriminately, Truman's order to drop the bombs cannot be justified.

105 DEMOCRATS VOTE FOR BUSH'S IMMUNITY TO TELECOMS

I am angry at the House for going along with Bush in his quest to give immunity to the telephone companies for aiding and abetting the administration in the violation of the wiretap laws.

Bush got everything he wanted. A harsher wiretap law, immunity for the telecoms, and a victory for those repressive forces who think that everything is justified if it is for "national security."

Dan Eggen, Paul Kane and William Branigin write in today's washingtonpost.com:

"Ending a year-long battle with President Bush, the House approved, 293 to 129, a re-write of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that extends the government's ability to eavesdrop on espionage and terrorism suspects while providing a legal escape hatch for AT&T, Verizon Communications and other telecommunication firms. The companies face more than 40 lawsuits that allege they violated customers' privacy rights by helping the government conduct a warrantless spying program after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"Before the vote, President Bush today lauded Congress for reaching agreement on the legislation, saying it was vital to help thwart new terrorist attacks."

ISRAEL'S PEACE TALKS WITH SYRIA - A RUSE FOR ATTACKING IRAN?

Why is Israel holding negotiations with Syria about a possible peace agreement and return of the Golan Heights now?

This is a legitimate question to ask. It was only a few months ago that Israel sent its war planes into Syria to bomb and destroy what Israel and its neo-con friends in the U.S. government termed an inchoate nuclear bomb processing site. Yet less than a year later, Israel is conducting peace talks.

I suspect that Israel is doing this to neutralize an ally and friend of Iran in the event that Israel sends its bombers against Teheran. The whole world knows that Barack Obama is likely to be the next U.S. president in months, and Obama has stated publicly that he believes in a foreign policy that would eschew tanks and missiles in favor of negotiation and diplomacy. Israel knows that George Bush's term has only six or seven months to go. And it is clear that Bush would support Israel in its militaristic aggression against Iran. In other words, it is now or never in mounting an attack against Iran and in destroying Iran's nuclear power capabilities. So engage Syria in phony peace talks, neutralize the Syrians, and then attack Iran.

This must not be allowed to happen. If Israel attacks Iran, there will be turmoil and war in the Middle East for the next 500 years, maybe longer. The U.S. will be seen for what it is, an enabler of the Olmert regime in attacking another Islamic nation without cause. The whole world order will be roiled and in a frenzy.

THOSE WHO ORDERED TORTURE MUST BE HELD TO ACCOUNT

How did it come about with over 10,000 lawyers in the Department of Defense that the DOD authorized "harsh" interrogation techniques (read "torture") of those captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere?

The only explanation is that the decision to use waterboarding, sexual humiliation and stress positions came from the top - from Bush himself and from Cheney and from Rice and from Rumsfeld.

The argument that they did these things because they wanted to protect the nation will not stand up. To engage in techniques used in the Inquisition to root out heretics is to group oneself with all those vile and mean people throughout history who think that torture produces the "truth." Just like the churchmen in Spain who thought they were doing God's work by condemning suspects to the rack or inflicting the "water test."

Furthermore, most of the inmates at Guantanamo turn out to be sheepherders or subsistence farmers, yet these were subject to the cruelest of interrogations.

The people who did this must be held to legal account. The smell of torture will not pass quickly. The United States must not allow the malefactors to leave office unscathed and uncharged.

BUSH DOMINATES EUROPEAN "LEADERS" - THEY PARROT BUSH'S ANTI-IRANIAN THREATS

It amazes me to think that the lame duck George Bush has obtained the support of the major European leaders in his bullying of Iran over its nuclear development. Merkel, Sarkozy and now Brown. These "leaders" turn out to be abject followers, and George Bush turns out to be their dominator. Talk about Tony Blair being Bush's poodle. The present leaders especially Gordon Brown are but Bush's toads.

The BBC reports:

"Mr Brown said Britain would urge Europe to impose "further sanctions" on Iran and Europe would take action to freeze the overseas assets of the country's biggest bank and impose new sanctions on oil and gas.

"President Bush thanked Mr Brown for his "strong statement" and added: "The Iranians must understand that when we come together and speak with one voice we are serious.""

We have seen all this bluster and threatening talk before from Bush preceding the invasion and war in Iraq. Let's hope time prevents the bully Bush and his suck-ups from doing even worse as to Iran.

MEAN JOHN MCCAIN OBJECTS TO SUPREME COURT GRANTING HABEAS RELIEF TO GUANTANAMO INMATES

John McCain criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court for ruling that inmates at Guantanamo have a right to seek relief in federal district court. Why? Because McCain says they are bad people.

Nadine Elsibai and Hans Nichols report today in Bloomberg:

"McCain called the court's 5-4 ruling ``one of the worst decisions in the history of this country,'' warning that the court system would be clogged with petitions from the 270 inmates. He suggested that many inmates still present a threat.
"
``Thirty of the people who have already been released from Guantanamo Bay have already tried to attack America again,'' said McCain, 71.

"The court June 12 invalidated a 2006 law, backed by McCain, which stripped Guantanamo Bay inmates of the right to file so- called habeas corpus petitions in U.S. courts. The court's majority opinion, in a rebuke to the Bush administration and Congress, held that inmates at Camp Delta in Guantanamo Bay are protected by the Constitution and may seek release in federal court."

McCain apparently feels that since 30 of the released detainees were later involved in attacks against American forces, none of the remaining 270 should have their day in court. Surely Mc Cain knows that the vast majority of the detainees got sent to Guantanamo because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Many have turned out to be sheep herders or farmers, sold into the hands of the United States by Afghanis wanting to settle scores and/or revenge insults or injuries. Others ended up in Guantanamo because Afghan war lords collected thousands of U.S. dollars per head for each hapless "terrorist" turned in to the Americans.

The Great Writ, as it is called, traces all the way back to King John and the Magna Carta of the 13th Century. The king, or in this case, the executive, is not allowed to lock people up and throw away the key. There must be grounds, there must be due process, there must be a chance to rebut adverse evidence and/or witnesses.

Apparently John McCain thinks it is alright to up "enemies" and keep them in prison without any fair and equitable recourse. How will he explain this to fair-minded voters?

DON'T UNDERESTIMATE GEORGE BUSH AND HARM HE CAN DO IN HIS SEVEN MONTHS TO GO

George Bush at his news conference with French president Nicolas Sarkozy made it a point to warn Iran that "all options are on the table," code for mounting a military attack.

This is the quintessential George Bush - always threatening, hectoring, dictating. What a bully this guy is. Here we see Bush's foreign policy. No, not diplomacy or negotiations but threats and warnings. Who says that Bush will not fire missiles at Iran and its people before he leaves office? I am not so sure.

Incidentally, Bush tells the Iranian people that their leaders are causing all sorts of problems because they want to develop nuclear power. Yet if Bush does attack Teheran, guess who will be the victims? None other than the Iranian people that Bush is trying to set against the Iranian leaders.

Must the United States and its people suffer this bullying bluster and threat-making for another long seven months? This guy Bush is a serious threat to world peace and world order. He can do a lot of damage in the time he has left.

SCALIA DOESN'T CARE HOW MANY IN GUANTANAMO ARE INNOCENT - NO HABEAS HEARINGS SHOULD BE ALLOWED

Justice Scalia in his dissent in Boumedienne v. Bush granting habeas corpus relief to the 270 inmates at Guantanamo claims that:

"[t]he Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today."

I would like to ask, how does affording inmates at Guantanamo cause regret to the United States? Does Justice Scalia think that a hearing in front of a judge at the district federal court will cause mayhem and chaos? Or is it that Scalia thinks all 270 inmates are the most dangerous and already convicted in front of an impartial tribunal?

It is like what you would expect some pope of churchman to say during the darkest days of the Inquisition. "We know she is a witch, so burn her at the stake." Scalia gives the impression he like the priest of old already knows each and every one of the 270 is a terrorist.

But what if that were not so? What if there were one innocent person caught up in the rush to give the Americans what they wanted in Afghanistan, people with swarthy complexions and beards who were Islamists? What if of the 270 there were 10 innocents or 100 or 200? Scalia seems to care not a whit for the non-terrorist arrested in the massive dragnet after 2001. And he is not ready to grant them a habeas hearing to find out.

Writes Scalia:

"[This opinion] will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed. "

What is Scalia trying to say here? That Boumedienne v. Bush will cause more Americans to be killed? Or that the opinion probably will cause more Americans to be killed? Or that it is not certain that more Americans will be killed? Note the sieve through which those words "almost certainly" flow. Surprising imprecise words from a jurist noted for stressing words' plain meaning.

GREAT DAY FOR CIVIL RIGHTS - INMATES AT GUANTANAMO CAN SEEK HABEAS CORPUS FROM FEDERAL COURTS

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled today that inmates held at Guantanamo have constitutional rights to seek redress from federal courts. So much for the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld machiavellian scheme to hold such prisoners outside the confines of the 50 states and thus keep them from bringing their cases and grievances into federal court. But the Court ruled that Guantanamo is subject to full sovereignty of the U.S. government, and therefore prisoners held there are not deprived of the protections of the Great Writ of Habeas Corpus.

U.S. FIRES MISSILE INTO PAKISTAN, KILLS 11 PAKISTANI SOLDIERS

The BBC reports today that it was an American missile shot from across the border in Afghanistan that killed 11 Pakistani soldiers.

"Pakistan's military has condemned an air strike by Afghanistan-based US forces that killed 11 of its troops as a "cowardly attack".

"The incident happened inside Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan, as US-led forces tackled pro-Taleban militants.

"The US military confirmed it had used artillery and air strikes after coming under fire from "anti-Afghan" forces."

On what basis is the United States allowed or permitted under international law to fire a missile into another sovereign country like Pakistan? The answer is such military cross-border attacks are illegal, and the U.S. is playing the role of the aggressor-bully in interfering in the internal affairs of another sovereign country.

The situation is very much like the attack by Colombia on March 1st against members of the FARC inside of neighboring Ecuador. There is no justification for mounting an attack against people in other countries. Colombia was not justified, and neither is the United States under George Bush.

Pakistan has every right to strongly complain against the illegal operations of U.S. forces. George Bush is constantly singing odes to democracy, yet here we see the U.S. indirectly attacking the democratically elected government of Pakistan because it has given signals that it will not cooperate with or tolerate U.S. raids against Pakistani tribesmen suspected of harboring the Taliban inside Pakistan.

WEARY OF JUDY WOODRUFF ON NEWSHOUR

Why do public TV stations continue to allow Judy Woodruff to ply her profession as a news anchor on The NewsHour?

This is one hapless lady. No wonder CNN gladly released her. Judy Woodruff is undoubtedly a nice human being, but should she be the anchor or one of them on The News Hour? No way!

Her questions are simplistic. Compare Judy Woodruff to Margaret Warner, no great interviewer. At least Margaret Warner asks intelligent questions, notwithstanding Warner gives no quarter to the answers. Judy Woodruff asks dumb questions.

I won't mention here here atrocious respect for pronunciation. Like how she says "Clin-on" for "Clin-ton," or "inner-net" for "internet." And so on, just pick your word, Judy is sure to slay it.

GEORGE BUSH THREATENING IRAN OVER NUCLEAR POWER

George Bush is up to his old war-mongering tricks, this time warning Iran over nuclear development and promising sanctions. The question needs to be asked, has Bush and his enablers Cheney and Rice already decided on a War with Iran? Some say, no war is in the offing, but I remain sceptical and wary. The same pattern as we saw with Bush as to his sanctions against Iraq now seems to be repeating itself as to Iran.

The BBC reports today on Bush's threats:

"Mr Bush said a nuclear-armed Iran would be "incredibly dangerous" to peace.

""They can either face isolation or they can have a better relationship with all of us if they verifiably suspend their nuclear enrichment programme," he said.

""They've ignored the [International Atomic Energy Agency] in the past and therefore they can't be trusted with enrichment." "

Why can't Bush cease and desist ordering other nations around. Who is Bush to say that Iran cannot have nuclear power or nuclear weapons? The United States has nuclear weapons, so why not Iran? If you were president Ahmadinejad and you saw how the U.S. invaded Iraq and tore up Iraqi society, destroyed its infrastructure and threw its whole population into chaos, wouldn't you try to obtain nuclear weapons as a deterrent to any future U.S. attack?

Bush is just up to his old war-mongering ways. I would be surprised if Bush did not mount an attack on Teheran during his last days in office. As The New York Times said today in its lead editorial, it would be a disaster.

REPORTS ON PEACE ACCORD IN SOMALIA - ETHIOPIANS MAY BE FORCED TO CEASE HATED OCCUPATION

The BBC is reporting that there has been a peace agreement signed by both the provisional government and the insurgents in Somalia. Part of the accord is that Ethiopia must withdraw its troops within 120 days.

If this peace report is true, it will end the most recent bloody fighting that has consumed Mogadishu, Somalia's capital, and left it a ruined ghost town.

Somalis hate the invading and occupying Ethiopian army that illegally came into Somalia at the behest of Ethiopia's patron, George Bush and the United States. Bush so hated the government of the Islamic Courts that, notwithstanding the peace which the Islamic Courts brought to Mogadishu and all of Somalia in 2006, he egged on the Ethiopians to invade Somalia. Bush also stationed U.S. war ships off Somalia's coast so that the U.S. could fire hundred-pound shells into small Somalian villages, with the goal of killing Islamic insurgents, but which actually killed and maimed far more innocent civilians, including women and children.

So a peace breakthrough is most welcome. Somalians will look forward to the withdrawal of Ethiopian marauders. However, part of the deal should be the forced withdrawal of U.S. war ships. The U.S. and its president George Bush must also promise to cease interfering in Somalia or disturbing its chosen government.

AWFUL DOWNSIDE OF ATTACK UPON IRAN

Imagine what would happen to the price of oil if the U.S. under George Bush launches an attack against Iran. People are complaining about the price of gasoline now being above $4.00 per gallon. They ain't seen nothing yet if Bush, Cheney or their counterpart in Israel, Ehud Olmert, sends bombs and missiles raining down upon Teheran.

Oil, now at $135 per bbl. would like go to $300, and stay there. Iran, one of the world's biggest oil producers, no doubt would disrupt its supply and cause huge dislocations in the oil market. So would all the other producers who would object to another U.S. started war against an Islamic country. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela certainly would react in sympathy with the Iranians. So would the whole world, almost, that considers George Bush and his regime an outlaw and a war monger.

And how about the world's stock markets. They would go into a steep dive, especially stocks in the U.S. and those of emerging markets.

In sum, the whole world economic order would cascade down to levels unimaginable.

An attack against Iran would make enemies of all the other Islamic countries, not withstanding that Iran is mostly Shiite whereas countries like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia are mostly Sunni. Nevertheless, the message received by the ordinary man in the street in any Islamic country would be clear - the U.S. and by association, the entire West, wages war against Islam and its beliefs. There would bitter enmity between Americans and Iranians for the next 500 years.

The ratcheting up of talk of war against Iran was not helped by Barack Obama's speech to AIPAC last week. Instead of toning down his rhetoric, Obama went out of his way to say that Iran was the gravest threat, and that he, as president, would not take anything off the table - code for bombing Iran - in assuring that Iran would never acquire nuclear weapons.

I supported Obama for his assertions that he would be willing to sit down and talk with Iranian leaders including president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I did not vote for Obama to allow him to start another Middle East war, this time with Iran. I want negotiation and diplomacy and peace, not threats and bluster and military action.

DON'T ALLOW BUSH, CHENEY, OLMERT TO START WAR AGAINST IRAN

Until we see George Bush, Dick Cheney and Ehud Olmert no longer in office, the grave danger remains that either the U.S. or Israel will send bombs and missiles over Teheran.

Imagine what an attack on Iran will do to the price of oil. If oil is high now at $135/bbl, get set for $400 oil. Bush and Cheney will have succeeded in their last year in office in torpedoing not only the American economy but the world's.

But if that were the worst thing, we would all be fortunate. An attack on Iran will make America the hated target of Iranians everywhere for the next 500 years if not longer. The Middle East will see continuous war and bloodshed. No one will be safe. Travel will come to a halt. Terrorism will appear everywhere. War's disastrous fires will burn everyone and everything.

The American people must not allow Bush, Cheney or Olmert to attack Iran. The American people must hold all war mongers responsible as criminals, even these three.

OBAMA WINS NOMINATION, PANDERS TO AIPAC ON ISRAEL

So my choice, Barack Obama, won the Democratic nomination. However . . .

I read in The Washington Post where Obama fell over himself to show that he was a true friend of Israel. Obama spoke at the AIPAC convention, the largest and most powerful Israeli-American lobby in the nation.

Reports Dana Milbank:

"A mere 12 hours after claiming the Democratic presidential nomination, Barack Obama appeared before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee yesterday -- and changed himself into an Israel hard-liner.

"He promised $30 billion in military assistance for Israel. He declared that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps' Quds Force has "rightly been labeled a terrorist organization." He used terms such as "false prophets of extremism" and "corrupt" while discussing Palestinians. And he promised that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

"Vowing to stop Tehran from getting a nuclear weapon, the newly minted nominee apparent added: "I will always keep the threat of military action on the table to defend our security and our ally, Israel. Do not be confused.""

Is this the same Obama that garnered my support because of his willingness to adopt a saner U.S. foreign policy than what we have had over these past eight years? Someone who would be willing to sit down and use negotiation and diplomacy to talk with Ahmadinejad of Iran or Hugo Chavez of Venezuela? A president who believes that dropping bombs and shooting missiles is unjustified and yes, immoral?

How could my guy Obama say that he would isolate Hamas when even today Isabel Kirschner reports for The New York Times that Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas says that he wants to negotiate with Hamas? If Abbas wants to open talks with Hamas, why would Obama say that he would never do so? Obama's statement is disapppointing, rash, politically deceptive and unwise.

And as to Syria, Milbank reports on Obama's statements:

"Israel's military action last year "was entirely justified," Obama said, to knock out Syria's "weapons of mass destruction" program. "The danger from Iran is grave, it is real, and my goal will be to eliminate this threat," he added."

So Obama is saying that one country, Israel, is justified sending war planes across territorial boundaries of another country, Syria, and bombing a building it suspects is housing a nuclear reactor? Where is this found in the principles of international law? This is Bush's preemption carried through to its logical conclusion. And Obama is adopting this military aggression as own?

Milbank writes:

"The Superman music soon returned, and the man with the Star of David on his lapel left the dais in a shower of hugs and kisses from the AIPAC officers."

OLMERT SPEAKS TO AIPAC, IRAN IS "ENEMY"

Israel's prime minister was in Washington, D.C., last night talking to that neo-con Israeli-American lobby, AIPAC. Condi Rice was also there with her own talk.

Both of them agreed Iran was the enemy. So they proceeded to demonize Iran, calling it a grave threat to peace and security.

Where have we heard this before?

Back in 2001-2002, Condi Rice was among the most vocal, calling Iraq a grave and imminent danger, saying that the U.S. could not allow "the smoking gun" to turn into a "mushroom cloud." That Saddam Hussein had WMD, that he was intent on acquiring nuclear weapons, that he had a stockpile of germ agents. All of which proved to be so much hot air and disproved speculation.

Now the focus is on Iran. "We must not allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon!"

Consider that there is no evidence that Iran has a nuclear weapon or is trying to make one. Although, if it did, I could understand completely as a nuclear weapon might be the only deterrent to Bush's war machine attacking and invading Iran in the same way as it did to Iraq. Consider how Bush treads softly around North Korea which does indeed have nuclear weapons.

But nevertheless there is no proof Iran has or wants nuclear weapons. Iran's supreme religious leader came out just yesterday with a denial, saying that any intelligent nation has no need or want for nuclear bombs.

Yet the drumbeat towards attacking Iran continues, and the "coalition of the willing" consists of those reactionary Israeli government leaders like Ehud Olmert and his co-patriots who continue to build Israeli settlements on land taken from the Palestinians during the 1967 War and the neo-cons and reactionaries here in the U.S. like Bill Kristol, Elliot Abrams and the other AIPAC members, as well as key members of the Bush cabinet such as Rice and VP Dick Cheney.

Imagine what a war with Iran would do to Middle East peace and stability. There would be fallout for the next 500 years. There would be enmity between Americans and Iranians for at least that long. Consider what the Fall of Constantinople did to the relations between Greeks and Turks. After more 600 years, they still hate one another for what happened. We could expect the same between the East and West over Iran, maybe lasting even longer.

We need to talk with Iran, not demonize it and its people. We need to get rid of Cheney and Rice and Bush and their militaristic hegemony and imperialism. Instead of starting a war with Iran, we need to sit down with the Iranians and treat them with respect and dignity. That is the way to beginning to solve the so far intractable problems for the U.S. and Israel in the Middle East.

GEORGE BUSH - WAR IN IRAQ MIGHT LAST 40 YEARS

Now George Bush says that the War in Iraq will take "40 years." And that this War is the nation's defining moment in the 21st Century. All this according to a new book by Richard Engle, "War Journal, My Five Years in Iraq."

Bush can't stop trying to burnish his own miserable imperialistic legacy with his infatuation with being a "war president" who will lead America to historic world greatness.

Instead of telling Americans that Iraqis would greet U.S. soldiers with embraces and flowers, George Bush should have laid out his grandiose plans for U.S. militaristic foreign policy before March 2003 when the U.S. invaded Iraq. Then the reaction of a supine U.S. press corps and the ennui of an American public may have been different.

WHY I DON'T SUPPORT HILLARY CLINTON

There is no reason why I would want to vote for Hillary Clinton for president. But there are plenty of reasons not to vote for her. Look at all the things that she has said or done over the past few years. Thanks to Pat Bagley's cartoon in The Salt Lake Tribune today for pointing them out.

• Hillary voted for the war in Iraq, then refused to admit that she had made a mistake.
• Hillary said she would obliterate Iran.
• Hillary thought Barack Obama was not Muslim, at least as far as she knew.
• Hillary says she is the best candidate for blue collar white America.
• Hillary wants Florida and Michigan to count after she herself agreed that they would not count.
• Hillary said she came under sniper fire in Bosnia even though there was no evidence this ever happened.
• Hillary voted to declare the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a "terrorist organization" even though there was and is no credible evidence for doing so.