Bush voices regret for macho rhetoric in run-up to Iraq war

To some it may come as too little too late. But setting out on his final trip to Europe as president, George Bush has expressed regret that his rhetoric in the run-up to the war in Iraq may have created the impression that he was a warmonger.

"I think that in retrospect I could have used a different tone, a different rhetoric," Bush told the Times as he flew across the Atlantic on Air Force One.

The phrases he used to win support for the war such as "bring 'em on" and "dead or alive" he said, "indicated to people that I was, you know, not a man of peace."

But that impression, he insisted, was far from the truth.

"One of the untold stories of Iraq is that we explored the diplomacy a lot," he said. "We all wanted to solve this 'disclose, disarm, or face serious consequences' in a diplomatic fashion. After all, I went to the United Nations security council."

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Gus: Now the peace monkey tells us! Bummer, we've been wrong all along...

Yes, our swinging peace Bushit monkey went to the United Nation Security Council and pleaded with the French and the Germans not to go to war...

But the Bushit with the marshmallow heart could not believe it: they refused... Colin Powell can vouch for that! He was doing presentations in PowerPoint to the assembly telling these "old Europe" smarty pants they were wrong to go to war because Hans Blix could not find any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, thus there were not any...

The small altercation that followed and killed more than a million Iraqis, nearly 4100 US troops, displaced about three million Iraqis and turned secular iraq into a Muslimocracy was the fault of these European mongrels who did not understand "peace alla Bushit"... a recipe from his cookbook where lotsa oil is fundamental is the cooking.

A marshmallow heart, this Bushit... Our apologies for misunderstanding... We'll pass it on to all the dead people.

In Germany, Bush Protests Lose Appeal

By NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: June 11, 2008

BERLIN — The young anarchists, middle-aged peace activists and established left-wing politicians here have at least one thing in common: none bothered to keep a six-year tradition alive by organizing a protest against President Bush’s arrival here Tuesday.

President Bush arrived in Germany on Tuesday, where he was greeted by Chancellor Angela Merkel but, oddly, no protesters.

“Bush is not even popular in the role of the enemy anymore,” wrote Der Tagesspiegel newspaper.

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Gus: ouch! that hurts! When people who ate you mad ignore you, you know you're on the way out... 

Bush forced to rethink plan to keep Iraq bases

President offers concessions after furious reaction in Baghdad to American 'colonialism'

By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Thursday, 12 June 2008

Faced with Iraqi anger over a US plan to enable Washington to keep military forces in the country indefinitely, George Bush is offering concessions to the government of Nouri al-Maliki in an effort to salvage an agreement, it emerged yesterday.

The proposed terms of the impending deal, which were first revealed in The Independent, have had a predictably explosive political effect inside Iraq. Negotiations between Washington and Baghdad grew fraught, with Iraqi politicians denouncing US demands to maintain a permanent grip on the country through the establishment of permanent military bases.

Officials complained that the plan which allows US troops to occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, would turn Iraq into a colony of the US, and create the conditions for unending conflict both in Iraq and the Middle East.

With Washington's Iraqi allies rising up in revolt against the plans, Mr Bush ordered a negotiating shift this weekend after speaking to Mr Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister. "Now the American position is much more positive and more flexible than before," a leading Iraqi negotiator in the talks was quoted as saying.

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Gus: rubber bands are elastic but still ties whatever (you) up...

More flexibility... like a spider web... to be caught in the dead of the night, no matter how flexible the thin strands are...

add an extra couple of links to the chains... so you can bend over better... 

Now, the US and its NATO allies are edging ever closer to open warfare against Pakistan at a time when they are unable to defeat Taliban fighters inside Afghanistan due to lack of combat troops.  

The outgoing commander of US and NATO forces in Afghanistan, US Gen. Dan McNeill, recently admitted he would need 400,000 soldiers to pacify that nation. The US and NATO have a combined force of around 60,000 troops in Afghanistan.  

"We just need to occupy Pakistan’s tribal territory," insists the Pentagon, "to stop its Pashtun tribes from supporting and sheltering Taliban, and shut down Taliban bases there." US commanders in Vietnam used the same faulty reasoning to justify their counterproductive expansion of the Indochina War into Cambodia. 

A US-led invasion of FATA, as urged by Secretary Gates, will simply push pro-Taliban Pashtun militants further into Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier province, drawing overextended western troops ever deeper into Pakistan and making their supply lines all the more vulnerable. Already overextended western forces will be stretched even thinner and clashes with Pakistan’s tough regular army may become inevitable.  

Widening the Afghan War into Pakistan is military stupidity on a grand scale and political madness. It could very well end up a bigger disaster than Iraq. But Washington and its obedient allies seem hell-bent on charging into a wider regional war that no number of heavy bombers will win.  

The March To Folly On The Afghan Border

The US Senate has approved a bill to remove former South African president Nelson Mandela and his African National Congress from the US terror watch list, lawmakers said.

"Today the United States moved closer at last to removing the great shame of dishonouring this great leader by including him on our Government's terror watch list," said Senator John Kerry.

The bill now heads to the White House, where it is expected to be signed by President George W Bush in time for the anti-apartheid leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner's 90th birthday on July 18.

"Nelson Mandela does not belong on a terrorist watch list - period," said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse. "The Senate's vote today will help fix a problem that has caused injustice to South African leaders and embarrassment to the United States."

The soaring Australian dollar is good news for those taking an overseas holiday - but it's cost farmers almost $2 billion in lost exports over the past year.

Westpac's Commodity Index for June showed prices for agricultural exports fell over the past month, with wheat and sugar hardest hit.

The strong dollar has copped the blame.

The report said overseas buyers were turned off by the currency, which is currently trading at over 96 US cents - a 24-year high.

For example, Japanese consumers are thinking twice about buying Australian beef due to high prices.

"As one of Australia's most trade-exposed sectors, agriculture has been feeling the pinch from the ever-strengthening Australian dollar," said the report, co-commissioned by the National Farmers' Federation.

It estimated the strong dollar had cost farmers $1.9 billion since May 2007.

Global wheat prices dropped 13 per cent in May as northern hemisphere harvests shaped up well.

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The Food Chain
Hoarding Nations Drive Food Costs Ever Higher
By KEITH BRADSHER and ANDREW MARTIN

BANGKOK — At least 29 countries have sharply curbed food exports in recent months, to ensure that their own people have enough to eat, at affordable prices.

When it comes to rice, India, Vietnam, China and 11 other countries have limited or banned exports. Fifteen countries, including Pakistan and Bolivia, have capped or halted wheat exports. More than a dozen have limited corn exports. Kazakhstan has restricted exports of sunflower seeds.

The restrictions are making it harder for impoverished importing countries to afford the food they need. The export limits are forcing some of the most vulnerable people, those who rely on relief agencies, to go hungry.

“It’s obvious that these export restrictions fuel the fire of price increases,” said Pascal Lamy, the director general of the World Trade Organization.

And by increasing perceptions of shortages, the restrictions have led to hoarding around the world, by farmers, traders and consumers.

“People are in a panic, so they are buying more and more — at least, those who have money are buying,” said Conching Vasquez, a 56-year-old rice vendor who sat one recent morning among piles of rice at her large stall in Los Baños, in the Philippines, the world’s largest rice importer. Her customers buy 8,000 pounds of rice a day, up from 5,500 pounds a year ago.

The new restrictions are just an acute symptom of a chronic condition. Since 1980, even as trade in services and in manufactured goods has tripled, adjusting for inflation, trade in food has barely increased. Instead, for decades, food has been a convoluted tangle of restrictive rules, in the form of tariffs, quotas and subsidies.

Now, with Australia’s farm sector crippled by drought and Argentina suffering a series of strikes and other disruptions, the world is increasingly dependent on a handful of countries like Thailand, Brazil, Canada and the United States that are still exporting large quantities of food.

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Gus: do I see contradictions in the analysis of the whatever?