Even as America sinks deeper and deeper into a recession, we can also continue to count the incredible cost of this war.  

Former foreign minister Alexander Downer has criticised the United States' strategy in the Iraq war, saying more troops should have been deployed in the early stages of the conflict. 

Mr Downer says getting rid of Saddam Hussein was the right thing to do but the Americans failed to back up their gains with sufficient troop numbers after the initial invasion. 

President Bush used the fifth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq on Wednesday to make the case for persevering in a conflict that will in all likelihood have many more anniversaries. 

Mr Bush, speaking before troops, officers and defense officials at the Pentagon, acknowledged in some of his bluntest language yet that the costs of the war, in lives and money, had been higher than he had anticipated — and longer. 

Obama's speech on race 

Tuesday, March 18 at 8:27 AM 

from the Center for American Progress  

Casting aside any hesitation about an aggressive interest rate cut, investors sent stocks soaring to their highest gains in five years on Tuesday as shares of financial firms surged in the hopes that the Federal Reserve has finally taken hold of the credit crisis. The Dow Jones industrial average gained 420 points. 

Adding to the litany of complaints about one of the nation's primary counter-terrorism safety nets, a Justice Department audit has concluded that the FBI provided the government-wide terrorism watch list with incomplete, inaccurate and outdated information about suspects for almost three years. 

Florida's Democratic Party chairwoman on Monday officially buried the possibility of redoing the state's disputed January presidential primary, saying there was no practical or affordable way to conduct a new election. 

US Vice-President Dick Cheney declared the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq a 'successful endeavour' during a visit to Baghdad, on the same day a woman suicide bomber killed 40 people. 

'If you look back on those five years it has been a difficult, challenging but nonetheless successful endeavour ... and it has been well worth the effort,' Cheney, an architect of the invasion, said after meeting Iraqi leaders. 

America’s days as the world economic hegemon are winding down.  

The sad thing about this mess is that it was completely avoidable.  

from Crikey ….. 

Bear Stearns and the decline of American prestige 

Stephen Mayne writes: 

from Crikey ….. 

President Chickenhawk 

Jeff Sparrow writes: 

United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice & Defence Secretary Robert Gates are due in Moscow today for talks with their Russian counterparts. 

The quite probable next president of the United States continues to demonstrate why we should all be very, very afraid.  

Did you ever lie awake worrying about the prospects of Dubya forgetting how to breathe one night and the world being subjected to the terrifying reality of President Cheney?  

With preparations begun for the first military-commissions trial for detainees at Guantanamo - six "high-level" prisoners who could get the death penalty - the customary attacks on the fairness of the proceedings there are mounting here and abroad.  

Adding to the discord is the refusal of Brig. Gen. Thomas Hartmann, legal adviser for the military commissions, to exclude any evidence against the defendants that has been extracted through waterboarding.