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It doesn’t matter
what Americans think, Cheney says. Election and public sentiment
will not change war policy. The administration is going "full
speed ahead" with its policy. "We've
got the basic strategy right," Cheney told George
Stephanopoulos in an interview Sunday on ABC "This Week." And by the way, he probably would not testify if
subpoenaed by Congress. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=2627805
and http://thinkprogress.org/2006/11/05/cheney-testify/ This editorial by ultra conservative Pat
Buchanon’s “Old Right” The American Conservative magazine has kept the website
swamped, so the attribute below is from the news service, TruthOut.com, where
it is posted. GOP
Must Go Next week Americans
will vote for candidates who have spent much of their campaigns addressing
state and local issues. But no future historian will linger over the ideas put
forth for improving schools or directing funds to highway projects. The meaning of this
election will be interpreted in one of two ways: the American people endorsed the Bush
presidency or they did what they could to repudiate it. Such an interpretation
will be simplistic, even unfairly so. Nevertheless, the fact that will matter
is the raw number of Republicans and Democrats elected to the House and Senate. It should surprise few
readers that we think a vote that is seen-in America and the world at large-as
a decisive "No" vote on the Bush presidency is the best outcome. We
need not dwell on George W. Bush's failed effort to jam a poorly disguised
amnesty for illegal aliens through Congress or the assaults on the Constitution
carried out under the pretext of fighting terrorism or his administration's
endorsement of torture. Faced
on Sept. 11, 2001 with a great challenge, President Bush made little effort to
understand who had attacked us and why-thus ignoring the prerequisite for
crafting an effective response. He seemingly did not want to find out, and he had staffed
his national-security team with people who either did not want to know or were
committed to a prefabricated answer. As a consequence, he
rushed America into a war against Iraq, a war we are now losing and cannot win, one
that has done far more to strengthen Islamist terrorists than anything they
could possibly have done for themselves. Bush's decision to seize Iraq will almost surely leave
behind a broken state divided into warring ethnic enclaves, with hundreds of
thousands killed and maimed and thousands more thirsting for revenge against
the country that crossed the ocean to attack them. The invasion failed at every level: if securing Israel was part of the
administration's calculation-as the record suggests it was for several of his
top aides-the result is also clear: the strengthening of Iran's hand in the
Persian Gulf, with a reach up to Israel's northern border, and the elimination
of the most powerful Arab state that might stem Iranian regional hegemony. The war will continue
as long as Bush is in office, for no other reason than the feckless president
can't face the embarrassment of admitting defeat. The chain of events is not complete: Bush, having learned little from his mistakes, may yet seek to
embroil America in new wars against Iran and Syria. Meanwhile, America's
image in the world, its
capacity to persuade others that its interests are common interests, is lower than it has been in memory.
All over the world people look at Bush and yearn for this country-which once
symbolized hope and justice-to be humbled. The professionals in the Bush
administration (and there are some) realize the damage his presidency has done
to American prestige and diplomacy. But there is not much they can do. There may be little
Americans can do to atone for this presidency, which will stain our country's
reputation for a long time. But the process of recovering our good name must
begin somewhere, and the logical place is in the voting booth this Nov. 7. If we are fortunate, we can produce a
result that is seen-in Washington, in Peoria, and in world capitals from Prague
to Kuala Lumpur-as a repudiation of George W. Bush and the war of aggression he launched against Iraq. We have no illusions
that a Democratic majority would be able to reverse Bush's policies, even if
they had a plan to. We are aware that on a host of issues the Democrats are
further from TAC's positions than the Republicans are. The House members who
blocked the Bush amnesty initiative are overwhelmingly Republican. But
immigration has not played out in an entirely partisan manner this electoral
season: in many races the Democrat has been more conservative than the
open-borders, Big Business Republican. A Democratic House and Senate is, in our
view, a risk immigration reformers should be willing to take. We can't conceive
of a newly elected Democrat in a swing district who would immediately alienate
his constituency by voting for amnesty. We simply don't believe a Democratic
majority would give the Republicans such an easy route to return to power.
Indeed, we anticipate that Democratic office holders will follow the polls on
immigration just as Republicans have, and all the popular momentum is towards
greater border enforcement. On Nov. 7, the world
will be watching as we go to the polls, seeking to ascertain whether the American people have the
wisdom to try to correct a disastrous course. Posterity will note too if their collective
decision is one that captured the attention of historians-that of a people
voting, again and again, to endorse a leader taking a country in a catastrophic
direction. The choice is in our hands. http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/110606D.shtml |
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