Hi Readers:
The history of presidential actions can often be encapsulated in their libraries. Because much of the material included is chosen with an eye on the president's importance in the eyes of future historians, presidents (if living) and their staffs place in the archives the most positive material, the most laudatory symbols that can be obtained from their years in office.
Here then is a compilation of those important historical moments and achievements of the George W. Bush presidency.
The George W. Bush Presidential Library is now in the planning stages.
The Library will include:
The Hurricane Katrina Room, which is still under construction.
The Alberto Gonzales Room, where you won't be able to remember anything.
The Texas Air National Guard Room, where you don't even have to show up.
The Walter Reed Hospital Room, where they don't let you in.
The Guantanamo Bay Room, where they don't let you out.
The Weapons of Mass Destruction Room, which no one has been able to find.
The National Debt room which is huge and has no ceiling.
The 'Tax Cut' Room with entry only to the wealthy.
The 'Economy Room' which is in the toilet.
The Iraq War Room. After you complete your first tour, they make you to go back for a second, third, fourth, and sometimes fifth tour.
The Dick Cheney Room, in the famous undisclosed location,complete with shotgun gallery.
The Environmental Conservation Room, still empty.
The Supreme Court's Gift Shop, where you can buy an election.
The Airport Men's Room, where you can meet some of your favorite Republican Senators.
The 'Decider Room' complete with dart board, magic 8-ball, Ouija board, dice, coins, and straws.
The museum will also have an electron microscope to help you locate the President's accomplishments.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
WHY, HOW AND WHEN TO BOMB IRAN?
July 14, 2008
Iran is working assiduously to develop atomic weaponry. However long it may take that country to accomplish its goal, the consensus among political and military entities in the Western world, including Israel, seems to be to prevent that from ever becoming a reality. Why?
The value systems of Iran and the rest of the Muslim world seem to be that human life has little to no value in comparison with the concept of martyrdom by death through terror and warfare against the West. The drive, supported by enormous oil wealth, to gain parity in military capability with the non-Muslim world by developing the awesome destructive power of atom bombs with potential martyrdom for millions of their own people and simple death for those who believe that the four-score plus years that infidels find attractive , seems to have been moving without let-up for several years. The melding of religion, patriotism, hubris, and enormous amounts of money, has placed Iran on its own mental pedestal at a height it deems equivalent to the height of more civilized nations that do not possess oil for sale. This is a parody turned serious. A play that has moved from the make-believe world of political theater to the real world of warfare. The machismo nature of the threats and blustering have alerted the pillars of Western Civilization to imminent danger from this uncontrollable rapidly growing monster. Iran wants to convince other nations of its power. It has succeeded.
Bunker-busters and other heavy bombing tactics may not destroy Iran's atomic facilities. For sure they will accomplish a slowing down of the processes and will expose the serious intent of the Western nations to inhibit what they consider irresponsible renegade behavior by Iran. In all likelihood, Israel will conduct the actual attacks after providing peremptory life-saving warnings to the Iranian workers in the areas of manufacture. Fueling and re-fueling of the aircraft will be performed as close to the targets as international cooperation can achieve. Anti-missile battalions will stand at the ready to intercept any retaliatory attempts by Iran to inflict harm on Israel. Also, Arab governments will receive warnings and admonitions from Israel's friends that an attack on Israel will be considered an attack on those powers, with dire consequences for the attacker.
The timing of the attacks, if they take place, appears obvious. They will occur after the United States elections and before the change in government that will take place in January. Such timing will protect the lame-duck government of George W. Bush and the incoming government under the newly-elected president from "pre-connivance" with the Israeli plans.
Tracking the growth of this very real menace has led cooperating nations to prepare plans for delaying, if not destroying, the nuclear capability of Iran. The warnings have been clear, even to laymen. Israel's earlier bombing of the Iraq's Ossiric atom plant, recent bombing of atomic material in Syria, the military exercises conducted in the Mediterranean by Israel's sea and air forces, the movements of American warships in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, the recent agreement to set up a cruise-missile shield in Czechoslovakia, and the political machinations of the Group of Five and the powers in the United Nations in demanding Iran's acquiescence to forgo the use of their centrifuges to create weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, are all indications of the seriousness of the intent so necessary to the use of military force.
Iran will be prepared for such attacks miltarily and politically. To what extent that preparation will be valuable depends on realistic and meaningful assessments of the intentions of the attacking nations, their military investments, and whether Israel can be isolated from its supporting group of nations.
The Iranian military responses, from all the available information, will not be meaningful in this action's context. For anyone not familiar with Israel's military prowess or for those who believe the recent Lebanese fiasco was indicative of Israel's capabilities, limiting the appreciation of Israel's armed might would be an error. After the air attacks, Israel will be in an alert defensive posture. Despite the potential heavy loss of civilian lives from rocket and missile attacks from neighboring Arab states, that posture will give the Israeli army a large measure of superiority over attacking armies.
The most intelligent avenue that Iran can pursue both before and after an attack by Israel, is to allow United Nations inspectors in to their atomic facilities to assure the world that Iran will not become a military atomic power. However, Iran has not exhibited rational evaluation of their national interests in the past - note the history of the Iran Iraq war - and, until some weighty counter balance of secular, humanistic, and economic powers to oppose the ascendent religious patriotic forces presently in control of Iranian thinking enters their calculations, it does not appear likely that a rational outcome from even highly successful military action can be expected.
Iran is working assiduously to develop atomic weaponry. However long it may take that country to accomplish its goal, the consensus among political and military entities in the Western world, including Israel, seems to be to prevent that from ever becoming a reality. Why?
The value systems of Iran and the rest of the Muslim world seem to be that human life has little to no value in comparison with the concept of martyrdom by death through terror and warfare against the West. The drive, supported by enormous oil wealth, to gain parity in military capability with the non-Muslim world by developing the awesome destructive power of atom bombs with potential martyrdom for millions of their own people and simple death for those who believe that the four-score plus years that infidels find attractive , seems to have been moving without let-up for several years. The melding of religion, patriotism, hubris, and enormous amounts of money, has placed Iran on its own mental pedestal at a height it deems equivalent to the height of more civilized nations that do not possess oil for sale. This is a parody turned serious. A play that has moved from the make-believe world of political theater to the real world of warfare. The machismo nature of the threats and blustering have alerted the pillars of Western Civilization to imminent danger from this uncontrollable rapidly growing monster. Iran wants to convince other nations of its power. It has succeeded.
Bunker-busters and other heavy bombing tactics may not destroy Iran's atomic facilities. For sure they will accomplish a slowing down of the processes and will expose the serious intent of the Western nations to inhibit what they consider irresponsible renegade behavior by Iran. In all likelihood, Israel will conduct the actual attacks after providing peremptory life-saving warnings to the Iranian workers in the areas of manufacture. Fueling and re-fueling of the aircraft will be performed as close to the targets as international cooperation can achieve. Anti-missile battalions will stand at the ready to intercept any retaliatory attempts by Iran to inflict harm on Israel. Also, Arab governments will receive warnings and admonitions from Israel's friends that an attack on Israel will be considered an attack on those powers, with dire consequences for the attacker.
The timing of the attacks, if they take place, appears obvious. They will occur after the United States elections and before the change in government that will take place in January. Such timing will protect the lame-duck government of George W. Bush and the incoming government under the newly-elected president from "pre-connivance" with the Israeli plans.
Tracking the growth of this very real menace has led cooperating nations to prepare plans for delaying, if not destroying, the nuclear capability of Iran. The warnings have been clear, even to laymen. Israel's earlier bombing of the Iraq's Ossiric atom plant, recent bombing of atomic material in Syria, the military exercises conducted in the Mediterranean by Israel's sea and air forces, the movements of American warships in the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, the recent agreement to set up a cruise-missile shield in Czechoslovakia, and the political machinations of the Group of Five and the powers in the United Nations in demanding Iran's acquiescence to forgo the use of their centrifuges to create weapons-grade uranium or plutonium, are all indications of the seriousness of the intent so necessary to the use of military force.
Iran will be prepared for such attacks miltarily and politically. To what extent that preparation will be valuable depends on realistic and meaningful assessments of the intentions of the attacking nations, their military investments, and whether Israel can be isolated from its supporting group of nations.
The Iranian military responses, from all the available information, will not be meaningful in this action's context. For anyone not familiar with Israel's military prowess or for those who believe the recent Lebanese fiasco was indicative of Israel's capabilities, limiting the appreciation of Israel's armed might would be an error. After the air attacks, Israel will be in an alert defensive posture. Despite the potential heavy loss of civilian lives from rocket and missile attacks from neighboring Arab states, that posture will give the Israeli army a large measure of superiority over attacking armies.
The most intelligent avenue that Iran can pursue both before and after an attack by Israel, is to allow United Nations inspectors in to their atomic facilities to assure the world that Iran will not become a military atomic power. However, Iran has not exhibited rational evaluation of their national interests in the past - note the history of the Iran Iraq war - and, until some weighty counter balance of secular, humanistic, and economic powers to oppose the ascendent religious patriotic forces presently in control of Iranian thinking enters their calculations, it does not appear likely that a rational outcome from even highly successful military action can be expected.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Happy birthday, Israel, and Shalom
Something good from the English Press at last. Well done, Daily Express!
THIS, DESPITE SO MANY OF THEIR GREATEST INTELLECTS DYING IN THE GASCHAMBERS
Happy birthday, Israel, and Shalom
By Andrew Roberts, The Daily Express, London
The State of Israel has packed more history into her sixty years on the Planet - which she celebrates this week - than many other nations have in six hundred. There are many surprising things about this tiny, feisty, brave nation the size of Wales, but the most astonishing is that she has lived to see this birthday at all. The very day after the new state was established, she was invaded by the armies of no fewer than five Arab countries, and she has been struggling for her right to life ever since.
From Morocco to Afghanistan, from the Caspian Sea to Aden, the 5.25 Million square miles of territory belonging to members of the Arab League is home to over 330 million people, whereas Israel covers only eight thousand square miles, and is home to seven million citizens, one-fifth of whom are Arabs. The Jews of the Holy Land are thus surrounded by hostile states 650 times their size in territory and sixty times their population, yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived.
When during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightlyAwarded the George Medal for bravery: today Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long.
Jerusalem is the site of the Temple of Solomon and Herod. The stones of a palace erected b y King David himself are even now being unearthed just outside the walls of Jerusalem. Everything that makes a nation-state legitimate - bloodshed, soil tilled, two millennia of continuous residence, international agreements - argues for Israel's right to exist, yet that is still denied by the Arab League. For many of their governments, which are rich enough to have solved the Palestinian refugee problem decades ago, it is useful to have Israel as a scapegoat to divert attention from the tyranny, failure and corruption of their own regimes.The tragic truth is that it suits Arab states very well to have the Palestinians endure permanent refugee status, and whenever Israel puts forward workable solutions they have been stymied by those whose interests put the destruction of Israel before the genuine well-being of the Palestinians. Both King Abdullah I of Jordan and Anwar Sadat of Egypt were assassinated when they attempted to come to some kind of sane accommodation with a country that most sane people now accept is not going away.
The process of creating a Jewish homeland in an area where other peoples were already living - though far fewer of them than anti-Israel propagandists claim - was always going to be a complicated and delicate business, and one for which Britain as the Mandated power had a profound responsibility, and about which since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 she had made solemn promises. Yet instead of keeping a large number of troops on the ground throughout the birth pangs of the State of Israel, Britain hurriedly withdrew all her forces virtually overnight on 14 May 1948, thus facilitating the Arab invasions that very day, one of which was actually commanded by a former British Army officer, John Glubb (knownAs Glubb Pasha). Less than four years earlier, Britain had landed division after victorious division in Normandy, now 'Partition and Flee' was the Attlee government's ignominious policy, whose consequences are still plaguing the world half a century later in Kashmir and the Middle East.
'We owe to the Jews,' wrote Winston Churchill in 1920, 'a system of Ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all wisdom and learning put together.'
The Jewish contribution to finance, science, the arts, academia, commerce and industry, literature, philanthropy and politics has been astonishing relative to their tiny numbers. Although they make up less than half of one per-cent of the world's population, between 1901 and1950 Jews won 14% of all the Nobel Prizes awarded for Literature and Science, and between 1951 and 2000 Jews won 32% of the Nobel Prizes for Medicine, 32% for Physics, 39% for Economics and 29% for Science. This, despite so many of their greatest intellects dying in the gas chambers. Civilization owes Judaism a debt it can never repay, and support for the right of a Jewish homeland to exist is the bare minimum we can provide. Yet we tend to treat Israel like a leper on the international scene, merely for defending herself, and threatening her with academic boycotts if she builds a separation wall that has so far reduced suicide bombings by 95% over three years.
It is a disgrace that no senior member of the Royal Family has ever visited Israel, as though the country is still in quarantine after sixty years. After the Holocaust, the Jewish people recognised that they had to have their own state, a homeland where they could forever be safe from a repetition of such horrors. Putting their trust in Western Civilisation was never again going to be enough. Since then, Israel has had to fight no fewer than five major wars for her very existence. She has been on the front line in the War against Terror and has been fighting the West's battles for it, decades before 9/11 or 7/7 ever happened.
Radical Islam is never going to accept the concept of an Israeli State, so the struggle is likely to continue for another sixty years, but the Jews know that that is less dangerous than entrusting their security to anyone else.
Very often in Britain, especially when faced with the overwhelmingly anti-Israeli bias that is endemic in our liberal media and the BBC, we fail to ask ourselves what we would have done, placed in their position? The population of the United Kingdom of 63 million is nine times that of Israel. In July 2006, to take one example at random, Hizbullah crossed the border of Lebanon into Israel and killed eight patrolmen and kidnapped two others, and that summer fired four thousand Katyusha rockets into Israel which killed a further forty-three civilians. Now, if we multiply those numbers by nine to get the British equivalent, just imagine what WE would do if a terrorist organization based as close as Calais were to fire thirty-six thousand rockets into Sussex and Kent, killing 387 British civilians, after killing seventy-two British servicemen in an ambush and capturing eighteen. There is absolutely no lengths to which our Government would not go to protect British subjects under those circumstances, and quite right too. Why should Israel be expected to behave any differently?
Last month I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, researching a book about the Second World War. Walking along a line of huts and the railway siding where their forebears had been worked and starved and beaten and gassed to death, were a group of Jewish schoolchildren, one of whom was carrying over his shoulder the Israeli flag, a blue star of David on white background. It was a profoundly moving sight, for it was the sovereign independence represented by that flag which guarantees that the obscenity of genocide - which killed six million people in Auschwitz and camps like it - will never again befall the Jewish people.
Happy birthday, Israel and Shalom.
THIS, DESPITE SO MANY OF THEIR GREATEST INTELLECTS DYING IN THE GASCHAMBERS
Happy birthday, Israel, and Shalom
By Andrew Roberts, The Daily Express, London
The State of Israel has packed more history into her sixty years on the Planet - which she celebrates this week - than many other nations have in six hundred. There are many surprising things about this tiny, feisty, brave nation the size of Wales, but the most astonishing is that she has lived to see this birthday at all. The very day after the new state was established, she was invaded by the armies of no fewer than five Arab countries, and she has been struggling for her right to life ever since.
From Morocco to Afghanistan, from the Caspian Sea to Aden, the 5.25 Million square miles of territory belonging to members of the Arab League is home to over 330 million people, whereas Israel covers only eight thousand square miles, and is home to seven million citizens, one-fifth of whom are Arabs. The Jews of the Holy Land are thus surrounded by hostile states 650 times their size in territory and sixty times their population, yet their last, best hope of ending two millennia of international persecution - the State of Israel - has somehow survived.
When during the Second World War, the island of Malta came through three terrible years of bombardment and destruction, it was rightlyAwarded the George Medal for bravery: today Israel should be awarded a similar decoration for defending democracy, tolerance and Western values against a murderous onslaught that has lasted twenty times as long.
Jerusalem is the site of the Temple of Solomon and Herod. The stones of a palace erected b y King David himself are even now being unearthed just outside the walls of Jerusalem. Everything that makes a nation-state legitimate - bloodshed, soil tilled, two millennia of continuous residence, international agreements - argues for Israel's right to exist, yet that is still denied by the Arab League. For many of their governments, which are rich enough to have solved the Palestinian refugee problem decades ago, it is useful to have Israel as a scapegoat to divert attention from the tyranny, failure and corruption of their own regimes.The tragic truth is that it suits Arab states very well to have the Palestinians endure permanent refugee status, and whenever Israel puts forward workable solutions they have been stymied by those whose interests put the destruction of Israel before the genuine well-being of the Palestinians. Both King Abdullah I of Jordan and Anwar Sadat of Egypt were assassinated when they attempted to come to some kind of sane accommodation with a country that most sane people now accept is not going away.
The process of creating a Jewish homeland in an area where other peoples were already living - though far fewer of them than anti-Israel propagandists claim - was always going to be a complicated and delicate business, and one for which Britain as the Mandated power had a profound responsibility, and about which since the Balfour Declaration of 1917 she had made solemn promises. Yet instead of keeping a large number of troops on the ground throughout the birth pangs of the State of Israel, Britain hurriedly withdrew all her forces virtually overnight on 14 May 1948, thus facilitating the Arab invasions that very day, one of which was actually commanded by a former British Army officer, John Glubb (knownAs Glubb Pasha). Less than four years earlier, Britain had landed division after victorious division in Normandy, now 'Partition and Flee' was the Attlee government's ignominious policy, whose consequences are still plaguing the world half a century later in Kashmir and the Middle East.
'We owe to the Jews,' wrote Winston Churchill in 1920, 'a system of Ethics which, even if it were entirely separated from the supernatural, would be incomparably the most precious possession of mankind, worth in fact the fruits of all wisdom and learning put together.'
The Jewish contribution to finance, science, the arts, academia, commerce and industry, literature, philanthropy and politics has been astonishing relative to their tiny numbers. Although they make up less than half of one per-cent of the world's population, between 1901 and1950 Jews won 14% of all the Nobel Prizes awarded for Literature and Science, and between 1951 and 2000 Jews won 32% of the Nobel Prizes for Medicine, 32% for Physics, 39% for Economics and 29% for Science. This, despite so many of their greatest intellects dying in the gas chambers. Civilization owes Judaism a debt it can never repay, and support for the right of a Jewish homeland to exist is the bare minimum we can provide. Yet we tend to treat Israel like a leper on the international scene, merely for defending herself, and threatening her with academic boycotts if she builds a separation wall that has so far reduced suicide bombings by 95% over three years.
It is a disgrace that no senior member of the Royal Family has ever visited Israel, as though the country is still in quarantine after sixty years. After the Holocaust, the Jewish people recognised that they had to have their own state, a homeland where they could forever be safe from a repetition of such horrors. Putting their trust in Western Civilisation was never again going to be enough. Since then, Israel has had to fight no fewer than five major wars for her very existence. She has been on the front line in the War against Terror and has been fighting the West's battles for it, decades before 9/11 or 7/7 ever happened.
Radical Islam is never going to accept the concept of an Israeli State, so the struggle is likely to continue for another sixty years, but the Jews know that that is less dangerous than entrusting their security to anyone else.
Very often in Britain, especially when faced with the overwhelmingly anti-Israeli bias that is endemic in our liberal media and the BBC, we fail to ask ourselves what we would have done, placed in their position? The population of the United Kingdom of 63 million is nine times that of Israel. In July 2006, to take one example at random, Hizbullah crossed the border of Lebanon into Israel and killed eight patrolmen and kidnapped two others, and that summer fired four thousand Katyusha rockets into Israel which killed a further forty-three civilians. Now, if we multiply those numbers by nine to get the British equivalent, just imagine what WE would do if a terrorist organization based as close as Calais were to fire thirty-six thousand rockets into Sussex and Kent, killing 387 British civilians, after killing seventy-two British servicemen in an ambush and capturing eighteen. There is absolutely no lengths to which our Government would not go to protect British subjects under those circumstances, and quite right too. Why should Israel be expected to behave any differently?
Last month I visited Auschwitz-Birkenau, researching a book about the Second World War. Walking along a line of huts and the railway siding where their forebears had been worked and starved and beaten and gassed to death, were a group of Jewish schoolchildren, one of whom was carrying over his shoulder the Israeli flag, a blue star of David on white background. It was a profoundly moving sight, for it was the sovereign independence represented by that flag which guarantees that the obscenity of genocide - which killed six million people in Auschwitz and camps like it - will never again befall the Jewish people.
Happy birthday, Israel and Shalom.
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