Victory in name only

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Victory in name only
Empty talk of turning points has failed to stop Bush's election triumph being reduced to ashes
Sidney Blumenthal
Friday December 30, 2005

In his second inaugural address, George Bush four times summoned the image of fire - "a day of fire", "we have lit a fire", "fire in the minds of men", and "untamed fire". Over the course of the first year of his second term, all four of the ancient Greek elements have wreaked havoc: the fire of war, the air and water of Hurricane Katrina, the earth ravaged by whirlwinds raging from Iraq to Florida, from Louisiana to Washington. Through obsession or obliviousness, rigidity or laziness, Bush got himself singed, tossed about, engulfed, and nearly buried.
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· Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is the author of The Clinton Wars
© The Guardian

Impact of Bush's policy
By Manal Alafrangi
12/29/2005

In his 2005 inaugural speech, US President George W. Bush made a case for his foreign policy on spreading freedom.

Bush said: "And one day this [American-like] untamed fire of freedom will reach the darkest corners of our world."

The gripping point here is not the use of "freedom" or "darkest corners" but rather, the use of the word "our" when referring to this world.

In addressing Americans, did he mean the American version of the world, or world for the entire humanity?

Looking at the conduct of the US, it seems Bush meant his own version. And the Middle East is apparently the arena for this battle.

Events in the Middle East are unfolding at a rapid pace. This year started off with an agenda encompassing Iraq, Palestine and Iran.

A few months into 2005, Bush was quick to take advantage of the situation arising out of the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Here is a look at some of the places where US foreign policy was crucial in 2005:

[B]Iraq/B]
The "war on terror" killed thousands of civilians but more importantly, it failed in all its ostensible goals. Ideally, Bush wanted to introduce democracy to Iraq.
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© Gulf News

Ghost Ship
(Artist: Nicolas Vial / Le Monde, Paris)

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She has revived the art of talking, but can Rice make a real change?

The secretary of state's style is giving rise to hopes of a new era of US foreign policy
Julian Borger in Washington
Friday December 30, 2005

These are better days to be an American diplomat. After four years of humiliation and powerlessness under Colin Powell, the US state department is enjoying a renaissance under new leadership.
Condoleezza Rice may not have the stratospheric poll ratings of her predecessor, but she is still the most popular member of the Bush administration. And unlike Mr Powell, Ms Rice has the ear and the trust of the president. She wields real power. "The time for diplomacy is now," she promised when she took the job a year ago, and she has more or less kept her word.
In Mr Powell's day, the state department resembled a government in exile, filled with frustrated Republican moderates whose advice had been ignored and who exacted retribution by leaking against their primary enemies, the White House and the Pentagon.
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© The Guardian



Bush's Spin Doctor
Condoleezza Rice's failed European mission to reignite faith in U.S. rule of law
by Nat Hentoff
December 19th, 2005
© Village Voice

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Bush Team Rethinks Its Plan for Political Recovery
New Approach Could Save Second Term
By Peter Baker and Jim VandeHei
Thursday, December 29, 2005

President Bush shifted his rhetoric on Iraq in recent weeks after an intense debate among advisers about how to pull out of his political free fall, with senior adviser Karl Rove urging a campaign-style attack on critics while younger aides pushed for more candor about setbacks in the war, according to Republican strategists.
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© The Washington Post


Bush's holiday reading hints at thoughts of life after White House
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
29 December 2005

Is President George Bush already thinking of life after the White House? While he still has a full three years of his term left, his spokesman has revealed his holiday reading list contains a biography of Theodore Roosevelt's life after leaving office.
"The President is a history buff," a White House spokesman, Trent Duffy, said at Mr Bush's ranch in Crawford, Texas, where he is spending the holidays. "So he picked it up and he's reading it. He is an avid reader." Mr Duffy added: "The President knows full well that he's got a lot of time left in this second term, and he's going to accomplish big things, as he has talked about repeatedly."
Mr Bush also packed Imperial Grunts: The American Military on the Ground. Written by Robert Kaplan, it contains critical commentary on Mr Bush's "war on terror".
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© Independent

History, myth and the shifting sands of Iwo Jima
Photo: The Marine Corps Memorial at Arlington National Cemetery

Review of the year: The Bush Administration
Scandal, incompetence - and dark clouds ahead
By Rupert Cornwell
30 December 2005

The White House, unlike Windsor Castle, was not ravaged by fire last year, nor did it witness any family disaster to match the divorce of Charles and Diana. But just as surely as 1992 was the annus horribilis for Queen Elizabeth II, 2005 gained the same dismal distinction for George W Bush.
For the 43rd American president, it was proof that Murphy's Law operates in politics as in every other walk of life.
There were the unforeseeable "events" of which Harold Macmillan used to warn - in this case Hurricane Katrina, and the faults in the Federal Government, as well as the Bush weakness for cronyism, that it exposed. The President's fatuous encomium to the hopelessly incompetent manager of the Federal Emergency Management Agency - "Brownie, you're doing a heckuva job" - will surely go down as the quote of the year.
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© Independent

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Yoo, John Choon, Deputy Assistant Atty. General (2001-2003), Department of Justice

Yoo Who?
By David Wallace-Wells
Posted Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2005

Bloggers bite into two profiles of legal thinker John C. Yoo, who helped forge the legal framework for the war on terror. They also discuss a gas attack in Russia and the revelation that a Department of Homeland Security horror story was, in fact, a hoax.

Yoo who?: Two major profiles of legal thinker John C. Yoo published this week portray the former deputy assistant attorney general as a major intellectual figure in the war on terror. Within weeks of Sept. 11, Yoo had become "a critical player in the Bush administration's legal response to the terrorist threat, and an influential advocate for the expansive claims of presidential authority that have been a hallmark of that response," the New York Times reported Friday. The Washington Post is more openly critical of Yoo. "Widely considered the intellectual architect of the most dramatic assertion of White House power since the Nixon era, he has seen constitutional scholars skewer his reasoning and students call for his ouster from the University of California at Berkeley," the paper reports.

Conservatives take issue with the very premise of the stories. "I reject completely the claim that the Bush administration has pursued 'the most dramatic assertion of White House power since the Nixon era,' " writes Mark Levin at National Review's clubhouse The Corner. The Clinton administration, he says, regularly utilized domestic surveillance programs and was far more aggressive in barricading the White House against inquiry and investigation than the Bush administration has been.
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© Slate

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giovedì, 29 dicembre 2005

GREAT GAME: RIASSUNTO

Postato da: Fandorin

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giovedì, 29 dicembre 2005

l'IMPERO DEL MALE?

Postato da: Fandorin