When Bush's televised speech on September 13 2007, his sixth on the Iraq war, is seen in a historical perspective dating back to his first such address on the eve of the invasion on March 19 2003, it emerges that he has been forced to retreat steadily.

The aim of the US-led coalition - a grandiose term for a force of American and British troops with token contributions from three other nations - was to create a free, united, democratic Iraq which would engender a democratic wave across the Middle East, declared Bush.

When the insurgency got going and his aim proved patently unachievable, Bush narrowed his rhetoric to mere "victory in Iraq" in his TV address in April 2004.

Speaking before television cameras on the eve of Iraq's parliamentary poll under the new constitution in December 2005, he offered the slogan: "We'll stand down as the Iraqis stand up."   more »

Cowboy Contract Killers

The Iraqi government on Monday said it had revoked the operating license of Blackwater USA, following a shootout involving the private security company in downtown Baghdad Sunday that left at least nine people dead and 14 wounded, the majority civilians.

Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf said that the decision meant that Blackwater “cannot work in Iraq any longer, it will be illegal for them to work here.” Khalaf added, “Security contracts do not allow them to shoot people randomly.”

The bloody incident on Sunday focuses attention on the mercenary activities of the estimated 25,000-30,000 private contractors from some 60 companies operating in Iraq at the service of the US occupation, forming an integral part of the illegal war and occupation.

With revenues of about $100 billion a year, these hired thugs commandeer helicopters and patrol in bulletproof vehicles; many are armed with automatic weapons.   more »

America, Giuliani says, must remain "on offense" to win the "terrorists' global war on us."

What, like George W. Bush? No, no, no, no, no. In common with nearly all the Republican candidates, Giuliani's hero of choice is Ronald Reagan. But he also makes a point of likening himself to Winston Churchill.

That worries me. It shows that Giuliani buys the idea that since 9/11, the U.S. has been fighting World War III.

You know how this routine goes. Al Qaeda is made up of Islamo-fascists; 9/11 was Pearl Harbor; Saddam Hussein was the Arab Hitler; the fall of Baghdad would be like the liberation of Paris.

And so on. Now it's Giuliani's turn. "We should try to accomplish [in Iraq] what we accomplished in Japan or in Germany," he says. What, like bombing the place flat?   more »

So the US media machine would see a 1,000-point or more stock-market drop, and they'd start looking to point fingers, to assign blame. This would be a particularly grim and vigorous modern public inquisition.

Unlike a mine collapsing or New Orleans flooding, here the victims would be upper-middle-class and white, so the TV news organizations would hang with this story for a long time to bring in the big numbers for their advertisers that covet this audience.

One of the central facets of contemporaneous American public life is that news expands to fill the time allotted to it, not the other way around.

There'd be stories spotlighting clean-and-proper-looking white American suburban couples, maybe with a picture of a son now serving in Iraq on the mantel to demonstrate their manifest virtue, looking worriedly over their declining portfolios as they open their brokerage statements.   more »

Who, according to you, is the main beneficiary of the United States-led ‘war on terror’?

Tariq Ali (TA): Undoubtedly Iran. But then the Americans could not have occupied Afghanistan and Iraq and without Iran’s support.

This is what no one likes talking about. Had the Iranians said, if you take Iraq we will fight you, the occupation probably would not have taken place.

But the Iranians, who regarded the Taliban and Saddam Hussein as enemies, kept silent.

The Americans thought, because the Iranians supported them before they went in, things would be fine.

But the Iranians were opportunists. They had their own agenda and defended their own state interests -- just like the U.S. defends its state interests. These state interests are now clashing and so the U.S. is threatening Iran.   more »