Think a nuclear North Korea or Iran is bad? Just imagine the 9-11 terrorists with nuclear capabilities. A new arms race leads down a very bad road.

In a newly leaked memo, the Bush administration's top nuclear-weapons executive urged the three federal H-bomb labs to explore a full range of new thermonuclear weapons.

National Nuclear Security Administration chief Linton Brooks twice pressed weapons-lab directors last week to "take advantage of this opportunity" raised by repeal last month of a 1993 ban on low-yield nuclear weapons development.

Critics of the administration's new nuclear policies say the Dec. 5 memo suggests a no-holds-barred approach to designing new weapons that is more reminiscent of a Cold War arms race -- without a competitor -- than trying to curb the spread of nuclear weapons. ("Bush presses lab nuke research" in the Oakland Tribune)

From yesterday's Guardian, via Helpful Reader Ghida, "The privatisation of war":

Private corporations have penetrated western warfare so deeply that they are now the second biggest contributor to coalition forces in Iraq after the Pentagon, a Guardian investigation has established.

While the official coalition figures list the British as the second largest contingent with around 9,900 troops, they are narrowly outnumbered by the 10,000 private military contractors now on the ground.

The investigation has also discovered that the proportion of contracted security personnel in the firing line is 10 times greater than during the first Gulf war. In 1991, for every private contractor, there were about 100 servicemen and women; now there are 10.

The private sector is so firmly embedded in combat, occupation and peacekeeping duties that the phenomenon may have reached the point of no return: the US military would struggle to wage war without it.

While reliable figures are difficult to come by and governmental accounting and monitoring of the contracts are notoriously shoddy, the US army estimates that of the $87bn (£50.2bn) earmarked this year for the broader Iraqi campaign, including central Asia and Afghanistan, one third of that, nearly $30bn, will be spent on contracts to private companies.

From yesterday’s AP wire, via the Boston Globe, " Lawmakers call for more Iraqi involvement in their nation's rebuilding":

Two U.S. House members who spent three days and two nights last week in Iraq without the usual military escort said the United States must give Iraqis a greater role in the rebuilding of their nation.

Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., and Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., who traveled through the country mingling with citizens and even attending a local wedding, said Tuesday that Iraqis are a proud people and they need a bigger say in their future.

''If this is their revolution, they have to have a greater part in it,'' said Shays. ''They need to be listened to and no one is listening to them.''

The two lawmakers outlined a series of recommendations Tuesday. They called on the Bush administration to work harder to involve more countries in the rebuilding Iraq, send independent teams of auditors to evaluate the security situation there, increase efforts to buy back weapons hidden throughout the country, and bring in the International Atomic Energy Agency to help search for evidence of nuclear weapons.

Meanwhile, back at the White House, via the Washington Post, " U.S. Bars Certain Countries From Iraq Contracts":

The United States will not allow companies from countries that did not support the war in Iraq to bid on $18.6 billion in prime reconstruction contracts funded by U.S. taxpayers, effectively excluding firms from Russia, Germany, France and Canada from a large portion of the biggest nation rebuilding effort since World War II.

Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz said it was necessary "for the protection of the essential security interests of the United States" to limit the competition. His Dec. 5 policy memo was posted today on the Web site of the Project Management Office, a new Pentagon-run group overseeing the award of U.S.-funded reconstruction contracts.

[. . .]

The memo lists 63 countries whose companies are eligible to compete for 26 prime reconstruction contracts that the Defense Department and other U.S. agencies plan to award by Feb. 3. The list of eligible countries includes Australia and the United Kingdom, large members of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, as well others such as Azerbaijan, Palau, Rwanda and Colombia.

Wolfowitz said in his memo that coalition partners "share in the U.S. vision of a free and stable Iraq. The limitation of sources to prime contractors from these countries should encourage the continued cooperation of coalition members."

From yesterday's San Jose Mercury News, "Fewer polluters punished under Bush, records show":

The Bush administration is catching and punishing far fewer polluters than the two previous administrations, according to a Knight Ridder analysis of 15 years of environmental-enforcement records.

Civil enforcement of pollution laws peaked when the president's father, George H.W. Bush, was in office from 1989-93 and has fallen ever since, but it's plummeted since George W. Bush took office three years ago. That's according to records of 17 different categories of enforcement activity obtained by Knight Ridder through the Freedom of Information Act.

William K. Reilly, the EPA administrator under the first President Bush, said he told his enforcers that "under no circumstances do I want the numbers to drop. It's your job to bring in these cases."

Violation notices against polluters are the most important enforcement tool, experts say, and they've had the biggest drop under the current President Bush. The monthly average of violation notices since January 2001 has dropped 58 percent compared with the Clinton administration's monthly average.

Those pollution citations dropped 12 percent from 2001 to 2002, and another 35 percent from 2002 through the first 10 months of 2003.

Punishing polluters - by fines or referrals for prosecution - has dropped as well, but not as dramatically. Administrative fines since January 2001 are down 28 percent, when adjusted for inflation, from Clinton administration levels. Civil penalties average 6 percent less, when adjusted for inflation. And the number of cases referred to the Justice Department for prosecution is down 5 percent.

Some current EPA enforcement officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation from their bosses, say they're getting the signal to slow down enforcement cases.

"It's very discouraging," said one official. "We're concerned about people's health. We have a job that we're supposed to be doing and we're not doing it. And we should be."

However, administrative orders to stop some polluting activity - a quick technique used for more mundane cases - are up 14 percent under the Bush administration.

"There's definitely less emphasis on enforcement," said Dave Ullrich, who retired this summer after 30 years at the Environmental Protection Agency, including jobs in enforcement and as a deputy regional administrator.

The EPA will brief congressional officials Thursday on its enforcement statistics and will outline new counting methods.

Knight Ridder examined EPA data in 17 categories and subcategories of civil enforcement since January 1989 and compared the records of the past three administrations.

In 13 of those 17 categories, the Bush administration had lower average numbers than the Clinton administration. And in 11 of those categories, the 2003 average was lower than the 2001 average, showing the trend increasing over time.

"It tells you somebody's not minding the enforcement store," said Sylvia Lowrance, a 24-year EPA veteran who was the agency's acting enforcement chief under Bush from January 2001 to July 2002.

Bush administration officials said the EPA is enforcing anti-pollution laws, just in a more effective way.

"The agency has what we refer to as `smart enforcement,'" EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt said in an interview with Knight Ridder. "Our focus is on enforcement that changes behavior in a positive way."

That means working with companies to get them to fix problems instead of being punishment-oriented, Leavitt and his predecessor, Christine Todd Whitman, have said.

Someone should explain 'smart enforcement' to John Ashcroft.

From yesterday's Seattle Times, "Web prank associates Bush with 'failure'":

A search for the phrase "miserable failure" on the search engine Google brings up the biography of President Bush on the official White House Web site, in one of the more prominent search-engine manipulations with political overtones.

The phrase appears nowhere in the bio. But computer users rigged the search-engine results by posting the phrase on Web pages and linking it to the Bush bio, in a technique called Google bombing.

From Paul Krugman's editorial in Friday's New York Times, "Looting the Future":

One thing you have to say about George W. Bush: he's got a great sense of humor. At a recent fund-raiser, according to The Associated Press, he described eliminating weapons of mass destruction from Iraq and ensuring the solvency of Medicare as some of his administration's accomplishments.

Then came the punch line: "I came to this office to solve problems and not pass them on to future presidents and future generations." He must have had them rolling in the aisles.

In the early months of the Bush administration, one often heard that "the grown-ups are back in charge." But if being a grown-up means planning for the future — in fact, if it means anything beyond marital fidelity — then this is the least grown-up administration in American history. It governs like there's no tomorrow.

Nothing in our national experience prepared us for the spectacle of a government launching a war, increasing farm subsidies and establishing an expensive new Medicare entitlement — and not only failing to come up with a plan to pay for all this spending in the face of budget deficits, but cutting taxes at the same time.

From Thursday's Mendocino Beacon, "Bush signs bill that could affect marine life":

Last week, President George Bush signed a defense authorization bill with a provision to allow the U.S. Navy to deploy Low Frequency Sonar (LFS). Funding for the bill was not included in the authorization of funding bill the president also signed last week.

In October, the Natural Resources Defense Council and co-plaintiffs won a two-year long lawsuit that stopped the Navy's use of LFS. Reference was made to the NRDC case in the bill. According to Rep. Mike Thompson's Washington, D.C. press secretary, Leslie Danz, some compromise was made in the bill to balance the use of LFS and its detrimental impact on marine life.

The Low Frequency Sonar system has been proven to cause whales, for example, to lose their echolocation ability and to suffer internal damage such as inner ear damage and bleeding and lung hemorrhage that has led to the mammals' deaths.

The courts agreed in the NRDC suit that science clearly demonstrates "the possibility, indeed probability, or irreparable injury" to marine mammals should the sonar system be deployed widely, and the reckless use of the system would violate a number of U.S. environmental laws.

The reputation of White House spin doctors for obsessively manipulating President George W Bush's image came under the spotlight again yesterday when it emerged that the turkey he appeared to be serving to troops in Baghdad was not for eating.

(AP photo)

The homely photograph of a smiling Mr Bush apparently proffering a platter with a huge, succulent turkey to American soldiers on Thanksgiving has been widely seen as one of the key images of his presidency.

[...]

But yesterday it emerged that the Bush turkey, images of which were published round the world, had been a "model" adorning the end of the buffet line and that soldiers were served their meals from cafeteria steam-trays.

[...]

The incident highlights the obsession of this White House with form over substance, and its reputation as the most image-conscious in American history. (via the Telegraph)

From today's Christian Science Monitor, "Bush idealism at odds with realities of democracy":

In recent foreign-policy speeches, President Bush has switched his emphasis from the particular problems of Iraq and Afghanistan to the broader problem of promoting democracy and freedom worldwide. He seems to think that the growth of democracy is inevitable. It's not.

Take countries holding free elections. Mr. Bush noted an increase from 40 to 120 between 1970 and the end of the century. An impressive gain. But it takes more than elections to make, and more important to sustain, a democratic government. It takes an electoral system that will produce reasonably fair representation for each of the country's important interest groups. It takes an independent judiciary that deserves and receives popular support for unpopular decisions.

One of the unsolved problems in Colombia, for example, is that judges fear for their lives if they try to crack down on drug lords. Of all the countries in Latin America, Colombia used to come as close to democracy as any. No more.

The president took issue with those who argue that some countries aren't "ready" for democracy. Being ready, he said, comes with practice. But if you start from scratch, you need a lot of practice. Tony Blair's government didn't spring full blown from the fields of Runnymede the day Magna Carta was signed.

Bush alluded to, but didn't suggest a solution for, the dilemma of supporting dictators in exchange for their support of US policies in the UN or elsewhere. This is more likely to inhibit democracy than to promote it.

During the cold war, many unsavory governments received US aid in exchange for their anti-Soviet policies. During the current Bush campaign for democracy several nondemocratic governments, such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, are receiving US political support in exchange for support of antiterrorist policies.

Another such dilemma involves human rights. The US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council recently banned an Arab TV network from broadcasting in Iraq because it played a purported audiotape of Saddam Hussein. US Administrator Paul Bremer approved the action despite its clear violation of press freedom. A free press is as essential to democracy as free elections.

The TV censorship is especially ironic, occurring the week after Bush was in London calling demonstrations against him "free speech exercised with enthusiasm." He noted that "they now have that right in Baghdad as well."

Once again, the Bush administration has proposed lessening the regulation of pollutants in the name of "efficiency". This happens so often that it might just be comical - if, that is, the health and environmental consequences weren't so dire.

The Bush administration is proposing that mercury emissions from coal-burning power plants should not be regulated in the same way as some of the most toxic air pollutants, reversing a stance on air pollution control taken by the Clinton administration in 2000.

The change in planned regulations for mercury emissions from power plants is summarized in documents from the Environmental Protection Agency and is the first big policy decision by Michael O. Leavitt, who took over as the agency's administrator last month.

[...]

The administration proposal would make upcoming legally mandated mercury regulation fall under a less stringent section of the Clean Air Act that governs pollutants that cause smog and acid rain, which are not as toxic to humans. The administration says this would be a more efficient and faster way to reduce mercury in the environment. (via the New York Times)

From today's Guardian (UK), "Rumsfeld's unknown unknowns take prize":

The new governor of California came within a hair of victory with his observation "Gay marriage is something that should be between a man and a woman."

A Tory party ex-chairman got close by noting "Having committed political suicide, the Conservative party is now living to regret it."

But Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chris Patten were beaten to the punch yesterday. The award for most baffling remark by a public figure went to an old master of obfuscation, Donald Rumsfeld.

The US defence secretary scooped the Plain English Campaign's premier Foot In Mouth trophy for his 62-word attempt to clarify a point to a defence department meeting: "Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns - the ones we don't know we don't know".

"We think we know what he means", said John Lister, a Plain English campaign spokesman, "but we don't know if we really know".

From "Big Hole in Bush's Growth Plan" in the Christian Science Monitor:

The US federal budget is "out of control," warns Goldman Sachs economist Ed McKelvey. "Any thoughts of relief ... are a pipe dream until political realities adjust." A growing number of economists agree.

Still, the Bush economic team says its plan for dealing with looming budget deficits is simply to promote faster economic growth and exercise spending restraint.

To be sure, economic figures out last week provided encouraging news. The US gross domestic product rocketed ahead at an 8.2 percent pace in the July-to-September period, the fastest clip since 1984. Corporate profits soared 30 percent.

Most experts expect the economy to trot along at a 4 percent pace in the final three months of the year and at about the same rate in 2004. That will boost government tax receipts to some degree but won't be enough to offset a spending boom in Washington.

Some of the increased spending is needed. Since Sept. 11, the defense budget has risen 34 percent. But that was not offset by cuts or restraint in other expenditures. Figures for the government budget year that ended in October show nonmilitary discretionary spending up by 8.5 percent.

Since then, Congress has approved a prescription-drug benefit for seniors that will cost an estimated $400 billion over 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office says the measure could require between $1.7 trillion and $2 trillion in its second decade as baby boomers retire.

Less publicized impacts on the budget include $22 billion in expanded veterans benefits and a plan to overhaul the tax treatment of international corporations that involves $60 billion in new tax breaks.

The Bush team needs to reduce the deficit sooner rather than later, especially before all the tax cuts it won from Congress kick in. Those cuts could trim government income by $1.7 trillion over the next decade.

The imbalance can be seen in the fact that recent government spending totaled $20,301 per household, the highest level (in noninflated dollars) since World War II. But taxes to support that spending are only $17,000 per household, according to the Heritage Foundation.

Goldman Sachs economist Mr. McKelvey predicts the combination of tax cuts and growing spending will push the 2004 budget deficit to $525 billion this year, up from $375 in the budget year just ended.

Three years ago the budget was in surplus by $237 billion. The swing from a surplus to a half-trillion dollar deficit is the worst three-year setback in government finances since the Korean War.

From President Bush's weekly radio address, broadcast today:

Good morning. On Thursday, I was honored to travel to Iraq, to spend Thanksgiving with some of the finest men and women serving in our military.

My message to the troops was clear: your country is thankful for your service, we are proud of you, and America stands with you in all that you are doing to defend America. I'm pleased to report back from the front lines that our troops are strong, morale is high and our military is confident we will prevail.

From "Montana soldier describes duty in Iraq as a nightmare" via AP:

Neither the Pentagon nor the news media are giving the American public an accurate picture of the situation in Iraq, which is "a nightmare," says a soldier who is about to go back.

"It's nothing like what the people back home have been hearing," Army Sgt. Michael Badgley Jr. said. "They're saying the war's over. The war's not over. Now, it's more of a guerrilla war."

[...]

Badgley said the fact he's still in Iraq speaks to confusion and changing rules. He was supposed to be there until September. Then his tour was extended 60 days, and now everyone has to stay for at least one year, he said.

Some of the troops in Iraq have been told they are there only to provide numbers, and there are more troops in Iraq than there are jobs for them, he said. "Morale over there is very low."

Via Paul Krugman in the New York Times:

...[T]he Bush administration — which likes to portray itself as the inheritor of Reagan-like optimism — actually has a Nixonian habit of demonizing its opponents.

For example, here's President Bush on critics of his economic policies: "Some say, well, maybe the recession should have been deeper. It bothers me when people say that." Because he used the word "some," he didn't literally lie — no doubt a careful search will find someone, somewhere, who says the recession should have been deeper. But he clearly intended to suggest that those who disagree with his policies don't care about helping the economy.

And that's nothing compared with the tactics now being used on foreign policy.

The campaign against "political hate speech" originates with the Republican National Committee. But last week the committee unveiled its first ad for the 2004 campaign, and it's as hateful as they come. "Some are now attacking the president for attacking the terrorists," it declares.

Again, there's that weasel word "some." No doubt someone doesn't believe that we should attack terrorists. But the serious criticism of the president, as the committee knows very well, is the reverse: that after an initial victory in Afghanistan he shifted his attention — and crucial resources — from fighting terrorism to other projects.

What the critics say is that this loss of focus seriously damaged the campaign against terrorism. Strategic assets in limited supply, like Special Forces soldiers and Predator drone aircraft, were shifted from Afghanistan to Iraq, while intelligence resources, including translators, were shifted from the pursuit of Al Qaeda to the coming invasion. This probably allowed Qaeda members, including Osama bin Laden, to get away, and definitely helped the Taliban stage its ominous comeback. And the Iraq war has, by all accounts, done wonders for Qaeda recruiting. Is saying all this attacking the president for attacking the terrorists?

The ad was clearly intended to insinuate once again — without saying anything falsifiable — that there was a link between Iraq and 9/11. (Now that the Iraq venture has turned sour, this claim is suddenly making the rounds again, even though no significant new evidence has surfaced.) But it was also designed to imply that critics are soft on terror.

The Guardian reports that the war on terror is coming home.

The FTAA Summit in Miami represents the official homecoming of the "war on terror". The latest techniques honed in Iraq - from a Hollywoodised military to a militarised media - have now been used on a grand scale in a major US city. "This should be a model for homeland defence," the Miami mayor, Manny Diaz, said of the security operation that brought together over 40 law-enforcement agencies, from the FBI to the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

For the Miami model to work, the police had to establish a connection between legitimate activists and dangerous terrorists. Enter the Miami police chief, John Timoney, an avowed enemy of activist "punks", who classified FTAA opponents as "outsiders coming in to terrorise and vandalise our city".

With the activists recast as dangerous aliens, Miami became eligible for the open tap of public money irrigating the "war on terror". In fact, $8.5m spent on security during the FTAA meeting came out of the $87bn Bush extracted from Congress for Iraq last month.

But more was borrowed from the Iraq war than just money. Miami police also invited reporters to "embed" with them in armoured vehicles and helicopters. As in Iraq, most reporters embraced their role as pseudo soldiers with zeal, suiting up in combat helmets and flak jackets.

[...]

The Miami model of dealing with domestic dissent reaches far beyond a single meeting. On Sunday, the New York Times reported on a leaked FBI bulletin revealing "a coordinated, nationwide effort to collect intelligence" on the anti-war movement. The memorandum singles out lawful protest activities. Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the document revealed that "the FBI is targeting Americans who are engaged in lawful protest. The line between terrorism and legitimate civil disobedience is blurred."

We can expect more of these tactics on the homeland front. Just as civil liberties violations escalated when Washington lost control over the FTAA process, so will repression increase as Bush faces the ultimate threat: losing control over the White House.

Already, Jim Wilkinson, director of strategic communications at US Central Command in Doha, Qatar (the operation that gave the world the Jessica Lynch rescue), has moved to New York to head up media operations for the Republican National Convention. "We're looking at embedding reporters," he told the New York Observer of his plans to use some of the Iraq tricks during the convention. "We're looking at new and interesting camera angles."

5. Bush won’t invade countries that he can’t pronounce, thus sparing Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and particularly Kyrgyzstan.

4. Canada.

3. The Presidency comes with term limits.

2. Dick Cheney spends much of his time in super-secret bunker, thus limiting time spent spreading evil.

1. No one decided to retire from the Supreme Court this year.

Our apologies to Adam Clymer, but there are reporters, and then there is Helen Thomas. Don't nobody mess with Helen.

Declaring President Bush has done more to break down the so-called separation of church and state than any other chief executive, veteran White House correspondent Helen Thomas told a large audience at the University of North Carolina that the war with Iraq is a "mindless invasion … without provocation."

[...]

Thomas has covered the White House for over 40 years. She described the first president she covered, John F. Kennedy, as inspired and eloquent. Such words did not come up, however, as she talked about Bush.

She criticized the terror-fighting Patriot Act and slammed Bush's domestic and international policies.

Don't have that crucial soundbite just right? Make it up!

It may be called the Case of the Disappearing Pause.

When President Bush laid out the potential threat that unconventional weapons posed in Saddam Hussein's hands last year in his State of the Union address last year, he became tongue-tied at an inopportune moment.

The line read, "It would take one vial, one canister, one crate, slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known." But Mr. Bush stumbled between the words "one" and "vial." And when at the word vial, he pronounced the "v" as if it were a "w."

Yet in a new Republican commercial that borrows excerpts from that speech, Mr. Bush delivers that line as smoothly as any other in the address, without a pause between "one" and "vial," and the v in "vial" sounds strong and sure.

Republican officials acknowledged yesterday that the change was a product of technology. The line, they said, was digitally enhanced in editing "to ensure the best clarity."

Now, not only do we mistrust what the President says, we have to mistrust what he doesn't say. Or says incorrectly. Or meant to say. Or wishes he would have said if he was smarter.

It's an evil plot to warp the liberal mind.

Evangelical American Christians have turned on President George W Bush after he said, at a press conference with Tony Blair, that Christians and Muslims worshipped the same God.

Mr Blair side-stepped the invitation to discuss his religious faith in public but Mr Bush followed his practice and declared: "I believe we worship the same God."

[...]

The Baptist Press news service published a rebuttal from Richard D Land, head of the ethics and religious commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant church in America, with 10 million members.

Though applauding Mr Bush as a man of deep faith, Mr Land said the president was "Commander-in-Chief, not theologian-in-chief", and was "simply mistaken".

Leading American evangelic ministers have previously described Islam as a violent religion. (via the Telegraph)

Who knew there was such a thing as the Baptist Press news service? Here's betting G.W. does.

From "FBI Scrutinizes Antiwar Rallies" in the New York Times:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has collected extensive information on the tactics, training and organization of antiwar demonstrators and has advised local law enforcement officials to report any suspicious activity at protests to its counterterrorism squads, according to interviews and a confidential bureau memorandum.

The memorandum, which the bureau sent to local law enforcement agencies last month in advance of antiwar demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco, detailed how protesters have sometimes used "training camps" to rehearse for demonstrations, the Internet to raise money and gas masks to defend against tear gas. The memorandum analyzed lawful activities like recruiting demonstrators, as well as illegal activities like using fake documentation to get into a secured site.

[...]

The initiative has won the support of some local police, who view it as a critical way to maintain order at large-scale demonstrations. Indeed, some law enforcement officials said they believed the F.B.I.'s approach had helped to ensure that nationwide antiwar demonstrations in recent months, drawing hundreds of thousands of protesters, remained largely free of violence and disruption.

But some civil rights advocates and legal scholars said the monitoring program could signal a return to the abuses of the 1960's and 1970's, when J. Edgar Hoover was the F.B.I. director and agents routinely spied on political protesters like the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

[...]

The abuses of the Hoover era, which included efforts by the F.B.I. to harass and discredit Hoover's political enemies under a program known as Cointelpro, led to tight restrictions on F.B.I. investigations of political activities.

Those restrictions were relaxed significantly last year, when Attorney General John Ashcroft issued guidelines giving agents authority to attend political rallies, mosques and any event "open to the public."

President Bush said Friday that Turkey had become a new front in the campaign against terrorism and that Britain and the United States would work together to help the Turkish government head off further attacks.

[...]

After months in which he had cast Iraq as the central front in the war on terrorism, Mr. Bush seemed to acknowledge that the United States and its allies had not contained the spread of the threat. ("Bush Vows U.S. and Britain Will Work to Help Turks", the New York Times)

Sadly, we haven't paid enough attention to the initial front, which remains a troubling vision of things to come.

Inquiring Aussies want to know:

Has Bush changed his mind? Or was there no mind to change?

In 2000, Bush said that the Bill Clinton-Al Gore administration had been reckless in overcommitting the US, and the military in particular, to exercises in "nation building". By that he meant trying to establish institutions of democratic government and civil society.

The intervention in Somalia, for example, begun by Bush's father, "started off as a humanitarian mission and it changed into a nation-building mission, and that's where the mission went wrong". Just as with his current, nearly opposite philosophy, Bush stated the principle in the categorical terms of someone who has adopted it and checked it off his list without diving for subtleties.

Preventing starvation: good. Overthrowing the occasional dictator: well, OK. Nation-building: bad.

"Maybe I'm missing something here. I mean, we're going to have kind of a nation-building corps from America? Absolutely not. It needs to be in our vital interest, the mission needs to be clear, and the exit strategy obvious. I'm not so sure the role of the United States is to go around the world and say this is the way it's got to be. I think the United States must be humble . . . in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course."

[...]

A man who sincerely has changed his mind about something important ought to hold his new views with less certainty and express them with a bit of rhetorical humility. There should be room for doubt. How can your current beliefs be so transcendentally correct if you yourself recently believed something very different? How can critics of what you say now be so obviously wrong if you yourself used to be one of them?

But Bush is cocksure that active, sometimes military, promotion of American values in the world is a good idea, just as he was, or appeared to be, cocksure of the opposite not long ago.

Yep, rhetorical humility. We remember being shocked when Governor Bush said in the debates that America should act with humility abroad. "That's a damn good idea", we said incredulously. "We can't believe he said that." We should have known that a Bush administration would come up dangerously short in the humility department. And that the moderate tone exhibited by the would-be president during the campaign would slide away as quick as you can say "Florida".

Americans abroad are using all their energy on things like this rather than concentrating on world domination.

We must focus, people.

And not over something intelligent, like getting guns off our streets.

Nope, President Bush and his "moral majority" cronies are going to try to change the supreme law of the land - tampered with only 27 times in its 214-year history - to meddle in the intricacies of interpersonal relationships.

Dust off your copies of the Constitution, ladies and gents. There's a fight brewin'.

From Reuters, via Wired News:

Lessons Not Learned

The United States would wage war again, and alone if necessary, to ensure the long-term safety of the world, President Bush said in an interview published Monday.

Questionable Judgement, Hypocricy, Fear of Intelligent Media

"After coming to office with a vow to restore dignity to the White House, the president... granted an exclusive interview to a British tabloid that features daily photographs of nude women," the Washington Post said in an article on its Web site.

The Post said the president had gone "down market" and pointed out that he had not given an exclusive interview to many of the U.S. national newspapers this year.

On Not Winning Friends Abroad

In a YouGov poll for London's Sunday Times newspaper Bush was branded a threat to world peace by 60 percent of those questioned, while 37 percent said Bush was "stupid."