Many in Irag (abc news now) are blaming the "Islamic" constitutuon

[rodeodance]

on the US--as the US is demanding a timetable at the expense of discussion.

[rodeodance]

1. saying that they will be worse off than under SH--as marriage, divorse,

schooling etc will be based primarily on Islamic law.

[rodeodance]

3. then talked of haw Bush will interrupted his vacation next week to give

speeches on the Iraq war (talking of poll numbers and Bush).

[rodeodance]

4. than talked of how parts of Utah will not air the Cindy ad.

[MuseRider]

2. Discussion?

We don't do that very well.

[rodeodance]

5. what I meant was that many Iraqi say they are being forced into a US

deadline -forming a constitutuon--at the expence of groups in Iraq discussing it--or having another extension --which the US does NOT want.

[rodeodance]

7. then reported the 4 troops blown up in Afgan (US).

[MuseRider]

9. I know and since we are

forcing the issue I am pretty certain that the deadline is far more important to Bush** especially since we don't really do discussion very well. Seems to me we now just follow the doctrine set by this administration and discussion might bring up some things that they frankly do not want to hear.

[Clark2008]

15. Bush probably would have to look that word up in the dictionary.

You know, if he actually even OWNS a dictionary.

[Roland99]

6. Timetables only matter when the Propagandist says they matter.

Besides, Islamic law is obviously GOOD for Democracy.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

8. Rhodes scholar vs the whoring for the dollar... I sure am glad

that we don't have to deal with Clintonesque gasoline prices, trillions in surplus, and anything else that was good and positive in this country.

I remember how Rush rode Bill day after day after day... that whoring piece of crap.

[Gloria]

10. Just listened to a BBC World Service report ....they interviewed

some Iraqis. Some don't care about the Constitution, they are interested in their safety. But, there is growing concern, replete with demonstrations now, about what's going on. People are concerned about how it will affect their day to day lives.....

[Igel]

11. And that is precisely why they shall quite probably have an Islamic

constitution that the majority does not, timetable or no.

[malaise]

12. So who else wants it?

Sovereignty has a whole new meaning.

[FormerRepublican]

13. This is just great.

:sarcasm:

We spend billions upon billions of dollars and sacrifice thousands of American lives so we can create YET ANOTHER extremist Islamic nation where Osama bin Laden can hide and plot yet more attacks to kill Americans.

Gee, I feel so much safer.

"If approved, critics say that the proposals would erode women's rights and other freedoms enshrined under existing laws. "We understand the Americans have sided with the Shias. It's shocking. It doesn't fit with American values," an unnamed Kurdish negotiator told Reuters. "They have spent so much blood and money here, only to back the creation of an Islamist state."

Dozens of women gathered in central Baghdad yesterday to protest against what the organiser, Yanar Mohammad, feared would be a "fascist, nationalist and Islamist" constitution. "We are fighting to avoid becoming second class citizens," she said."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1553862,00.html

To say that the Bush Administration is TOTALLY INCOMPETENT is so vast an understatement that I can't even come up with an adequate description of where they fall in the incompetence spectrum!

Fitz had BETTER indict!

[newswolf56]

14. If you set aside the false and absurd notion of Bush "blunders"...

and instead reason from the premise that he is a truly diabolical tyrant whose apparent "stupidity" is part of his carefully manufactured camouflage, then you get an entirely different picture of the administration's REAL Middle Eastern policy: that the escape of bin Laden, the rebirth of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the deterioration of Iraq into Islamic theocracy are all deliberate expressions of Bush Administration INTENT. I don't know why this is such a difficult concept for people to grasp -- save perhaps a stubbornly prideful refusal to abandon the "Bush stupid/me smart" approach to politics. Whatever the reason, if one reasons from the premise that Bush is doing his Saudi Arabian family-friends (and thus the Jihadists in general) a huge favor by actually supporting and furthering Islamic theocracy, everything else falls neatly into place: Occam's Razor, the principle of parsimony.

Moreover, the underlying notion of an alliance of Christofascists and Muslims united on the basis of their mutual hatreds of women, gays, "abominations" and ultimately all liberty everywhere is anything but tinfoil hat dementia: here are three (infinitely disturbing) links:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,,1398055,00.html

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010514&s=dreyfuss

http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/Printable.asp?ID=11209

The Conservative link is especially relevant because it reflects the extent to which even the secular part of the Right Wing is increasingly frightened by Bush's pandering to Fundamentalism whether Christian or Islamic. Bottom line, Bush is looking to build a functional alliance of Christofascists and Jihadists -- first in the United States, ultimately in the whole world. Apparently he sees himself as the new Caesar -- perhaps, given his fervid Christianity, a new Constantine -- especially in the sense that the Caesars so frequently united all the often-feuding religions of the Roman world into an empire that lasted nearly a thousand years.

Add class-struggle to this horrifying equation and the five parts of the Bush strategy become perfectly clear: (1)-further the global oligarchy in its post-New-Deal/post-Soviet take-back campaign (outsourcing, downsizing, cancellation of health insurance, abolition of pensions, destruction of the social safety net, etc.); (2)-further the global oligarchy in its post-New-Deal/post-Soviet re-concentration of wealth (skyrocketing prices -- oil, executive salaries, insurance, prescription drugs etc.); (3)-reduce the peoples of the world to abject poverty and therefore defacto slavery; (4)-opiate the oppressed masses by fundamentalist religion, whether Christofascist or Jihadist; (5)-divide the world between Christofascist theocracy and Islam's global caliphate, maintaining peace via the interconnections of capital (note the U.S./Saudi relationship) and using religion (and especially the persecution of all dissidents as "heretics") to ensure the oligarchy retains absolute control forever.

Jeer all you like, but no other hypothesis explains all the Bush variables -- both its singular roots and its diverse branches.

[wli]

16. too much religion and not enough money

It explains only part of what's going on. A lot of the economic affairs aren't being touched on.

[newswolf56]

18. Sorry if I wasn't detailed enough. But my first three numbered points

actually summarize the world economic situation perfectly: take-backs (1), concentration of wealth (2), methodical dis-empowerment of anyone not part of the oligarchy (3). Perhaps I didn't adequately explain (A) how the global imposition of theocracy (whether Islamic or Christian) serves this agenda and (B) the fact the oligarchy is both driver (the power behind everything that's happening) and its sole beneficiary: the old investigative technique of "follow the money" (who gets rich and who gets screwed) works as well here as anywhere else.

The one thing I did omit is that outsourcing is more than just a quest for cheap labor: it is also the movement of capital and means of protection into regions where it can be most easily protected with maximum savagery: death squads, the break-up of strikes by machine-gunning workers, the suppression of economic dissent by police terrorism. In other words, the global oligarchy is abandoning the American workforce, literally sentencing it to death by starvation -- either the faster starvation of total unemployment or the slow starvation of wage-slavery in an ever-more-inflated economy. Think of outsourcing as a giant lock-out and the picture becomes undeniably clear.

To be sure, there is a wild card in this (hopelessly stacked) deck: China. The plutocrats -- ever short-sighted -- have been blinded by their greedy glee at access to Chinese capital; in their blindness they have failed to acknowledge that China is still a Marxist nation and have therefore failed also to see the infinite risk in allowing China to finance Bush's huge federal deficit. What I believe the Chinese are doing is applying the ancient principles of Sun Tzu: avoiding the economic mistakes that toppled the Soviet Union -- literally using capitalism against itself. China will wait until the most opportune moment to foreclose, but the proverbial handwriting is already on the wall: America's working families will eventually be starving and homeless and dying of disease even as the Chinese are comfortably housed, adequately cared for and eating three meals a day. The question is what this contrast will do to American politics: are the American people already too hopelessly reduced to abject slavery (and the craven slave mentality) to resist, or will we finally awaken to what is being done to us?

[wli]

19. with this we're mostly on the same page

I have a more complex assessment of China as a competing oligarchy with just as little interest in the welfare of its own people, but otherwise everything agrees.

[newswolf56]

21. Would be very interested in your assessment of China, also...

what you think of the prospects for a second Bolshevik Revolution in Russia -- particularly as each might represent potential setbacks to the global oligarchy's post-Soviet/post-New-Deal plans for turning the whole planet into SlaveWorld.

[wli]

22. okay, this is largely neutered and I'm not digging up references, either

But anyway, here goes.

The SCO axis is a competing oligarchy of a largely similar form to the Anglo-American-European axis. There is no Bolshevik Revolution that's going to happen, nor will a Communist Revolution happen in China, either. If such is attempted, it will be smashed by force, and effectively. Instead, their oligarchies have control by force over their populations where the Anglo-American oligarchies developed socioeconomic control over their populations.

They are manuevering in a direction not entirely different from America's manuevers around WWII. That is, expansion of the middle class so that it can be harvested decades later in much the same manner as the US middle class is now being harvested.

Not sure where to go from here; I'm most tempted to start digging for references but am constrained with respect to time and effort.

[newswolf56]

23. Understand constraints, and thanks. Looks like final-stage capitalism...

for the whole planet, just as Marx predicted. But your notion of the oligarchy "harvest(ing)" the middle class is an interesting, pivotal and perhaps profound concept, one that has already set me thinking...

[wli]

24. yes, it's implausible to dismiss sustainability being considered

The evidence is rather scanty, so it's somewhat speculative on my part. It may have to be dismissed if the hypothesis that growing the middle class generates genuinely new wealth is incorrect, or that the planning is not grounded in fact. It depends a lot on what can be found out about the elites and the actual macroeconomics involved. It is, however, refutable, and I am not one to dismiss such refutations.

Thanks. This has been very enlightening.

[newswolf56]

25. Likewise enlightening for me -- the great secret sometime-pleasure of DU!

Thank you again.

[liberaliraqvet26]

17. they should..

that is the fault of the administration

[Clarkie1]

20. Those who think a constitution will prevent a civil war would do well to

recall our own political history.