Simplest and safest is bribery. I don't know why we don't do it more often. Almost makes me believe the guys running things are secret war nerds themselves, because otherwise they'd do bribery as a way of bringing down "rogue states" all the time. Just do the math. Right now, November 12, 2006, the official cost of Iraq is around $340 billion. Suppose we'd just bombed Iraq with dollars; we'd be the heroes of the world, and every family in Iraq would be - are you ready for this?-$70,000 richer. That would make Iraq one of the richest countries in the world.

Kinda puts the spending in perspective, don't it?

eXile - Issue #251 - War Nerd - How To Win In Iraq - By Gary Brecher

Tenet and Black felt they were not getting through to Rice. She was polite, but they felt the brush-off. President Bush had said he didn't want to swat at flies.

Two Months Before 9/11, an Urgent Warning to Rice - washingtonpost.com

Me and Jimmy Carter. Oohhhhh yeah.

meandjimmy.jpg (JPEG Image, 1280x1024 pixels) - Scaled (72%)

"The industry lobbied for an amendment to the federal pension law that would make it easier for hedge funds to handle pension money without being held to the law's fiduciary standards. Such a provision was included in the pension measures signed into law by President Bush in August."

Rev up the Orwellian doublespeak monitor! The so-called Pension Protection Act was anything but.

How the World Works - Salon.com

Holy crap. What a lecture to Bush from KO. Jesus. I'm not the President and even I feel like I should write, "I will not engage in fascism/jingoism/torture/incompetence," 100 times on the blackboard.

CountDown-SpecialComment-ClintonInterview.mov (video/quicktime Object)

And finally tonight, a Special Comment about President Clinton’s interview. The headlines about them are, of course, entirely wrong. It is not essential that a past President, bullied and sandbagged by a monkey posing as a newscaster, finally lashed back.

It is not important that the current President’s "portable public chorus" has described his predecessor’s tone as "crazed."

Our tone should be crazed. The nation’s freedoms are under assault by an administration whose policies can do us as much damage as Al-Qaeda; the nation’s "marketplace of ideas" is being poisoned, by a propaganda company so blatant that Tokyo Rose would’ve quit. Nonetheless.

The headline is this: Bill Clinton did what almost none of us have done, in five years. He has spoken the truth about 9/11, and the current presidential administration.

"At least I tried," he said of his own efforts to capture or kill Osama Bin Laden. "That’s the difference in me and some, including all of the right-wingers who are attacking me now. They had eight months to try; they did not try. I tried."

Thus in his supposed emeritus years, has Mr. Clinton taken forceful and triumphant action for honesty, and for us; action as vital and as courageous as any of his presidency; action as startling and as liberating, as any, by anyone, in these last five long years.

The Bush Administration did not try to get Osama Bin Laden before 9/11.

The Bush Administration ignored all the evidence gathered by its predecessors.

The Bush Administration did not understand the Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."

The Bush Administration… did… not… try.—

Crooks and Liars » Olbermann’s Special Comment: Are YOURS the actions of a true American?

I hope this links correctly, because this is some of the worst pwnage I've ever seen a politician unleash on a reporter. Chris Wallace interviews Bill Clinton, asks a long accusatory question about why he didn't do more to kill Bin Laden, and gets a 13 minute ass whooping in return.

A must see. Gold star.

Clinton PWNS Chris Wallace on Fox News - Clinton Interviewed on Fox News Sunday - Google Video

Why would the pope raise these volatile questions, and in an academic lecture that he surely knew would be reduced to sound bites that distorted his meaning? I think that Benedict knew precisely the risks he was taking and thought the risks worthwhile. Why? Because he believes in the power of reason to cut through the fog of passion. Because he believes that serious problems — such as those posed by jihadist Islam — can be solved only by examining them at their roots. And because he might well have wanted to extend a helping hand to those Islamic reformers who are trying to convince the extremists among their fellow Muslims that irrational violence in the name of God is, in fact, offensive to the one true God.

Will the pope's wager prove foolish or wise? An influential Italian Muslim commentator, Magdi Allam, writing in Corriere della Sera, Italy's leading daily newspaper, got the point: Why is it, he wrote, that "Muslims, especially the so-called moderates, never stand up ... against the true and perpetual profaners of Islam, the Islamic terrorists who massacre Muslims themselves in the name of God?" Against the jihadist calls for Benedict's death, voices such as Allam's suggest that, far from provoking a clash of civilizations, Pope Benedict XVI has put on the table the questions that have to be debated, rationally, to avoid just such a confrontation: How do we imagine God, and how do our ideas of God shape the way we live?

Pope posed tough questions that the world must answer - USATODAY.com - OPINION

“New jihadist networks and cells, sometimes united by little more than their anti-Western agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge,” said Gen. Michael V. Hayden, during a speech in San Antonio in April, the month that the new estimate was completed. “If this trend continues, threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide,” said the general, who was then Mr. Negroponte’s top deputy and is now director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

For more than two years, there has been tension between the Bush administration and American spy agencies over the violence in Iraq and the prospects for a stable democracy in the country. Some intelligence officials have said the White House has consistently presented a more optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq than justified by intelligence reports from the field.

Spy agencies usually produce several national intelligence estimates each year on a variety of subjects. The most controversial of these in recent years was an October 2002 document assessing Iraq’s illicit weapons programs. Several government investigations have discredited that report, and the intelligence community is overhauling how it analyzes data, largely as a result of those investigations.

The broad judgments of the new intelligence estimate are consistent with assessments of global terrorist threats by American allies and independent terrorism experts.

Spy Agencies Say Iraq War Worsens Terrorism Threat - New York Times

Abe said he wanted to revise the U.S.- imposed, pacifist Constitution that formed the basis for Japan's postwar development. He also wants to revise quickly the other legal document of the postwar American occupation, the Fundamental Law of Education, and stress moral values, patriotism and tradition in schools.

"How was Japan's postwar era?" Abe said in his campaign book, "Toward a Beautiful Country," in which he describes himself as a "fighting politician."

"By entrusting our national security to another country and putting a priority on economic development, we were indeed able to make great material gains. But what we lost spiritually - that was also great."

The emergence of a prime minister with no personal experience of the war is considered a significant turning point in Japan, where the absence of a national consensus on the war continues to trouble relations with the rest of Asia.

Looks like anime as reality is one step nearer? The future seems more interesting, if not brighter, with a high tech woop ass japanese defense force.

Abe's rise to force new look at postwar Japan - Asia - Pacific - International Herald Tribune