The behaviour of the Cheney parallel government has become so egregious, that the world is poised on the brink of nuclear warfare.

There is a tremendous push to influence and inform a critical mass of the US regular military, in the hope of driving in a wedge that might grant us a stay of execution. Here is one such effort - from Lt. Col. Robert M. Bowman, who was in charge of the "Star Wars" program during the Ford and Carter administrations. Indeed he coined the term for Reagan. Short Youtube vid:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5gio_iR2WE

This is what he has to say to the US military:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6773

People like me are often accused of being anti-American. But if it is the welfare of the American PEOPLE we are talking about, then I put it to you that it is our own government who betrayed them. It betrayed them by eating neocon excrement until it dribbled down their chins in the chambers of our Parliament.

ANZUS was a just a quiet conduit for neocon zeal and military influence. It had nothing to do with the true and future welfare of our respective societies.

And how much resistance did we manage to mount? Latham (dealt with), Brown and Nettle (just greenies - go back to sleep). Out of a sea of public servants, only Andrew Wilkie apparently. Our fearless TV anchors? - forget it! Our military just suffered themselves to be hostages. How is that possible in this day and age?

The men of steel turned out to be men of clay. So many opportunities lost due to sheer funk or self-deluding dreams of grandeur. The cat is out of the bag, big-time.

Now we really are going to have to pick a side and dig in.

- ah, it feels good to get that off my chest -

Bushbred

Russia and China?

Now I know you belong in the loony-left. It was misguided people like you who supported the communists during the cold war. People like you believed all their spurious claims about the inhumanity of capitalism and fell for the promise of socialist utopia. People like you defended the communists while they were murdering and imprisoning millions. China still executes more people than the rest of the world combined. Both countries occupy foreign states and have designs on others.

Russia has recently been threatening Europe and the US with its nuclear weapons and runs daily bomber flights at Britain testing their (Britain’s) air defence capabilities and observing their weak areas. This is an incredible act of aggression, yet no one on the left will call them on it.

China insists that Taiwan belongs to it and is prepared to use any and all means to retrieve it.

Both countries have far worse human rights records; have less freedom and more corruption than the US.

Yet people like you ignore these realities blaming us instead for all the worlds’ ills.

Iran has immersed itself in the war in Iraq, trying to gain a strategic advantage by attacking the US when it is at its weakest, through proxies. A significant portion of the weapons and explosives that end up killing innocent Iraqis are provided by the Iranians through the Revolutionary Guards. This is not a defensive exercise and puts the lie to their claim that they only want nuclear power for their own protection.

In the least confrontational outcome, Iran will use their possession of nuclear weapons to destroy the Israeli's economy by bringing them to full alert on a regular basis. Once they have achieved this they will dominate the Middle East which is their goal. This will allow them to spread their particular militant version of Islam. Shia Iraq will be the first to come within a greater Iranian prosperity sphere.

American pressure has led the North Koreans to back down on their nuclear program. There is hope for a non violent solution with Iran.

I think you may have misunderstood bushbred, Phil.L,

>>Russia and China? Now I know you belong in the loony-left. It was misguided people like you who supported the communists during the cold war. <<

I think he may have been talking about the virtues of a "wake-up call" to US policy via a challenge from a more confident (and perhaps aggressive) Russia or China. Hardly the line of a "pinko", doncher think?

But I'll leave that for you and him to sort out.

I think it has been fairly obvious that Putin is using his new-found oil wealth to make a few rude gestures towards the West, but nobody really thinks he is serious, even the most die-hard of US Colonels. But they may be wrong too, I guess, however...

When it comes to China and Taiwan, you need to get your ear a little closer to the ground.

>>China insists that Taiwan belongs to it and is prepared to use any and all means to retrieve it.<<

The countries share a common heritage; they are both Chinese. Do not underestimate this factor in the equation. There are many Taiwanese who think that "reunification" with the mainland is, in the fullness of time, both inevitable and to be welcomed. As of last year, the largest market for Taiwan was the mainland, with 38% of Taiwan's exports crossing the Formosa Strait, and 13% of her imports (second after Japan) came from there. Just as significantly, in 2005 Taiwan earmarked $6billion for direct outward investment in mainland China, probably a solid 10% of the total (no-one quite knows whether China fudges its FDI figures or not).

The sabre-rattling that goes on year after year is largely window-dressing, for both sides. China likes to keep the US on its toes, and Taiwan rather likes the military support it gets each time China gets a little uppity. Quite a fun game, actually, but not one that is going to result in a war. Too many trade ties, on both sides.

And both sides are underneath it all, clever traders.

Paull, you know very well I do not support the Communists but I do very much support Lockean philosophy on which the US Constitution was founded except for the inclusion of the ersatz prerogative which was put in after the 1688 English Glorious Revolution to please those who still hungered for a semblance of the old autocratic royalty.

In fact, it was George the Third of Britain who over-used the Prerogative to declare war on the American settlers rather than allowing the independence that was later given to the Australian settlers.

Foolishly it was the American settlers themselves who did not take a lesson from their own experience by allowing the US President an even stronger personal Prerogative than George 3rd of Britain was allowed.

We studied such problems towards the end of the Cold War, Paull under an American teacher. And as I told you in an earlier thread, we talked about an abuse of global authority that could emerge with a unipolar global system as we now have with America as the top dog.

Furthermore, as I told you the ideal system for global peace is a multipolar one, a United Nations nowhere near matching it because as proven, both the League of Nations and the UN were dominated by a type of corporatism which we have right now, a type of military industrial culture which will always be dominated by a single Great Power, formerly Britain and now the United States.

Also, Paull, you talk about peace for Iran, but sounds almost like Tacitus described the Roman peace, as when all the enemy as well as their followers have been put to the sword

There have been newspaper reports in Britain and Washington this week of a plan that the Bush Administration has drawn up for an attack scenario on Iran including the use of nuclear weapons. Bush has indicated many times "all options are on the table." This plan indicates 2000 Iranian targets will be pulverized in a two to three day period. This will not be a war fought on the ground, more likely, from the air using bombs, missiles and some 40 warships firing shells around the clock presently, in the Persian Gulf. Iran has the third largest oil supplies and Iraq the second largest this is what Bush and Cheney lust after and come out of the oil industry. As well, Bush wants world control of major resources to offset the US spiralling debt and loss of production. Not so long ago the US was the worlds largest creditor now its the worlds largest debtor and at one time the US had 60percent of world trade.

On Sept.6th Israeli jet fighters flew deeply into Syrian air space as a provocation where they were engaged by Syrian Jets. Which indicates, that US plans for a wider Middle Eastern conflagration, whether launched directly by the US or by its Israeli allies, are well-advanced. Whether or not Syria is to be targeted as well as Iran, the Israeli action was meant to send a clear message that it is vulnerable and should not attempt to help Iran in the event of a US attack.
Recently on Sept.14th a scientific survey by the British polling organization ORB, estimates 1.2 million violent deaths in Iraq since the US invasion, figures that are truly catastrophic and far from finished. More wars will follow.

I can't seeing team Bush doing all that much unless they win the next election.Nevertheless the Middle East remains a real dilemma.I don't think democracy will work in Muslim countries.The Imans know that free thinking intelligent people cannot be controlled by religion hence there is restrictions on education for women and what is taught in their schools.

If Iran develops many powerful nuclear weapons,they can control the Middle East and the price of oil.This affects the lives of everyone on the planet.How are we going to control an Iran armed to the teeth when a nuclear war in that region destroys not only Iran but the supplies of oil to the rest of the world?This feral religion does not respond to logic or even loss of their own lives.They cannot even be bought off.If the population of Iran is whipped into a frenzy under threats,they will sacrifice all.

China and Japan won't be starved of energy and they'll also take them to task with much more catastrophic results than the US hamstrung by democracy.

The US is thinking that it is better to act now than facing a catastrophic war in a few years when Iran is armed to the teeth.This is not a time for weak kneed equivocation,since nuclear weapons controlling the world's energy supplies is a recipe for disaster.