Israel attacks School in Gaza
John Ging, the head of the UN relief and works agency in Gaza, has said the region is 'on the cusp of catastrophe'.
BBC News UN condemns attack on Gaza school where over 30 innocent civilians were killed trying to hide from Israeli bombing
"It's clear enough in these last days of the Bush administration that its model was Iraq, dismantled and devastated. The world, had he succeeded, might have become George W. Bush's Iraq.
Yes, he came up short, but, given the global economic situation, how much short we don't yet know. Perhaps, in the future, historians will call him a Caesar -- of destruction.
Veni, vidi, vastavi... [I came, I saw, I devastated...]"
"The Ponzi Scheme Presidency:Bush's Legacy of Destruction" by TomDispatch.com, January 6, 2009 Tom Englehardt see more below.
But first a rare moment in the media which I feel should be shared when someone aptly describes Ann Coulter's style of writing and discourse as "Sophomoric" and "Goofy". A moment to cherish til Fox News and other Mainstream Media come to her defense and rescue her from such " Liberal" and "Leftist" "Elitists" who in their view don't appreciate her intelligence and insight.
From "Ann Coulter's "Today" Show Appearance Canceled, Rescheduled (UPDATED)"by Danny Shea at Huffington Post Jan 5, 2009
The liberal media watchdog group Media Matters launched a campaign last week asking, "Is NBC going to help Coulter sell this book?"
In the book, Coulter repeatedly refers to President-Elect Obama as B. Hussein Obama, and mocks Michelle Obama's style while praising Cindy McCain's.
Ann Coulter Sophomoric and Goofy
Coulter appeared on CBS's The Early Show where she told anchor Harry Smith that he was her favorite for having her on this morning after The Today Show had canceled her. Smith allowed Coulter to rant, but then pushed her on claims of right-wing victimization and urged her to "take a breath." He also called her "goofy" and "sophomoric." Watch the video:
Watch CBS Videos Online
In the dumbing-down of America category in reference to Foreign affairs and International News Americans more insular and isolated from the rest of the world which is just how Bush Regime and its constituency of true believers and the American Media like it. It helps explain why so many average Americans and the Media are clueless about the complexity of issues concerning Gaza and Israel and that they find it easier to just root for the side they believe is the Good Guys no matter how those so called Good Guys act.
"Networks' International News Coverage At Record Low in 2008"by Huffington Post, jan.6, 2009
WASHINGTON, Jan 5 (IPS) - Despite two wars involving more than 200,000 U.S. troops and a global economic crisis, foreign-related news coverage by the three major U.S. television networks fell to a record low during 2008, according to the latest annual review of network news coverage by the authoritative Tyndall Report.
Squeezed out by intense coverage of the presidential election campaign and the domestic consequences of skyrocketing oil prices and the subsequent credit crisis, international and overseas events received by far the least attention from the 30-minute evening news programmes of the three networks -- the primary source of national and international news for most U.S. citizens -- of any since the report was first published in 1988.
Propaganda and lies of the Bush Regime & Mainstream Media Continue: More on The Re-branding of the Bush Regime's Legacy
Cheney calls the invasion of Iraq which he helped to plan " a masterful performance ". It was a masterful Performance You'd think he was talking about a theater production or the making of a film rather than the invasion and occupation of a country. He also doesn't bother to talk about the looting and other problems which were forseeable in Iraq which the American troops did nothing to control. As he said " stuff happens" but the looting and other problems had been predicted but ignored by Cheney and Rumsfeld and the Gang. And the Mainstream Media of course fell for this line of thinking.
Cheney on Face The Nation - Troop levels-Jan.4 ,2009
According to Cheney the failures in Iraq were not his or the Bush administration's fault but was rather the fault of the Iraqi people.
Cheney Calls Iraq 'Significant Success, Masterfully Done' by Blue Texan, Firedoglake January 4, 2009.
In a classic example of a Dick who likes to place blame on others, Cheney blames the lengthy, bloody occupation on lack of Iraqi "get up and go."
And Bush once again praises Donald Rumsfeld former Secretary of Defense (2001-2006) believing that if he says it enough times Americans and its Quisling Media will buy it unfortunately he may be right as Americans suffer from a strange form of Amnesia and selective memory which the Bush/Cheney Regime & their supporters have been playing on for the last eight years. And as is evident the Mainstream Media is not interested in such things as in depth analysis but prefer " the sound Bite ' and the "Gotcha Moment " you betcha.
And now a bit from The Young Turks on Karl Rove's attempts to change the World's impression of Bush .
The Young Turks : Do You Believe George Bush Read 91 Books in Two Years?
Dec. 31,2008
Watch more at The Young Turks
In his article Tom Englehardt at TomDispatch argues that Bush's legacy more aptly should be characterized as that of a 'Destroyer' not a builder of a better America or a better world. He then compares the Bush Regime's War On Terror and its Neocon ideology and their madcap but deadly adventures to Madoff's Ponzi scheme in which money was poured in but nothing was created and everyone lost.
So too the War On Terror became a scheme in which the Bush Regime kept telling everyone that everything was all right and getting better when in fact they had made everything worse. So they said they just needed more time, more money, more soldiers as a war which was supposed to be a 'Cakewalk' became a quagmire and a living Hell for Iraqis and Afghans.
But as we have heard in recent speeches and interviews Bush, Cheney, Rove and the Gang they still gloat over it all and seemed to have gotten a real kick out of invading Iraq to show the World who is really in control. Even today They are still indifferent to the hundreds of thousands who have died unnecessarily in these conflicts.
"The Ponzi Scheme Presidency:Bush's Legacy of Destruction by TomDispatch.com, January 6, 2009
...With his secret prisons, his outsourced torture chambers, his officially approved kidnappings, the murders committed by his interrogators, the massacres committed by his troops and mercenaries, and the shock-and-awe slaughter he ordered from the air...
(He goes on to describe how America extended its military power around the globe from 1945 to the present.and so he says Bush and the Neocons came along using 9/11 as a rationalization for putting their ideology and schemes to the test)
With awesome military power at their command, they were also convinced that they could go it alone as the dominating force on the planet. As with true believers everywhere, they had only contempt for those they couldn't convert to their worldview. That contempt made "unilateralism" their strategy of choice, and a global Pax Americana their goal (along with, of course, a Pax Republicana at home).
... As it turned out, the Bush administration, blind to the actual world it faced, disastrously miscalculated the nature of American power -- especially military power -- and what it was capable of doing.
(and he characterizes the War on Terror as a Ponzi scheme for which the American people have been duped into paying for but while Madoff will go to prison Bush and Co. will not.)
One thing is certain, however: it is an obscenity of the present moment that Iraq, still a charnel house, still in a state of near total disrepair, still on the edge of a whole host of potential conflicts, should increasingly be portrayed here as a limited Bush administration "surge" success. Only a country -- or a punditry or a military -- incapable of facing the depths of destruction that the Bush administration let loose could reach such a conclusion.
...In fact, it's reasonable to say that every Bush administration foreign policy dream, including its first term fantasy about a pacified "Greater Middle East" and its late second term vision of a facilitated "peace process" between the Israelis and Palestinians, has ended in piles of bodies and in failure. ..
Looked at another way, the Bush administration's Global War on Terror and its subsidiary wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have, in effect, been a giant Ponzi scheme. At a cost of nearly one trillion taxpayer dollars to date (but sure to be in the multi-trillions when all is said and done), Bush's mad "global war" simply sucked needed money out of our world at levels that made Bernie Madoff seem like a small fry.
Madoff, by his own accounting, squandered perhaps $50 billion of other people's money. The Bush administration took a trillion dollars of ours and handed it out to its crony corporate buddies and to the Pentagon as down payments on disaster -- and that's without even figuring into the mix the staggering sums still needed to care for American soldiers maimed, impaired, or nearly destroyed by Bush's wars.
With Bush's "commander-in-chief" presidency only days from its end, the price tag on his "war" continues to soar as dollars grow scarce, new investors refuse to pay in, and the scheme crumbles. Unfortunately, the American people, typical suckers in such a con game, will be left with a mile-high stack of IOU's. In any Ponzi scheme comparison with Madoff, however, one difference (other than size) stands out. Sooner or later, Madoff, like Charles Ponzi himself, will end up behind bars, while George, Dick, & Co. will be writing their memoirs and living off the fat of the land.
Eight years of bodies, dead, broken, mutilated, abused; eight years of ruined lives down countless drains; eight years of massive destruction to places from Baghdad to New Orleans where nothing of significance was ever rebuilt: all this was brought to us by a President, now leaving office without apology, who said the following in his first inaugural address: "I will live and lead by these principles: to advance my convictions with civility… to call for responsibility and try to live it as well."
He lived, however, by quite a different code. Destruction without responsibility, that's Bush's legacy, but who's counting now that the destruction mounts and the bodies begin to pile up here in the "homeland," in our own body count nation? The laid off, the pension-less, the homeless, the suicides -- imagine what that trillion dollars might have meant to them.
It's clear enough in these last days of the Bush administration that its model was Iraq, dismantled and devastated. The world, had he succeeded, might have become George W. Bush's Iraq.
Yes, he came up short, but, given the global economic situation, how much short we don't yet know. Perhaps, in the future, historians will call him a Caesar -- of destruction.
Veni, vidi, vastavi... [I came, I saw, I devastated...]
----
For a more humorous look at the disastrous legacy of George Bush and his place in history see:
"History Finally Judges George Bush" by Robert J. Elisberg at Huffington Post ,Jan. 6, 2009
and so it goes,
GORD.
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