RICE IS FAILING HER FIRST REAL CRISIS AS SECRETARY OF STATE

"...Underscoring the fragile security situation, Rice's car convoy whisked past armed Lebanese security guards as it shuttled across the battered capital..." So writes AP Writer Shrader in her piece on Secretary Rice's meeting with Lebanese AND Hezbollah Officials. Her meeting with Nabih Berri is interesting. It demonstrates the unrealistic positioning of the United States in this affair. It also shows the inexperience of Rice and her team. Berri is an old name from Lebanese Affairs going back to the Nixon-Ford era. My theory is that Rice is not personally comfortable with Shuttle Diplomacy as she has been noted to have "performance anxiety" in other, less streesful situations. Therefore, the White House and the State Department damped down expectations--"no cease-fire for the sake of a cease fire" I believe is how Rice put it. Of course, cease-fires are useful things even as an end in themselves because they prevent loss of life. Over 700 civilians have died in the fighting thus far. But--in the world of Condi Rice--a cease-fire is worthless when it only prevents further loss of life.

Once again, the Bush Administration damages America's moral authority and reputation for "getting things done".--m2k

Rice visits Lebanon, disappoints leaders
By KATHERINE SHRADER,
Associated Press Writer

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice sought to buttress Lebanon's fragile democratic government Monday after nearly two weeks of warfare, making this stricken capital a surprise first stop on a high-stakes Mideast diplomatic mission.

At the same time, the Bush administration announced it was sending humanitarian aid.

Rice's visit marked the first high-level U.S. diplomatic mission to the area since fighting erupted on July 12. But she disappointed Lebanese leaders who had hoped her lightning trip would hasten a cease-fire in the fighting between Israel and the Hezbollah militants in Lebanon that has claimed hundreds of civilians' lives.

"Thank you for your courage and steadfastness," she told Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, who has repeatedly asked for international help in bringing a halt to cross-border Israeli-Hezbollah shelling. Rice flew next to Jerusalem but made clear that she would not pressure Israeli leaders for an immediate cease-fire during meetings Monday and Tuesday.

In a meeting that appeared tense, Saniora told the U.S. diplomat that Israel's bombardment had taken his country "backwards 50 years," the prime minister's office said. And Nabih Berri, a veteran Lebanese politician who is Lebanon's parliament speaker and Hezbollah's de facto negotiator, rejected proposals brought by Rice almost as soon as she left.

Berri told Rice that a cease-fire must precede any talks about resolving Hezbollah's presence in Lebanon, an official close to the speaker said. Rice, reflecting the U.S. view that a quick cease-fire would not be sustainable, had proposed that the fighting stop at the same time that an international force deployed in southern Lebanon, the official said. Rice also proposed that Hezbollah weapons be removed from a buffer zone extending about 18 miles from the Israeli border, said the official. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were private.

Berri proposed instead a two-phased plan. First would come a cease-fire and negotiations for a prisoner swap. Then an inter-Lebanese dialogue would work out a solution to the situation in south Lebanon.

The Bush administration has said that a cease-fire would be premature unless it addresses the threat Hezbollah fighters pose to Israel.

Asked whether Rice's meeting with Berri went poorly, Assistant Secretary of State David Welch replied, "That's unfair." Welch added, however, that Berri approached the session with the position that a prisoner exchange would resolve other problems.

"That is not what we think," Welch said.

Underscoring the fragile security situation, Rice's car convoy whisked past armed Lebanese security guards as it shuttled across the battered capital. Though south Beirut has been heavily targeted by Israeli warplanes because of Hezbollah's presence there, no explosions were heard during her stay.

Rice said Bush wanted her to make Lebanon the first stop on her trip to the region.

Rice's nearly two-hour meeting with Saniora went on longer than planned. She also met for about 45 minutes with Berri, who is considered friendly to Syria, which held political and military sway in Lebanon for decades before pulling out troops last year.

Going into the session at Berri's lavish office and residence, Rice said, "I am deeply concerned about the Lebanese people and what they are enduring. I am obviously concerned about the humanitarian situation."

Berri is an influential figure in Lebanon's complicated and factionalized political structure. Although the United States considers Hezbollah a terrorist group and has no direct dealings with it, Rice has met with Berri before. Rice could use her discussions with him to send an indirect message to Hezbollah, and to try applying pressure on Syria.

Rice also met with members of the Lebanese parliament who have been staunch opponents of Syria's influence in Lebanon. After visiting Israel, she was to fly to Rome, where she expects to meet with officials of European and moderate Arab governments.

Rice's five-hour visit to Beirut was not announced in advance because of concerns for her safety. She rode in a phalanx of SUVs through largely deserted streets patrolled by Lebanese Army troops.

Beirut, shattered during Lebanon's horrific civil war, has again become a war zone as Israel tries to extinguish what it calls the terrorist threat from Hezbollah militants.

American and other refugees have been streaming out of Beirut for more than a week. Israeli bombing has displaced an estimated half million people in Lebanon, and destroyed infrastructure worth an estimated $1 billion.

"We're talking about the humanitarian situation, and we're also talking about a durable way to end the violence," Rice said.

President Bush has ordered helicopters and ships to Lebanon to provide humanitarian aide, the White House announced.

Welch, the assistant secretary of state, said the U.S. was offering $30 million worth of goods, part of what was hoped would be a $150 million international aid package. He said the U.S. assistance would include medical kits for 100,000 people and 20,000 blankets.

"We are working with Israel and Lebanon to open up humanitarian corridors," Bush spokesman Tony Snow said at the White House.

Nearly 12,000 Americans have been evacuated over the past week, including more than 2,000 in the past 24 hours, said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.

Mercosur 2006 & More Irony in the Age of Bush

Is Anyone Watching Mercosur 2006?

With G8 exploding in Bush's face and Isreal invading Lebanon, it's not surprising that you may have missed it.

According to the Merco Press:

The MERCOSUR, Mercado Común del Sur, (Common Market of the South) is an ambitious economic integration project which includes Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. Other Southamerican countries are in different stages of association with Mercosur, among which Chile and Bolivia, and others are considering the formal request to beguin the association process: Colombia, Perú and Venezuela.


Mercosur's main objective is to increase the efficiency and competitiveness of the four economies by opening markets and accelerating economic development, making better use of available resources, conservation of the environment, improvement of communications, coordination of macroeconomic polices and the complementation of the different industries.
http://www.worldpress.org/feed.cfm?http://www.mercopress.com:80/Detalle.asp?NUM=6969

Wikipedia notes:
Some South Americans see Mercosur as giving the capability to combine resources to balance the activities of other global economic powers, perhaps especially the United States and the European Union. The organization could also potentially pre-empt the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), however, over half of the current Mercosur member countries rejected the FTAA proposal at the IV Cumbre de las Américas (IV Summit of the Americas) in Argentina in 2005.

This the FTAA represents an attempt (begun under the Clinton Administration) to put the United States at the table with Mercosur countries, presumably to color the agenda into a tone more resonant with U.S. objectives.

It appears that, now, with the incorporation of Venezuela and Bolivia into the Mercosur as associate members, chances of FTAA approval are signficantly diminished.

The Mercosur countries are gatekeepers to significant economic power in this hemisphere: There are more than 220 million people in this region and the combined Gross Domestic Product of the member nations is more than one trillion dollars a year.

Last winter, during the Fourth Summit of the Americas, The Bush Administration proposal for what was known as the Washington Consensus, which embodies the free-trade message, was soundly defeated. Hugo Chávez was particularly scathing in his condemnations and threatening to steal the show, has been resisting.

"We have not yet attained a common language," Argentina's deputy foreign minister, Jorge Taiana, said at the time. "Different countries have different experiences, and therefore different visions of things."

According to Web Site "Global Exchange", the meeting was a tough time for Bush. It is clear after Mercosur, that the tough times are getting tougher. Here is what Global Exchange reported in November, 2005:

Polls show Mr. Bush to be the most unpopular American president ever among Latin Americans, and thousands of demonstrators, led by the soccer idol Diego Maradona, are flocking to the Argentine beach resort of Mar del Plata to protest his presence at a summit meeting of Western Hemisphere leaders. The greeting from his fellow heads of state, who have been complaining of his administration's neglect of and indifference to the region for five years, does not promise to be especially warm, either.

The theme of what is formally known as the Fourth Summit of the Americas is "Creating Jobs to Fight Poverty and Strengthen Democratic Governance." But the feeling among many Latin Americans is that the United States is coming with little to offer other than the usual nostrums about free trade, open markets, privatization and fiscal austerity, the same recipe that has vastly increased social inequality throughout Latin America during the past decade.

THE REHABILITATION OF FIDEL.

As recently as the end of the Clinton Administration, the leaders of Latin America were solidly obligated to technocrats running the World Bank and IMF initiatives in South America. The United States was clearly a player in writing and delivering the agenda of trade meetings of Latin American Counties. Fidel Castro (at U.S. insistence) was systematically excluded from most of the business of Latin America whenever the United States was involved.

At the at a conference of Ibero-American heads of state in Spain in October, 2005, Mr. Bush's counterparts made clear they were declaring independence of the domination of U.S. economic and political management:

...In unusually blunt language, their final communiqué sharply criticized Washington's position both on Cuba, which was not invited to the summit meeting, and on terrorism.

Rather than just condemn the American economic embargo of Cuba, the statement referred to a "blockade," the term that Fidel Castro favors because it implies a violation of international law. The declaration also called on the United States to extradite a Cuban exile wanted in Venezuela and Cuba for blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976, saying that every nation must have a "commitment to combat terrorism in all its forms and manifestations."

("Global Exchange", ibid.)

What a difference five years makes (since the end of the Clinton Administration).

Not only is Mr. Castro invited to the Mercosur 2006 meeting in Argentina, but he is treated as a "Special Guest", a "dignitary" being squired around by the president of Venezuela. In contrast to the rock-throwing demonstrators who greeted George Bush last November, Fidel is being met by cheering throngs of well-wishers and admirers.

The photos of Castro and Chavez paying homage to Che Guevara at his birth home in Argentina made me smile as broadly as, I am sure, brought heartburn to the Battistanistas and neoconservatives of the Bush White House.

Hugo Chavez...Ooooh the Irony....

Irony, the special spice of this weblog, abounds in this tale of Mercosur 2006 and the leftward tilt of a confident South American region.

In one sense, perhaps the Bush Administration policies of laissez-faire capitalism that has resulted in high energy pricing, tax breaks abroad, and multi-national corporation with no loyalty to their home nation has contributed as much as anyone to the emergent spirit. When Hugo Chavez was elected president of Venezuela in 1999, his oil was selling for $10 a barrel; today it is selling for $70 a barrel. Argentina, as recently as 2002 facing fiscal collapse, will be oil independent and a net exporter this year, strengthening its economy.

There is irony in Dick Cheney trotting around the country calling Chavez a "thug" and a "dictator"--considering the thuggery of the Cheney Wing of the White House and the dictatorial shifting of executive powers Cheney & Company have engineered. The Irony is sweetened by two facts: (1) Chevez was elected democratically--and overwhelmingly--by "The People", for whom the Bush Administration has little regard in most cases ("Democracy" being a code word amongst Bushniks for Corporatism); (2) Chavez has approval ratings in the 80 percentile range--approximately 50 higher than Bush and 60 higher than Cheney.

There is irony in Cheney and the Bushniks and their proxies in congress talking darkly about "corruption" by the small elite of Chevezistas and the need for regime change in Venezuela. The Bush Republicans control everything in the U.S. from the Whitehouse to the outhouse and the rot of corruption is everywhere. But the sweetest pange of irony comes from the fact that Chevez has used Venezuela's new wealth to create a larger middle class and alleviate poverty in his country. His goal is to eradicate poverty, create 100% literacy and provide universal health care in his country by 2010.

What comparable goal can the Bush Administration hold up that has a reasonable chance of being accomplished?

All the Bush-Cheney Administration seeks to accomplish is tax relief, reduction in regulation, and redistribution of national wealth into the pockets of millionaires. And this administration will go to war and foment fear to accomplish these goals.

Is anyone paying attention to Mercosur 2006? It is a glimpse into the future for anyone with eyes to see...

President Candide & The Schemes of Pangloss

In Voltaire's biting satire of 18th century pretensions, the naive Candide was tutored by an philosopher named Pangloss whose view of the world was so self-contained and sufficient that his name has become synonymous with "self-delusion". Among other theories, Pangloss is most famous for : "...if everything is made for an end, then everything is necessarily for the best end..." By extension, therefore,

"...observe that noses were made to wear spectacles, therefore we have spectacles. Legs were visibly instituted to be breeched, and we have breeches..."

So it might be said of the Panglossian Bush Administration that advises it's Candide-like Commander Extrodinaire.

"...observe that deciders were made to make decisions, therefore we have a decision. Commanders were instituted for times of war, therefore we have war..."

Everthing that fits in service of the president is, by definition, legitimate; anything that does not is illigitimate or unimportant.

For example.

On Tuesday, July 18, 2006 Attorney General Gonzales told the Senate Judiciary Committee that President Bush personally blocked a Justice Department investigation of the anti-terror eavesdropping program that intercepts American's international calls and emails. When asked by Senator Arlen Specter why the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) was denied access when "...many other lawyers had access" Gonzales replied:

"The president of the United States made the decision."

See? He's the Decider.

Yet, according to OPR chief Marshall Jarrett, many prosecutors and FBI agents were granted clearance to pursue an investigation into leaks of information that resulted in the program's disclosure in December. Justice Department inspector General Glenn A. Fine and two of his aides were among other department officials who were granted clearances, Jarett said in an April Memo that was released on Tuesday and prompted Specter's questions.

So, if Bush blocked an internal wiretap probe by the OPR, doesn't that mean he obstructed justice?

Justice was clearly obstructed by someone. Gonzales says it's the president.

But the president is the decider.

So it's okay.

The strategy of the Bush White House is clear. Spend 5 years setting precedent for absolute power in the Commander-in-Chief through a War on a Noun and then kick every violation of law up to him. That is what was done in the Plame Affair. No violation of the law occurred because The President declassified the information that was leaked to Judy Miller and Bob Novak by Rove and Libby at the direction of Cheney.

Wiretaps, intercepted email...who knows what-all. When you get caught doing something wrong in this White House--like obstructing justice or lying to congress--kick it upstairs...

...to President Candide.

MILITARY ANALYSTS QUESTION ISREAL'S MILITARY TACTICS

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Thousands of Israeli bombs have fallen on Lebanese homes, roads, bridges, ports, broadcasting towers and even a lighthouse.

Nearly 300 people, mainly civilians, have been killed, Lebanon's prime minister said.

Analysts say Israel's targeting of civilian and government infrastructure overshadows its strikes on the offices and rocket launchers of Hezbollah guerrillas, whose capture of two Israeli soldiers triggered the attacks.

"This is a classic strategic bombing campaign," said Stephen Biddle, a former head of military studies at the U.S. Army War College now at the Council on Foreign Relations. "What the Israelis are trying to do is pressure others into solving their problem for them, hence the targeting of civilian infrastructure."

But the growing list of civilian casualties — despite Israel's use of U.S.-designed precision-guided bombs — could turn Arabs and others against the Jewish state and its key ally, the U.S., and still not fatally wound Hezbollah, said military analysts.

Israeli Cabinet ministers have said the bombing aims to punish Lebanon and make the government understand the entire country will suffer if Hezbollah — which operates freely in the south — isn't reined in.

But Israeli military spokesman Capt. Jacob Dallal said Wednesday that Israel's bombing targets have direct military significance, since Hezbollah uses roads to transport its rockets and stores them in houses.

"A lot of the rockets are stored in people's homes in urban areas, fired from within villages and brought in from the Damascus-Beirut highway," Dallal said. "We are in day eight and the present condition of Hezbollah is unlike it was on day one. There's no comparison, their infrastructure, their weaponry have all been degraded considerably."

Classic strategic bombardment campaigns aim to flatten key economic resources and are usually designed to bend the targeted government to the will of its attacker or turn the populace against the government.

The United States has been one of the chief proponents of strategic bombardment, launching campaigns in Vietnam, Iraq and Serbia. In World War II it targeted factories, railroads, bridges, ports and, in some cases, residential neighborhoods.

James Dobbins, a former Bush administration envoy to Afghanistan who now heads military analysis for the Rand Corp., said choice of targets by Israel was the key and may be misdirected.

"The military rationale seems rather thin, since many of the targets have no conceivable relationship to Hezbollah," he said.

Hezbollah has little visible presence and few links to Lebanon's military. It is skilled at cloaking its actions from Israeli sensors, while its primitive rockets — which have also killed innocents — are fired from easy-to-hide mobile launchers. Their lack of a guidance system leaves them without a traceable electronic signature, said Mustafa Alani, a military analyst with Dubai-based Gulf Research Center.

"The Israelis face their classic problem: They cannot punish Hezbollah, which has no physical structure to destroy," Alani said.

Instead, Israel is bombing Hezbollah's Shiite Muslim power base, leveling villages and office and apartment blocks in Shiite neighborhoods in the eastern Bekaa Valley, southern Lebanon and south Beirut.

Dallal said the Israeli military bombs civilian buildings or homes if intelligence points to a Hezbollah office or munitions on the site.

"If there is a rocket stored in an apartment building and we attack the apartment in the building in which it is stored," he said. "We have the right to attack because of the missile."

The Brookings Institution's Michael O'Hanlon said the Israeli campaign most closely resembles the U.S.-led NATO bombardment of Serbia in 1999, in which a victory was achieved without a land invasion.

But the 78-day NATO bombardment of Serbia had clear international legitimacy and was more gradual. Air crews targeted Serbian military and communications sites first, and when that didn't persuade the Serb military to pull out of Kosovo, planes hit civilian and government targets.

Targeting was far more discriminatory. Despite tens of thousands of sorties, NATO is thought to have killed 500 civilians in the 2- 1/2 month campaign. By contrast, Israel has killed more than 250 Lebanese in eight days.

And the Serbian actions that triggered NATO's airstrikes were far larger than anything launched from Lebanon, Dobbins said.

"The Serbian government was responsible for the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo that drove a million people from their homes," Dobbins said, "while the Lebanese government is not responsible for the rocket attacks upon Israel."

The government, however, has been unable to fulfill a U.N. directive that Hezbollah be disarmed and that government forces take control of southern Lebanon.

Israel has also chosen to hit targets that the United States would probably reject, because of the danger of killing civilians, said Michele Flournoy, a former Pentagon strategist now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

U.S. war planners realize their campaigns lose international and domestic support when innocents are killed, Flournoy said.

"Our own population is very discriminating in the use of force. People here have bought into the idea of proportionality and the just war," Flournoy said.

For Israel, "it's a balancing act," Flournoy said. "They want to use enough force to get through to the terrorists, while at the same time staying within international norms, so as not to become a pariah."

Israel's history, however, has produced a defense posture that views its enemies as fundamental and existential threats to the country's very survival.

"The airports and bridges don't belong to Hezbollah," Alani said. "People may understand their (Israeli) reactions for the first few days. But world leaders will soon say 'we don't see any links between your attacks and the threat you face.'"

THE SORRY STATE OF CONGRESS

The Ex-Speakers Speak With One Voice on the Sorry State of Congress

By Dana Milbank
Thursday, July 13, 2006; Page A02
(C) Washington Post Corporation

Washington Sketch
A national political reporter for the Post, Milbank writes Washington Sketch, an observational column about political theater in the White House, Congress and elsewhere in the capital. He covered the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns and President Bush's first term. Before coming to the Post as a Style political writer in 2000, he covered the Clinton White House for the New Republic and Congress for the Wall Street Journal.

There are not too many issues that would give common cause to Thomas Foley and Newt Gingrich. Yet there they were, sitting next to each other yesterday: the last Democratic speaker of the House and the man who ousted him to become the first Republican speaker of the House in half a century.

And they were in perfect harmony as they kicked around the notion of "How Congress Is Failing America."

Thomas Foley: "It's the obligation of Congress to decide how far they want executive power to be exercised."

"Congress really has to think about how fundamentally wrong the current system is," Gingrich said of his former colleagues. When facing crises at home and abroad, he said, "it's important to have an informed, independent legislative branch coming to grips with this reality and not sitting around waiting for 'presidential leadership.' "

Foley nodded at Gingrich's points and applauded when he finished. "If I didn't have a somewhat long history with Newt Gingrich," the Democrat said, "I would listen to what he had said if he were a candidate for Congress and say, 'I think I'll vote for this guy.' I think he's absolutely dead right in his diagnosis of what's happening to this country and to the Congress."

The old foes had come to the American Enterprise Institute at the request of two of the capital's most ubiquitous pundits, Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein, to launch "The Broken Branch," the scholars' new book about Congress.

For nearly two hours, Gingrich, Foley and their bespectacled hosts spoke with one voice about the lowly state Congress now finds itself in -- and the lack of easy solutions.

The men had no trouble identifying the symptoms: a collapse of committee deliberations, the demise of oversight of the executive branch, the loss of the "regular order" of rules for debate and legislation, a runaway spending process, and a shrinking legislative calendar. The causes were also not difficult to find: gerrymandered districts, travel and fundraising needs keeping lawmakers away from Washington, the loss of centrists in both parties, quickening news cycles and the reliance on lobbyist-raised cash.

"Flatly, in the 36-plus years we've been here, we've never seen it this bad," Ornstein said.

Said Mann: "If you were to look back on history for a comparable period, it might well be the late 19th century." Foley and Gingrich nodded.

Gingrich was even more dire. "I believe we are drifting into a cycle where the challenges we face are a greater mismatch with our potential solutions than any time since April of 1861," he said.

Foley struggled to keep pace. "If the Congress fails, democracy fails," he said.

It was heartwarming to see the former speakers removing the knives they had stuck in each other's backs. Though they serve on a Pentagon advisory board together, it was their first joint public appearance other than a congressional hearing. They shook hands cordially, at times reached to pat each other on the shoulder as they spoke, and cited each other's points with phrases such as "I agree with Newt on this" and "Speaker Foley will not disagree with me" and "As Newt says."

Gingrich, 63, cited a favorite Foley story he heard years ago, and Foley, 77, applauded Gingrich when he finished. Foley let only one scowl cross his face, when the moderator mentioned the Contract With America, the manifesto of the Republican Revolution of 1994. Each man confessed how his own leadership contributed to the problem.

In a sense, both former speakers share a need for rehab after highly public falls, Foley to an unknown challenger in his Washington state district and Gingrich at the hands of colleagues after poor election results and an earlier ethics flap. "Nothing gets one referred to as a great leader of an institution more than a willingness to show up on a panel," Gingrich quipped, "and one can gradually rebuild almost any reputation if you pander enough to the authorities that write columns and show up on TV."

The two were also united in their inability to offer a "silver bullet," as Foley put it. Their solutions were incremental: Restore committee power to write laws, ban fundraising in Washington, abolish lawmakers' political action committees, end spending "earmarks" and enforce the rules that guide the legislative process.

But a real change, they concurred, would come only with fresh blood. "The correct answer," Gingrich said, "is for the American people to just start firing people. This is what the Progressive movement was."

Until then -- and there are few signs of a mass movement building -- the legislative branch will have to heal itself. Gingrich suggested Congress rediscover its power to supervise the administration. "The failure to do effective, aggressive oversight disserves the country and disserves the president," he argued.

Foley encouraged Congress to stop whining about executive power and push back. "There's no mystery about Dick Cheney's position," he said. "It's the obligation of Congress to decide how far they want executive power to be exercised."

And, while waiting for a voter backlash to clean up Congress, Gingrich had some pithy advice for lawmakers who, in the current wave of scandal and personal enrichment on Capitol Hill, have confused the public interest with their personal interests. Said the former speaker: "My answer to them is 'Go home.' "

TWO TALES OF THE MALADROIT: BUSH AT THE G-8

Blair and Merkel, two of a shrinking community of Bush Allies in the world, were both embarrassed by by that goofy ADHD guy we call 'president'. The stories are below. First, the Reuters story and then a link to the website of Germany's Bilde which trumpets: Bush:liebes attacke auf Merkel or "Bush's Love Attack on Merkel".
*************************************************************************************


BUSH'S DISRESPECTFUL TONE TO BLAIR DURING G-8 HITS BLAIR AT HOME.

By Adrian Croft
Tue Jul 18, 10:54 AM ET

LONDON (Reuters) - British Prime Minister Tony Blair was roundly mocked as a U.S. poodle on Tuesday after an off-the-cuff chat with President George W. Bush was accidentally broadcast.

Bush and Blair enjoyed a gossip over lunch at the Group of Eight summit in St. Petersburg on Monday, unaware that a microphone in front of them was switched on and their words would be relayed around the world.

Breaking with diplomatic formalities, Bush hailed Blair, his closest European ally, with the words "Yo, Blair." His solution to the Middle East crisis was that Syria should press Hizbollah to "stop doing this shit."

The British media pored over the text of the conversation, saying it cast Blair in a subservient role and showed the unequal nature of Britain's much-vaunted "special relationship" with the United States.

"Yo, Bush! Start treating our prime minister with respect," the popular tabloid Daily Mirror said, joining others in seeing the U.S. president's greeting as disrespectful.

The broadcast chat "reinforces the damaging public image of Blair as the U.S. president's poodle," it said.

But most damaging to Blair was what commentators saw as his plea -- rebuffed by Bush -- to be allowed to visit the Middle East to try to stop fighting between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

VISIT OFFER SPURNED

Blair suggested he could prepare the ground for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, because "if she goes out, she's got to succeed ... whereas I can just go out and talk."

The left-leaning Guardian said Blair "all but offers to carry her (Rice's) bags."

"He sounds less like the head of a sovereign government than a Bush official, waiting for the boss's green light -- which he does not give," the newspaper said.

Blair has been Bush's most trusted ally, putting his political future on the line by backing the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 despite rows with European allies and fierce political attacks at home.

The Independent described the spurned offer to act as peacemaker as a setback for Blair, who is under pressure from within his own party to set a date to step down after a series of government scandals over sex, sleaze and incompetence.

Blair has said he will not stand at the next general election, expected in 2009.

Wyn Grant, politics professor at Warwick University, said the conversation suggested "that perhaps Blair doesn't have the kind of relationship with Bush that he would sometimes like to claim he has."

But he said the conversation only reflected reality. "The U.S.-UK relationship throughout the whole period since World War Two has always been an asymmetrical one. It's always been one in which the U.S. has been dominant."


BUSH'S DISRESPECTFUL TOUCHING OF GERMANY'S MERKEL EMBARRASSES HER AT HOME.

Prime Minister Romano Prodi and Germany's Prime Minister Angela Merkel were steeped in a one-on-one conversation when Bush...perhaps bored and manic from the pressures of unfolding events in Lebanon...walk up behind Prime Minister Merkel and squeezed her shoulders, causing her to jump and shocking onlookers with his maladroit behavior. See video....

http://www.bild.t-online.de/BTO/news/aktuell/2006/07/18/merkel-bush-liebes-attacke/merkel-bush-liebes-attacke.html

HELL ON EARTH: THE FAILURE OF BUSH NEOCONSERVATISM

The Bush administration has become as polarizing abroad as it is at home. The G8 Conference, virtually a shambles, has obviated chinks in the Bush diplomatic wall. The U.S. political agenda and its own version of the War on a Noun is pitted against the known world. While there are subtleties and nuances to which Bush supporters can cling to preserve the appearance of order and leadership by their President, most informed observers are viewing the events of the past week and the G8 summit as obviating the failures of neoconservative policies and the Bush foreign policy of unilateralism.

Just look at the headlines:

"Disputes Stall Efforts to Finance Medicine for Poor Countries"
New York Times, 7/16/2006
The United States is essentially pitted against the world because it wants to link the funding of medicines to poor countries with "economic incentives" for pharamceutical companies. Italy's Burlusconi had helped advance the concept as a proxy for the U.S. prior to his political demise. The U.S. now stands virtually alone.
“What’s concerning is how politicized the whole thing has become,” said Dr. Tido Von Schoen-Angerer of the Campaign for Essential Medicines at Doctors Without Borders. Critics of the proposal, in Germany and France, have worried that if the amount of money guaranteed to drug companies is too high, the plan could become a gift for Western manufacturers, particularly those in the United States.
France and Britain, meanwhile have come up with a plan for a levy on airline tickets that would fund the program. “Anything that smacks of a transnational tax is anathema to the U.S.,” said one official who was involved in the discussions.

Another headline:

"India will seek "zero tolerance" pledge on terrorism from G-8"
Here the problem is with the United States and it's relationship with Pakistan which has been an ally in the War on a Noun in Afghanistan. India has traced the recent terrorist bombing in Mumbai that killed hundreds to Pakistan. Although Pakistan denies that this is the case, it HAS been the case in the past. The effect of India's Anti-Terror initiative is to force the United States to accept that it's War on a Noun is not the only game in town. Terror is a fact of life among other nations and sometimes, as in the case of the Mumbai bombing, the U.S. agenda masks the more immediate threats of terrorism to other Countries like India. The United States is separated by an ocean where as cross-border terrorism is a fact of life for India.

Another headline:

"As Tensions Rise, U.S. and Moscow Falter on Trade"
Like it or not, the United States must face the reality that Russia has positioned itself to be a significant supplier of energy and a major consumer of European goods. For centuries, Moscow and St. Petersberg have been considered European Cities. In the time of the Russian Empire, the term "European Russia" was used in the Empire to refer to traditional East Slavic territories under Russian control, including modern Belarus and most of Ukraine (Dnieper Ukraine). Russia shares the Black Sea, and commerce, with middle-European states and President Putin feels that he meets the major criteria necessary to become a member of the WTO. They are a democracy, or at least a Republic, they have significant reserves of foreign exchange, they have a stock market, a central bank, and their currency floats in the basket of foreign exchange.
President Bush, meanwhile, raises "concern" about religious and civil freedon in Russia, suggesting that a "Green Zone" type democracy (my phrase not the president's) in Iraq would be preferable to whatever Russia has. This led to the following exchange _______________________________________________________________
From 7.16.06 NYT http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/world/europe/16summit.html

In the sharpest exchange, Mr. Bush said he had told Mr. Putin during a private dinner here Friday night about “my desire to promote institutional change in parts of the world like Iraq — where there is a free press and free religion — and I told him that a lot of people in our country would hope Russia would do the same thing.”
Mr. Putin, standing bolt upright in a dark blue suit, responded dryly, “We certainly would not want to have the same kind of democracy as they have in Iraq, I will tell you quite honestly” — a clear dig at the challenges still facing the American-supported government there. Mr. Bush, in a light blue suit and standing more casually than his counterpart, turned to face Mr. Putin, smiled and said, almost to himself, “Just wait.”
_______________________________________________________________

In Another Headline:

"Bush, Peers Worlds Apart on Approach to the Crisis"
LA Times, 07.16.06
Fouad Siniora, the Lebanese prime minister, is considered an ally of the United States. The Bush White House was never shy about pointing to Lebanon as one of the great successes of neoconservative bullying (my phrase not theirs) after the invasion of Iraq, as Syria was forced to withdraw from Lebanon.

Background. On June 21, 2005, George Hawi, the former secretary general of the Lebanese Communist Party was also assassinated by a car bomb in Beirut. The assassination of Hariri resulted in huge anti-Syrian protests by Lebanese citizens in Beirut demanding the resignation of the pro-Syrian government. (From Wikipedia:) "Following the examples of the Rose Revolution and Orange Revolution in 2004, the popular action was dubbed the "Cedar Revolution" by the US State Department, a name which quickly caught on among the international media. On February 28, 2005, with over 70,000 people demonstrating in Martyrs' Square, Prime Minister Omar Karami and his Cabinet resigned. They remained in office temporarily in a caretaker role prior to the appointment of replacements, as outlined by the constitution. Eventually Syria withdrew and after the elections, Hariri's Future Movement party, now the country's dominant political force, nominated Fouad Siniora, a former Finance Minister, to be Prime Minister."

Blind Support for Isreal. It is seemingly not in the United States' interest to destablilize the current Lebanese government...but allowing Isreal to invade the country to "root out terrorists" by which Isreal means the millions of members of Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Bush Adminsitration has done just that. By not reigning in Isreal, which the Bush administration has the power to do, the United States has forced Prime Minister Siniora to oppose Isreal. Isreal, meanwhile, in a full military paroxysm of fear and aggression, threatens both Syria and Iran with a wider war.
The international community, including most of the G8, are on one side, questioning the proportionality of Isreal's response, and the Bush administration is on the other side supporting Isreal's actions.

This has not been a good week for the Bush neoconservatives. But that is scant comfort for those of us opposed to Bush policies-- because a good week for them is usually a bad week for everyone else while (as long as they are in power) a bad week for them is, literally, Hell on Earth.

MID-EAST IN FLAMES; BUSH DISENGAGED

In the first few days of the offensive against Lebanon tens of millions of dollars worth of U.S. munitions have been used by Israel against a country friendly to the United States and a government fully supported by America.

A special high-level envoy of the President should be sent to the region to seek an end to the attacks on civilians by both Israel and Hezbollah. But the United States should not stop there; there are three issues between Israel and Lebanon, which must be solved if the same old pattern of tit-for-tat is to be ended once and for all. The absence of the United States from engaging in the region, especially in the past six months, has been the most remarkable reason for the breakdown of the ceasefires.

The fact that the most democratic Arab country is being attacked by Israel undercuts the claim often made by members of the current administration that democracies never go to war with each other. The president is correctly concerned, as he has stated that the Israeli retaliatory attacks on Lebanon should not undermine Prime Minister Siniora's government. It is of course ironic that the major civilian targets for Israel were the international airport and the bridges and highway named after Rafiq al-Hariri. We can only hope that Israel did not consult with the United States before striking these particular targets.

FERC Report Contains Gas-Line Irony

The Federal Energy Repulatory Commission issues its second report on the status of various proposed Alaska gasline projects. While briefly mentioning two other projects, including the Alaska Port Authority ("All-Alaska") project, the report focused on only one--the Producer-Murkowski project.

http://www.ferc.gov/legal/staff-reports/angta-second.pdf

At first read, the FERC report seems to be a piece written to support the Producer-Murkowski Gasline Contract. Certainly the report in 7/11/06 ADN characterizes the FERC report as such "Delay May Scuttle Gas Line, Feds Say".

On closer read, however, there are some surprises.

One of the important factors for the economics of the Canadian Route may be the ability to mix a subsidized Canadian gas stream into an end product that sells as a higher end price. That was part of the economic calculus for the Northwest Alaska Project in the late '70s. The 1.2 billion c.f. gasline out of the Canadian Arctic and down the MacKenzie Valley, partly sponsored by Alaskan Producers, Conoco-Philips and Exxon-Mobil, is not a slam-dunk, however. The report (P. 9) says that "...discussing royalty and fiscal issues concerning the project with the Government of Canada... have paused pending review of the project's cost estimate and construction schedule"
According to today's L.A. Times there is still an unresolved Native Claims Dispute in the MacKenzie Project. See ADN Section F P1 7/11/06.

A delay in the MacKenzie Pipeline might also benefit the Alaska projects by reducing the impact cited in (unattributed) "industry reports" by FERC of a supply-side conflict caused by dual Canadian-Alaskan projects. Steel and workers would would be in short supply FERC says.
Another interesting argument FERC makes for an expedited Alaska Gas project in the study is competition with foreign supplies. Competition is indicated in the approval by FERC of 11 new LNG infrastructure projects in recent years. FERC staff argues that this indicates that there will be a large stream of gas coming from somewhere else entering the American Market-- presumably in competition with Alaska Gas.

Ironically, would this not strengthen the Port Authority project argument?
One argument I heard last year against the Port Authority project is that an LNG port-based system would face downstream distribution delays through LNG conditioning bottlenecks. But with an abundance of LNG facilities being built, such a bottleneck may no longer be a problem. Finally, and most interestingly, if all of these LNG facilities are economical for natural gas transported from countries like Venezuela, surely an LNG facility serving domestically produced gas would be economical as well.

Added together: the extra-territorial regulatory, the Canadian Native claims issues and the timing linkages between the Producer-Murkowski pipeline and the producer-sponsored Canadian Line, and the FERC report is a boost for the Port Authority project.

WAR ABROAD; DELUSION AT HOME

A former Army private accused of raping an Iraqi woman and killing her and three family members was a high-school dropout from a broken home who enlisted to get some direction in his life, yet was sent home early because of an "anti-social personality disorder."

So reports the AP as the military and propoganda experts in the White House begin the image make-over of Steven D. Green from an honorably discharged Iraq war veteran to an abnormal character suffering from anti-social and even pathological behavior.

We are to believe that War and Anti-social behavior have nothing to do with one another. As in all of the instances of misbehavior in Iraq and Afghanistan we have witnessed before, we will be told that this guy was an "isolated case"...a "bad apple".

Okay, I get it, this guy's behavior has nothing to do with this screwed-up War. Nor does the "Nature of War" have impact on the behavior of the others involved in the rape of an Iraqi girl and the murder of her and her family. Nor does the "Nature of War" have anything to do with the actions of scores of other people involved in four separate war crimes that have come to light in as many months. Nor did did the "Nature of War" affect the behavior of the dozens of people involved in or condoning of the criminal behavior of soldiers in Abu Ghraib prison.

I get it, War does not, by its very nature, foster an anti-social or psychopathic environment.

Yeah, sure. If you believe that, I have some yellow cake from Niger to sell you.

We seem to be committed to accepting war as "normal" because so much of our economy and our political culture depends upon its perpetuation. We struggle to explain rape, murder and suicide among our warriors in the context of our "norms" as a peacetime society. It is not normal for people of murder and rape, therefore soldiers who do it in a war zone must not be "normal".

This meme, that war is an extension of the normative American Culture, moves the spectre of the madness of War "off the table" so our military-industrial complex can wave the flag, reap profit, steal oil, and continuously recruit Armies of One as if all this is an honorable pursuit. So we blame the handful of perps and let the criminal enterprise of this War continue unquestioned.
In my opinion, America is engaged in not only anti-social and pathological behavior, but delusional behavior as well.

Given the fact that we are likely to be engaged in a "War On A Noun" for a long, long time, we can expect this hallucinatory State of the Union to last for a long, long time as well.

IRAN'S FM VOWS $1BLN WORTH OF PROJECTS IN IRAQ

Irony can be both bitter and sweet--as must be the taste of the events of this past week to the Bush White House as Iran has conducted visits and meetings with the new Iraqi government and with the powerful Shiite leaders of the South. What Irony there is in the fact that the Bush War against Saddam has accomplished what Iran could not during its war against Saddam in the 1980s: building a bridgehead into the nexus of the Arab-Isreali crescent. 2,500 U.S. Soldiers have died, 10s of thousands of U.S. soldiers wounded, 10s of thousands of civilian lives lost, hundreds of billions of U.S. treasure lost for what? So the Islamic Republic of Iraq and the Islamic Republic of Iran could cement a bulwark of Shiite Power in the Middle-East. In just three years, George W. Bush has destablized our Arab-Speaking allies by empowering Islamists in Egypt and Jordan and he has established a direct threat to the security of Isreal.

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Iran's FM vows $1bln worth of projects in Iraq
Sunday, May 28, 2006 - ©2006 IranMania.com

LONDON, May 28 (IranMania) - Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said his country was ready to help Iraq with an economic investment plan totaling one billion dollars, AFP reported.
"We are planning seven projects in the fields of oil, electricity, hospital construction and other services," he told reporters during his visit to the Shiite holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad.
"The Islamic Republic has set aside nearly one billion dollars to help Iraq," he said, adding that Iranians were ready to come and implement the projects.
He said the projects could be carried out in the southern Shiite provinces or the northern Kurdish ones.
While in Najaf, Mottaki prayed at the Imam Ali shrine, one of Shiite Islam's holiest sites.
He also met with a number of religious leaders, including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani and radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who have a great deal of influence on Iraqi politics.
"Our visit to Ayatollah al-Sistani was not political, but it was just to visit the mausoleum of Imam Ali and religious figures," said Mottaki. "Sistani has an important position and is well-known for preserving the unity of Iraq."
Mottaki was in Baghdad on Friday where he pledged his support for Iraq's new government and promised to aid its reconstruction effort.
Shiite Iran fought a bloody 1980-1988 war against Iraq under now toppled president Saddam Hussein and his Sunni-led regime. Tehran has in the past demanded 100 billion dollars in war reparations from Baghdad.

http://www.iranmania.com/News/ArticleView/Default.asp?NewsCode=43270&NewsKind=Current%20Affairs

The following was first published in 2004 by "Alternatives, Resouces for Cultural Creativity" and may be viewed in its original context at http://www.alternativesmagazine.com/31/levy.html



The Madness of George W. Bush
A Reflection of our Collective Psychosis
By Paul Levy





George W. Bush is ill.

He has a psycho-spiritual disease of the soul, a sickness that is endemic to our culture and symptomatic of the times we live in.

It’s an illness that has been with us since time immemorial. Because it’s an illness that’s in the soul of all of humanity, it pervades the field and is in all of us, in potential, at any moment, which makes it especially hard to diagnose.

Bush’s malady is quite different from schizophrenia, for example, in which all the different parts of the personality are fragmented and not connected to each other, resulting in a state of internal chaos. As compared to the disorder of the schizophrenic, Bush can sound quite coherent and can appear like such a “regular” guy, which makes the syndrome he suffers from very hard to recognize. This is because the healthy parts of his personality have been co-opted by the pathological aspect, which drafts them into its service. Because of the way the personality self-organizes an outer display of coherence around a pathogenic core, I would like to name Bush’s illness “malignant egophrenic (as compared to schizophrenic) disorder,” or “ME disorder”, for short. If ME disorder goes unrecognized and is not contained, it can be very destructive, particularly if the person is in a position of power.

In much the same way that a child’s psychology cannot be understood without looking at the family system he or she is a part of, George Bush does not exist in isolation. We can view Bush and his entire Administration (Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell, Wolfowitz, et al), as well as the corporate, military industrial complex that they are co-dependently enmeshed with, the media that they control, and the voters that support them, as interconnected parts of a whole system, or a “field.” Instead of relating to parts of this field as isolated entities, it’s important to contemplate the entire interdependent field as the “medium” through which malignant egophrenia manifests and propagates itself. ME disease is a field phenomenon, and needs to be understood as such.

Being a field phenomenon, malignant egophrenia is non-local in nature, which means that it is not bounded by the limitations of time or space. Being non-local, this disease pervades and underlies the entire field and can therefore manifest anywhere, through anyone and at any moment. The disease’s non-local nature makes the question of who has the disease irrelevant, as we all have it, in potential. It is more a question of whether or not we are aware of our susceptibility to fall prey to it. This awareness itself serves as an immunization that protects us from the pernicious effects of this insidious illness, thereby allowing us to be of genuine help to others.

Bush, like all of us, is both a manifestation of this deeper field and simultaneously an agent affecting the field. He’s become so fully taken over by the disease, all the while not suspecting a thing, that he’s become a “carrier”, thus infecting the field around him. He has become a portal through which the field around him “warps” in such a way as to feed and support his pathogenic process. A non-local, reciprocally co-arising and interdependent field of unconscious denial and cover-up gets constellated around Bush to enable and protect his pathology.

Falling victim to one’s own deception, as George Bush has, can have a very mesmerizing and gripping effect on others, because the one so affected is so convinced of what he is saying. To quote C. G. Jung, one of the greatest psychiatrists of the twentieth century, “Nothing has such a convincing effect as a lie one invents and believes oneself.” Bush has the seductive coherence of someone who is fanatically identified, like the typical fundamentalist, with only one side of a polarity. Thomas Merton, commenting on the case of the obviously demented Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, points out “One of the most disturbing facts that came out in the Eichmann trial was that a psychiatrist examined him and pronounced him perfectly sane.” A key feature of malignant egophrenia is that it is very hard to recognize when someone is a carrier, because the person can seem so normal and even endearing. The person afflicted can be very “charming” and have a certain type of charisma that can entrance those who don’t see through the subterfuge.

People who don’t recognize George Bush’s illness and thus support him are colluding with and enabling in the co-creation of the pathological field that is birthing itself through him into the human family. People who vote for Bush are somehow blind to what is very obvious to others. It’s as if they’ve become hypnotized and fallen under the spell that he is casting. People who support Bush become unwitting agents through which this non-local disease feeds and replicates itself. By supporting him they are collaborating with and becoming parts of the greater, interconnected and self-organizing field of the disease.

The situation with Bush is analogous to when seemingly good, normal, loving Germans supported Hitler, believing he was a good leader trying to help them. The German people didn’t realize that the virulent psychological pathogen malignant egophrenia had taken possession of Hitler and was incarnating itself through him. By not seeing this and supporting Hitler, they became unwitting agents of the disease, assisting its ability to self-propagate. This was a collective psychosis, and this is what is taking place in our country right now. Whereas Hitler’s evil was more overt in its cruelty and sadism, Bush’s dark side is much more hidden and disguised, which makes it particularly dangerous.

Just like Hitler struck a chord deep in the German unconscious, George Bush is touching something very deep in the American psyche. Bush is acting out on the world stage an underdeveloped psychological process that deals simplistically with issues such as good and evil. It’s as if he hasn’t grown out of and fully differentiated from the realm of mythic, archetypal fantasy that is typical of early adolescence. This immature aspect of Bush’s process speaks to and resonates with those voters who support him, as it is a reflection of their own under-developed inner process.

At the root of Bush’s pathology is a deep dissociation. Like the terrorists, he has split-off from his own darker half, projecting the shadow “out there,” and then tries to destroy this disowned shadow. By projecting the shadow onto each other, Bush and the terrorists are each seeing their own shadow reflected in the other. They see each other as criminals, as the incarnation of evil. By projecting the shadow in this way, they locate the evil “out there,” which insures that they don’t have to recognize the evil within themselves.

It’s interesting to note that the inner meaning of the word mirror is “shadow holder.” Ironically, by fighting against their own shadow in this way, they become possessed by the very thing they are trying to destroy, thereby perpetuating a never-ending cycle of violence.
Projecting the shadow in this way, to quote Jung, “deprives us of the capacity to deal with evil.” By projecting the shadow, Jung continues “evil has us in its grip……. for only the fool can permanently disregard the conditions of his own nature. In fact, this negligence is the best means of making him an instrument of evil.”

By projecting the shadow, Bush unwittingly becomes a conduit for the deepest, archetypal evil to possess him from beneath his conscious awareness, and to act itself out through him. At the same time, ironically, he identifies with the light and imagines that he is divinely inspired. People afflicted with extreme cases of egophrenia can, like Bush, become so inflated that they believe that any action they desire is justified in the name of God, as they can rationalize it as being God’s will.

Unable to self-reflect, George Bush is convinced of the rightness of his viewpoint, which he considers non-negotiable. He reacts to other people who don’t agree with him and support his narcissism with not just aggression but with sadism. Bush has contempt for and flagrantly violates the rule of law, which he believes himself to be above.

Bush has fallen into a state that is the embodiment of arrogance. Succumbing to the temptation of power, he has become corrupt-—an inevitable consequence when one prefers power over truth. Bush has fallen into a vicious cycle where he is compulsively driven to do everything and anything he can to hold onto the position of power he finds himself in. Addiction to power generates a counter-incentive to self-reflection.

Underlying this resistance to look in the mirror (the “shadow holder”) is an unwillingness and apparent inability to experience his own sense of sin, guilt and shame. It is as if he is afraid of being exposed, of being found out. To quote Jung, a person stricken with a pathology such as Bush “cannot endure his own guilt, just as he could not help incurring it. He will stoop to every kind of self-deception if only he can escape the sight of himself…..which consists essentially in one hand not knowing what the other one is doing, in wanting to jump over one’s own shadow, and in looking for everything dark, inferior and culpable in others.” All of these factors set in motion a self-perpetuating cycle of denial, cover-up and projecting the shadow, all of which are based on a lie. Bush then falls into an endless loop of hiding from his own lie, which is to say, from himself. Thus Bush becomes a conduit for egophrenia to take him over and incarnate its malignant aspect through him.

Malignant egophrenia is crazy-making. It induces a very hard to recognize form of insanity. It’s a world where up is down, as its flawless illogic is convoluted and inverted at its core. People with egophrenia accuse other people of doing what they themselves do, because they don’t recognize the mirror-like nature of reality. For example, Bush is talking about himself when he accuses Saddam Hussein of being “a man who has defied the world,” and “a man who has made the United Nations look foolish.”

One way the disease works is that, when we point at it and call it by its true name—as being a form of insanity called ignorance—people who are stricken with the disease will see us as the crazy ones. Unless we recognize the insidious nature of this disease, there is a crazy-making field around it that will make us a part of itself. Collective psychosis is like that.

One of the signatures of ME disease is that it hooks people through their unconscious blind-spot, so when people are afflicted, they are truly unaware of what is getting acted out through them. Bush doesn’t suspect a thing about his pathology because the field around him unconsciously conspires and colludes with and enables his psychosis. Bush himself is being manipulated, used and victimized, like a marionette on a string, by a deeper matrix of cover-up and deceit that has been perpetrated by him and his regime, and has now taken on an autonomous life of its own.

This disease, if it gets out of control, means self-destruction for both victim and perpetrator. There are no winners. The entire interconnected web that supports Bush can be recognized to be tentacles of this virulent, non-local pathogen that, to the extent that it is not seen, is potentially gaining more and more sovereignty. Like a sci-fi movie, we have dreamed up a higher-dimensional Frankenstein monster that has taken on a life of its own and truly threatens all of us.

Malignant egophrenia is both an expression of and at the root of the extreme polarization and dissociation in both the human psyche and the world process at large. We can even say that it’s the “bug” in the system that has informed and given shape to all of the conflict and disharmony of human relationship. ME disease is as old as the human species. However, we’re now at the point in our evolution where we can finally recognize it, diagnose it and give it a name.

The recognition of the disease is itself the beginning of the cure. By recognizing the nature of this collective psychosis, we snap out of being part of it. Malignant egophrenia, unrecognized and misdiagnosed until now, has wreaked havoc all throughout human history, and is at the very root of our current world crisis. To the extent we are unaware of the nature of this collective psychosis, it has us in its grip and will unconsciously get acted out through us in a destructive manner. The choice is truly ours.

The Cure
The prescription for this disease is simply for enough of us who see it to connect with each other in lucid awareness so that it can be (alchemically) contained. The pathogen then can’t possess us from beneath our conscious awareness, and act itself out through us. Seeing the nature of the disease, we know its name, which takes away its omnipotence and autonomy. The pathogen is then anchored to consciousness so that it can’t vaporize back into the unconscious. This de-potentiates the disease, beginning the process of metabolizing and re-integrating it back into the profound unity of the psyche. The energy that was bound up in the compulsion to endlessly re-create the disease becomes liberated and available for creative expression. This is an evolutionary impulse from the universe in which we are invited to participate.

Malignant egophrenia forces upon us the responsibility to come to terms with the evil inside our own hearts. If we solidify George Bush as being evil and react with righteous indignation, we are guilty of the very same thing we’re accusing Bush of (i.e, projecting the shadow). We then become a conduit for the very evil we’re reacting to. Who among us has not been guilty of being a channel for ME disease at one time or another? If, when we see this virulent pathogen, we contract against it and react in any way, be it in judgment, hatred, anger or revulsion, we’re helping to perpetuate the diabolical polarization that is the signature of the disease. Our reacting in this way, which is typical of many political activists, is itself an expression that we ourselves have the disease, or to say it more clearly, the disease has us.

Jung says “Everything could be left undisturbed did not the new way demand to be discovered, and did it not visit humanity with all the plagues of Egypt until it finally is discovered.” Malignant egophrenia is a modern day plague of Egypt. If we don’t see what it is symbolically revealing to us, malignant egophrenia will destroy us. It’s a gesture from the universe, beckoning us, demanding us to integrate it and thereby receive its blessing. By prompting, pressuring and challenging us to come to terms with it and receive its gifts, malignant egophrenia has the potential to awaken us, thereby furthering the evolution of the species.

The question is, do we recognize what is being symbolically shown to us by egophrenia, or not? The inner meaning of the word apocalypse is “something hidden being revealed.” Will these apocalyptic end times we are in be an initiation into a more expansive part of our being? Or will it destroy our species? How it will manifest completely depends on us.

Malignant egophrenia has so overtaken President Bush as its living embodiment that this deadly disease could be said to be incarnating itself through him. Because of his position of power, Bush is able to act out and give shape and form to his inner pathology in such a way that his inner process is both literally, as well as symbolically, getting played out as the world process. Bush’s process, as well as the world’s process, is a reflection of our own process. ME disease is unique in that it collapses the boundary between inner and outer. Egophrenia is an inner disease of the soul that expresses itself via the medium of the outside world.

Being a non-local field phenomenon, malignant egophrenia is something all six billion of us are collaboratively creating and dreaming up together. Bush is an embodied, mirrored reflection of a part of ourselves, just like we, reciprocally, are a reflection of a part of him. His disease is our disease. Bush and his regime are a living embodied reflection of our collective shadow. We have all dreamed them up to play out these roles, in full living color, so that we can see and integrate these parts of ourselves. Compassion spontaneously arises when we recognize these fear-ridden parts of ourselves.

The malignant egophrenia epidemic is happening right in front of us, for all who have eyes to see. If we don’t look at what’s happening, if we turn away, ignore it, and contract against it, we are lying to ourselves. Then we’re colluding with and unknowingly feeding the disease. Our looking away is a form of blindness. Our looking away is a form of ignorance. Our looking away, our contraction, IS itself the disease. Our resulting complacency and inaction is, in fact, an expression of our lack of compassion. To quote Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. “One who passively accepts evil [allowing it to happen] is as much involved in it as the one who perpetrates it.”

Compassion is sometimes fierce, though. Sometimes it says “no,” and sets a boundary. Genuine compassion is not always smiley-faced, otherwise known as “idiot compassion,” which just enables and reinforces asleepness. Genuine compassion is not passive. It propels us to act for the benefit of all beings. True compassion demands that we be willing to consciously step into our power, mediated through the heart, and to find the courage to speak our true voice.

The Bush administration is breaking the moral code, the law of the planet, what Thomas Jefferson called “a decent respect for the opinion of mankind.” Like a bully who is in a position of power and privilege, the Bush regime abuses its power simply because it can. What the Bush regime is doing is truly criminal. The malignant egophrenia epidemic has induced a form of criminal insanity in the entire Bush regime that we are all complicit in by allowing it to happen.

Being truly patriotic and compassionate in our current situation involves doing everything and anything we can, however big or small, to remove Bush and his regime from office, for their good, as well as our own. It’s our responsibility to recognize the extreme danger of our situation and to do something about it. This is what Al Gore was trying to tell us in his speech when he ended with the quote by Abraham Lincoln, “We—even we here—hold the power, and bear the responsibility.” Now is the time to act before it is too late. As the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. says “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”
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A healer, Paul Levy is a spiritual and political activist. He is in private practice, helping other people who are also spiritually awakening to the dream-like nature of reality. He can be reached at paul@awakeninthedream.com, and (503) 234-6480. His website is www.awakeninthedream.com, where a longer, more in-depth version of this article is available. Please feel free to pass this article along to a friend if you feel so inspired.© 2004.

ON REPUBLICANS IN PRISON

From the Houston ChronicalMay 26, 2006

As for prison — where California Attorney General Bill Lockyer once said he'd like to see Lay share a cell "with a tattooed dude who says, 'Hi, my name is Spike, honey' " — Houston defense lawyer Kent Schaffer says the federal system tends to be safer than state lockups.
"The Bureau of Prisons is going to want to make sure Ken Lay is not assaulted in prison," Schaffer said. "If somebody of that stature is assaulted in any way, that's going to be really bad PR for the United States government."
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/3898667.html
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My question is this: What “Status” does one have to be in order for such an assault to be “acceptable” in U.S. Federal Prisons?

Republicans decry “class warfare” when progressives call for political consequences of their public policies. In fact, “class” is very much alive in America. When Republicans go to prison for their crimes, I want to see a truly “classless” society. Ken Lay and his ilk deserve no better.

IRANIAN PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD'S LETTER TO PRESIDENT BUSH (Full Text)

Text of Iranian President Ahmadinejad's letter to President George W. BushBy Iranian Republic News Angency (IRNA)Updated May 9, 2006, 08:13 pm

The Iranian Government has released to the public, the full text of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter to President George Bush.
"The letter to US President George Bush carries the Iranian nation's views and comments on international issues as well as suggestions for resolving the many problems facing humanity," said the Iranian president.

The letter was submitted to President Bush on Monday, May 9, 2006 via the Swiss embassy in Tehran, which takes care of the US interest section in Iran and acts as a liason between the two countries.

The following is the full text of President Ahmadinejad's letter to President George Bush:

In the Name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful,
Mr George Bush, President of the United States of America,

For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena -- which are being constantly debated, especially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hope that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.

Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God, feel obliged to respect human rights, present liberalism as a civilization model, announce one’s opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, make “War on Terror” his slogan, and finally, work towards the establishment of a unified international community – a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, but at the same time, have countries attacked. The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the presence of a few criminals in a village, city, or convoy for example, the entire village, city or convoy (are) set ablaze.

Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years. At what price? Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women – as occupation troops – put in harms way, taken away from family and loved ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that everyday some commit suicide and those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of ailments; while some are killed and their bodies handed to their families.

On the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed to begin with. Of course Saddam was a murderous dictator. But the war was not waged to topple him, the announced goal of the war was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction. He was toppled along the way towards another goal; nevertheless the people of the region are happy about it. I point out that throughout the many years of the imposed war on Iran Saddam was supported by the West.

Mr. President, You might know that I am a teacher. My students ask me how can these actions be reconciled with the values outlined at the beginning of this letter and duty to the tradition of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the Messenger of peace and forgiveness?

There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals.

European investigators have confirmed the existence of secret prisons in Europe too. I could not correlate the abduction of a person, and him or her being kept in secret prisons, with the provisions of any judicial system. For that matter, I fail to understand how such actions correspond to the values outlined in the beginning of this letter, i.e. the teachings of Jesus Christ (PBUH), human rights and liberal values.

Young people, university students, and ordinary people have many questions about the phenomenon of Israel. I am sure you are familiar with some of them. Throughout history many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people, is a new phenomenon that is exclusive to our times. Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did not exist. They show old documents and globes and say try as we have, we have not been able to find a country named Israel.

I tell them to study the history of WWI and II. One of my students told me that during WWII, which more than tens of millions of people perished in, news about the war, was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. Each touted their victories and the most recent battlefront defeat of the other party. After the war they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least two million families.

Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalized or explained?

Mr. President, I am sure you know how – and at what cost – Israel was established: -Many thousands were killed in the process.
-Millions of indigenous people were made refugees.
-Hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland, olive plantations, towns and villages were destroyed.
This tragedy is not exclusive to the time of establishment; unfortunately it has been ongoing for sixty years now.

A regime has been established which does not show mercy even to kids, destroys houses while the occupants are still in them, announces beforehand its list and plans to assassinate Palestinian figures, and keeps thousands of Palestinians in prison. Such a phenomenon is unique – or at the very least extremely rare – in recent memory.

Another big question asked by the people is “why is this regime being supported?” Is support for this regime in line with the teachings of Jesus Christ (PBUH) or Moses (PBUH) or liberal values? Or are we to understand that allowing the original inhabitants of these lands – inside and outside Palestine -- whether they are Christian, Moslem or Jew, to determine their fate, runs contrary to principles of democracy, human rights and the teachings of prophets? If not, why is there so much opposition to a referendum?

The newly elected Palestinian administration recently took office. All independent observers have confirmed that this government represents the electorate. Unbelievingly, they have put the elected government under pressure and have advised it to recognize the Israeli regime, abandon the struggle and follow the programs of the previous government.
If the current Palestinian government had run on the above platform, would the Palestinian people have voted for it? Again, can such position taken in opposition to the Palestinian government be reconciled with the values outlined earlier? The people are also asking “Why are all UNSC resolutions in condemnation of Israel vetoed?”

Mr. President, As you are well aware, I live amongst the people and am in constant contact with them -- many people from around the Middle East manage to contact me as well. They do not have faith in these dubious policies either. There is evidence that the people of the region are becoming increasingly angry with such policies.

It is not my intention to pose too many questions, but I need to refer to other points as well.
Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not scientific R&D [Research & Development] one of the basic rights of nations?

You are familiar with history. Aside from the Middle Ages, in what other point in history has scientific and technical progress been a crime? Can the possibility of scientific achievements being utilized for military purposes be reason enough to oppose science and technology altogether? If such a supposition is true, then all scientific disciplines, including physics, chemistry, mathematics, medicine, engineering, etc. must be opposed.

Lies were told in the Iraqi matter. What was the result? I have no doubt that telling lies is reprehensible in any culture, and you do not like to be lied to.

Mr. President, Don’t Latin Americans have the right to ask why their elected governments are being opposed and coup leaders supported? Or, Why must they constantly be threatened and live in fear?

The people of Africa are hardworking, creative and talented. They can play an important and valuable role in providing for the needs of humanity and contribute to its material and spiritual progress. Poverty and hardship in large parts of Africa are preventing this from happening. Don’t they have the right to ask why their enormous wealth – including minerals – is being looted, despite the fact that they need it more than others?

Again, do such actions correspond to the teachings of Christ and the tenets of human rights?
The brave and faithful people of Iran too have many questions and grievances, including: the coup d’etat of 1953 and the subsequent toppling of the legal government of the day, opposition to the Islamic revolution, transformation of an Embassy into a headquarters supporting the activities of those opposing the Islamic Republic (many thousands of pages of documents corroborate this claim), support for Saddam in the war waged against Iran, the shooting down of the Iranian passenger plane, freezing the assets of the Iranian nation, increasing threats, anger and displeasure vis-à-vis the scientific and nuclear progress of the Iranian nation (just when all Iranians are jubilant and celebrating their country’s progress), and many other grievances that I will not refer to in this letter.

Mr. President, September Eleven was a horrendous incident. The killing of innocents is deplorable and appalling in any part of the world. Our government immediately declared its disgust with the perpetrators and offered its condolences to the bereaved and expressed its sympathies. All governments have a duty to protect the lives, property and good standing of their citizens. Reportedly your government employs extensive security, protection and intelligence systems – and even hunts its opponents abroad. September eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services – or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have the various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren’t those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?

All governments have a duty to provide security and peace of mind for their citizens. For some years now, the people of your country and neighbors of world trouble spots do not have peace of mind. After 9.11, instead of healing and tending to the emotional wounds of the survivors and the American people -- who had been immensely traumatized by the attacks -- some Western media only intensified the climate of fear and insecurity – some constantly talked about the possibility of new terror attacks and kept the people in fear. Is that service to the American people? Is it possible to calculate the damages incurred from fear and panic?

American citizens lived in constant fear of fresh attacks that could come at any moment and in any place. They felt insecure in the streets, in their place of work and at home. Who would be happy with this situation? Why was the media, instead of conveying a feeling of security and providing peace of mind, giving rise to a feeling of insecurity?

Some believe that the hype paved the way -- and was the justification --for an attack on Afghanistan. Again I need to refer to the role of media. In media charters, correct dissemination of information and honest reporting of a story are established tenets. I express my deep regret about the disregard shown by certain Western media for these principles. The main pretext for an attack on Iraq was the existence of WMDs. This was repeated incessantly -- for the public to finally believe -- and the ground set for an attack on Iraq.

Will the truth not be lost in a contrived and deceptive climate? Again, if the truth is allowed to be lost, how can that be reconciled with the earlier mentioned values? Is the truth known to the Almighty lost as well?

Mr. President, In countries around the world, citizens provide for the expenses of governments so that their governments in turn are able to serve them. The question here is “what has the hundreds of billions of dollars, spent every year to pay for the Iraqi campaign, produced for the citizens?”

As Your Excellency is aware, in some states of your country, people are living in poverty. Many thousands are homeless and unemployment is a huge problem. Of course these problems exist – to a larger or lesser extent -- in other countries as well. With these conditions in mind, can the gargantuan expenses of the campaign – paid from the public treasury – be explained and be consistent with the aforementioned principles?

What has been said, are some of the grievances of the people around the world, in our region and in your country. But my main contention – which I am hoping you will agree to some of it – is:
Those in power have a specific time in office and do not rule indefinitely, but their names will be recorded in history and will be constantly judged in the immediate and distant futures.
The people will scrutinize our presidencies.

Did we mange to bring peace, security and prosperity for the people or insecurity and unemployment?

Did we intend to establish justice or just supported especial interest groups, and by forcing many people to live in poverty and hardship, made a few people rich and powerful -- thus trading the approval of the people and the Almighty with theirs’?

Did we defend the rights of the underprivileged or ignore them?

Did we defend the rights of all people around the world or imposed wars on them, interfered illegally in their affairs, established hellish prisons and incarcerated some of them?

Did we bring the world peace and security or raised the specter of intimidation and threats?

Did we tell the truth to our nation and others around the world or presented an inverted version of it?

Were we on the side of people or the occupiers and oppressors?

Did our administrations set out to promote rational behavior, logic, ethics, peace, fulfilling obligations, justice, service to the people, prosperity, progress and respect for human dignity or the force of guns, intimidation, insecurity, disregard for the people, delaying the progress and excellence of other nations, and trample on people’s rights?

And finally, they will judge us on whether we remained true to our oath of office – to serve the people, which is our main task, and the traditions of the prophets -- or not?

Mr. President, How much longer can the world tolerate this situation? Where will this trend lead the world to?

How long must the people of the world pay for the incorrect decisions of some rulers?
How much longer will the specter of insecurity – raised from the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction -- hunt the people of the world?

How much longer will the blood of the innocent men, women and children be spilled on the streets, and people’s houses destroyed over their heads?

Are you pleased with the current condition of the world?

Do you think present policies can continue?

If billions of dollars spent on security, military campaigns and troop movement were instead spent on investment and assistance for poor countries, promotion of health, combating different diseases, education and improvement of mental and physical fitness, assistance to the victims of natural disasters, creation of employment opportunities and production, development projects and poverty alleviation, establishment of peace, mediation between disputing states, and extinguishing the flames of racial, ethnic and other conflicts, were would the world be today?

Would not your government and people be justifiably proud?

Would not your administration’s political and economic standing have been stronger?

And I am most sorry to say, would there have been an ever increasing global hatred of the American government?

Mr. President, it is not my intention to distress anyone.

If Prophet Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ishmael, Joseph, or Jesus Christ (PBUH) were with us today, how would they have judged such behavior? Will we be given a role to play in the promised world, where justice will become universal and Jesus Christ (PBUH) will be present? Will they even accept us?

My basic question is this: Is there no better way to interact with the rest of the world? Today there are hundreds of millions of Christians, hundreds of millions of Muslims and millions of people who follow the teachings of Moses (PBUH). All divine religions share and respect one word and that is “monotheism” or belief in a single God and no other in the world. The Holy Koran stresses this common word and calls on all followers of divine religions and says: [3.64] Say: O followers of the Book! Come to an equitable proposition between us and you that we shall not serve any but Allah and (that) we shall not associate aught with Him, and (that) some of us shall not take others for lords besides Allah; but if they turn back, then say: Bear witness that we are Muslims. (The Family of Imran)

Mr. President, According to divine verses, we have all been called upon to worship one God and follow the teachings of divine Prophets.

“To worship a God which is above all powers in the world and can do all He pleases.”

“The Lord which knows that which is hidden and visible, the past and the future, knows what goes on in the Hearts of His servants and records their deeds.”

“The Lord who is the possessor of the heavens and the earth and all universe is His court”

“planning for the universe is done by His hands, and gives His servants the glad tidings of mercy and forgiveness of sins”

“He is the companion of the oppressed and the enemy of oppressors”

“He is the Compassionate, the Merciful”

“He is the recourse of the faithful and guides them towards the light from darkness”

“He is witness to the actions of His servants”

“He calls on servants to be faithful and do good deeds, and asks them to stay on the path of righteousness and remain steadfast”

“Calls on servants to heed His prophets and He is a witness to their deeds”

“A bad ending belongs only to those who have chosen the life of this world and disobey Him and oppress His servants”

and “A good end and eternal paradise belong to those servants who fear His majesty and do not follow their lascivious selves.”


We believe a return to the teachings of the divine prophets is the only road leading to salvation. I have been told that Your Excellency follows the teachings of Jesus (PBUH) and believes in the divine promise of the rule of the righteous on Earth.

We also believe that Jesus Christ (PBUH) was one of the great prophets of the Almighty. He has been repeatedly praised in the Koran. Jesus (PBUH) has been quoted in Koran as well: [19.36] And surely Allah is my Lord and your Lord, therefore serve Him; this is the right path. Marium Service to and obedience of the Almighty is the credo of all divine messengers.

The God of all people in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, the Pacific and the rest of the world is one. He is the Almighty who wants to guide and give dignity to all His servants. He has given greatness to Humans.

We again read in the Holy Book: “The Almighty God sent His prophets with miracles and clear signs to guide the people and show them divine signs and purify them from sins and pollutions. And He sent the Book and the balance so that the people display justice and avoid the rebellious”. All of the above verses can be seen, one way or the other, in the Good Book as well.
Divine prophets have promised: The day will come when all humans will congregate before the court of the Almighty, so that their deeds are examined. The good will be directed towards Haven and evildoers will meet divine retribution. I trust both of us believe in such a day, but it will not be easy to calculate the actions of rulers, because we must be answerable to our nations and all others whose lives have been directly or indirectly affected by our actions.
All prophets, speak of peace and tranquility for man -- based on monotheism, justice and respect for human dignity.

Do you not think that if all of us come to believe in and abide by these principles, that is, monotheism, worship of God, justice, respect for the dignity of man, belief in the Last Day, we can overcome the present problems of the world -- that are the result of disobedience to the Almighty and the teachings of prophets – and improve our performance? Do you not think that belief in these principles promotes and guarantees peace, friendship and justice?

Do you not think that the aforementioned written or unwritten principles are universally respected?

Will you not accept this invitation? That is, a genuine return to the teachings of prophets, to monotheism and justice, to preserve human dignity and obedience to the Almighty and His prophets?

Mr. President, History tells us that repressive and cruel governments do not survive. God has entrusted the fate of men to them. The Almighty has not left the universe and humanity to their own devices.

Many things have happened contrary to the wishes and plans of governments. These tell us that there is a higher power at work and all events are determined by Him.

Can one deny the signs of change in the world today?

Is the situation of the world today comparable to that of ten years ago? Changes happen fast and come at a furious pace. The people of the world are not happy with the status quo and pay little heed to the promises and comments made by a number of influential world leaders. Many people around the world feel insecure and oppose the spreading of insecurity and war and do not approve of and accept dubious policies.

The people are protesting the increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots and the rich and poor countries.

The people are disgusted with increasing corruption.

The people of many countries are angry about the attacks on their cultural foundations and the disintegration of families. They are equally dismayed with the fading of care and compassion.

The people of the world have no faith in international organizations, because their rights are not advocated by these organizations.

Liberalism and Western style democracy have not been able to help realize the ideals of humanity. Today these two concepts have failed. Those with insight can already hear the sounds of the shattering and fall of the ideology and thoughts of the Liberal democratic systems.
We increasingly see that people around the world are flocking towards a main focal point -- that is the Almighty God. Undoubtedly through faith in God and the teachings of the prophets, the people will conquer their problems. My question for you is: “Do you not want to join them?”
Mr. President, Whether we like it or not, the world is gravitating towards faith in the Almighty and justice and the will of God will prevail over all things.

Vasalam Ala Man Ataba’al hoda
Mahmood Ahmadi-Nejad
President of the Islamic Republic of Iran