Article: What government? What legal system?

When you stuff people into jobs so that the oligarchy only thrives you get incompetence and greed. As a result of that you'll have failures. No one wants
to admit that they are a failure so lying ensues.

That sums up W's administration.

Benefactors include telecom companies and oil companies.

Traditionally GOP ghouls love wars as it makes their buddies in the military-industrial complex rich. The top 1% "Rangers" and "Pioneers" not only contribute to GOP campaigns--they also provide kickbacks, a natural result of crony politics.

We have pissed so much money down into the sinkhole called Iraq reconstruction and yet "Iraq rebuilding still falling short of goals, U.S. officials say" at
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/31/africa/dam.php
states "More than $100 billion has been devoted to rebuilding Iraq, mainly thanks to American taxpayers and Iraqi oil revenues, but nearly five years into the conflict, output in critical areas like water and electricity remain below U.S. goals, federal oversight officials reported to Congress.
After the influx of that much cash into Iraq's infrastructure, there are also some hopeful signs, one of those officials, Stuart Bowen Jr., who heads the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, said Tuesday."

Bowen's testimony to a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee "showed that some of the same disastrous failures that had repeatedly damaged the reconstruction program were still occurring. A project to fix a dangerously flawed dam on the Tigris River at the northern city of Mosul has cost at least $27 million and achieved essentially nothing of practical value, his testimony and two related reports by his office found.
Oversight of the dam project by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which had responsibility, was so weak that a contractor hired to build a giant production facility to seal leaks in the soil did the improbable, to say the least: the contractor undertook to build a different kind of facility, which could not seal the leaks."

You can bet that Halliburton and companies of its ilk are fleecing their pockets while throwing away our tax dollars in the reconstruction.

Look who is making out in Iraq. The article "Hunt oil deal creating tension in Iraq" at
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5iXtQstIhz0ZCqIQVOZLiFhqayA8g
exemplifies the point that W's cronies are making money against the US' interests as "A US official on Thursday criticised an oil deal between Texas-based Hunt Oil Company and Iraq's Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), saying it had "needlessly elevated tensions" in Iraq.
Hunt had been advised by the US State Department not to enter the deal before the Iraqi parliament passed a national oil bill that will share out the country's lucrative oil revenues but it went ahead anyway, a US embassy official in Baghdad told reporters.
The contract signed earlier this month was declared "illegal" by Iraqi Oil
Minister Hussein al-Shahristani, sparking a war of words with the KRG, which told him to stop meddling in its affairs and said he should be sacked.
The KRG passed its own oil law in August and immediately entered into the exploration deal with Hunt.
The US embassy official, who would not be named, told a media briefing the signing of contracts by the KRG while a controversial national oil bill is still before parliament was undermining national unity.
"We think that these contracts have needlessly elevated tensions between the KRG and the Iraqi government," said the official....
The Hunt contract is the first major deal since UN sanctions were imposed on
Iraq when it invaded Kuwait in 1990.
No details of the contract have been released but the Dallas company, which has links with the White House, has said it would begin its geological survey work in the province of Dahuk, near Iraq's northwestern border with Turkey, by the end of this year and would begin drilling in 2008."

The article "Iraqi witnesses discuss Blackwater shooting" at
click here
states "FBI agents investigating the September shooting incident involving security contractor Blackwater USA in which 17 people died appear focused on whether anyone fired first on the American convoy and have been aggressively gathering ballistic evidence, according to witnesses interviewed by the agents.

In Washington, State and Justice Department officials said the investigation would not be derailed by a reported offer of immunity to the guards. But it remained unclear whether they could be prosecuted under U.S. law for the shooting.

And as anger continued to simmer in Iraq, the government introduced legislation
Tuesday stripping American contractors of the immunity from Iraqi law they were granted in 2004 by the U.S.-led authority set up to govern Iraq shortly after the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003."

Why are they getting immunity? How can W expect that action to appease the Islamic world? Only the guilty beg for immunity.

In this atrocity Abdul-Razzaq was trapped on all sides by stopped cars and "When the security guards left the scene, he said, he ran to another car to check on a shooting victim, only to have his nephew, who had been riding in his car, run up and tell him Ali had been killed.

Abdul-Razzaq ran back. He said he had glimpsed his son earlier through the rear-view mirror, slumped against the door in the back seat, and assumed he must have fainted. But when he opened the door, blood and brain tissue poured from his son's head. He slammed the door shut in disbelief. Then he jumped into the car, feeling his 10-year-old son's chest to see whether his heart was still beating. The race to the hospital was futile."

"My sister gave them a piece of advice," said Abdul-Razzaq, whose sister was in the car with him and also gave an interview to the FBI agents. "She said that it would be better for them to bomb Iraq with an atomic bomb rather than kill one or two people on a daily basis. 'Kill us all in a matter of seconds so that we may be free of this torment."

Regarding the FBI agents "To tell you the truth, I felt they were truly sorry," Abdul-Razzaq said.

Still, he added: "I told them that if the investigation was not fair, this incident will . . . put a brand of shame on the forehead of Americans."

So, the CEOs of Blackwater, and similar mercenary groups, make out in the rape and pillaging of Iraq, but the common man, such as the US military and each and every one of us, pay the bill! Our desperate youth in the US military pay all too frequently with their very lives. The rest of us have money stolen from us and are disparaged by our former allies and hated by the Islamic world!

W's first instinct is to cover-up but "Senior Democrats Want Blackwater Case Details" at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/30/AR2007103000423.html
states "The State Department said yesterday that it had provided "limited protections" to Blackwater Worldwide security guards under investigation in the deaths of 17 Iraqi civilians but insisted that its actions would not preclude successful prosecution of the contractors.
Signed statements the guards provided to State's Bureau of Diplomatic Security in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 16 shooting deaths included what law enforcement officials said was a standard disclaimer used in "official administrative inquiries" involving government employees. It said that the statements were being offered with the understanding that nothing in them could be used "in a criminal proceeding."
New details about the "protections" given Blackwater contractors allegedly involved in the shootings sparked outrage from congressional Democrats yesterday, along with a flood of letters to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice from committee chairmen demanding more information.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), who heads the Judiciary Committee as well as the appropriations subcommittee overseeing State's budget, called the contractor issue the latest example of the Bush administration's refusal to hold anyone from "their team" accountable for misconduct or incompetence. "If you get caught," Leahy said in a statement, "they will get you immunity. If you get convicted, they will commute your sentence."

On "Law and Order" we always are told that as the crime receded from memory clues are hard to pick up, but the current investigators of this atrocity aren't allowed talk to those who did earlier work. Some of the suspects have fled the scene and won't talk to the investigators. This isn't justice!

"To avoid compromising their own investigation, a team of FBI agents sent to
Baghdad was not allowed to speak to the original investigators about the case or see the statements. Some of the dozen or so Blackwater personnel involved, at least two of whom have returned to the United States, declined FBI interviews.
In a statement yesterday, the Justice Department confirmed that no broad immunity from prosecution had been granted. But in a reflection of law enforcement dismay over what are considered impediments to a criminal case, Justice added that it would proceed "knowing that this investigation involves a number of complex issues."
State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said yesterday that State has no power to immunize anyone from federal criminal prosecution. "We would not have asked the FBI and the Department of Justice to get involved in a case that we did not think that they could potentially prosecute."
But several law enforcement officials, none of whom would speak on the record about an ongoing investigation, said it remained uncertain -- even without the protections -- whether the contractors could be prosecuted under U.S. law."

No one is going to see direct evidence that the Hunt oil company or Blackwater is providing kickbacks to W and his crowd--they use experienced laundering money villains, but we know it is occurring.

What can the Democrats do? The article "Demos debate war funds" at
http://www1.pressdemocrat.com/article/20071031/NEWS/710310383/1033/NEWS01
states that "Democrats are debating whether to approve up to $70 billion more for Iraq and Afghanistan, only a down payment on President Bush's $196 billion war spending request but enough to keep the wars afloat for several more months.
Such a move would satisfy party members who want to spare the Pentagon from a painful budget dance and show support for the troops as Congress considers its next major step on Iraq.
But it also would irritate scores of other Democrats, who want to pay only to bring troops home and who say their leadership is not doing enough to end the war.
"I cannot vote for another dollar that will be used to continue the president's occupation of Iraq," said Rep. Lynn Woolsey, D-Petaluma."

We don't have the bully pulpit. W does and he abuses it and gets the 4th estates cooperation in attacking the loyal opposition party but, "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Tuesday he didn't think Congress should approve the money and won't deal with it immediately. Delaying the money signals to voters that "the president does not have a blank check," he told reporters.
Meanwhile, Democrats are locked in a dispute with Bush on domestic spending. None of the dozen annual spending bills, including the Pentagon's annual $460 billion budget, has been approved."

Bush has failed, but in his deluded mind he wants more power. WHY?

The article "White House says Bush plans administrative orders to govern, avoiding Congress" at
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/White_House_says_Bush_plans_administrative_1031.html
states "It's not quite signing statements, where President George W. Bush used legal means to "interpret" laws, allowing him to avoid Congressional directives, but the White House is now planning to implement as much new policy "as it can" by administrative order "after concluding that President Bush cannot do much business with the Democratic leadership."

We don't support a president with ignoring the checks and balances in our government yet "White House aides say the only way Bush seems to be able to influence the process is by vetoing legislation or by issuing administrative orders, as he has in recent weeks on veterans' health care, air-traffic congestion, protecting endangered fish and immigration," the Post authors write. "They say they expect Bush to issue more of such orders in the next several months, even as he speaks out on the need to limit spending and resist any tax increases."

He's attempting to destroy our legal system also. The article "Guantanamo military lawyer breaks ranks to condemn 'unconscionable' detention" at
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article3101949.ece
states "An American military lawyer and veteran of dozens of secret Guantanamo tribunals has made a devastating attack on the legal process for determining whether Guantanamo prisoners are "enemy combatants".
The whistleblower, an army major inside the military court system which the
United States has established at Guantanamo Bay, has described the detention of one prisoner, a hospital administrator from Sudan, as "unconscionable".
His critique will be the centrepiece of a hearing on 5 December before the US
Supreme Court when another attempt is made to shut the prison down. So nervous is the Bush administration of the latest attack - and another Supreme Court ruling against it - that it is preparing a whole new system of military courts to deal with those still imprisoned."

Not only that but the Attorney General W is trying to foist upon us won't help the US legal system. The article "Mukasey urged to answer torture question" at
click here
notes that GOP goons are against the nominee "Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., joined two top Senate Democrats in urging Mukasey to disclose his views. Mukasey so far has refused to say explicitly what his position is on the lawfulness of the interrogation technique, which simulates drowning.
"I am urging him that he needs to come forward. If he does not believe that
waterboarding is illegal, then that would really put doubts in my own mind
because I don't think you have to have a lot of knowledge about the law to
understand this technique violates" the Geneva Convention and other statutes,
Graham said."

McCain, who is stuck to the hip with W now in Iraq, stated "the waterboarding issue was an important one as he decides whether to support Mukasey's nomination.
"Anyone who says they don't know if waterboarding is torture or not has no experience in the conduct of warfare and national security," said McCain, a 2008 presidential candidate and a prisoner of war in Vietnam.
"It isn't about an interrogation technique," he added. "It isn't about whether someone is really harmed or not. It's about what kind of a nation we are. We are a nation that takes the moral high ground."

Big bro 43 is destroying all of our institutions and the most vile liar, the man in charge of the Iraq INC which Cheney and W depended upon to lie us into the Iraq war, Ahmad Chalabi, is returning to power in Iraq.

The article "Chalabi back in action in Iraq" at
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/20893.html
states "Ahmad Chalabi, the controversial, ubiquitous Iraqi politician and one-time Bush administration favorite, has re-emerged as a central figure in the latest U.S. strategy for Iraq.
His latest job: To press Iraq's central government to use early security gains from the surge to deliver better electricity, health, education and local security services to Baghdad neighborhoods. That's the next phase of the surge plan. Until now, the U.S. military, various militias, insurgents and some U.S. backed groups have provided those services without great success....
So far, the central government has not been effective. On Saturday, Petraeus traveled to Arab Jabour with Chalabi, their first trip together to a Baghdad neighborhood since Chalabi's new posting. During the trip, Col. Terry Ferrell, 2nd brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division described where he wants to see a new health care facility. Chalabi chimed in: "Where is the Health Ministry in this?"
"That's your job," Petraeus replied.
And as Chalabi tried to assure the residents of Arab Jabour that the government would help, they told him they had heard it before. So far, the vice president, the governor of Baghdad and a top Iraqi police commander have traveled to Arab Jabour promising to deliver 200 police officers. None have shown up.
"We made life better here, not the government," said Abdul Raziq al Jabouri, a newly-named security officer in Arab Jabour. "If we had waited for the government we would have been gone by now. We are not waiting. We don't expect anything."

Anybody who believes that Chalabi is going to do anything other than rip off the Iraqis and the US is stupid! Anyone who puts trust in him is just as vile as Chalabi is. That is our "bubble boy"! He is so desperate he'll get back in bed with Chalabi. How can this work. It has as much a chance as "Mission Accomplished"-as fine as a propaganda ploy as ever perpetrated against the US common, fearful masses, did--none!