patrick.net

Bush and the republicans long ago have turned on the money faucet and are spending more money in foreign nations with their goofy “nation building” instead of getting their priorities straight and spending it on the many problems here on the homeland.

But they're not interested in 'nation-building', it's aways an attempt at an 'investment' with a payoff -- e.g. loads of cheap oil, or strategic bases, or preserving the USD as the world's chief petrocurrency, or all 3 if possible. The neocons miscalculated because they thought they would be accepted and welcomed by the overwhelming majority of iraqis for delivering them from a tyrant. middle eastern politics and the cultural mindset are not so simple. further, people in that region are sick of decades of having puppet leaders foisted on them by the west in order to ensure a steady supply of oil, so you are battling that distrust and desire for autonomy as well.

that's why they don't do nation-building in africa - they're just not interested - unless there's a big pile of oil or some other valuable, indispensable commodity underneath it, e.g. oil in southern sudan or nigeria. clearly the iraq and caspian sea oil and gas resources were of primary interest. it doesn't matter if there's a hit to govt if industry benefits - because the two are intertwined in the national self-interest.

look at the US undermining of democratically elected left-wing leaders in S. America practising assassination, training thugs and putting in right-wing despots when it suits - usually because Chiquita or some other vested interest says it will increase the price of bananas, or reduce profitability, or get chucked out of the country altogether...

there are huge oil and infrastructure connections with the current administration of course - they are the most conflicted and corrupted in america's history. rice is an ex-texaco oil exec with a ship formerly named after her. bush - say no more. cheney is bribed by an infrastructure company he headed for 5 years. then there's the military-govt connection - lockheed martin are the current favourites in the administration, with a revolving door of jobs between the two.

anyhow, he was 'selected, not elected' - the 2000 and 2004 elections were both stacked and rigged so that the republicans need never worry about something so trifling as a democratic election obstructing them in their agendas ever again.

i don't think terrorists are really even a problem - there's a big question mark over who the terrorists even were - half of them had stolen identities, they conveniently found a lot of passports in the wreckage, etc. why would the middle east be so angry with the US in particular anyway? they don't normally attack the UK, Australia, france, germany, scandinavia, all of western europe, etc, all similar sorts of countries with oil contracts. so clearly it has nothing to do with 'they hate freedom and democracy', that's just a propaganda line for local consumption to gain support. america always gets to name the enemy and prescribe the remedy, usually military or otherwise coercive. but america is completely financially self-interested and self-absorbed also, and can only be expected to try to steer every situation to its own economic advantage, so how can they be trusted to name the rules, be the umpire and become the 'new world order'? that's meant to be the job of the UN, as a democracy of nations of sorts. that's where the neocons are particularly just a blinkered, elitist failure and completely mistaken in their thinking.

oh, and the 'smoking gun' theory about the neocons, where they actually put in writing for public consumption (!) that the US should invade iraq post haste, take control of caspian sea resources before someone else did, such as the russians, and that america needed another 'pearl harbour' to work them up into a frenzy to do it. all this in the late 1990s...

anyone heard of the fact that most lender banks are setting up brand new, and/or larger repo departments???

there's record foreclusures in sydney for the last 2 years already... apparently largely young, burnt investors...