Bush & Pakistan

George Bush chose to launch his supreme debacle in Iraq instead of concentrating on the capture of Osama bin Laden. Now Bin Laden is almost certainly operating in the rugged mountains of northwest Pakistan (North and South Waziristan), surrounded by countless Pakistani supporters. This is Al Qaeda and Taleban country.

Pakistan is a country with 170 million inhabitants, nuclear weapons and multitudes of people who hate the US.

In the wake of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, it is becoming ever more clear that the "foreign fighters" in Pakistan are being joined by more and more Pakistanis. (See today's New York Times.) The country now has an estimated five groups that train and send out suicide bombers. This god-awful mess has been building up even as the US poured billions of dollars into the treasury of Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf, only to learn that a lot of that US money was being diverted.

It is difficult indeed to be optimistic about the region.

Borders here and borders there

HERE TODAY: Political candidates, backed up by talk-radio ravers and cable TV opportunists, continue to pander to the racists and xenophobes around the country by demonizing millions of hard-working (brown) migrants. The biggest contest might be the one about who will build the longest and highest fence on our southern border. And Joe Arpaio, the showboat sheriff of Maricopa County, Arizona, is taking profiling to the level of circus, telling his deputies to escalate the deportation numbers by looking for people wearing shoes from south of the border.

THERE TODAY: The European Union has just added nine new states (Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia), bringing the total to 24. This means passport-free travel across 2,485 miles. (Individual countries can ask for some kind of document if they wish. Security across the region has been beefed up at the cost of one billion euros)

Friends, we are talking about easily crossing borders from Portugal to Greece to Finland. Meanwhile, I am soon going to need a passport to return from Nogales, Sonora, 64 miles south of here, where I have been crossing without a passport for 40 years.

Good grief.

Bush in Spanish 101

Back in 1977, George W. Bush and some of his buddies founded Arbusto Oil in Midland, Texas. (The company became better known after 9/11 when people learned that one of the group, James Bath, had invested $50,000 as a representative of Salem bin Laden, half-brother of Osama bin Laden.) ARBUSTO in Spanish means "shrub"--I presume nobody misses the connection.

Well, class, in today's Spanish lesson, we learn a more defining word for the former oilman who has inhabited the White House for the last seven years. The word is EMBUSTERO. It is both an adjective and a noun.

EMBUSTERO (adjective): Lying

EMBUSTERO (noun): Liar

An example: Last October 17, from the mouth of George W. Bush: " As I've said before, the United States does not torture. It's against our laws and it's against our values. ''

Another example: On November 30, from the mouth of Mr. Bush's creepy spokesperson, Dana Perino, responding to journalist Helen Thomas: "To suggest that we, the United States, are killing innocent people is just absurd and very offensive."

The US does not torture? The whole world recognizes the superabundant, irrefutable evidence to the contrary. (And now we learn that in 2005 the CIA destroyed video evidence of torture they carried out in 2002.)

The US does not kill innocent people? Scientific studies by The Lancet (updated by using Iraq Body Count) and the UK's Opinion Research Business put the number of killed Iraqis at over 1,000,000. In any case, it is impossible to deny that hundreds of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since March 19, 2003.

But there is no shame in this White House. Embustero. Completo, constante. desgraciado.

There is not a precise word in Spanish for American impeachment. But the English word comes through loud and clear. Morality and the law demand that the word become deed.

But he still won't budge

Let's see now. How many days ago was it that Bush The Decider was talking about Iranian nukes and World War III?

Even before that Rove-style drama, millions of Iranians and Americans--and countless other people around the world--feared that Bush & Cheney were going to do their Iraq thing to Iran's 70 million people. Namely, Shock and Awe Two.

But today we learned about the National Intelligence Estimate report which claims that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. Talk about shredding the Bush hype. Nevertheless, the hype-meister undauntedly unloaded more of the same in his news conference today. (I saw a re-run of it tonight and would describe it as a worse-than-usual package of Fumble, Dissemble and Sneer.) For Bush, Cheney and the neo-con co-conspirators who still have not abandoned ship--if there are any of those left--it is full steam ahead.

Fortunately, their steam will not be enough. Most likely an attack on Iran is now effectively blocked, and we can only hope that we can keep the lid on for 13 more months. Then whoever moves into the White House can start to clean up the mess. And the rest of the world might start regaining their respect for this country.