Obama's Berlin Speech And His Trip To The Middle East

In answer to the gaunlet tossed down by John McCain, Barack Obama recently decided to go on a whirlwind tour of Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel (but not Palestine, not really) and then Europe.

On his hop-skip-and-jump vacation, he met with soldiers and did his usual schtick about how we're "taking our eye off the ball" in Afghanistan. I wonder how many of the men and women in Iraq will be happy for a change of scenery in the next for years. Instead of watching men, women and children getting slaughtered in Iraq, they can watch it happen in Afghanistan, many of them participating in said slaughter. Cheer on, faithful soldier, cheer on.

By the time he got to Israel, Obama had decided that the plight of the Palestinian people (something, it is said, that he knew all about and commiserated with back when he was just an Illinois Senator) didn't matter all the much anymore.

Ali Abunimah can say it better than me.

"In recent months, Obama has sought to allay persistent concerns from pro-Israel groups by recasting himself as a stalwart backer of Israel and tacking ever closer to positions espoused by the powerful, hardline, pro-Israel lobby AIPAC. He distanced himself from mainstream advisers because pro-Israel groups objected to their calls for even-handedness.

"Like his Republican rival, Senator John McCain, Obama gave staunch backing to Israel's 2006 bombing of Lebanon, which killed over 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and the blockade and bombardment of the Gaza Strip, calling them 'self-defense'.

"Every aspect of Obama's visit to Palestine-Israel this week has seemed designed to further appease pro-Israel groups. Typically for an American aspirant to high office, he visited the Israeli Holocaust memorial and the Western Wall. He met the full spectrum of Israeli Jewish (though not Israeli Arab) political leaders. He travelled to the Israeli Jewish town of Sderot, which until last month's ceasefire, frequently experienced rockets from the Gaza Strip. At every step, Obama warmly professed his support for Israel and condemned Palestinian violence.

"Other than a cursory 45 minute visit to occupied Ramallah to meet with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, Palestinians got little. According to an Abbas aide, Obama provided assurances that he would be 'a constructive partner in the peace process'. Some observers took comfort in his promise that he would get engaged 'starting from the minute I'm sworn into office'. Obama remained silent on the issue of Jerusalem, after boldly promising the 'undivided' city to Israel as its capital in a speech to AIPAC last month, and then appearing to backtrack amid a wave of outrage across the Arab world. But Obama missed the opportunity to visit Palestinian refugee camps, schools and even shopping malls to witness first-hand the devastation caused by the Israeli army and settlers, or to see how Palestinians cope under what many call apartheid. This year alone, almost 500 Palestinians, including over 70 children, have been killed by the Israeli army - exceeding the total for 2007 and dwarfing the two-dozen Israelis killed in conflict-related violence. Obama said nothing about Israel's relentless expansion of colonies on occupied land. Nor did he follow the courageous lead of former President Jimmy Carter and meet with the democratically elected Hamas leaders, even though Israel negotiated a ceasefire with them. That such steps are inconceivable shows how off-balance is the US debate on Palestine."

And there's more. You can read it all here.

There are actually people, mostly McCain sycophants, out there that say that Obama's going to sit down with Hamas and he's going to destroy Israel and...and...and...

The funny thing is, I thought that Israel had to be destroyed in order for Christ to come back so you'd think these whacked-out Republicans would be all over Obama, wouldn't you?

The unfunny thing is, Obama, like all of his predecessors, couldn't care less about the Palestinian people, will not be sitting down with Hamas and Israel will be just fine, continuing to ply their genocide against the Palestinian people with a wink, a nod and $30 billion from the Obama White House.

So, the deed almost completely done, he then travelled on to Europe and Berlin to be more specific, where he had wanted to use the Brandenburg Gate as a backdrop but was refused access by the German government when he arrogantly thought that he didn't need to tell them why he wanted to use the site.

Instead, he was surrounded by two hundred thousand duped Kool-Aid-drinking fools, who would have elected him King Of The World if they could have.

They didn't even bother listening to his speech and neither did I. But unlike these fools, I actually went looking for it afterwards.

Paul Street was listening very closely and, if you want to read the speech, you can find it here.

As always, Obama pretends to know history when he's actually worse than a novice. Either that or he thinks that there no one out here that actually knows what happened and they're not going to refute him. In any case, he did it again in Berlin.

Paul Street:

"Speaking of Europe in the aftermath of World War Two, Obama recalled how 'the Soviet shadow had swept across Europe, while in the West, America, Britain and France took stock of most of their losses and pondered how the world might be remade.'

"This comment suggested that the U.S. had wartime losses that could be remotely compared with those of Europe (it didn't) and that America's Allied partners had remotely equal influence with the U.S. on the postwar world system (they didn't). It deleted the fact that U.S. imperial architects consciously exploited WWII as a great opportunity for an 'American Century'. They made sure that 'the world' was 'remade' in such a way as to guarantee U.S. hegemony and built up the supposed Soviet menace to further that agenda. (For what it's worth, those nasty Soviets did more than any other nation to defeat the Nazis, losing 25 million lives in the struggle with the Third Reich)."

Obama continued this myth of the Hydra/Soviet threat in Berlin. And, as I've said in the past, this is nothing new coming from the Obama camp. After all, one of his top advisers is Zbigniew Brzezinski, who has such a hard-on for Russia and seeing its demise is something he has a bloodlust for. With this in mind, it should be no surprise that Obama would continue to remind Europe of their place in the world: to be our proxy against an entity that doesn't exist anymore (the U.S.S.R.).

Street again:

"After the collapse of the Berlin Wall (of 'communism'), Obama told Berlin, 'the doors of democracy were opened. Markets opened too, and the spread of information and technology reduced barriers to opportunity and prosperity.'"

I don't know about you but doesn't this all sound so fucking easy? It's like SUDDENLY, the sky turned blue and all was right with the world.

Says Street:

"No exactly. U.S.-imposed capitalist 'shock therapy' devastated Eastern populations, leading to shocking levels of poverty, inequality and corruption in the former Soviet Union and much of the former Eastern bloc. The spread of 'markets' meant the expanded reach and power of multinational corporations and capital, forces that are deeply subversive of democracy. Inequality sharpened around the world and at home too, consistent with the anti-egalitarian character of the profits system. Basic social supports and protections were blown away in the formerly socialist world. South Africa got rid of apartheid but fell under the savage yoke of neoliberal capitalism along with much of the rest of the world (see Mike Davis, Planet of Slums [London: Verso, 2006])."

Obama then turned to the indignant role, shaking his finger and his head at Europe.

"In Europe," Obama claimed, "the view that America is part of what has gone wrong in the world...has become all too common."

Oh, no! Jesus, save them for they know not what they think!

This is a continuation of the same old, same old from Barack Obama. In his narrow mind, the US cannot possibly have ever done harm to anyone. Ever. The bombing, invasion and occupation of Iraq, the slaughter and subjugation of its people, is, to Obama, a "mistake", one that we should never apologize for, as he told CNN's Candy Crowley a day after his speech.

Street:

"In praising Europeans for 'taking more responsibility in critical parts of the world,' Obama said that 'our country still sacrifices greatly for freedom around the globe.'

"Here is a useful translation for his phrase 'taking more responsibility': 'doing more to help the U.S. illegally attack and occupy defenseless sovereign states to otherwise support our self-interested definition of world order.'"

Me again.

I wish I could ask Obama whose "freedom" he's speaking of. Since I can't, I hope one of his fanatics can fill me in. Is he talking about "freedom" for people around the globe or corporations? Help me out here.

Street:

"Obama's supposedly 'freedom'-spreading government homeland's power elite has tried to overthrow the democratically elected government of oil-rich, Left-led Venezuela. It is the protector of Israel's racist occupation of Palestine and of the oil-rich neo-feudal arch-sexist Saudi kingdom, possibly the most reactionary state on Earth."

I might remind the fanatic that would write me to explain this "freedom" that Obama keeps touting that Obama doesn't believe that the Bush regime has done anything wrong. As he explained to Candy Crowley, "But, you know, hindsight is 20/20, and I'm much more interested in looking forward rather than looking backwards."

This applies to everything that the US has ever done. Tried to overthrow Hugo Chavez? So what? Bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Necessary. Tried to exterminate the native population of this country? And? Enslaved millions of Africans? Come on! We had to do that.

Where does Obama draw the line? Nowhere.

Where do you, Obama supporter, draw the line? I'd love to know.

Street:

"Obama said that cooperation across the Atlantic is the only way for the U.S. and Europe 'to advance our common humanity.' Does Obama think America models 'humanity' by murdering, maiming and uprooting millions in Southwest Asia in the name of 'freedom'? A U.S. Senator who has repeatedly voted funds paying for the mass killing of Iraqi and Afghani children and who reflexively defends Israel's right to bomb civilians and who vows readiness to level any Pakistani village thought to contain top al Qaeda operatives and who refuses to take a first nuclear strike on Iran 'off the table' has no business lecturing anyone on 'common humanity'. Ask the parents of 'liberated' Afghani children who have lost limbs to U.S. bombs about American 'humanity'.

"Earlier this month, the U.S. killed 64 civilians when it bombed a wedding party in the eastern Afghanistan. It's the fourth wedding pary that the U.S.-led 'coalition' has blown up in Afghanistan since the beginning of its invasion of that country - a war that Obama badly wants to expand. Obama, who recently told CNN that the U.S. has done nothing in the world that merits apology over the last seven and a half years, should ask the survivors of these wedding attacks what they think of U.S. and British 'humanity'."

Street:

"'No one,' Obama intoned in Berlin, 'welcomes war.'

"Wouldn't that be nice? Sadly, it's not true: Boeing and Lockheed Martin and Raytheon and Blackwater Worldwide and many other military (so-called 'defense') contractors welcome U.S. colonial 'war'. Obama's longstanding campaign finance patron Henry Crown Investments is a leading war profiteer. The oil majors have done very nicely with recent 'wars' (the one-sided imperial assaults on Iraq and Afghanistan) and are looking to cash in nicely with Iraqi oil profits gained through 'war'. There are a large number of evangelical Christian U.S. fascists who crave 'war' in the Middle East. There was a whole cabal of strategically placed elites within the George W. Bush administration who welcomed 9/11 as an opportunity to wage a long-sought war of petro-colonial conquest on Iraq and there are still plenty of powerful U.S. neoconservatives (many have collected around the John McCain candidacy) who like 'war' a great deal.

"Obama appears to have great affection for the U.S. war on Afghanistan, an action that he has repeatedly praised. He also retrospectively welcomes the first U.S. war on Iraq (1991), an especially noxious exercise in one-sided imperial butchery for which Obama has repeatedly stated his admiration."

Mr. Obama, you talk like a politician. Not like a new breed of politician but like the old class of politician.

No one welcomes war.

Bullshit. Why have such an institution such as the Pentagon then? The office of Secretary Of Defense used to be known as the office of Secretary Of War until it, war, couldn't be sold to the general populace as policy so the powers that be changed the word to Defense. Who can argue with defense? After all, if you don't defend yourself, harm can come to you.

I would remind every fanatic of this motherfucker that they, at one time, were questioning of people that said shit like "No one welcomes war". In fact, if you go back, I'll bet you can find sixty, seventy, a hundred clips of George W. Bush saying the exact same four words and following them with another, the word "but".

I haven't read the entire Berlin speech. I'm not going to say that Obama followed "No one welcomes war" with the word "but". I won't say it. No one welcomes war is enough for me.

Street:

"'We should support the millions of Iraqis,' Obama told Berlin, 'who seek to rebuild their lives even as we pass on responsibility to the Iraqi government.'

"'Rebuild their lives' from exactly what, pray tell? Senator Obama did not elaborate on the two U.S. military attacks, the decade plus of murderous 'economic sanctions' (which killed more than half a million children - a cost that the current Obama adviser and supporter Madeleine Albright called a 'price worth paying'), and the ongoing invasion of Iraq. Obama will continue the occupation as president, as is known by those who care to read between the lines of his populace-pleasing campaign rhetoric.

"Here is a word that Imperial Obama will never utter for what the U.S. owes Iraq: REPARATIONS. American cannot pass on to a devastated Iraq's government America's responsibility to do what it can to repair the monumental damage it has arch-criminally inflicted during a falsely 'preventive' attack that would have made one-time Berlin resident Adolph Hitler proud...

"Obama reserves the right to change his squishy 'withdrawal' plans in accord with the advice of imperial commanders 'on the ground'. He refuses to support legislation that would ban Blackwater and other private security contractors from Iraq, something that suggests he would increase the already massive U.S. mercenary presence in Mesopotamia while he shifts some of the Empire's soldiers from Iraqi to Afghan killing fields."

In a recent interview with Larry King, Obama praised General David Petraeus, commandant of the entire Middle East, as agreed upon in the U.S. Congress, saying, "And I think, for example, General Petraeus has done a terrific job with the cards that have been dealt to him."

I really would have loved to be a fly on the wall of one of the sycophants at MoveOn.org when he said this. Did they choke on what they were drinking? Perhaps spit it across the room? Or did they, as I suspect and as the deafening sound of silence suggests, just nod and, pun intended, move on?

A couple of days ago, Petraeus said that he didn't believe in a timetable for withdrawal. Bet you anything that Barack Obama will soon be saying the exact same thing, telling you to scrub your mind that he ever said anything such as this.

Street:

"'Will we welcome immigrants from different lands?' Obama asked Berlin.

"He should ask himself the same question, keeping in mind the stupid and offensive wall he supports on the southern border of his 'magical' United States."

Perhaps someone ought to put a wall up on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to keep Obama's Americans out.

Street:

"'I know my country has not perfected itself,' Obama said in Berlin. 'At times,' he added, 'we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people.'

"That was a remarkable bit of understatement. The U.S. has the most unequal distribution of wealth in the industrialized world. It is the only modern industrial (formal) 'democracy' that does not guarantee health care to all of its citizens. The top 1 percent of Americans owns 40 percent of the nation's wealth and a larger portion of its politicians and officeholders, including the explicitly corporate-neoliberal Barack (Goldman Sachs-Exelon-UBS-Sidley-Austin-Morgan Stanley) Obama. Median black American household wealth is equivalent to 7 cents on the median white American household dollar.

"As for not always keeping liberty and equality alive for 'all our people', yes, there have been some difficulties. The shortcomings include two and a half centuries of black chattel slavery (Obama opposed reparations for that supposedly ancient crime), followed by many decades of Jim Crow and black disenfranchisement and a continuing deep and unacknowledged legacy and practice of harsh institutional racism. The supposedly 'freedom'-exporting U.S. is the world's leading mass incarceration state and nearly half of its more than 2 million prisoners are African-American. In Obama's own Chicago metropolitan area at the peak of the Clinton boom, more than a third of black children live in poverty, compared to just 5 percent of the white kids. Of Chicago's 15 poorest neighborhoods, with poverty measures ranging from 32 to 56 percent, all but one was disproportionately black and eleven were at least 94 percent black. Sixteen percent of his home city's blacks lived in what researchers call 'deep poverty' - at less than half of the federal government's notoriously low and inadequate poverty level. Only a tiny percentage of whites lived at that terrible level of extreme poverty...

"'We will not be able to sustain [economic] growth,' Obama told the 200,000, 'if it favors the few, and not the many.'

"Okay, but as Obama has made abundantly clear on numerous occasions, he believes strongly in capitalism and thus in its own particular definition of growth and development. Capitalism is quite explicitly about the concentration of wealth (and power) - the advance of the Few over and against the lower - and working-class Many."

I think I'll leave it here and let Obama's words speak for themselves.

Barack Obama: What Does Anyone Really See In This Guy?

Thank the universe for people like Paul Street, John Pilger and the entire crew at Black Agenda Report.

For, without people such as these fine human beings, we'd never know the truth about Barack Obama.

Or at least those of us with minds of our own wouldn't and would probably be the pod-people that are Obama supporters.

I used to be the Senior Correspondent to the Mike Malloy show. I used to revere Malloy and people such as Greg Palast, to name but two.

Then Obama came along, playing his syren song, and they went brain dead.

I kept my nose to the grindstone, gathering more and more information from the above linked sources, sending this information to Malloy's show and getting the door slammed in my face time and time again.

So I gave up. I stopped trying to go through a shut and locked door, stopped banging my head against a brick wall.

I stopped being the Senior Correspondent.

Occasionally, I come across information and I catch myself thinking, "This would be great to send to Malloy." And then I remember that I don't do that anymore because it would never make it to his eyes and, if it did, it wind up in the trash anyway. It took me a while but I now know that Malloy is an Obamaist of the highest order.

For a show that has purported to seek the truth, the truth is now only a one way street.

But I digress.

My question was what anyone sees in Obama and I'd dearly love to know the answer to this question. I'd love to hear someone explain Obama to me in something other than slogans or buzzwords like "hope" and "cool".

I really would like someone to explain Obama to me after reading the following.

On July 6, Paul Street wrote a piece that I got from his Z Blog titled "The Audacity Of Imperial Airbrushing: Barack Obama's Whitewashed History Of U.S. Foreign Policy And Why It Matters".

Inside, Paul Street rips apart Obama's (partially ghost-written) book "The Audacity Of Hope", taking the Senator's words and putting them in the light of day.

Upon reading some of what Obama had to say in this tome, I have to think that one of the reasons that this thug is the Democratic nominee for Puppet of the United States of America is because most Americans are illiterate. I mean, there are other reasons he's where he's at but, come on, that's got to be one of them.

A questionable statement that isn't mentioned in Obama's book but was in his speech in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, was his appraisal of George H.W. Bush's handling of the "first" Gulf "war". Obama was, according to Street, "flattering and favorable" in his praise.

Paul Street:

"Nobody in the mainstream commentariat acted on (or likely even remotely felt) the urge to point out that Bush I's assault on Iraq involved heinous Superpower butchery, including the bombing and bulldozing to death of thousands of surrendered Iraqi soldiers and the decision to let Saddam Hussein slaughter Kurds and Shiites the U.S. had initially encouraged to rebel. Iraq is still dealing with epidemic cancers caused by American deployment of depleted uranium in the first one-sided Iraq 'war', described by many participants as a one-sided 'turkey shoot'."

This is but an inkling of what Barack Obama really believes about history, about war, about foreign policy.

But, as Street mentions, as Pilger mentions, as Harold Pinter is quoted as saying, "Such crimes never happened...they are of no interest."

Of no interest to Obama or his supporters, the so-called truth-seekers that call themselves "progressives", "liberals" and "Democrats".

Street goes on to write about Obama praising the "leadership of President Truman, Dean Acheson, George Marshall and George Kennan" for "crafting a new order that married Wilsonian idealism to hardheaded realism, an acceptance of American power with a humility regarding America's ability to control events around the world."

Keep the name George Kennan in mind while I jump around Street's piece to a Kennan quote and remember that Kennan is one of Obama's heroes of "leadership".

Paul Street:

"To grasp some of the 'hardheaded realism' behind such U.S. Cold War policies as the sponsorship of vicious military dictatorships in Indonesia, Iran, Greece and Brazil (to name just a few "Free World" partners), we can consult an interesting formulation from Obama's wise "Wilsonian" hero George Kennan. As Kennan explained in Policy Planning Study 23, crafted for the State Department in 1948:

"'We have about 50 percent of the world's wealth, but only 6.3 percent of its population...In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity...to do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives...We should cease to talk about vague and...unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concepts. The less we are hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.'"

Understand that George Kennan is one of Obama's heroes. Kennan believed that human rights and the raising of living standards were "vague and unreal" and that they needed to be done away with if we were to continue to lord our power over the barbarian hordes known as the rest of the world.

If I came at Malloy with something like this, if it actually got read, it would be sloughed off and never make the air, let alone a dent in his love for Obama.

Back to Paul Street's piece, Street mentions that Obama calls the bombing of Cambodia, an illegal action taken by the Nixon regime, "morally rudderless", within the pages of his book. As Street says, that's charitable at best.

Obama grew up in Indonesia in the 1960s. Obama proudly calls this fact forward when it suits his interests, especially the interest of furthering the myth of why he's the man for the job, that he's lived with every kind of people all his life and thus he can bring us all together.

What's interesting about this is that he mentions his time growing up in Indonesia but not the Indonesian invasion of East Timor, in which thousands upon thousands of people will slaughtered, all with the say-so of Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger.

Street:

"Obama deleted the Timor atrocities from his reflections in 'The Audacity of Hope' on what he learned about 'Indonesia's subsequent history' after he lived in that country as a young boy during the 1960s. In Obama's world view, as in that of his Harvard friend and former foreign policy adviser, Samantha Power, American crimes generally don't exist. They didn't happen."

Perhaps the greatest slap in the face to history comes next in Street's piece, in which our savior-to-be discusses Vietnam and "the biggest casualty of that war".

Street:

"Obama's nationalistic and whitewashed take on the history of U.S. foreign relations was starkly evident in 'The Audacity Of Hope's' reflections on the Vietnam War, an illegal U.S. invasion that killed at least 3 million Indochinese. By Obama's disturbing account:

"'The disastrous consequences of that conflict - for our credibility and prestige abroad, for our armed forces (which would take a generation to recover), and most of all for those who fought - have been amply documented. But perhaps the biggest casualty of that war was the bond of trust between the American people and their government - and between Americans themselves. As a consequence of a more aggressive press corps and the images of body bags flooding into the living rooms, Americans began to realize that the best and the brightest in Washington didn't always know what they were doing - and didn't always tell the truth." [italics are mine]

I want you, if you're an Obama fanatic, to read that passage again. Those are your man's words, from his book, unadulterated, unabridged. I want you to pay special attention to the italicized words.

There is no mention of the 3 million dead Vietnamese, Laotians and Cambodia. That is not the "biggest casualty of that war"; that distinction is reserved for the severed "trust" between Americans and their government.

And on whose doorstep does Obama place the blame for that severed "trust"? The media for their "aggressive" coverage and the showing of body bags coming back to the U.S. Better there should have been a blackout. Think of the pain that could have been avoided, especially the pain of a severed "trust".

I tried month after month from January through March (perhaps even early April; the timeline is a bit hazy but I know it was definitely through March) to get Mike Malloy to read (even if for himself) Obama's Council On Foreign Relations piece, to no avail.

In the piece in Foreign Affairs, the Council's newsletter/magazine, Obama says the following:

"A strong military is, more than anything, necessary to sustain peace...We must retain the capacity to swiftly defeat any conventional threat to our country and our vital interests. But we must also become better prepared to put boots on the ground in order to take on foes that fight asymmetrical and highly adaptive campaigns on a global scale...I will not hesitate to use force unilaterally, if necessary, to protect the American people or our vital interests wherever we are attacked or imminently threatened...We must also consider using military force in circumstances beyond self-defense, in order to provide for the common security that underpins global stability - to support friends, participate in stability and reconstruction operations, or confront mass atrocities."

Does this sound peaceful, as Obama has tried to portray himself for the last year and a half? Does this sound like change?

These are questions I asked when I sent that and much more to Malloy. They fell on deaf ears, didn't even reach his eyes and forced me to leave a position (fictitious though it may have been) that I had held for nearly ten years.

Does it sound peaceful to you? Does it sound like change to you?

Street:

"Last February, Obama told autoworkers in Janesville, Wisconsin that, "It's time to stop spending billions of dollars a week trying to put Iraq back together and start spending the money putting America back together."

In other words, destroy a country, slaughter its people, rape its land, steal its resources and its history and then move on to the next feast.

"Funny" story, by the way, Barack Obama continues to fund this "war", the soldiers who kill innocent Iraqis and the equipment and weapons, the bombs and the tanks and the guns and bullets, that they use to do the slaughtering.

Yet, in front of autoworkers, the duped sheep, he says something else, something jingoistic, something that autoworkers will cheer like crazy. And his sycophantic minions say he tells lies because "he needs to, in order to get elected".

On July 24, John Pilger wrote a piece for the New Statesman titled, "Obama, the Prince Of Bait And Switch.

Pilger writes, "In the New York Times on 14 July, in an article spun to appear as if he's ending the war in Iraq, Obama demanded more war in Afghanistan and, in effect, an invasion of Pakistan. He wants more combat troops, more helicopters, more bombs. Bush may be on his way out, but the Republicans have built an ideological machine that transcends the loss of electoral power - because their collaborators are, as the American writer Mike Whitney put it succinctly, 'bait-and-switch' Democrats, of whom Obama is the prince.

"Those who write of Obama that 'when it comes to international affairs, he will be a huge improvement on Bush' demonstrate the same wilful naivety that backed the bait-and-switch of Bill Clinton - and Tony Blair. Of Blair, wrote the late Hugo Young in 1997, 'ideology has surrendered entirely to 'values'...there are no sacred cows [and] no fossilised limits to the ground over with the mind might range in search of a better Britain...'

"Eleven years and five wars later, at least a million people lie dead. Barack Obama is the American Blair. That he is a smooth operator and a black man is irrelevant. He is of an enduring, rampant system whose drum majors and cheer squads never see, or want to see, the consequences of 500lb bombs dropped unerringly on mud, stone and straw houses."

This was one of the things that didn't jibe with me where it concerned the lengths to which Malloy went and continues to go to push his man, Obama.

Obama is the same as Blair and Clinton and Bush and his daddy. He is surrounding by the same advisers that told Jimmy Carter and then Ronald Reagan to get into bed with people like Osama bin Laden (who may or may not even exist except in the deep recesses of the American psyche; exactly what he was created for). He takes money from the same corporations that every other politician does, even as he pretends not to, for your benefit. And he believes Imperial America is a "force of good" at any cost, no matter how many lives are destroy or lost, no matter how much blood is spilled. And when the facts don't fit the fairy tale that he's selling, he omits the facts.

Tell this to someone that has drank the Obama Holy Water and they just come up with something else to call you, having exhausted the word "racist" and every variation thereof. Present proof and you're told that you don't understand politics and this is what has to be done to win the office of president and, after Obama has done so, he'll go back to being the so-called progressive that "he's always been".

Why pretend you're something you're not? Furthermore, are we really supposed to believe that the powers that be, the ones that have hand-picked Obama to be the next puppet, could be so duped as to fall for an act? How long do you think a puppet that cut his strings would last in the Oval Office before he was stepped on?

Paul Street, writing again yesterday at his Z Blog, gave us the following bit of insight into Obama.

A day after Obama's speech in Berlin, the Senator was interviewed by Candy Crowley of CNN. The transcript reads as follows:

"CROWLEY: You talked yesterday in your speech, saying, look, I recognize that there are people in the world who think that the U.S. has been part of what has gone wrong in the world. Do you think that there's anything that's happened in the past 7 1/2 years that the U.S. needs to apologize for in terms of foreign policy?"

I pause now so that you realize what she's asking Obama. She's asking Obama if he thinks that Bush is a failure in foreign policy. She's asking Obama to hit a fucking home run not just out of the park but out of the city.

Obama's response?

"OBAMA: No, I don't believe in the U.S. apologizing. We've made some mistakes. As I said I think the war in Iraq was a mistake. We didn't keep our eye on the ball in Afghanistan. But, you know, hindsight is 20/20, and I'm much more interested in looking forward rather than looking backwards.

"And so the point of my speech yesterday was, you know, for Europe to recognize that whatever mistakes we do make, we have been overwhelmingly a force of good in the world that Europe and European Union would not exist, as we understand, had it not been for the enormous sacrifice of U.S. troops and taxpayers."

Obama doesn't believe in the US apologizing. For anything? There are Obamaists that claim that when he comes to power, reparations will be the top of the list. Really? Slavery will not be apologized for; Obama doesn't believe in the US apologizing.

Don't expect Obama to apologize to the Iraqi people for the slaughter of 1.2 million of their fellow citizens, either. The US doesn't apologize. And, besides, that whole thing there? It was just a "mistake". Not a crime, not genocide, not illegal. Just a "mistake". Sorry about that, but not really.

Then he goes into the same old thing about how we have to go back to Afghanistan, you know, the "good war", the "smart war".

And then he makes an excuse for Bush, saying, "But, you know, hindsight is 20/20 and I'm much more interested in looking forward rather than looking backwards".

In other words, Bush and company didn't have any real idea what they were getting into in Iraq but we can't blame them for that.

There are Obamaists that say, once Obama comes into power, Bush and company will be brought to justice.

Really? Want to read that statement of Obama's again?

Finally, Obama says that Europeans should hit their knees every night and thank their gods and their stars that the US finally decided to get off its collective fat ass in 1941 to come to Europe and take on their former lackey, Adolph Hitler. Never mind that Hitler had been in power for nearly 10 years at that point and that World War II had been in full swing for three years already.

The arrogance of the statement that Europeans need to understand that they wouldn't exist in the manner that they do right now had it not been for the "force of good" is unfathomable.

Know your place, Obama is saying, and scrape and bow before your saviors.

I keep asking, what is it that turns your head about this guy? I would dearly love an answer. If you've got one, you know where to find me.

Barack Obama: Parent?

Yes, the Obamas are back at it, sending their children out to have the entire world fawn over them, say "Aww, ain't that cute?" and then talk about how their parents must be such great people.

I recall two somebodies saying that they'd never pull that again. Guess that's just another lie out of the Obama machine.

But what I really came to talk about today is Barack Obama's validity as a parent.

Does he really have any?

Remember Father's Day, when candidate Obama railed against black fathers (not fathers in general but black fathers in specific) and talked about how they acted like "boys"? Remember that? Remember how he had his on-the-couch moment in which he acted out a revenge fantasy against his own father for never being there for his mother and for him by targeting an entire (and specific) group of men?

I wonder if the Obamas remember because it sure doesn't seem like it in this interview.

Especially when Barack says the following:

"For the last 17 months, I've been on the road 98 percent of the time."

Michelle responds, "His job is to be there when requested."

Oh, yeah, I know the sycophants are going to be out in full force, crying and whining that I cherry-picked the quotes.

You're damn right I did.

Sometimes, you have to cherry-pick because, if you don't, these little details, these little moments, slip right past you. So you're damn right I cherry-picked these quotes.

98 percent of the time, Barack Obama is away from his children. Go ahead, sycophants, talk about how he's at parent-teacher conferences and blah, blah, blah, and how that's better than those "boys".

It doesn't change the fact that he's seeing his children less than a day out of each month. Do the math. Tell me I'm wrong.

Tell me how it's better than not seeing your children at all. Tell me how Barack is so much better than those "boys".

Putting career advancement over your children. How's that better than those "boys"?

Wow, A Whole Seventy Cents!!

Did you blink? If you did, you missed it. The federal minimum wage went up a whole whopping $.70 today. Yeah, big fucking deal!!

Federal minimum wage rises to $6.55 today

WASHINGTON - About 2 million Americans get a raise Thursday as the federal minimum wage rises 70 cents. The bad news: Higher gas and food prices are swallowing it up, and some small businesses will pass the cost of the wage hike to consumers.

The increase, from $5.85 to $6.55 per hour, is the second of three annual increases required by a 2007 law. Next year's boost will bring the federal minimum to $7.25 an hour.

Workers like Walter Jasper, who earns minimum wage at a car wash in Nashville, Tenn., are happy to take the raise, but will still struggle with the higher gas and food prices hammering Americans.

"It will help out a little," said Jasper, who with his fiancee support a family of seven, and who earns the minimum plus commissions when customers order premium car-wash services.

The bus fare he pays each day to get to work already went up to $4.80 this spring from $4. "I'd like to be on a job where I can at least get a car," he said.

Last week, the Labor Department reported the fastest inflation since 1991 — 5 percent for June compared with a year earlier. Energy costs soared nearly 25 percent. The price of food rose more than 5 percent.

So the minimum wage hike is "a drop in the bucket compared to the increases in costs, declining labor market, and declining household wealth that consumers have experienced in the past year," Lehman Brothers economist Zach Pandl said.

The new minimum is less than the inflation-adjusted 1997 level of $7.02, and far below the inflation-adjusted level of $10.06 from 40 years ago, according to a Labor Department inflation calculator.

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia have laws making the minimum wage higher than the new federal requirement, a group covering 60 percent of U.S. workers, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a think tank.

"You get desperate, because you can't really pay for everything," said Gladys Lopez, 51, a garment worker from Adjuntas, Puerto Rico, who makes military uniforms and has earned the federal minimum for 18 years.

She says she would need to make at least $50 more a week to pay all her bills and take care of her 84-year-old mother, whom she supports.

When the minimum rises again next year, catching up with more states, more than 5 million workers will get a raise, said Lisa Lynch, dean of the Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University.

Some small businesses are already making plans to raise prices to offset the higher wages they have to pay their workers.

David Heath, owner of Tiki Tan in College Station, Texas, said the increase will force him to raise prices for his monthly tanning services by about 12 percent. Tiki Tan had been paying its employees $6 per hour.

"There just isn't any room for profit, and so this is why prices will have to go up," he said, citing the wage increase and higher fuel costs. "I have to recoup those costs."

The increase in the minimum wage could push food prices even higher by rising the pay for agricultural workers, said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. economist at consulting firm Global Insight.

But he said he did not expect the change to have a major impact on the economy because recent increases in productivity, which enables companies to produce more with fewer workers, are keeping labor costs in check.

That makes it unlikely the minimum wage increase will trigger a "wage-price spiral," in which workers facing higher costs demand more pay, which in turn causes companies to raise prices higher, sending inflation coursing through the economy.

And most businesses, even restaurants and other service sector companies, already pay above the minimum wage anyway. Dan Whitaker, general manager at Anis Bistro in Atlanta, a casual French restaurant, said employees earn at least $8 an hour.

"You can't get a dishwasher for minimum wage," he said.

Seventy cents isn't going to mean a damn thing. It's not going to change the situations that people find themselves in. It's not going to end poverty, homelessness, and hunger. It's not going to prevent someone from losing their home due to foreclosure. It's not going to help pay bills. It's not going to help people buy medical insurance. It's going to DO ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.

I would love to see the government (senators, representatives, the President, and other government employees) live on $6.55 an hour. They couldn't survive!!

It must be so difficult to wake up in the morning and your major concern is which $1,000+ suit you're going to put on today. Fuck the people who have to decide between eating, keeping their home, getting their medicine, etc. After all, if we actually pay people a living, survivable wage, the world will end.

Too Little, Too Late!!

This is a perfect example of the typical U.S. Governmental response to things.

CDC unveils new September 11 site health effort

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. health officials unveiled plans on Thursday to help people who lived or worked near New York's World Trade Center who may have been harmed by exposure to dust and debris from the collapse in the 2001 attacks.

Nearly seven years after the September 11 attacks, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it will award up to $30 million in grants over three years to provide health screening, diagnostic services and treatment for residents near Ground Zero, as well as students, office workers and others who were not emergency responders.

Some lawmakers called the CDC's move long overdue.

"As we approach the seventh anniversary of 9/11, I am relieved that the Bush administration has given up their stall tactics and finally begun to release this funding," said Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat whose district includes Ground Zero.

Congress provided money for the initiative last December.

The grants are aimed at helping people other than police, firefighters and other emergency responders to the attacks who were addressed in previous programs, the CDC said.

Dr. Christine Branche, acting director of the CDC's National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, did not specify what medical conditions the CDC had in mind and did not offer a specific number of people who might get help.

Grant money also can be used to help cover gaps when a person's health insurance does not cover costs associated with care or treatment, the CDC said.

Doctors have identified a number of conditions that people nearby Ground Zero might face, including lung and respiratory diseases, asthma and others.

"There is no excuse for not addressing the very real needs of residents, students, and office workers experiencing adverse health impacts following the 9/11 attacks. Studies have clearly documented the illnesses experienced by community members in the aftermath of 9/11," said Sen. Hillary Clinton, a New York Democrat.

"We have, to date, invested at least $925 million in the programs to support the responders and now the non-responders to the 9/11 situation," CDC director Julie Gerberding told a telephone briefing with reporters. She did not take questions.

Branche said the CDC expects to award the grants around the end of September. "We encourage health and medical care facilities to apply," Branche said.

Did they seriously sit around and think up a "plan" to show that they actually give a shit about the American people? Who are they trying to bullshit with this crap?

These people should have been helped from day one, not almost seven years later. A diagnosis is going to do nothing for them now, except maybe to tell them how much longer they have to live?

This should come as no surprise to anyone though. After all, it was the administration thug Christie Todd Whitman who declared the air near Ground Zero SAFE!!

This is too little, and too late!!

"Operation Rescue" At It Again!!

"Operation Rescue" is at it again.

Operation Rescue Releases Names of Tiller Abortionists/Mill Workers

WICHITA, Kansas, July 22 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Operation Rescue has released the most up-to-date list of abortion clinic workers employed by George R. Tiller at his late-term abortion mill, Women's Health Care Services, in Wichita, Kansas. The list includes twenty-two people, including three out-of-state abortionists who travel to Kansas to do abortions, including late-term procedures that are illegal in their home states.

"We are releasing this list of abortion workers in order to expose them to the community, and to elicit prayers for their repentance," said Operation Rescue Senior Policy Advisor Cheryl Sullenger.

"As Christians, we are concerned about them as people, and understand that sometimes it takes 'tough love' to help someone see the destructive path they are taking, so that they can make the changes necessary to have a better life," Sullenger said. "Most people who quit the abortion industry tell us that they are relieved to be out of that business, and say that leaving improved their lives."

Last week, Operation Rescue released the name of a physician who provided the second required signature for Tiller's post-viability abortions. Within hours, he and an associate, who was also providing that service for Tiller, voluntarily agreed to quit doing so "effective immediately."

Tiller currently faces 19 criminal charges for illegal abortions done without the signature of an unaffiliated physician, when he and abortionist Ann Kristin Neuhaus, collaborated to form what amounted to an illegal late-term abortion racket. Neuhaus has since quit working for Tiller.

"We began an intensive campaign exposing clinic workers and businesses that associate with Tiller in 2004," said Sullenger. "Since then, over a dozen workers have quit and at least 25 businesses have stopped helping Tiller keep his abortion business open. There's no doubt that public exposure helps these people do the right thing."

Last week, Operation Rescue relaunched their Abortion Collaborator Project. In addition to the physicians who quit signing off on Tiller's late-term abortions, OR released a list of 30 businesses that provide services for Tiller and his abortion mill.

Today's abortion worker list is in the form of a photo gallery with captions telling the public a little about each worker.

If any of these people turn up dead as a result of the posting of these pictures, Operation Rescue should and must be charged with MURDER.

What Operation Rescue did will make these people targets. You can't tell me that some whacko "pro-lifer" isn't out there plotting to murder these people. Thanks to Operation Rescue, the "pro-life" whacko's job was just made a bit easier.

HELLO ANONYMOUS!!

You've gotta love those anonymous posters!!

Below is a comment that I posted today. It's in response to a post I wrote last August about a Muslim woman who was harassed by a Christian man in Walmart.

Hopefully you read this. I went on a search to try to understand wearing Hijab and the women beneath them. The cursing and spewing of hatred for American thought on this blog has caused me...a person with no pre-conceived notion of Islam and Islamic feminine point of view to see that perhaps some of the stereotyping of angry screaming Middle Eastern people is not far off the mark. If in fact the owner of this site is Muslim.

I am not Christian, Jew or Muslim and find it all very stupid and interesting, this fight for which God is right. Perhaps my dear you ought to let your beauty and power free and see that these male Gods Allah, Jesus and Yahweh have been and will be the demise of the human race. Within you and all females on this planet is the Goddess the source of all life. Turn your face back to her and all will be solved.

May the peace of the Lady be with you.

Blessed Be.

HELLO ANONYMOUS!! You clearly don't know what the hell you're talking about.

First of all, I'm not a Muslim. But, if I were, how is that any of your business?

This is my blog, and I can say whatever I like. Cursing and spewing of hatred for American thought? Would you care to define exactly what American thought is? Oh wait!! You mean "robotic, can't think for yourself, racist, bigoted, bullshit propaganda" type thought? Is that what you meant by American thought? If so, let me tell you a little something. I don't have to think, talk, act, or be like other Americans. I'm my own person. I don't take orders from other people. I think for myself. It's called using my brain!! You should try it sometime!!

By the way, since when is the TRUTH "spewing of hatred"? Let's talk about the truth for a second. You responded to a post that I wrote back in August of 2007. The post was about a Muslim woman who was harassed by a Christian man in Walmart. The truth is, he was harassing this woman. The truth is, he was being an ignorant asshole. The truth is, if she had said anything about his religion he would have been pissed. The truth is that if I had been the woman, I would have responded exactly how I said I would have in my post.

I don't understand why people think it's okay to trash, bash, harass, and target Muslims, and think that the Muslim person should have zero response. Scratch that!! I do understand!! It's because people such as yourself are ignorant. You listen to all the bullshit that is put out there. You listen to all the hate. You refuse to think for yourself. And, you try to pretend that you have "no preconceived idea about Muslims."

Who are you trying to bullshit here? You clearly had some "preconceived" opinion of Muslims because you stated that "perhaps some of the stereotyping of angry screaming Middle Eastern people is not far off the mark".

***NEWSFLASH***

Not all Middle Eastern people are Muslims, and not all Muslims are from the Middle East. But, I wouldn't expect you to understand that. After all, you have no "preconceived" idea about Muslims. ***WINK*** ***WINK***

This country has the audacity to ask, "Why do they hate us?". This is why. It's because of people like yourself who think it's cute to be ignorant assholes. Which ethnic or religious group is going to be your punching bag next?

If you don't like what I have to say, don't read my blog. It's that simple. I will continue to say whatever I want. I will continue to put the TRUTH out there.

Murder Equals "Misunderstanding"?

I love the headline of the CNN story. Apparently now, murder equals misunderstanding.

Misunderstanding leaves 9 dead in Afghan airstrike

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- A misunderstanding between local police and coalition forces led to an airstrike in southwestern Afghanistan Sunday that left nine police officers dead, a defense ministry official said.

The nine officers were mistaken for Taliban militants by coalition forces, said Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi.

The aerial attack took place in the Anar Derah district in Farah province. It was conducted by U.S. soldiers and troops from the Afghan army, Azimi said. He did not have any further information about the attack.

Last week, an airstrike by the U.S-led coalition in the province struck and killed eight civilians. The airstrike was launched after a coalition convoy was attacked.

In an unrelated incident over the weekend, two mortar rounds fired by NATO-led troops killed four civilians and wounded four others in southeastern Afghanistan Saturday night, the International Security Assistance Force said.

ISAF said it received reports of three additional deaths from the attack, but it had not confirmed it.

Troops fired the rounds in the Barmal district of Paktika province, but they fell less than a mile short of the intended target, ISAF said.

Afghanistan's southern provinces have been a major front in the fight between NATO-led troops and the Taliban.

Are these people going to be held accountable? Absolutely not!! Are they going to be charged with murder? Absolutely not. You see, the military is untouchable. They can murder whoever they want, and get away with it. All they have to do is say they were just following orders. Or, the media comes up with headlines like "Misunderstanding" to justify the murders.

Next time some civilian commits murder, let's see if the "Misunderstanding" defense works. Oh wait, they're just "civilians". They're not the "never wrong, always right, untouchable, homicidal, genocidal, MILITARY!!"

Obama On King

How many of you sycophantic Obama worshippers out there watched your Savior on Larry King Live last night?

I didn't bother. Better things to watch on television.

However, part of the fun of knowing that he was on is to get the transcript the next day. Transcipts are always fun because you have a record of what was said.

Putting aside the fact that there are times when Senator Obama talks like George W. Bush (and, by that, I mean the words that he chooses, not the warmongering speech, though we'll get to that), I thought it was a typical, hack King interview.

Obama was in usual form, trying to prove himself to be the best choice for the American empire.

Allow me to pick this interview apart and show you that the would-be emperor has no clothes.

King started with the New Yorker magazine cover (which you'll see below on this site) and Obama shrugged it off at first. Then he got it in his head that he might be able to make points with some of the Muslim voters out there and said that it was an insult to them.

Funny, coming from the man whose campaign told Minnesota Representative Keith Ellison they didn't need him to campaign for them.

As Ellison tells the story, "But before the rally could take place, aides to Mr. Obama asked Mr. Ellison to cancel the trip because it might stir controversy. Another aide appeared at Mr. Ellison's Washington office to explain.

"'I will never forget the quote,' Mr. Ellison said, leaning forward in his chair as he recalled the aide's words. 'He said, 'We have a very tightly wrapped message.'"

Funny, coming from the man whose campaign told two women in Detroit that they didn't want them sitting behind the Senator, at least not with their head scarves on because, you know, John McCain might make some kind of commercial about Obama supporting Muslims.

Obama is going to pretend like he's tolerant about Muslims but the New Yorker is intolerant, even after these two episodes and perhaps more that we haven't heard about?

When King continued to talk about how the imbeciles in this country actually believe Obama is a Muslim, Obama's response was to tell Larry King how he confronts these fools (and please tell me that it doesn't sound like Obama is being intolerant):

"Well, you know, by getting on LARRY KING and telling everybody I'm a Christian and I wasn't raised in a Muslim home and I pledge allegiance to the flag and, you know, all the things that have been reported in these e-mails are completely untrue and have been debunked again and again and again."

You know, if I want to be a real shit, I can read this comment exactly the way it reads, through the complete fault of Barack Obama.

It reads like he's saying that Muslims do not pledge allegiance to the flag, doesn't it?

Well, if Barack hadn't tried to get everything in in one go, it wouldn't have sounded like that. But restraint has never been a strong point for Obama.

Tough shit. I still hearken back to the other happenings in his campaign where it concerns Muslims to point out the fact that he has absolutely no currency in calling the New Yorker intolerant.

He gets in one more shot at the end by saying that this "is not what America is all about".

One of these days, I wish Obama would try to explain what America IS all about because it seems like it would interesting to have him tell us some more lies about this warmongering country that calls itself the "beacon of freedom".

Moving along...

King asked him about Iraq.

We ended up getting the usual answer about national security (which, to me, has always meant security for corporations and the puppets owned by them and to hell with the people of this country).

But, of course, Obama couldn't just regurgitate the same words that hundreds before him have uttered. He has to tell us that he's sooooo much different than John McCain and here's how.

John McCain said we'd be greeted as liberators and Obama never did.

And?

Bush and McCain didn't weigh the cost with the benefit.

Benefit?

Obama then went to the numbers.

And, people, if you just nodded your head and said, "Yup, yup, yup", as he continued on and on about the cost, then you might be allowed to sit behind him at one of his rallies. Just make sure you're not a Muslim.

Because if you nodded your head and said, "Yup, yup, yup", you are completely brain dead. How many times has Obama voted to send money, the very same money he went on and on about, down the rat hole? He's against the war, right? Yet he keeps voting on spending to continue it? Makes no sense whatsoever.

He mentioned the situation in Afghanistan and how it's deteriorating. He called Afghanistan "the central front against terrorism".

Part of the desire of the thugs who run this puppet is to return to Afghanistan to get that gas and oil pipeline up and running and then to focus on going after Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan.

This, in turn, pushes up against China (whom the US denigrates at every drop of the hat) and Russia (a particular favorite "enemy" of the US and, in particular, Zbigniew Brzezinski; remember him?) and the US gets to antagonize them, as well, thumbing their nose at the world, as it were.

So you trot out the puppet and you get him to talk about how bad things are happening in Afghanistan.

Oh, not to the still beyond impoverished (a generous word; their situation is far worse than simply impoverished, hence the modifer beyond) people of Afghanistan; the US couldn't care less about them.

No, they trot the puppet out to get him to talk about how bad things are happening to US troops in Afghanistan, hence the comment about the "brazen attack" on the US base that left nine troops dead.

King played a clip of McCain talking about how, in King's words, Obama is going about Iraq backwards.

Obama responded by stating the obvious, that McCain was in a political campaign.

And you, sir? What is it you're doing again?

He continued and basically said that McCain was a doody-face. Okay, he didn't say that but he might as well have. He went back to the numbers and how we need to not just be spending here at home but somewhere else, too. Afghanistan was that somewhere else. But not on the people of Afghanistan, of course.

King took a break and came back asking about Bin Laden. How would Obama get him, would Obama go into Pakistan to do so.

Obama basically said, "Sure, why not?"

His actual quote was: "...if we had actionable intelligence on those high-value targets, then we should go after them."

I have quoted Obama as having said this before and I have gotten responses asking what is wrong with doing what Obama is advocating. The next time Mexico decides to go after a criminal that's skipped to the US or Canada decides to chase a bail-jumper across the border using F-16s and tanks, we'll get together and talk, okay? I can't wait for the responses about how Bin Laden is more than a simple criminal or bail-jumper.

Obama, however, is never one to stop at just crossing a border and bombing whatever country seems fun that day, with actionable intelligence, of course.

Obama said that the US needs to form a stronger relationship with the Pakistani government and that Musharraf was a waste of time. Duh! But I'd really love to know how crossing into Pakistan without their permission is going to form a stronger relationship. If any Obamaist out there can tell me how this is going to work, I'd love to hear the explanation.

The next comment on Pakistan was an advocation of committing crimes against humanity.

Obama's own words:

"And what we need to do is to form an alliance with the Pakistani people, saying that we're willing to significantly increase aid for humanitarian purposes, for schools, for hospitals, for health care. We want to support democratic efforts in Pakistan.

"But, in exchange, we've got to have some firmness about going after al Qaeda and Taliban, because it's not good for American security, but it's also not good for Pakistani security."

Withholding aid from the Pakistani people because they don't do what you want them to do? This is a crime against humanity.

Obama called himself a Christian earlier in the interview. Doesn't sound very Christian-like to me.

This is change?

And, finally, he says that he wants to have an alliance with the people themselves and, apparently by his second set of comments, he wants the average Pakistani to turn in their neighbors or else they don't get the medicine they need to survive another week.

This is the guy that so many of you want to vote for? He comes right out and says that he will withhold aid from Pakistan if they don't do our bidding and he said it in fucking public last night and you still want to vote for this fucker?

Understand that nothing is going to change in the way of trials under an Obama administration.

King asked him if the US got its hands on Bin Laden and he was still alive, would he be brought back to the US for trial?

Obama said:

"Well, I think that, you know, we want to capture him or kill him. And as I've said -- as I just said this past weekend, if we captured him, then we would want to put him on trial. And I think he would be deserving of the death penalty."

Let's take this a step at time. He wants to kill Osama Bin Laden, if the US doesn't capture him. Again, not too Christ-like. Christ said to love your enemies. But you know...

Then he says that the US would put him on trial. He immediately and without hesitation believes that Bin Laden would be found guilty so much so that he's already talking death penalty.

This might be the red meat that you toss to sycophants and gun nuts and people like Nancy Grace, who believes everyone should have the switch thrown on them.

But toss this line out to someone that actually has a brain that's not addled and the question has to be, "Would it even be a fair trial?"

King didn't stick around on that subject any longer than he usually does with any other topic and moved on to advisers and military commanders and how Obama would work with them.

Anyone else feel like falling over when Obama said this:

"And I think, for example, General Petraeus has done a terrific job with the cards that have been dealt to him."

Oh, okay, sure.

Anyone up for waffles?

Obama did it within maybe a minute or two as King asked him how the search for Spock, I mean, the veep nominee was going.

"Well, Larry, what I've said is I will not talk about the vice presidential process until I introduce my vice presidential nominee."

Don't you love the arrogance? Not to worry, though, Warmonger Obama is about to flip-flop.

King "presses" the issue, as only Larry King can. Excuse me, I had to laugh there.

He asked Obama, "But the question was how is the process going?" It's almost as if King is pleading here.

Obama: "Yes, the process is going well."

I'm confused. I thought he wasn't going to discuss the process. Oh, never mind.

King asked about Bill Clinton and whether Obama's going to "utilize" his "talents".

Obama talks about his school-girl crush on Bill Clinton and it just rings phony from a guy whose campaign painted Bill Clinton as a racist for the last eight months.

But I think the funnier bit is when he started to talk about Bush, Sr.

I always think it's funny when Obama opens his mouth about history and past doings, because it points out that he has no clue what he's talking about, that he only does it so he can pretend like he's a genius and dazzle the shit out of the already-lost sycophants.

Last night's interview was no different.

"I think on the foreign policy front, George Bush, Sr., has a lot of wisdom to impart. And his foreign policy team, you know, people like Jim Baker and Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell, are extraordinary thinkers."

That, right there, is a group of cockroaches that should never, ever be praised for the shit they've all pulled.

Let's go down the hill starting with Senior Bush.

His foreign policy, Obama says, was wise.

Really?

How wise was it to target one man in Panama and, in the process, kill thousands of people? I don't know if Obama understands why the US went after Noriega but it had nothing to do with his being a drug trafficker.

How wise was it to go after another puppet that stepped out of line in Iraq? I'd love to hear from anyone that wound up with Gulf War Syndrome that thinks it was a good idea. I'll let you in on a little secret: I've talked with Gulf War vets that have this supposedly non-existent disease and they didn't see anything wise about that policy.

These are but two of the supposedly "wise" foreign policy decisions of George H.W. Bush.

Next, Obama mentioned Jim Baker. Jim Baker, the architect of the scheme to get the current disaster of an administration into power. Obviously very praise-worthy.

Brent Scowcroft. Don't ask me what Obama sees in this guy. Oh, I guess because he used his brain where it concerned going into Iraq in 2003. Shit, Obama should choose me as an advisor. I could have told him that.

And finally, Colin Powell. And please don't get me started on this guy. I will say just a few words about Powell.

My Lai cover-up.

Iran-Contra and Casper Wineburger.

"My response would be I wasn't in the government." Powell said this when asked by Seymour Hersh what his response would be if a vet with Gulf War Syndrome where to come to him for answers.

And finally, recall the vial-holding bullshit session in the U.N. before the current war in Iraq was launched.

Sounds like all wise things to me.

I think Mr. Obama has a problem with moths. I believe they're eating his brain.

Not Such A Long Time Ago, On A Blog Not So Far Away...

I asked the question or intimated that it would be very interesting to see how the so-called anti-war left would come down where it concerned Warmonger Obama.

This week, I got my first glimpse.

Apparently, Tom Hayden can't stomach where Obama might be going and yet, he can't seem to detach himself from THE Savior.

I think it's quite hilarious, actually.

Allow me to attend to a bit of personal business for a second.

I do not suffer fools gladly. I don't like Johnny-Come-Latelys. And I don't like people that declare themselves to be anti-war and then make excuses for people that they support that are anything but anti-war.

Now that you know where I'm coming from, you can understand why I scoff at the Tom Haydens of the world.

Anyone recall how Obama was declared the anti-war candidate? Oh, you sycophantic bullshitters out there will say, "The media did that."

No, boys and girls, you did that. You and Tom Hayden and all the rest. Time to swallow your medicine. You all tried to draw distinctions between Barack and Bush. You all tried, and succeeded, to get people to believe that he was actually going to pull troops out of Iraq and "bring them home".

Congratulations, assholes. You succeeded in make-believe and nothing more. There are no distinctions between Bush and Obama. Zilch.

Oh, yeah, there's the part that says, "I want to go to Afghanistan and kill a bunch of people there" and the part that says, "I want to stay in Iraq and kill a bunch of people there". But those are not distinctions, children. Those are what are called Variations On A Theme. The theme, in this case, is murder. The place and time of Obama or Bush's choosing matters very fucking little.

Tom Hayden is just now realizing that he's been peddling the water of a warmonger and I can't do anything but laugh and shake my head. Tom Hayden, forever anti-war, forever anti-empire, duped by his own delusions of peace, duped by a would-be career politician who is nothing more than a wolf in sheep's clothing. You'd think it'd be easy for someone like Tom Hayden to spot someone like Obama coming from a mile away.

Thing is, I can't, nor can you, get through to Mr. Hayden and ask him why he was so duped. His Progressives For Obama website affords you no ability to get in touch with him. His columns on The Nation's website do not allow you to talk to him directly.

I guess some people are just afraid of being confronted when they're wrong.

Who's next to fall?

I love it!! Clearly the "Messiah" and his worshippers don't understand satire!!

Rush Limbaugh's Plan For Obama

You get more of me today, lucky kids.

This past weekend, one of the few remaining shows worth listening to on NPR, On The Media, had a writer from the New York Times on to talk about his piece on Limbaugh's newfound wealth, the $400 million that he'll be taking down over the next eight years.

Just as they got to Limbaugh's plan for combatting Obama, I had to step out of the car. It's supposed to be some plan that allows Limbaugh to remain untarnished by use of the word racist where it concerns the Fat Man.

As I was walking away, I remarked to the person with me that Limbaugh can't avoid being called a racist; he's already been labelled such and rightfully so. All one has to do is witness his Donovan McNabb statement a few years back.

But I also remarked that if Limbaugh really wanted to take Obama head-on, he could.

Of course, that would be admitting a lot of shit.

That would take him admitting that Obama got Limbaugh his $400 million contract and that's not something Limbaugh or the people signing his check are going to admit.

But I can guarantee you the conversation went like this:

"Shit! Obama's going to be the prez and probably for eight years. We gotta do something about it."

"See if Limbaugh interested in this."

[Shuffle of papers, $400 million figure written down, smiles all around]

An Obama puppetry, er, presidency has already paid dividends for Limbaugh. Like he has any animosity towards Barack, right?

It would also take Limbaugh to admit that Obama, just like Limbaugh himself and his friends and John McCain and damn near everyone in D.C., is an imperialist crony.

And, again, to maintain the illusion that there's any such thing as a difference between Democrats and Republicans (the imperialist shell game used to keep us spinning our wheels), Limbaugh's not going to say any such thing.

Limbaugh could also tell you that Obama is connected to some real scumbags like Zbignew Brzezinski and mortgage lenders that have tossed people out of their homes, he could tell you that he's bought and paid for by the very same corporations that McCain is.

But he can't do that.

Those very same corporations cut checks to Limbaugh himself. Those scumbags are friends with Limbaugh. Brzezinski and Limbaugh have only one difference; the spelling of their names.

Limbaugh has no plan except to continue the same bullshit that he's been spouting for years about how if you vote for Obama you're going to end up with chaos and misery and if you vote for McCain, you'll get prosperity and birds will be chirping in the blue sky.

Reality sheds a different light on the situation. Chaos and misery all around, regardless of who the next marionette is.

But then again, Limbaugh doesn't like reality.

In the real world, he could never earn $400 million.

Jesse Jackson: The Latest "Victim" Of Imperialism

Buddha forbid you should say anything about the uncrowned emperor of the Imperialist States Of America.

At the same time, I have no fucking sympathy for Jackson, either, which is why I put the word victim in quotation marks.

He said what he had to say.

Now he wishes he hadn't.

Why?

If he wants to take it back, why'd he say it in the first place?

Because he believed it. Right?

Now that it's been aired, suddenly, he regrets saying it.

Okay. I see. You can think it. You can believe it. You just can't open your mouth and speak it.

And I will go on record right now and say the following.

I have no children but if an adult child of mine said that I needed to shut up and keep my opinions to myself, I would publicly denounce and hopefully deck said child just as publicly.

In the land of Obama, all the peasants must hold their tongues, close their eyes and plug their ears, lest they say, see or hear something untoward about the naked emperor.

How many times do I have to say it before any of you people understand it?

There is no change coming.

Perhaps if Jesse Jackson had just been standing in a First Amendment Zone, then none of this would matter.

Or What?

You know, Rice really should shut her mouth.

Rice: Russia should back off regional threats

TBILISI, Georgia - Russia should back off its threats and intimidation of countries once under the Soviet clamp, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday as Cold War-tinged rhetoric escalated between Russia and the United States.

Rice all but dared Moscow to critique her visit to this former Soviet republic locked in a shoving match with Russia that has seen Russia close its border with Georgia and impose trade and other restrictions.

"I'm going to visit a friend and I don't expect much comment about the United States going to visit a friend," Rice said with an edge in her voice.

Rice dined privately with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, a Russian nemesis, a day after Russia warned that it might resort to military means to counter a U.S. plan to base anti-missile defenses in the Czech Republic. Rice called the Russian response sad but predictable.

The system would place radar interceptors in the Czech Republic, a former Soviet satellite, and missiles in Poland. Russia says that's uncomfortably close, no matter the U.S. assurances that the planned shield is a hedge against Iran. Russia says the shield is unnecessary.

Iran test-fired nine long- and medium-range missiles on Wednesday during war games that officials say are in response to U.S. and Israeli threats, state television reported.

"I see it as evidence that the missile threat is not an imaginary one," Rice said, "and that those who say that there is no Iranian missile threat against which we should be building missile defenses perhaps ought to talk to the Iranians."

Russia's president, Dmitry Medvedev, told reporters Wednesday at the Group of Eight summit in Japan that the U.S. system "deeply distresses" Moscow and that Washington was engaging in "halfhearted negotiations that have come to nothing."

He met with President Bush during the summit this week, and reported no progress on numerous issues that divide Russia and the U.S., especially missile defense. He also called the American president "George," wished him happy birthday and pledged to continue talking.

Medvedev told Bush that Russia would like "to normalize our relations with Georgia, but so far we do not see sufficient will" on the part of the Georgian leadership, said aide Sergei Prikhodko.

Of chief concern to the United States now is the argument over Abkhazia, a breakaway region of Georgia. Georgia accuses Moscow of encouraging separatist movements that are a legacy of the breakup of the Soviet Union; Moscow denies it but has increased ties to Abkhazia's separatists, beefed up its peacekeeping force in the area and sent other troops in.

"The United States considers the territorial integrity of Georgia to be inviolable," Rice said. She said Russia has "not been helpful" in Abkhazia, where Georgia says Russia also shot down an unarmed Georgian drone.

Abkhazian officials accuse Georgia of responsibility for violence in the Black Sea province, claiming the central government is preparing to attempt to take control of it by force. Georgian officials deny responsibility.

Abkhazia broke from Georgian government control in a war in the early 1990s and has support from Moscow, which has granted most of its residents Russian citizenship.

Persistent tension over the region has increased sharply in recent months as it has become a focus of Russia's efforts to thwart the pro-Western Georgian president's drive to bring his country into NATO.

The West's interest in the dispute is strong because Georgia sits at the crossroads for Central Asian and Caspian Sea oil and natural gas headed to Western markets.

The Bush administration says Georgia is not blameless, but that Russia has taken the dispute into deeply dangerous territory. The tension could become a real shooting war if both sides are not careful, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.

U.S. policy holds that Abkhazia is part of Georgia, essentially the same position the Bush administration took in Russia's war with Chechen rebels who wanted to break off from Russia.

"Russia needs to respect the territorial integrity of its neighbors. Russia needs to realize that the empire is gone," said the U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal U.S. discussions.

Or what bitch? Are we going to bomb Russia now?

The bitch should stick to what she knows best, shopping for shoes while her fellow Americans are dying in a hurricane!!

Jesse Jackson Apologize For What?????

I'm not pissed that Jesse Jackson said Barack Obama was acting white. I'm pissed that he apologized. Get some balls Jesse!! This man has been handled with kid gloves for far too long!! He is not off-limits!!

Jackson apologizes for 'crude' Obama remarks

NEW YORK (CNN) -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson apologized Wednesday for "crude and hurtful" remarks he made against Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama after finishing an interview with a Fox News correspondent.

Jackson told CNN's "Situation Room" that a "hot" microphone caught a part of conversation he was having with a fellow guest at the studio.

He said he made a comment about Obama "speaking down black people" followed by a crude remark.

"It was very private" he said, adding later, if "any hurt or harm has been caused to his campaign, I apologize."

The Obama campaign had no immediate comment.

Jackson's apology came a few hours before Fox News planned to air the remarks.

"I feel very distressed because I'm supportive of this campaign and with the senator," Jackson told CNN. "I was in a conversation with a fellow guest on Sunday. He asked about Barack's speeches lately at the black churches. I said he comes down as speaking down to black people."

He said Obama's message to black voters must be broader and serve as more than a "moral challenge."

The black community is faced with high levels of unemployment, home foreclosures and violence, "so we have some real serious issues -- not just moral issues," he said.

However, Jackson said after finding out about the open microphone, he immediately contacted the Obama campaign to apologize.

Jackson, whose Rainbow/PUSH Coalition is based in Chicago, Illinois, has publicly endorsed Obama, most recently in a piece published Tuesday in the Chicago Sun-Times, and says he enjoys a close relationship with the Obama family.

His son, Jesse Jackson Jr., is co-chair of Obama's presidential campaign.

I don't find anything crude or hurtful about what was said. The fact is that Barack Obama does talk down to people, and not just black people. He does this to everyone.

Why Jesse Jackson felt the need to apologize is beyond me. What's he afraid of? The wrath of Obama? Ooh, that's scary!! Is he afraid that he's going to be shipped off for a few weeks to engage in some "reflection"? Is he afraid that Barack Obama isn't going to be his friend anymore? Too bad!!

If you say anything about Barack Obama, you're a racist. If you question Barack Obama, you're a racist. But Barack Obama can say and do anything he damn well pleases without any consequences. He can be racist. He can be arrogant. He can be insulting. And while being all that, the Obama nuts eat it up. He's their "Messiah". If their "Messiah" told them to jump off a cliff, they'd do it!!

It really is pathetic that you have to apologize for speaking the truth!!

Since When Does Bush Care About Insulting People?

Since when does Bush care about insulting people? I'd really like to know the answer.

Bush: Olympic boycott would insult Chinese

TOYAKO, Japan (CNN) -- President Bush on Sunday defended his decision to attend next month's Olympics opening ceremony in Beijing, saying that to boycott "would be an affront to the Chinese people."

Speaking to reporters ahead of this week's summit of the Group of Eight industrialized nations in Japan, Bush said he did not need to skip the ceremony to show his position on religious freedom and human rights in China.

He said if he failed to attend the Games it would "make it more difficult to be able to speak more frankly with the Chinese leadership."

Bush said he would raise concerns when he meets Chinese President Hu Jintao at the Olympics, but he was also "looking forward to cheering the U.S. athletes." He said it was good for them "to see their president waving that flag."

Japan's Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda also said he would attend the opening ceremony despite concerns about human rights in China that prompted some other European leaders to boycott the event.

Bush and Fukuda took questions from reporters at the picturesque lakeside resort of Toyako on the northern island of Hokkaido, where the G-8 summit will begin Monday.

Bush said he and Fukuda discussed the United States' recent decision to lift some sanctions against North Korea and remove the communist nation from the State Department's list of state sponsors of terror.

Bush assured Japan that the issue of North Korea's past kidnappings of Japanese citizens will not be ignored by the United States. He told Fukuda that he was "fully aware of the sensitivity of the issue in your country" and that "the United States will not abandon you on this issue."

North Korea has admitted to abducting 11 Japanese citizens -- to teach its spies Japanese language and culture -- but had insisted the abduction issue was resolved.

Holding a book about a young Japanese girl abducted by North Korea, Bush said as the father of two girls he "can't imagine what it would be like to have a daughter disappear."

Bush said North Korea's recent destruction of a water-cooling tower at its now-defunct nuclear facility and its declaration outlining its plutonium program are positive steps, but there are "more to be taken."

Lifting sanctions would not weaken the pressure on North Korea to be forthcoming on the abduction issue or in nuclear negotiations, the U.S. president said.

Bush said North Korea remains the most sanctioned nation in the world and that "delisting did not get rid of their sanctions."

Fukuda, who is chairing the G-8 meetings, said global warming would be high on the agenda but that he could not predict what might result from this week's talks.

Fukuda said he believes the United States "has not lost its sense of direction" on the issue.

"Our views are gradually converging," he said.

Bush said the United States "will be constructive" in the global warming talks "but if China and India do not share that same aspiration, we're not going to solve the problem."

Bush said the United States and Japan leads the world in research on clean technologies. He said Japan's advances in battery technology will some day mean that Americans "will use batteries in cars that look like cars, not golf carts."

As world leaders began arriving for the summit, more than 1,000 people protested in northern Japan against the event. Demonstrators urged leaders to take urgent measures to stop global warming, grant indigenous people greater rights, combat world poverty and battle discrimination.

Soaring oil and food prices and possible steps against Zimbabwe were also likely to be high on the agenda at the summit.

With fewer than 200 days left in his term, Bush says he will press other G-8 leaders to follow through on their commitments from earlier summits, but has warned there is nothing he or anyone else can do in the short term about oil prices.

Bush's main economic goal at the summit may be defensive, said David Gergen, former adviser to presidents Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton.

"What's essential in this summit for George W. Bush is to make sure the world economy does not spin downward," he said.

Bush has downplayed what he and other G-8 leaders can accomplish on the economic front. "One thing we need to make clear when I'm with our partners is that we're not going to become protectionists, that we believe in free trade and open markets," Bush said Wednesday.

A former administration official who served on the National Security Council under Bush says the G-8's purpose is not to come up with quick solutions.

"This is not a meeting of heads of state that leads to a treaty. It's really kind of public opinion shaping and trying to get people to agree that issues are important," said Michael Green, now with the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Why start worrying now? All this administration has done is insult people and other countries. All of a sudden he's concerned about insulting China?

This has absolutely nothing to do with insulting China. This has everything to do with MONEY!!

If he doesn't want to go to China, don't go!! I'm sure they would be more than happy if he wasn't there!!

Imagine That!!

Big shocker!!!!! The Catholic Church had a fake priest!!

Fake priest infiltrates St. Peter's

ROME, Italy (AP) -- A fake priest was caught trying to hear confessions in St. Peter's Basilica and was tried by a Vatican tribunal, a Vatican judge said in an interview published Saturday.

Judge Gianluigi Marrone, who is a member of the court system of the independent Vatican city-state, said the man was wearing clerical garb and carried documents alleging that he was a priest.

"Some time ago I had to deal with an unusual case -- a fake priest," Marrone told the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano.

"He was caught by surprise in the basilica while he was trying to take his place in a confessional. He was wearing clerical garb, but the expert eye of our [basilica] personnel didn't need much to sense something strange in his behavior," Marrone said without elaborating.

The man was stopped and his documents checked, and even though he had what appeared to be legitimate documents, including a Vatican pass, personnel were still suspicious, the judge recalled.

Checking with Italian authorities about the documents "unmasked him," Marrone said, adding that the man had passed himself off as a priest in Italy.

"It was a case of usurping an ecclesiastical title, and thus he was tried by our tribunal," the judge added.

Marrone didn't say when the incident happened, what the tribunal's verdict was or if the man received punishment.

Vatican judicial offices were closed Saturday afternoon, and no one answered the phone at the judge's home in Rome.

Marrone said much of the tribunal's workload involves cases of people having their wallets stolen in the basilica or in the Vatican museums, with most of those crimes going unsolved. If the culprits are found, they are turned over to Italian police, he said.

Last year, Italian news reports said that for the first time the Vatican court system issued a drug conviction, giving a former employee of the Holy See a four-month suspended sentence for possession of cocaine.

Imagine that!! A fake priest!! It's not surprising, considering that they have pedophile priests and nuns in the Catholic Church. So, why not have a fake priest!!

What is surprising is that the Church did something about him. After all, they haven't and don't do anything about pedophile priests and nuns. In fact, they protect them.

So, what does this say about the Catholic Church? It says that it's okay to be a pedophile because the Church will protect you. But don't even think about pretending to be a priest, because the Church will punish you!!

Let Me Spell It Out For You!! It Means NO!!

Cappuccino Perino and the rest of the asses from this administration have got to be the biggest morons on the face of the Earth.

Iran indicates it has no plans to halt enrichment

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran indicated Saturday that it has no plans to meet a key Western demand that it stop enriching uranium, a day after Tehran sent the European Union a response to an international offer of incentives for halting enrichment.

The content of that response has not been made public and there was caution about the prospects of progress.

"It was not something that made us jump up and down for joy," said one European official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was confidential. "We are in a holding mode until we get a chance to look at it more closely."

White House press secretary Dana Perino told reporters traveling with President Bush en route to a G-8 summit in Japan that the U.S. administration was still evaluating Iran's response.

"We're going out to consult with our allies about what Iran's response means," Perino said. "We'll just have to see how this is received by others before we make a formal response."

A positive response could open the way to renewed negotiations that might help cool recent sharp exchanges between officials on both sides. In recent weeks the U.S. and Iran have traded threats and warnings over possible American or Israeli military action.

But Iranian government spokesman Gholam Hossein Elham insisted Tehran would not change the central part of its controversial program. Uranium enrichment can produce either fuel for a nuclear reactor or the material for a warhead. Iran insists its enrichment work is intended to produce fuel for nuclear reactors that would generate electricity.

"Iran's stand regarding its peaceful nuclear program has not changed," Elham told reporters. He said Iran was ready to negotiate on its program "within the framework of the international rules and regulations."

He did not elaborate. But Iranian state media reported Friday that EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana and Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, have agreed to hold the latest in a series of talks in the second half of July.

The European official, however, said no firm decision will be made by Solana to meet with Jalili until the contents of the Iranian response had been evaluated.

Iran's ambassador to Belgium presented the response to the incentives package to Solana in Brussels, Iranian state media reported Friday. European officials said they were studying the Iranian response and were consulting among themselves and with the United States, Russia and China on what to do next.

Acting on behalf of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council and Germany, Solana offered the modified package of economic incentives to Iran during his June visit to the country. The offer is meant to persuade Iran to halt enrichment, which the six world powers fear Iran could use to produce weapons.

Iran has repeatedly insisted it will not give up enrichment, but it had said the incentives package had some "common ground" with Tehran's own proposals for a resolution to the standoff.

Separately, EU nations also approved new sanctions against Iran in June, imposing additional financial and travel restrictions on a list of Iranian companies and experts, including the country's largest bank.

The six nations — the U.S., China, Russia, France, Britain and Germany — first offered a package of economic, technological and political incentives to Tehran nearly two years ago on condition that it suspend enrichment.

The standoff has led to increasingly tense exchanges about the possibility of a military strike by Israel or the U.S. An Israeli military exercise last month was seen as a warning to Iran.

The commander of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards has said that Iran would consider any military action against its nuclear facilities as the beginning of a war. However, the general also has said he thinks a strike by Iran's adversaries is unlikely.

The United States needs to consult someone to find out what Iran's response means? Let me spell it out for you!! IT MEANS NO!! It's really that simple. What part of NO don't these people understand? They're not giving up their program, nor should they!!