votenader08

U.S. Presidential Candidate Ralph Nader responds to a question from the audience about the Russia/Georgia conflict. Excerpted from the Open the Debates super rally in Minneapolis on September 4, 2008. http://www.votenader.org - Let Ralph Debate!

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see

10 Reasons Why We Need a New (Cold?) War (satire)

Is it the 1930s all over again? By William Bowles

Turning Away From American State Terrorism By Peter Chamberlin

Obama-Biden - Osama bin Laden: A coincidence? + National Pentagon Radio

US invade Pakistan — but no complaints from the ‘international community’ By William Bowles

Georgia

www.votenader.org/

Ralph Nader Posts & Videos

Pois bem, alugamos dois carros pelo site da Hertz - um para rodar o Anel de Ouro e outro para fazer um bate-e-volta de St. Petersburg a Novgorod. O site avisou que o carro seria entregue por uma subsidiària, o que me deixou um pouco preocupada, mas sem motivo. Tanto o escritorio da Hertz  no centro de St Petersburg quanto aquele do centro de Moscou sao pequenos, mas os funcionarios entendiam e falavam ingles e o carro estava nos esperando. Sò achei o funcionario de Moscou mais eficiente e preocupado com o bem-estar do cliente.

Os documentos para alugar um carro são: o passaporte e a carteira internacional de habilitaçao, mas o funcionario da Hertz em Moscou quis ver também a carteira nacional de habilitação, para saber desde quando o namorado era habilitado. Eles nao alugam carro para quem é habilitado há menos de 1 ano e a carteira internacional nao trazia essa informaçao. Em St. Petersburg, só a carteira internacional já estava de bom tamanho, o funcionário não quis ver mais nada...

Quando o funcionário de Moscou começou a fazer perguntas sobre onde iriamos com o carro, achei que ele fosse um enxerido...  Estou alugando um carro e vou com ele para onde quiser, certo? Errado! Para sair da cidade com o carro, a Hertz deve autorizar expressamente e, se somos parados por algum policial fora da cidade, sem essa tal autorização, é multa na certa!

O funcionário de St. Petersburg, por sua vez, nao estava nem aí para onde iríamos. Parecia querer se livrar da gente o mais rápido possivel e, ainda bem que me lembrei dessa autorizaçao, senão não a teriamos!

Excluindo esse detalhe, todo o resto foi padrao: pagamento e garantia com o cartão de credito, seguro, telefone para emergencias... Assinamos uns papeis em russos e um contrato bilingue (russo e ingles) e saimos felizes com o carro pelas estradas russas.

As estradas russas nao diferem muito daquelas brasileiras: estreitas, com buracos, muitos trechos sem acostamento e em obras, policiais escondidos e, nas proximidades das cidades maiores, um trafego pesado de caminhões e carros muito velhos.

Mas vale pela paisagem! Casas de madeira, coloridas e trabalhadas, que nos acompanharam por todo o trajeto. Uma mais bonita do que a outra! Até as "lanchonetes" pela estrada eram de madeira e coloridas. Parávamos com frequência para tirar fotos.

Alguem deve se estar perguntando: mas e a sinalizaçao da estrada? Bom... a sinalizaçao é toda no alfabeto russo, mas eu pensei que fosse mais complicado. Bastou memorizar como se escreve o nome da cidade para onde queríamos ir e das principais cidades da "rota a seguir" e pronto! O resto é muito parecido com a sinalizaçao de qualquer cidade na Italia.

Como a comunicaçao é inexistente, tivemos que ir descobrindo por conta como as coisas funcionavam e a aventura da vez foi encher o tanque.

Depois que nos asseguramos que o posto aceitava cartão de credito (coisa rara por ali) fomos diretamente para a bomba encher o tanque. A bomba liberou um litro, parou de funcionar, uma voz num alto falante gritava alguma coisa em russo e todo mundo olhava pra gente.

Descobrimos o motivo: o pagamento deve ser feito antecipadamente, e foi muito engraçado tentar explicar, em russo é claro, (usando um dicionario e um guia de frases feitas), que gostariamos de encher o tanque, que pagariamos o valor do tanque cheio e que, obviamente, nao sabiamos de antemao qual seria esse valor.

Nao teve conversa! Nao sei se a moça do caixa nao entendeu o que queriamos ou se foi inflexivel, o fato é que escolhemos um valor ao acaso sò pra ter um pouco de gasolina e começar a ter noçao da capacidade do tanque.

No segundo posto jà estavamos nos achando experts e fomos diretamente ao caixa fazer o pagamento antes de tentar encher o tanque. Desta vez a atendente implicou e nao entendiamos com o que, pois ela havia em mãos o valor a ser cobrado e o cartão de credito.

Com muito custo deduzimos que para os postos na Russia o importante nao é o valor a ser pago, mas a quantidade de litros que vc pretende colocar. A atendente estava reclamando que os 800 rublos que gostariamos de pagar sao 30,4 litros e deveriamos colocar ou 30 ou 31 litros, jamais um numero quebrado.

A teoria se confirmou no terceiro posto, quando um frentista (dessa vez tinha um frentista) arrendondou na bomba a quantidade de litros, nao o valor a ser pago... Pelo menos, desta vez, conseguimos encher o tanque!

É claro que para a aventura ficar completa, um policial deveria nos parar por excesso de velocidade! Na Russia, o limite nas estradas é de 90km/h e, quando tem alguma cidade perto, esse limite cai pra 60km/h. Nós estavamos seguindo os 90km/h e fomos parados pq nao reduzimos a velocidade quando passamos por um aglomerado de 4 casas e 1 ponto de ônibus.

Segundo o policial, aquilo era uma cidade e nós estavamos acima do limite previsto. A comunicaçao foi patética: o policial sabia 3 ou 4 substantivos em ingles, escrevia os limites de velocidade com o dedo na poeira da lataria do carro e, quando descobriu que vinhamos da Italia, ficava repetindo: "Bella Italia!".

A multa, segundo o que o policial escreveu na sujeira do carro, seria de 2000 rublos a ser paga imediatamente. O namorado abriu a carteira, estava pegando o dinheiro para pagar a multa, quando o policial, super rapido, mete a mão na carteira, pega uma nota de 1000 rublos e diz "ok, ok", mandando a gente ir embora... Sem comentários...

A devoluçao do carro foi outra novela. Deveriamos devolver o carro nos aeroportos, tanto em Moscou, quanto em St. Petersburg.

Em Moscou foi tranquilo. Fomos previamente avisados de que ali não tinha exatamente um lugar para a devolução e que bastava telefonar com uns 20 minutos de antecedência que alguem apareceria para pegar o carro. Foi exatamente o que aconteceu!

Em St Petersburg foi uma piada. Ainda no escritorio da Hertz no centro da cidade eu peguei um mapinha do aeroporto onde tinha assinalado o lugar de "car rentals". Chegamos no aeroporto, demos várias voltas em busca do tal "car rentals" e nada! Procuramos placas em inglês e em russo e nada! Paramos o carro no meio da rua, perto de onde achávamos que deveria ser o lugar do tal "car rentals", perguntamos a uns policiais onde ficava a Hertz ou onde é o lugar de devoluçao do carro e... nada! Ninguem sabia, ninguem conhecia!

Resolvemos estacionar o carro e procurar o escritorio da Hertz dentro do aeroporto. O escritorio fica na parte de desembarque, onde só quem esta desembarcando tem acesso. Descobri isso pq, depois de rodar todo o aeroporto, pedi informaçoes a uma aeromoça, que tinha acabado de desembarcar.

Segundo a teoria, só quem desembarca poderia entrar naquela parte do aeroporto. Eu dei uma de joão-sem-braço e fui entrando... Se fosse proibido, alguem me barraria! Ninguem me barrou, mas também não tinha nem uma alma no tal escritorio da Hertz. Apenas uma mesa e um computador ligado!

A solução? Ligar para o número de emergências para conseguir devolver o carro!  Atendeu um fulano que disse que nos encontraria em 10 minutos.

15 minutos se passaram e nada.... Ligamos de novo... "Ah, o fulano deu uma saidinha e volta daqui a 15 minutos e depois vai encontrar vcs"

Mais 15 minutos se passaram e nada! Ligamos de novo..."Ah, o fulano deve chegar em meia hora!"

O namorado explodiu: "Nós temos um vôo para pegar, não podemos passar o dia inteira a disposição da boa vontade de vcs... Sim, nós achamos o escritorio dentro do aeroporto, mas não tem ninguem por lá!... Não, nós não vamos esperar nem mais um minuto! O carro está no estacionamento e vamos deixar as chaves e os documentos do carro em cima da mesa do escritorio!"

O namorado desliga o telefone e me olha com uma cara incrédula: "Disseram pra deixar tudo embaixo do teclado do computador..."

Pode??

In the space of the last 30 days, Russia has violated the sovereignty of a democracy; made and then breached a solemn agreement, in a direct affront to the European Union; severely damaged its credibility and global standing; and undermined its own relations with the United States and other countries.

This chain of aggressive moves and diplomatic reversals has only intensified the concern that many have about Russia's larger objectives. For brutality against a neighbor is simply the latest in a succession of troublesome and unhelpful actions by the Russian government.

Haaretz reports that

U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney met with [Israel's] President Shimon Peres on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti forum on the edge of Italy's Lake Como on Saturday, telling the Israeli leader that Russia is selling arms to Damascus and Iran with the clear knowledge that they are being channeled to Hezbollah and terror groups in Iraq.

The American vice president later reiterated these remarks in his address at the economic conference, saying that "Russian arms dealing in the Middle East has endangered the prospects for peace and freedom in the region." He added that the Russian leaders view democracy as a direct threat to their regime. Russia crossed a clear line when it invaded Georgia and attacked democracy and the rights of innocent civilians, Cheney said.

Meanwhile, The BBC reports a senior Venezuelan naval officer as saying that four Russian ships will take part in joint naval exercises, which will also involve Venezuelan aircraft and submarines, to be held in Venezuelan territorial waters (i.e. the Caribbean) in November. This can perhaps be seen as Russia's response, flagged by Putin on September 2, to NATO's current presence in the Black Sea.

How much more diplomacy with Iran before the Mad Mullahs slam Israel with a nuclear tipped missile? HUH?

Weston European nations including Great Britain, France, and Germany, are once again trying to “talk” Iran out of continuing to enrich uranium to weapons grade.  Once they have accomplished that, would anyone care to hazard a guess as to how long until they choose Israel as a target for a “test” fired missile?

The Mullahs are rather enjoying the “Jaw-Jaw” of the westerners.  It makes them feel important.  Much the same reason they feel it necessary to build nuclear weapons.  That have a gigantic inferiority complex and all the attention from the west strokes their HUGE egos into believing they are something more modern that a backwards 13^th century, third-world nation state.

I am beginning the think it is a “toss up” as to which nation is at the top of the hit list in the War on Terror.  Syria, or Iran. Surely we must hit one or the other, or both.  Both have a lot going for them as they vie for first place on that list. 

Syria, while a pain in the backside of the world, is not really threatening anybody outside of their immediate circle of Middle Eastern neighbors. 

Iran, on the other hand, is a different story.  Once they have mounted those nuclear warheads on the missiles they already have, they can strike far outside the Middle East and deep into Europe. I still feel their first target will be Israel, simply because they know the minute they light up the first nuclear missile, the US will blast them back into the Stone Age.  So they have to make that first shot count.  It may be their last.  Their deep-seated hatred for Israel will not allow them to chance losing an opportunity to visit death and destruction upon the Israelis.

Even more worrisome behavior, by Iran, is their rumored support of Hamas and Hezbollah in South America.  If true, that puts them clearly inside the US sphere of influence.  The presence of Hamas and Hezbollah in the “tri-border area” of South America (Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay) and, recently, in Venezuela have not gone unnoticed by US intelligence agencies.  The US may find it necessary to clean up around it’s own doorstep in the near future.  It is, indeed, an area that needs intense scrutiny.

Meanwhile, the Europeans seem to have learned nothing from two world wars, nothing.  They are still, to this day, attempting to placate their adversaries by bowing and scraping and diplomatically “kissing-up”.   They had better wake up and get a grasp on the situation.  You see, their perennial protector is sorta busy.  The US has its hands full, right now.  The US is, as they say, otherwise occupied. 

The point of all this rambling is to say simply, it’s time to stop talking with Iran and start doing.   Take out a few of their nuclear installations, their enrichment plants, and such.  That will get their attention.   They do not believe the West has “the stones” for it, so they simply disregard all the diplomatic blather and continue their menacing ways.  The quickest way to get them to the negotiating table is to slap them around a little.

It is trite to say, I know, but the Iranians understand power and the application of power.  Sad to say, our European cousins, apparently, do not.

We have said for a very long time now that the US is in Iraq to stay. They have constructed permanent military installations there and I do not see the US giving up this “forward” position for US ground troops in the Middle East. Besides, with our continued presence in Iraq, we have or friend (Israel) close… and our enemy (Iran) even closer!

J. D. Longstreet      

Cheney met with U.S. Embassy officials and international oil executives before going to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev's residence on the Caspian Sea.~A.P.

"We both seek greater stability and security and cooperation in this vital region of the world," ~ Cheney

The U.S. and Azerbaijan have many interests in common.`~Cheney

Dick Cheney accused Russia Thursday of an "illegitimate" invasion~A.F.P.

Mr Cheney said energy security was an "increasingly urgent" issue`~Isabel Gorst

Before he gets us in WWIII pull the can already!!! And pray for rain!!!

Here is another reason!

Scares me!!

[audio http://nevermore.netcipia.net/xwiki/bin/download/Main/WebHome/spooks1.mp3]

Venezuela plans Russia navy visit

The exercises will be the first of their in the region

Venezuela says it plans to hold joint naval exercises in its territorial waters with Russian forces in November.

A senior Venezuelan naval officer said four Russian ships would take part in the exercises, which would also involve Venezuelan aircraft and submarines.

Correspondents say the move is likely to raise concern in the US, whose relations with Russia have been soured by Moscow's recent conflict in Georgia.

Washington already has rocky relations with Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez.

In July, he called for a strategic alliance with Russia to protect Venezuela from the US.

Caracas and Moscow agreed to extend bilateral co-operation on energy, with three Russian energy companies to be allowed to operate in Venezuela.

Regional first

On Saturday, Venezuela's Rear Admiral Salbatore Cammarata Bastidas said four Russian ships and 1,000 Russian troops would take part in exercises in Venezuelan territorial waters from 10 to 14 November.

"This is of great importance because it is the first time it is being done (in the Americas)," he said in a statement quoted by the AFP news agency and local media.

President Chavez supported Russia's intervention in Georgia last month and has accused Washington of being scared of Moscow's "new world potential".

Earlier, US Vice-President Dick Cheney launched a furious attack on Russia over the recent conflict in the Caucasus.

Mr Cheney described Moscow's actions against Georgia as an affront to civilized standards and said it was reverting back to old Soviet tactics of intimidation and the use of brute force.

He added that Russia was also seeking to use its energy resources as a weapon.

 The United States has had the plan for a missile shield for a long time and put Georgia at war as an excuse to speed up the process. The result of this was that Poland accepted America’s strategy of a missile shield giving more kudos to America. A few days ago America and Poland’s foreign ministers signed a deal implementing America’s missile shield plan – taking the first serious step towards confrontation with Russia. American officials in the Pentagon and White House officially stated that these measures were taken in order to confront the threats by the Russian military.

 In order to confront this, Russia who had similar plans, announced its plan to put a missile defense system in Syria. While the west and the Zionist regime put pressure on Damascus in any way that they can, the Russia president, being invited by Bashar Asad, the Syian president, officially announced their clear confrontation with the west on the same day as Poland and America signed their deal.

full article: www.insight-info.com

Published: September 5 2008 18:49 | Last updated: September 5 2008 18:49

The US military provided combat training to 80 Georgian special forces commandos only months prior to Georgia’s army assault in South Ossetia in August.

The revelation, based on recruitment documents and interviews with US military trainers obtained by the Financial Times, could add fuel to accusations by Vlad­imir Putin, Russian prime minister, last month that the US had “orchestrated” the war in the Georgian enclave.

Read the rest of the article here.

[BWT: I don't understand what this writer is getting at, but I think he is asserting that Georgia precipitated the conflict with Russia, with the support of the United States.  Obviously this guy at his rinky-dink outfit doesn't pay attention to the United States media, if he did, he would know that the Russians attacked Georgia for no reason.  Idiot.]

In the video here, Sarah Palin wants us to believe the Russians invaded Georgia because they are after the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and want to “divide and intimidate our European allies.”

No, Ms. Palin is not stupid, even if she has no idea why Russia went into Georgia — to put an end to the Georgian murder spree against the people of South Ossetia, a criminal act encouraged by the United States and Israel.

Palin is simply pushing the neocon line, even if it takes outrageous and absurdly transparent lies. Sarah Palin had her script written for her, same as McCain and Bush: they are all sock puppets for the neocons.

I hate to say it, but Paul Craig Roberts is right — we are headed for nuclear war. If the neocons have their way — and it looks like they will, especially if McCain is ushered into office — the United States will continue to push Russia in the corner by installing missile systems on their border.

Cheney went to Georgia and told the mental case Saakashvili his country will be part of NATO. “Cheney’s trip was intended as a signal that the United States will continue cultivating close ties with Georgia and its neighbors even after Russia showed it was willing to use military force against countries along its border,” reports the Associated Press.

Cheney shopped around the newly minted neocon line. “Speaking in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, following a meeting with Ilham Aliyev, the country’s president, Mr Cheney said energy security was an ‘increasingly urgent’ issue,” reports the Financial Times.

Palin’s speech at the RNC introduced this new talking point. As should be expected, the corporate media has received its script from the Pentagon. “There are concerns that the Kremlin might next squeeze Ukraine as it tries to reclaim dominance in the region. That strategically situated country of 46 million has pipelines that carry Russian gas to Europe.”

Russia does not want to reclaim its dominance. It wants the U.S. to stop trying to box it in with missile systems, tinhorn dictatorships clustered on its borders, and provocative, incendiary rhetoric.

I usually avoid the crystal ball, but I can’t help it in this instance. Obama will be defeated in November. The Rovian machine has something dirty on Barack Obama and if that does not work there are the voting machines. If you think another stolen election will be resisted, consider the second part of the above video — the police state unleashed in Minnesota was but a taste of things to come. Besides, the average American cannot be bothered, he does not really care if it is McCain or Obama, so long as there are sit-coms and football games like Roman bread and circuses.

For the neocons, war with Russia is a dream come true, never mind the radiation. In the millions of column inches and billions of bytes covering the neocons, we hear scant little about their philosophy. It’s said they are hawks, but this misses the point by a country mile.

For some reason Carl Schmitt, Nazi jurist and neocon swami, was not sent to the gallows like his compatriots.

The neocons are more than Straussian fanatics, they are students of the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt, who believed in a dictatorship of the executive and a state of perpetual emergency, Hitler’s Ausnahmezustand. Schmitt was in love with the “death machine,” that is to say pure acts of unspeakable violence in the name of the state, and so are his students, the neocons. If Russia nukes us, that will make us all the stronger, never mind we may all perish in the process.

Strauss taught the neocons they are princeling philosophers and the rest of us are fools and chumps in Plato’s cave staring at shadows on the wall. Remember, Karl Rove said the neocons make their own reality — and that reality, as envisioned by Schmitt, is a nihilistic dance with death. The legal opinions of John Yoo — torturing children, negating the Geneva Conventions, the NSA electronic surveillance and control grid, the unitary executive, etc. — are Carl Schmitt’s theories put into action.

As Gary Leupp points out, the neocons “have contempt for the masses, and feel utterly justified in wisely misleading those masses,” and suffering writ large is for the good, as defined by them.

“The ancient philosophers whom Strauss most cherished believed that the unwashed masses were not fit for either truth or liberty, and that giving them these sublime treasures would be like throwing pearls before swine,” the scholarly critic of Strauss, Shadia Drury, tells Danny Postel. “In contrast to modern political thinkers, the ancients denied that there is any natural right to liberty. Human beings are born neither free nor equal. The natural human condition, they held, is not one of freedom, but of subordination – and in Strauss’s estimation they were right in thinking so.”

The people will not be happy to learn that there is only one natural right – the right of the superior to rule over the inferior, the master over the slave, the husband over the wife, and the wise few over the vulgar many. In On Tyranny, Strauss refers to this natural right as the “tyrannical teaching” of his beloved ancients. It is tyrannical in the classic sense of rule above rule or in the absence of law.

Strauss, his Hegelian buddy Alexandre Kojève, and Carl Schmitt (who was Strauss’ mentor and patron) “were convinced that liberal economics would turn life into entertainment and destroy politics; all three understood politics as a conflict between mutually hostile groups willing to fight each other to the death. In short, they all thought that man’s humanity depended on his willingness to rush naked into battle and headlong to his death. Only perpetual war can overturn the modern project, with its emphasis on self-preservation and ‘creature comforts.’ Life can be politicized once more, and man’s humanity can be restored,” Drury explains. “The combination of religion and nationalism is the elixir that Strauss advocates as the way to turn natural, relaxed, hedonistic men into devout nationalists willing to fight and die for their God and country.”

In order to get there, the neocons want to go up against all comers, including Russia, bristling as it is with nukes. Such a confrontation, according to the lunatic neocons, will turn “hedonistic men into devout nationalists willing to fight and die for their God and country,” or for their mere survival, at any rate.

Of course, the Straussian utopia will never be realized, it will instead reduce the planet to a cauldron of radioactive death. It is not simply hubris that drives the neocons, it is a truly demented and evil philosophy.

Obama will not be allowed to stand in the way. He will be taken down before November or on the day Americans enter the polling places to play Russian roulette — please excuse the pun — with Diebold and company.

Now is the time for Americans to awaken from their slumber and march on Washington in their millions — that is if they don’t want to witness the slow murder of their children or, at best, become the sort of driven slaves Schmitt, Strauss, and crew imagine.

Unfortunately, I don’t believe the average American is up to the task. He likes his shadows in the cave — especially if the shadows and egineered illusions are projected on a 60 inch flat LCD screen.

YEREVAN, Armenia (AP) -- Thousands of Armenians lined the streets of the capital Yerevan Saturday, protesting the Turkish president who drove past in the first ever visit by a Turkish leader. Many held placards demanding justice for massacres that took place nearly 100 years ago.

Turkish President Abdullah Gul boards a plane at Ankara before departing on an historic visit to Armenia.

Abdullah Gul arrived in Armenia to watch a Turkey vs. Armenia football World Cup qualifier game with President Serge Sarkisian that many hope will help the two countries overcome decades of antagonism rooted in Ottoman-era massacres of Armenians.

Gul is the first Turkish leader to set foot in Armenia since the ex-Soviet nation declared independence in 1991. The two neighbors have no diplomatic ties and their border has been closed since 1993.

Historians estimate up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey, however, denies the deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and those killed were victims of civil war and unrest.

Ties have also suffered from Turkey's opposition to Armenia's occupation of the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan, a close Turkish ally.

As Gul left the airport, the presidential motorcade drove along streets lined with thousands of people holding up placards, mostly in English and Armenian, that read: "We want justice," "Turk admit your guilt," and "1915 never again."

Others held up names of places in Turkey from which their ancestors were forced to leave as the Ottoman Empire uprooted Armenian communities between 1915 and 1922.

Little progress is expected on the genocide issue or on Nagorno-Karabakh when Gul meets Sarkisian for talks just before the game -- which Turkey is favored to win.

Still, the visit is a sign of a diplomatic thaw.

"I hope that (the visit) will help lift the obstacles that stand in the way of rapprochement between the two peoples and contribute to regional friendship and peace," Gul said before his departure.

Gul's decision to accept Armenia's invitation to the match is linked to Turkey's desire to carve out a regional peacemaker role amid tensions sparked by Russia's invasion of neighboring Georgia.

Turkey, a NATO member, has cause for alarm about how Russia's recognition of the Georgian breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia might inspire its own separatist Kurds, or provoke Armenia to boost support for separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh.

In the wake of the Georgia conflict, Turkey proposed a regional grouping for stability in the Caucasus that would include Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia.

"About a month ago, we all saw how conflicts that have remained unresolved threatened regional stability and peace in the Caucasus," Gul said in reference to the Georgia crisis.

Armenia is the last of Turkey's neighbors with whom Ankara has failed to mend ties since the end of the Cold War. Turkey has gradually improved relations with old foes such as Greece, Bulgaria and Syria.

Improved ties with Armenia are likely to help lift strains on Turkey's relations with other countries that have or plan to formally recognize the massacres as genocide.

In October, a measure that would have declared the Armenian deaths as genocide in the U.S. Congress was stopped after President George W. Bush's administration warned relations with strategic ally Turkey would be damaged.

On the plane, Gul paid tribute to the Armenian president.

"President Sarkisian was brave in taking the opportunity of inviting me to this game," he said.

Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 during a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, a Muslim ally of Ankara, in order to pressure Yerevan into ending the conflict. he move has hurt the economy of tiny, landlocked Armenia.

Armenia's bitter ties with Azerbaijan and Turkey have resulted in the tiny country being excluded from strategic energy pipelines that connect Azerbaijan to Turkey via Georgia.

Armenians, supported by numerous scholars, claim an organized genocide was carried out in the waning years of the Ottoman Empire and are pushing for the killings to be recognized as among history's worst atrocities.

Turkey contends the 1.5 million death toll is wildly inflated. It also says the Armenians were killed or displaced in civil unrest during the chaos that surrounded the empire's collapse.

Turkey has called for the establishment of a committee of scholars to study the WWI events in a bid to improve ties, but Armenia has declined to consider this until relations are forged.

By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers

MOSCOW_ In the aftermath of last month's war between Russia and U.S.-backed Georgia, Kremlin-watchers in Moscow are worried that Russia and America are closer to direct confrontation than at any point since the end of the Cold War.

The rhetoric coming from the Bush administration — and presidential hopeful John McCain — suggests that tensions are still on the rise.

During the Cold War, "the sides were very careful of each other. They were careful not to come too close," said Alexander Pikayev, a prominent military analyst in Moscow who works for a government-funded research center. "The risk of direct military clashes is (now) much higher. . . . This situation is much riskier than the Cold War."

Both sympathizers and critics of Kremlin policy shared the assessment of a significantly heightened chance of conflict. They expressed hopes that cooler heads will prevail.

Vice President Dick Cheney put a spotlight on the standoff during visits to Georgia and Ukraine this week, the countries at the core of the row between Washington and Moscow. He told Georgians on Thursday that the United States will continue to back the country's NATO application — which the Kremlin vehemently opposes — and said that Moscow's intervention "cast grave doubt on Russia's intentions and on its reliability as an international partner."

Cheney traveled on Friday to Ukraine, which also is applying to NATO with strong U.S. support. There, he spoke of the "threat of tyranny, economic blackmail and military invasion or intimidation" from Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the same day that it was up to America to decide whether disagreements would get worse.

"We are not interested in bad relations with the United States," Lavrov told CNN. "It wouldn't be our choice, but if the United States does not want to cooperate with us on one or another issue, we cannot impose."

At the Republican convention Thursday, McCain mentioned Russia just after al Qaida and Iran.

"Russia's leaders, rich with oil wealth and corrupt with power, have rejected democratic ideals and the obligations of a responsible power," McCain said in his nomination-acceptance speech. "As president, I will work to establish good relations with Russia so we need not fear a return of the Cold War," he said. "But we can't turn a blind eye to aggression and international lawlessness that threatens the peace and stability of the world and the security of the American people."

Democratic contender Barack Obama promised to "renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can curb Russian aggression."

Andrei Klimov, a Russian parliament member with the pro-Kremlin United Russia party, said he didn't think there would be fighting between the United States and Russia, but acknowledged that he's taken aback by how much more possible it seems now.

"If you have a lot of people on the streets with pistols, it is very dangerous," said Klimov, the deputy of the foreign affairs committee in the Duma, the lower house of parliament.

Russian analysts say there are three possible flash points, all centered on or around the Black Sea, once almost lakefront property for the Soviet empire. The sea borders three NATO members — Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania — and two applicants, Georgia and Ukraine. If the two applicants join the alliance, Russia's Black Sea coastline would be surrounded by NATO.

"Now it looks like there is a certain red line that exists in the heads of Russian leadership and they are willing to do anything to stop it from being crossed," said Nikolai Petrov, a Moscow scholar in residence with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "And this red line is Ukraine and Georgia joining NATO."

It's a crucial area for any attempts by Russia to reassert its power in former Soviet territory:

_ In Ukraine, the government of U.S.-backed President Viktor Yushchenko is splintering in a power struggle. If Yushchenko or his opponents use force, the country could split between pro-Western and pro-Russian factions, creating pressure for Washington and Moscow to take sides, if not become directly involved.

_ American warships are deploying in and near Georgian ports, carrying humanitarian aid. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has suggested that they're also bringing military aid to the defeated Georgian army. On Friday, the USS Mount Whitney, the command ship for the U.S. Navy's 6th Fleet, docked in Poti, Georgia, not far from Russian outposts on shore.

_ Russian warships have been sent to the coast of nearby Abkhazia, a breakaway province of Georgia now occupied by Russian troops and recognized as an independent state by Moscow. In the relatively close proximity in which the Russian and American ships operate there and elsewhere in the Black Sea, one misunderstanding could create an international incident.

"We remember very well the Tonkin Gulf incident" in which untrue reports of North Vietnamese ships firing on U.S. ships started the Vietnam War, said Sergei Markov, a Duma member who's also with United Russia.

Markov, who's close to the Kremlin, accused the Bush administration of playing "a very dirty and bloody game" in which it was intentionally provoking Russia to create the appearance of a new cold war to help McCain's hawkish presidential campaign and further U.S. attempts to hem in Russian power.

Pavel Felgenhauer, a military analyst in Moscow who works with the U.S.-based Jamestown Foundation, agreed that relations between the countries were dangerously tense, but blamed the Kremlin.

"Russia is probing the West, as it often did during the Cold War, (to see) how far is the West willing to go: What will happen if Russia continues to push?" Felgenhauer said. "There is a party of war within the ruling party. . . . It seems that for now the hard-liners are winning."

Aleksandr Dugin, a hard-line Russian theorist whose ideas about weakening American geopolitical standing are popular with many Kremlin leaders, said Russia was challenging U.S. domination and that confrontation may be unavoidable.

Russia's move into Georgia was "an "irreversible decision that will mean in the future a serious, profound, irreversible confrontation with the United States. . . . The stakes are so high that Moscow has placed all its (chips) on the table," he said.

Dugin said he thought the strategy was a good one.

More from McClatchy:

Russian assault unites Georgia behind Saakashvili

Russia defies West, recognizes breakaway Georgia regions

Bush-Putin summit does little to relieve U.S.-Russia strains

Source: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/51913.html

In the Georgian town of Pti, Russian troops arrested 22 Georgian uniformed men. After interrogation, the men said that they were supposed to receive humanitarian help from the U.S. ships. As it turns out, their packages included assault weapons, rocket launchers, and plastic explosives. The Georgian soldiers were driving nearly brand new HUMVEE’s, whose odometer showed not even 400 miles. On the windows of the vehicles there were still stickers with “U.S. Property” printed on them.

The official explanation is that the Humvees "were awaiting shipment back to the United States after taking part in earlier U.S.-Georgian military exercises". Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said "these Humvees are U.S. property and should be returned. It’s that simple".

“We don’t have any assurance at this point that they’re prepared to do the right thing and return them,” Whitman said of Russia’s forces. He declined to specify the exact number of American vehicles in Russia’s possession, calling it “a handful.”

Another report says the vehicles were flown to Moscow:

According to witnesses, five Humvees with the letters USMC -- the initials of the US Marine Corps -- emblazoned on them were taken by Russian forces. A Russian newspaper said the vehicles contained sophisticated satellite communications gear and they had been flown to Moscow to be examined.

by Rodrigue Tremblay
Global Research, September 6, 2008
thenewamericanempire.com/

"Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran."

"The issue of economics is not something I've understood as well as I should.. ... I know a lot less about economics than I do about military and foreign policy issues. I still need to be educated."

“I think that [to be rich] if you are only talking about income, how about $5 million?”

John McCain, 2008 Republican presidential candidate

"Our national leaders are sending them [American soldiers to Iraq] out on a task that is from God. ...That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that plan is God's plan."

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (June 2008)

"She's not prepared to be governor. How can she be prepared to be vice president or president? Look at what she's done to this state. What would she do to the nation?” [About Gov. Sarah Palin, McCain's choice for a running mate]

Lyda Green, Republican Alaska State Senate President

“If my guesses are confirmed, then that raises the suspicion that somebody in the U. S. purposefully created this conflict [the August 7-8 Georgia-Russia conflict] with the aim of aggravating the situation and creating an advantage...for one of the candidates in the battle for the post of U.S. president.”

Vladimir Putin, Russian Prime Minister and former President (August 28, 2008)

Traditionally, American presidential elections get into full gear after Labor Day, once the political conventions have been completed, major speeches made and vice president running mates chosen. It is therefore a good time to make a general assessment of where this year's election stands, what political camp has the momentum (or is losing it) and what good or bad decisions have been made by either of the two major presidential candidates.

1. Let us start with the polls.

Three months ago, in mid June, at the end of the primary season, here was the standing in the polls of the two then presumptive main presidential candidates. The polls at that time showed Democratic candidate Sen. Barack Obama leading his Republican opponent Sen. John McCain by a comfortable margin. This was on the aftermath of Obama's primary victory over Sen. Hillary Clinton. For instance, the USA Today/Gallup typically showed Sen. Obama leading Sen. McCain on the order of 50% to 44%, among likely voters.

In late August, according to the same USA Today/Gallup Poll, Sen. Obama still had a 48%–45% edge over his opponent among likely voters, but a few other polls showed him trailing McCain. A Saturday September 6 Gallup poll showed Obama leading McCain only by 47% to 45%, indicating that the two presidential tickets were statistically neck and neck after the two parties' back-to-back conventions.

It should be mentioned that 10 times out of 12, the presidential ticket ahead after the conventions wins in November. But this year, poll data have to be analyzed in light of a likely negative “Bradley Effect” for the Obama-Biden ticket (see below).

Therefore, the conclusion is clear: This is going to be a close U.S. presidential election, much closer than it should have been expected after eight years of crisis-prone Republican rule. Why is this so?

2. The Attacks on the Persona of the Democratic Candidate

It is generally recognized that if Americans elect Sen. Barack Obama president, it will be considered some sort of a political miracle. This is because Sen. Obama is not your usual American presidential candidate. A junior U.S. senator with little administrative experience, he has to counteract the charge that he is inexperienced and untested. Not that his adversary, Sen. John McCain, has had much more administrative experience, but being younger, it is assumed that Sen. Obama is less experienced. Because of that, his choice of vice-presidential running mate was crucial. This was a test he could not afford to fail (see below).

Sen. Obama is also the first person of African-American ancestry to run as a presidential candidate for one of the two dominant American political parties. This in itself is an historical challenge since he does not fit totally with the image that many Americans have of their president. Indeed, it was said by some observers that some segments of the American public are not completely comfortable with candidate Obama and his convoluted personal history.

More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that Sen. Obama is considered a progressive and on the left of many domestic policy issues. This may be less of a handicap with the average American voter, who has suffered miserably under the rule of far right politicians, than it is with the neoconservative nomenklatura who control the levers of many propaganda machines.

As with previous democratic presidential candidates of the recent past, it should have been expected that the ruling political cartel in the U.S. would be less than enthusiastic in allowing a relatively unknown and thus a somewhat more risky candidate get into the White House. It is obvious that there is a strong coalition of various interests that does not like the prospect of having Senator Obama become President Obama, and they are taking the necessary steps to attempt to deny him a victory.

For that, they have adopted the traditional Republican strategy of “attack and destroy.” The neocon propaganda machine, which controls 90 percent of the American corporate media, has already done an effective job of sabotaging the Obama campaign. Indeed, the mainstream network talking heads, cable paid demagogues and other smear artists have savaged him ferociously with innuendos, half-truths and calumnies in order to distance him from the average voter, whose interests Sen. Obama has espoused.

It is obvious that this powerful propaganda machine is bent on electing a neocon and pro-military-industrial complex candidate, no matter how flawed and unfit that candidate may be, and so far they have used their considerable resources, including those of nonprofit 501(c)4 organizations, to attain that goal. That flawed candidate himself, Sen. John McCain has reached new lows in dirty campaigning, in smears and in political lies, even stooping as low as to accuse Sen. Obama of being responsible for high gas prices, while exonerating as culprits the incumbent Bush-Cheney administration, its ineffective energy policy and its wars of aggression.

3. The Obama Camp's Weak Response

But the Republican “ad hominen” attack strategy was predictable, since they have used it before with success, and the Obama camp should have planned in accordance. It is said that candidate Obama “conceded” the crucial month of August to his adversaries. This is the same month that Democratic presidential candidates Michael Dukakis and John Kerry are also said to have conceded to their attackers during the 1988 and 2004 campaigns. Therefore, the fact that Sen. Obama remained on the defensive and did not strongly counterattack goes a long way in explaining his current lack of political momentum. To win, the Democrats cannot let the corrosive propaganda against them go unanswered, with only sporadic and weak rebuttals, while their opponent's flawed record and character remain largely off screen.

Since this is a mistake made by the Dukakis camp in 1988 and the Kerry camp in 2004, one would think that the Democrats would have learned from these two fiascos. But judging from what happened in August this year, it's obvious that they have not. A question therefore must be raised: Is there an ongoing attempt from within the Democratic Party to sabotage Obama's campaign? When something weird or unexplained happens, one has to ask if there is not a more rational reason that explains it.

4. The Republican Bag of Dirty Tricks

This election has been characterized so far by the McCain camp going deep into the bag of political dirty tricks to destroy the Democratic presidential candidate and derail his campaign. How come the McCain machine has been so amazingly successful in controlling the debate, especially in having foreign affairs and security issues dominate the presidential election campaign, at a time when millions of Americans are losing their homes, when the economy is going through one of the worst financial and banking crisis and is in the midst of an economic slump?

As for the question about the dominance of national security issues, it certainly can be asked whether Sen. Barack Obama has not already been the victim of an astute and wicked “Wag the Dog” scheme. Such a scheme could have been designed by the Bush-Cheney White House to place foreign affairs and security matters front and center at a strategically important time in the U.S. presidential campaign, in the month of August, in order to bolster McCain's campaign and help candidate McCain capitalize on his perceived advantage on such questions.

Indeed, the curious international crisis that McCain's personal friend Mikhail Saakashvili, President of Georgia, created from scratch at the outset of the 2008 Olympic Games, during the night of August 7-8 (a period when Sen. Obama was taking a holiday in Hawaii) has all the appearances of a “Wag the Dog” operation.

Ever since Western countries supported the break-away of the territory of Kosovo from Serbia in February 2008, and created a precedent to be applied elsewhere, Georgia's President Saakashvili knew perfectly well that Russia was prepared to react to any provocation in South Ossetia. Why then did the hothead Saakashvili go ahead and provoke Russia by bombing and invading S. Ossetia? And with American and Israeli “advisers” on the ground, in Georgia, we can rest assured that Saakashvili would never have sent Georgian tanks to South Ossetia without receiving some form of go-ahead signal from Washington. An ominous sign was the presence of a top national security aide to Vice President Dick Cheney in Georgia (Joseph R. Wood), just before the latter country's August 7-8 attack on South Ossetia. Therefore, we can be certain that there was a direct link between the Georgian government and the Dick Cheney White House while George W. Bush was at the Beijing Olympics.

Many consider that the hairy Georgian, Washington-backed plan to attack Russian soldiers in S. Ossetia was “beyond comprehension”. But was it? Was it intended, from Georgia's point of view, to draw the United States into a newly created de facto conflict with Russia, even thinking that the Georgian army could successfully occupy S. Ossetia with Russian soldiers stationed there, as some observers believed initially, or —was it not also, and this is more logical, part of a plan designed to boost Sen. John McCain's campaign for the American presidency, at a time when he was badly trailing in the polls? It is permitted, indeed, to suspect that the office of Vice President Cheney could have been interested in provoking a dispute with Russia over NATO, in order to shift the political debate in the U.S. away from the economy and more towards the issue of national security and international affairs.

The fact that the Georgian military incursions into S. Ossetia were followed with ready-made declarations by candidate McCain (“We are all Georgians”) in the aftermath of this provoked and gratuitous crisis points to a possibly more cynical political scenario. —It is said that when something looks like a duck, walks like a duck and goes “Quack! Quack!” like a duck, there is a good chance that it's a duck. At the very least, this is a hypothesis which deserves to be investigated with all the available clues. It is also a hypothesis that has received support from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And you can rest assured that if the Bush-Cheney White House were to launch a gratuitous attack against Iran in the coming weeks, it would also be done with the current presidential election in mind. That's why there is always the fear that a miscalculation could lead to World War III.

5. An Assessment of the Republican Candidate

As compared to Sen. Barack Obama, it would seem obvious that Sen. John McCain would be a ticking time bomb as president. The man is an old style militarist who confesses that he doesn't know anything about economics ("I still need to be educated").

These are the worst attributes one would like to see in a leader at this time of economic and financial stress, and with costly lingering wars in far away Iraq and Afghanistan draining the public budget. Indeed, if we study his pronouncements, all indicate that Sen. McCain would be a trigger-happy “roll-the-dice” president. He would be an interventionist president, who would gleefully start new wars, while his willingness to reinstitute the military draft would wreck havoc with thousands of families. That message does not seem to have been effectively conveyed to the American electorate. Why?

6. The Choice of Vice Presidential Candidates

On Saturday August 23, Sen. Barack Obama announced that he had chosen as running mate an old-timer senator. Indeed, Sen. Joe Biden (D. Del), the Democratic Vice President nominee, is an insider and a master of Washington politics, having been in the U.S. Senate some 35 years. A lawyer and an international affairs specialist, Sen. Biden is undoubtedly as qualified to be president as anyone can be.

But, the choice has the effect of somewhat negating Obama's central promise of a fundamental change in government. Moreover, since Sen. Biden supported the neocon-inspired October 2002 “Iraq War Resolution”, his selection removed, to a large extent, the rationale for those opposed to the Iraq war to work extra hard on behalf of the Democratic ticket.

Let's keep in mind that one of Obama's most serious and effective charges against Sen. Hillary Clinton during the primaries was the fact that, from the start, he had shown “better judgment” than her in opposing the Iraq War. It has become much more difficult to make this charge against Sen. McCain, now that Sen. Biden is at his side. Also, on foreign policy, Sen. Obama wants to draw down American troops in Iraq at the same time that he proposes a military “surge” in Afghanistan, by sending two more American brigades into that ravaged country, and even possibly into Pakistan. All this blurs Sen. Obama's overall message and his pretense that he represented the hope for a fundamental change in American foreign policy.

Therefore, Sen. Obama's Vice Presidential choice, while not a bad choice, was certainly a conservative one. It could reinforce the idea, in the minds of some younger voters, that when it comes to American foreign policy there is really a single bipartisan and right wing pro-war party in Washington. This image is in contradiction to that projected earlier by Sen. Barack Obama when he was running for the Democratic nomination.

Indeed, many of his supporters may have trouble understanding how Sen. Obama could present himself as an anti-Establishment and an anti-war presidential candidate and then turn around and choose an Establishment and pro-war Vice Presidential candidate who has had a long and close association with the pro-war AIPAC organization. The rationale, of course, was that an insider senator such as Sen. Biden would help an Obama administration deal with Congress ...once elected. But before governing, one has to win the election. And on this score, it is questionable whether the chosen running mate was the best choice to unite a badly divided party between the Obama camp and the Clinton camp.

To close the gap and introduce energy into the Democratic party, Sen. Obama could have called on former Vice President Al Gore and brought him into the campaign. It is understandable that a young senator could have been afraid that such a high profile Democratic running mate might cast a shadow upon himself. But a decision in this direction would have electrified the Democratic Convention and gone a long way toward uniting the party.

Of course, the other obvious choice that could have united the Democratic Party would have been for Sen. Obama to swallow his pride and overcome his inferiority complex and choose as a running mate Sen. Hillary Clinton (D. NY), an adversary who received nearly as much support (18 million primary votes) as himself within the party. Indeed, Sen. Clinton could have helped the Democratic ticket win a strong majority of the crucial female vote, especially the vote of older white women, since it is widely acknowledged that Sen. Obama is not going to win the white male vote.

In 1960, for example, Sen. John F. Kennedy was less than personally enamored with Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas, but he needed to win that southern state to win the election. He overcame his personal feelings, and thanks to winning Texas, Kennedy won the election and became president. Therefore, in the end, it can be said that Sen. Obama has decided not to be audacious but to play it safe in his choice of a vice presidential running mate.

—The contrary can be said of Sen. McCain. In a cynical and blatantly calculated political move, John McCain announced on Friday, August 29, that he had chosen a relatively unknown and a relatively inexperienced woman, 44-year-old Sarah Palin, a former Miss Alaska beauty contest finalist in 1984 and a former sports reporter. This was reminiscent of George H. Bush who, in 1988, chose an obscure senator named Dan Quayle, then 41, to be his running mate. In the case of Ms. Palin, she is the former mayor of a small town and the recently elected Governor of Alaska, and has not an ounce of experience in world affairs. This is a good example of the dumbing-down of American politics where anything can be said (“She has foreign affairs experience because she lives in a state next to Russia”), done or sold, for expediency.

Therefore, since according to Sen. McCain himself he has no competence in economics or finance, one could have expected that he would have chosen someone better prepared in this crucial area. A candidate who fits the requirements would have been former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, who has considerable business and executive experience. Instead, Sen. McCain chose a woman who has no background in economics or finance. Why? Essentially, because in the USA, religion trumps economics anytime. And, that's the problem.

7. A Republican Ticket as the Religious Far Right Likes It

In fact, what attracted candidate McCain to Sarah Palin was her far right religious credentials, being a fervent Pentecostal Christian who is anti-abortion (even for rape and incest victims), pro-state-imposed-death penalty, anti-sexual education, anti-same-sex marriage, anti-environment, pro-creationism, pro-censorship, pro-gun ownership, and pro-war. More to the right than that, and one falls over the cliff!

To get the evangelical vote, evangelical leaders had to be wooed. For the religious far right leaders, indeed, such as James Dobson, president of the Focus on the Family movement, the only issue that really matters is for them to take absolute control of the U.S. Supreme Court in order to impose their far right domestic cultural agenda. They particularly want the Court to repeal the 1973 decision of Roe v. Wade that gave American women control over their own body. Any politician who can help them achieve this goal is bound to receive their support, whatever his or her qualifications.

That is why Dobson declared upon learning that their favorite candidate had been selected, "I would pull that lever" [for John McCain – Sarah Palin],” after he had said earlier that he “cannot and will not vote for Senator John McCain.”

In 2004, the Dobson religious far right machine put its considerable media power (7 million American radio listeners) behind the disastrous Bush – Cheney ticket for a second term. And it won. In 2008, if the flawed and controversial McCain – Palin ticket were to win, it would be due in a large measure to the same religious far right support. People outside the United States must know such things if they are to understand American politics.

But was not Sen. McCain playing crass politics and demonstrating again a lack of judgment with such a surprising choice as a running mate? Indeed, if he had placed the welfare of his country first, would he have chosen such an inexperienced person to be a heartbeat away from the presidency, to be commander-in-chief, especially considering that he is himself already 72 years old and that, if elected, he would be the oldest American president ever inaugurated? [N.B.: Sen. John McCain's father (70) and grandfather (61) both died suddenly of heart attacks.]

The truth is that the American religious far right had its doubts about candidate McCain and was about to sit the election out. Something had to be improvised to get the religious far right aboard. —And Ms. Palin fit the bill. Her far right credentials were bound to “energize” a strategic part of the Republican base. That was the calculation.

Of course, there was also the hope of killing two birds with one stone by attracting some inattentive pro-Hillary Clinton Democrats and Independent women who could have felt somewhat snubbed by Obama's choice of Sen. Joe Biden as his running mate. But considering how far right politically Ms. Palin is, it is dubious that many Democratic or Independent leaning American women are going to fall in the trap that the McCain camp has opened for them.

While it is true that the campaign that Sen. Hillary Clinton ran gave legitimacy to the possibility of a woman as president, this does not apply to any woman. Not to a woman because she is a woman. She has to be qualified for the job. In fact, the choice of Ms. Sarah Palin as his running mate and his sell-out to the far right may have been a major blunder on Sen. McCain's part, because such a rash and impulsive decision puts his judgment in doubt.

Overall, religion continues to be the most politically divisive factor in the United States. Gallup found, for example, that nearly two thirds (65%) of highly religious American white voters would vote Republican, no matter what their interests in other issues are. They are one-issue voters and their political behavior explains to a large extent why relatively poor people and those of the middle class in the U. S. continue to vote for far right policies which mainly profit the rich. And that one single issue is an unhealthy desire to infuse religious dogma into the law of the land, no matter what the U.S. Constitution says about the division between Church and State and the requirement not to have a religious litmus test for any public office [Article 6, clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution says: ... “no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”]. The constitution says one thing, but the churches say another. That explains why candidate McCain felt obliged to pander to the American religious right movement.

Since economic studies show that when Democrats were in the White House, lower-income American families experienced slightly faster income growth than higher-income families, and that the reverse was true when Republicans were in control, one would expect the Democrats to be favorite in this year of economic hardship. That is if people vote rationally their economic interests rather than voting along religious lines.

8. The “Bradley Effect” cannot be underestimated

Because of the nature of the Democratic nominee, it would be imprudent to dismiss the possibility of a strong “Bradley effect.” To the contrary, a Pew Research Center poll taken during mid-August could indicate that this is going to be the case. For instance, a majority of McCain supporters (53%) rejected candidate Obama overwhelmingly and found nothing positive about him, while many Obama supporters are able to say something positive about candidate McCain. To me, this smells like a somewhat racist stand on the part of many American voters who are attracted to candidate McCain. They simply cannot stomach the idea of having a black person as their president.

This is a political fact that Obama's advisers have to deal with. Come November, indeed, the Obama-Biden ticket will have to be 2 or 3 percentage points ahead of the Republican ticket to counteract the expected “Bradley effect” in order to win.

Thus, one can wonder if their strategy of putting the emphasis on an “Obama: The Celebrity” campaign, rather than on an “issues-based” campaign is really what the situation would require. In other words, is it a good idea to turn the 2008 election into a popularity contest between Sen. Obama and Sen. McCain?

The reality is that Sen. Obama is also a candidate who has a high profile and outspoken wife who is certainly not your typical self-effacing American first lady (at least, before the election!). This may unduly reinforce the “celebrity” tone of the Democratic campaign. On the same level, it can be disputed whether the idea of having the Democratic candidate accept the nomination of his party before an imposing crowd of 75,000 at the Denver Broncos' football Invesco Field Stadium, Mount Olympus-Parthenon-style, was the greatest. This has also reinforced the “celebrity” message. —It is too early to know if that was the wrong message at the wrong time. The answer will be delivered on November 4.

9. Obama the Good One vs. McCain the Nasty One?

Finally, on the character issue, I have the feeling that there is some appearance of a lack of moral fortitude on the part of Candidate Obama. Some may have the impression that Sen. Obama is not his own man. That he says and does what others tell him to say and do and that this may explain his occasional flip-flops. This image, even if unfair and untrue, can be dangerous in politics because voters sometime value character above everything else in a candidate to public office.

On the other hand, even though John McCain has often been referred to ever since his high school days by those who know him well as John “McNasty”, the Democrats seem incapable of conveying this information about McCain's character flaws to the public. If they do not do it themselves, they surely cannot rely on the neocon corporate media to do it in their place! So far, Obama's advisers have been pulling their punches. They keep repeating that “You have to be careful about attacking McCain." Well, the McCain camp has no such restraint in attacking Sen. Obama. They did exactly the same thing to Sen. John Kerry in 2004. In American politics, nice guys have the habit of finishing last.

10. Conclusion

The 2008 American presidential election is a most unusual and interesting election, and it will be studied intensively in the coming years. My preliminary assessment is that this is still a presidential election for the Democrats to lose, but they may lose it, at least at the strategic presidential level.

Of course, the Democrats have not yet lost the 2008 presidential election, far from it, but they must quickly regain the momentum and take control of the political agenda by reorienting their strategy and tactics. As President John Kennedy once said, “an error is not a mistake unless you refuse to correct it.”

For strategy, for instance, they would be wise to place less emphasis on the persona of Sen. Obama and his wife and more on issues. They must demonstrate to the American electorate that they are better prepared to tackle them, while their adversaries are likely to make matters worse.

Are Americans better off today than eight years ago? By most measures, they are not. It should be no surprise that Americans are eager for a change in leadership, especially as it is related to their number one preoccupation, the economy. If they were to vote for four more years of the same, it would only be by default. How could it be otherwise with the incumbent Republican George W. Bush having the lowest disapproval rating (69%) ever of any American president?

Amazingly, however, the Democrats seem to have some problem zeroing in on a slogan. Perhaps they could adopt a slogan such as: “For a Better and More Prosperous America”. —I may be wrong, but I think that's what a majority of Americans want.

Rodrigue Tremblay is professor emeritus of economics at the University of Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com

He is the author of the book 'The New American Empire'

Visit his blog site at: www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.

Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com/

Check Dr. Tremblay's coming book "The Code for Global Ethics" at: www.TheCodeForGlobalEthics.com/

© Copyright Rodrigue Tremblay, thenewamericanempire.com/, 2008

The url address of this article is: www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10098

see

The Daily Show: Reformed Maverick + The Best F#&king News Team Ever - Small Town Values

God Does Love the Republicans By Steven Jonas + Bible Thumper

Ron Paul: No Difference Between the Two Parties + Secret Service confiscates books & buttons

The Invisible Man: The Least Worst isn’t Good Enough Anymore

The Daily Show: Sarah Palin Gender Card

Is it the 1930s all over again? By William Bowles

Turning Away From American State Terrorism By Peter Chamberlin

Obama-Biden - Osama bin Laden: A coincidence? + National Pentagon Radio

US invade Pakistan — but no complaints from the ‘international community’ By William Bowles

It's amazing, the lengths to which the PNAC Platoon neocons and their friends in the Likud/Kadima government will go to attack Iran -- and thus ensure the closure of the Straits of Hormuz as well as an immediate end of the Shia truce with American forces in Iraq (this truce being the main reason Iraq isn't a total charnel house right now).

The truth of the matter is that Russia is our enemy.

The 'Real' Russia (as opposed to Russia's often ridiculous self portrayals) is that of a nation of thieves, plunderers and murders. I state this without any exaggeration.

In my opinion, 'The' most accurate and informative source of information available can only be found at

''La RUSSOPHOBE"

I strongly recommend La Russophobe to ALL who seek the truth!

Mykolas

Sent to me by Jason Miller from Thomas Paine’s Corner. Thanks, Jason.

By Gary Corseri
9/6/08

1. Russia is too damned uppity. After Georgian “peace-keepers” turned their guns on genuine Russian peace-keepers in South Ossetia, after Georgia bombed and killed 1500 South Ossetians, Russia had the nerve to counter-attack!

2. Russia is too big for its britches. It still possesses a sizeable chunk of the planet’s real estate—twice as much as the U.S. (not counting our foreign bases and various client states). They’ve less than half as many people as we have (and they’re mostly Slavs, anyway). Obviously, a lot of the land conquered under the Tsars ought to be up for grabs in the New World Order. The West needs those resources. It’s our planet too!

3. Russia doesn’t play fair. When we get our apparatchiks in Poland to install missile interceptors on Polish land—the Russkies balk and claim Poland is now a legit target for Russky missiles. What’s this? Diplomacy through intimidation? Just because we do it, does that mean they should? Monkey see, monkey does? Russkovia is full of monkeys with nuclear warhead missiles!

4. Russmonkeya has been howling ever since we broke the ABM treaties. Don’t they realize we have the “freedom” to break treaties at will? Didn’t they ever hear about our “Indians,” with whom we broke all our treaties?

5. Russia has too many good writers whom they take seriously! Solzhenitsyn, for example. He was critical of the Soviet system, found it “soul-less,” etc. and the Russkies listened intently, put the heat on him, and he up and exiles himself to bucolic Vermont, where, fast as a fast-food, deep-fried chicken burger will bring on heartburn, he gets jaundice-eyed about America—calls us “decadent,” “consumerist,” “materialistic,” “immature” and yada yada yada. We, of course, ignore him—which is death to serious writers. So he up-ends himself again, returns to Russkovia, is critical of Mother Russiasky again and this time the Russkies burnish the samovars and conscientiously reflect on what he’s saying. … Naturally, we continue to ignore him.

6. Haven’t the Putin reforms gone far enough? Wouldn’t we rather have a good-ole-boy vodka-boozer like Yeltsin in place, selling off the state’s resources to well-placed Russkie frat-boy-like oligarchs close to Western frat-boy-like oligarchs? Putin is too popular in Leninslavia! With a New Cold War, he’s bound to rein in the reforms, wrest more power to himself and bring on uprisings against him—uprisings our National Endowment for Democracy can shape and mold. Obviously, we need a guy like Brezhnev in there—a somnambulistic status-quo man who will keep a New Cold War simmering.

7. A New Cold War is good for the dollar. The War on Terrorism is getting a bit frayed. Americans are starting to bawl: What’s in this for me? (Typical!) They’re whining about no health care or homes foreclosed or lousy schools, and the memory of 9/11 is already fading, in spite of our best rhetorical efforts. (Can you believe it? There are 6-year olds who weren’t even alive then?) Also, Americans don’t see progress in our War on Terror. Are we any safer now? they ask. We need to ratchet up the fear with a formidable enemy like Russia-Slavia. We need to put people to work making more bombs, missiles, aircraft carriers, etc.

8. If we don’t have a New Cold War with Russia, we’re going to face other problems from upstart nations like China and Iran. The ‘08 Olympics proved to the world the Chinese are just as good as we at presenting a “really good shew.” Better! (Anyone remember the Atlanta Olympics? It was much smaller; people got killed; there was police repression, and besides all that, it was boring!) The Chinese are feeling their oats now and they’re bound to get more assertive as they seek the same oil we’ve been drilling in the Middle East since John McCain wore knickers. They’ve got all those jobs our corporations outsourced to them and in a couple of decades they’ll have a bigger GNP than us, and in a couple beyond that, a bigger per capita! Weren’t they a nation of “coolies” just 100 years ago, and dyed in their wool Mao-jackets just 30 yrs ago? We’ve got to stand up to Russostan now so China, Inc. doesn’t stand up to us later! We’ve got to show these Socialistas who’s the boss cause force is all people like that can understand! As for Iran—it’s a nation of towel-heads and terrorists who hate us for our freedom! If we don’t have a New Cold War now, those Iranians will go on developing their nukes and they’ll join forces with the Russoviks and the noodle-slurpers and we and Israel can kiss our tuchus dasvidanya!

9. A New Cold War is good for our politicians and our media. Our politicians are already humming the tunes. Pretty soon they’ll be “dancing with the stars.” They won’t be able to deliver on 10% of what they’re promising because the corporations and the lobbyists and the media ain’t gonna tie the ribbons until they get their greasy palms greased. And the way to over-grease the palms is to enforce “war taxes.” Which means taking middle class taxes and forking them over to industries and institutions that thrive on death and chaos. It means more of the likes of Jack Bauer on TV making the world safe for democracy by torturing Russkies who mean the farm boys in Kansas and the mothers in Alaska bodily harm. (Isn’t it better to torture one Russkie suspect who might have info to save a million American lives? And if we once in a while waterboard the wrong Yuri or Lara—isn’t that better than little Johnny down the street getting anthraxed even though he still can’t read?)

10. Russian novels are too long and depressing; no American bothers to finish them. A New Cold War, on the other hand, will accelerate Armageddon. We already know that ends in the triumph of Good over Evil. So, in the immortal words of G.W.B., “Bring it on!”

(Gary Corseri, a Senior Contributing, & Arts & Culture, Editor at Cyrano’s Journal, has posted/published his work at hundreds of venues, including ThomasPaine’sCorner, The New York Times and Village Voice. He has published novels and collections of poems, taught in universities and prisons, performed at the Carter Presidential Library and Museum; and his dramas have been presented on Atlanta-PBS, etc. He can be contacted at Gary_Corseri@comcast.net)

see

Is it the 1930s all over again? By William Bowles

Turning Away From American State Terrorism By Peter Chamberlin

Obama-Biden - Osama bin Laden: A coincidence? + National Pentagon Radio

Georgia

Russia