Its al Qaeda Stupid !

They’re On the (Election) Warpath Now!
The fall campaign season opened today with President Bush and Democrats each trying to seize the high ground on national security, as the White House released an updated version of its anti-terrorism strategy and the Democrats countered with list of the administration's shortcomings on the issue.

The White House report, titled "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism,'' was drafted in 2003 and updated in March. The new version confirmed the growth of decentralized networks of extremists, which have supplanted Al Qaeda as the greatest terrorism threat, and singled out Iran as a potential source of unconventional weapons for terrorist groups.

Meanwhile, Bush touts he will not give up the war against terror. "We will not rest, we will not retreat, we will not withdraw from the fight until this threat to civilization is removed," He told a gathering of the Military Officers Association of America.

The president said Al Qaeda is "convinced they can force America to retreat … that we are weak and decadent and lacking in patience and resolve and they're wrong”. [The fact that Bush "cut and ran" in Afghanistan wouldn't have triggered that thought, right?] What I read of the "National Strategy for Combating Terrorism'' didn’t mention the capture or killing of bin Laden as a priority -hence the title of this post.

So what do they do; Change the subject...

Quoting repeatedly from Osama bin Laden, President Bush said Tuesday that pulling U.S. troops out of Iraq would fulfill the terrorist leader's wishes and propel him into a more powerful global threat in the mold of Adolf Hitler.

Condi Reminds Us She Is Black

Last week, top administration officials, including Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld, equated the war in Iraq with fighting Nazis in World War II. As part of this analogy, the Bush gang made its critics out to be Neville Chamberlain — as if troop redeployment in Iraq is the moral equivalent of appeasing Hitler.

As if that weren't quite offensive enough, Condoleezza Rice has upped the ante a bit, suggesting that opponents of the war are the moral equivalent of those who would tolerate slavery in 19th century America.

Rumsfeld Compares Iraq War Critics To Hitler Appeasers
In a speech to the American Legion yesterday, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld continued his blistering attack on critics of the administration’s Iraq war policy.

Rumsfeld compared critics of his policies to people “in the decades before World War II” who believed Hitler “could be appeased” and “argued that the fascist threat was exaggerated — or that it was someone else’s problem.” People critical of his current efforts, according to Rumsfeld, “have still not learned history’s lessons.”

Rumsfeld added, “any moral or intellectual confusion about who and what is right or wrong can weaken the ability of free societies to persevere”. But don’t listen to me, hear for yourself!

Siege Heil you say? Well lets examine the Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus

George W. Bush's grandfather helped finance the Nazi Party. Karl Rove's grandfather allegedly helped run the Nazi Party, and helped build the Birkenau Death Camp. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Austrian father volunteered for the infamous Nazi SA and became a ranking officer.

If that weren’t enough, imagine US Government secrecy expanding even more! Forty years after Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act to keep government open and publicly accountable, government secrecy is expanding "across a broad array of agencies and actions," according to a new report released by OpenTheGovernment.org. For every $1 spent last year releasing declassified materials, $134 was spent creating new secrets, nearly 10 times the rate seen during the last years of Bill Clinton's presidency. In addition, 17 percent of the Defense Department's $315.5 billion budget in the 2006 fiscal year was designated for classified programs and funding for classified acquisition programs has increased at a substantially faster rate than has funding for acquisition programs overall, which has grown by about 60 percent in real terms.

One of the most notorious examples of the administration's secrecy is the President's use of signing statements to circumvent congressional legislation. In the first 211 years of the Constitution, "presidents had issued fewer than 600 signing statements that took issue with the bills they signed." In contrast, with more than two years remaining in his presidency, President Bush has already issued "132 signing statements challenging over 810 federal laws." Though the Bush administration consistently justifies the spike in government secrets as necessary in a post-9/11 world, "Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton contends that the administration's preference for secrecy is less about winning the war on terrorism than simply avoiding public scrutiny."

Heres another interesting link on our Fascist Appeasers

At long last, Americans are preparing to say "enough is enough" on September 5th when Camp Democracy begins on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

"We wanted to try to build momentum and needed something to move the focus back to Washington," said retired Army Col. Ann Wright, who resigned as a U.S. diplomat in 2003 to protest the war with Iraq.

The two-week "Camp Democracy" demonstration starts Tuesday on the mall in Washington,
centering on issues including the war, environment, health care and attention to Hurricane Katrina victims, organizers said.

Quickies:
After a five-week summer break, Congress returns today for 19 days before ending its work for the legislative year. The only legislation being considered this week in the House “is a bill to toughen rules against horse slaughtering.”

“The Sudanese government has dramatically intensified the war in Darfur in a bid to finish off a tenacious, three-year-old rebellion before a U.N. peacekeeping force can deploy there,” the Washington Post reports.

54 percent. Number of Americans who believe things are going “badly.” Just nine percent see the economy as “very good,” compared to 22 percent who believe it is “very poor.”

One Afghan city into which the U.S. “poured so much building effort that it was called ‘Little America’” has become “the epicenter of a Taliban resurgence and an explosion in drug cultivation,” the New York Times reports.

Right-wing activists and at least one Republican lawmaker plan to file federal lawsuits challenging Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. Section 5 requires Justice Department oversight of states that have a history of voting rights discrimination.

Finally, Tony Snow: ‘I’m Not Going To Hold Donald Rumsfeld Accountable’ This afternoon, Tony Snow went on CNN to defend the administration’s “stay the course” strategy in Iraq. The discussion veered into the subject of former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki’s pre-war prediction that “several hundred thousand soldiers” would be needed to maintain control over post-war Iraq. Snow falsely claimed that Shinseki was only referring to the number of troops needed to “go in and take Baghdad.” Snow concluded the segment by stating, “I’m not going to hold Donald Rumsfeld accountable.” -That my friends has to be the Quote Of The Day!

(Sources: Center For American Progress, MSNBC, CommonDreams, openthegovernment.org, CQ, thecarpetbaggerreport, NY Daily News, TruthOut, RandiRhodes, FOXNews, Rawstory, WashingtonPost, CampDemocracy, CNN, The Hill News, NY Times, AP)