Downing St.

The Downing Street memo records the meeting in which British Prime Minister Tony Blair and his advisers learned that Bush was committed to invading Iraq and intelligence and facts were being "fixed around the policy". Fixed to justify the invasion of Iraq to Congress, the U.N. and the American people. The meeting took place on July 23, 2002; eight months before the invasion. British officials have not disputed the authenticity of the document, which fraudulently linked Iraq and al Qaeda.

An agenda to invade Iraq was first revealed by Paul Wolfowitz in 1992. Senator Robert Byrd's "Losing America" discloses: Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Wolfowitz were among 18 signatures on a letter to then President Clinton in 1998, which urged a preemptive war against Saddam Hussein. Of the eighteen signers of the letter; eleven held post in the Bush administration, when Iraq was invaded. In Ron Suskin's "The Price of Loyalty" former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill confirms that ten days after Bush's inauguration the focus at his first National Security Council meeting was war with Iraq.

Obviously, Bush's henchmen were dead set on invading Iraq long before 9/11. Truth never stands in the way of fascists determined to carrying out their reprehensible agenda.

Bush propagandist constantly remind us that Saddam Hussein is an evil man and that it is our obligation to spread democracy throughout the world, even if the mission results in the death of over 1,800 brave Americans. Many naive Americans have been convinced that our goal is humanitarian, rather than a self- serving war for the benefit of greedy corporate capitalist, who have already corrupted our democracy.

Our imperialistic goal in Iraq is known throughout the Muslim world, but Bush has managed to bewilder many Americans by appealing to our desire to believe that our nation is the misunderstood good guy.

Gone Bad

Newsweek's Baghdad bureau chief, Rod Nordland has departed Iraq after observing two years of war and American occupation. He entitles an article: " Good Intentions Gone Bad". Nordland admits to being "an unabashed believer in toppling Saddam Hussein", but now seems to have succumbed to despair. He questions: "How bad a mess can we afford to leave behind?"

We are told that things have gone terribly wrong and that the turning point was the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, because the abuse of prisoners alienated much of the Iraqi public. His evidence reveals that the mistreatment and humiliation didn't save a single American life or lead to the capture of any major terrorist, despite claims by the military that the prison produced "actionable intelligence".

Nordland writes that our government has pumped at least $ 7 billion into reconstruction projects, with little to show for it but hostility from ordinary Iraqis, who still have an 18% unemployment rate. Most of the money has gone to U.S. contractors who spend much of it on personal security.

"Good Intentions" were never the reason this administration invaded Iraq. Their goal was to gain control of the Iraqi oil reserves and 9/11 provided a convenient excuse to gain support from frightened Americans. Many Americans became cowards after 9/11 and cling to Bush, their authoritarian strong man. Bush continues to refer to the Iraqi war as the "War on Terror", but it has been a war to produce death, destruction, hatred and more terrorist. Bush's propaganda machine has intimidated mainstream media into silence.

Michael Scheuer a former senior member of the U.S. intelligence community has written: "We must recognize that our invasion of Iraq was not preemptive; it was an avarice, premeditated, unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat but whose defeat did offer economic advantages."

Dying to Win

"Dying to Win" by Robert Pape provides an analysis of suicide terrorism which is grounded in facts not ideological political hyperbole. He has collected evidence to explain the social and individual factors responsible for the growing threat of suicide terrorism.

University of Chicago political scientist Robert Pape has taught international relations at Dartmouth College and air strategy for the U.S Air Force's School of Advanced Airpower Studies. He is considered to be one of the world's foremost authorities on suicide terrorists and has created the first comprehensive database on every terrorist attack in the world during the past 25 years.

He discovered that 95% of suicide terrorist attacks occur as part of coherent campaigns organized by large militant organizations with significant public support. Pape states that every suicide terrorist campaign has had a clear goal that is political and designed to compel a modern democracy to withdraw military forces from the territory that they view as their homeland.

Professor Pape's comprehensive demographic profile of suicide terrorists found that they are not uneducated religious fanatics but often well-educated, middle class political activist. He views the Bush administration as: "embarking on a policy to conquer Muslim countries". This is costing 400 billion dollars a year for military hardware and thousands of troops posted overseas with the only results being more suicide bombers. Obviously, one of al Qaeda's major objectives is the expulsion of U.S. troops from the Persian Gulf.

From these facts; Pape concludes that the military options may disrupt terrorist operations in the short term, but a lasting solution to terrorism will require a comprehensive approach that abandons visions of empire and relies on a combined strategy of vigorous homeland security, nation building of troubled states, and greater energy independence.

We win the war on terror by getting out of the Middle East.