Uncomfortably Numb

The key question: Is the Israeli offensive designed as a calculated effort to catapult the hard-right, neoconservative ideologues back to power in Washington?

Robert Dreyfuss:
Neocons Rise From Mideast Ashes

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Is there anything at all that can reach the American mind so that so many of us who profess "family values" can just get real damned mad when we witness our foreign policy going berserk?

Michael Payne:
Where is the rage? Where is the outrage?

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Former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich says
America is in World War III and President Bush should say so.

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In case you missed it:

Syria In Their Sights

The neocons plan their next “cakewalk.”
By Robert Dreyfuss

01/11/06 "American Conservative" -- -- It’s happening again. It all sounds depressingly familiar, and it is. The Bush administration accuses the leader of a major Arab country of supporting terrorism and harboring weapons of mass destruction. The stable of neoconservative pundits begins beating the drums of war. American forces begin massing on the country’s border, amid ominous talk of cross-border attacks. [...]

On Oct. 6, in his saber-rattling declaration of war against “Islamofascism,” President Bush not-so-subtly warned Syria that it might be next.

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In case you missed it:

A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm: Is an ambitious 1996 Middle East Policy Paper. A Clean Break recommended toppling the government of Iraq, "rolling back" Syria and Iran, and "electrifying" support for Israel in the US Congress in exchange for new missile defense contract opportunities. Three of the eight authors have since become prominent policymakers in the U.S. government.

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In case you missed it:

Let’s Not Forget: Bush Planned Iraq 'Regime Change'
Before Becoming President
By Neil Mackay, 15 September 2002:

A SECRET blueprint for US global domination reveals that President Bush and his cabinet were planning a premeditated attack on Iraq to secure 'regime change' even before he took power in January 2001.

The blueprint, uncovered by the Sunday Herald, for the creation of a 'global Pax Americana' was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice- president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled: Rebuilding America's Defences.

Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says: 'The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'

The PNAC document supports a 'blueprint for maintaining global US pre-eminence, precluding the rise of a great power rival, and shaping the international security order in line with American principles and interests'.

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New York Times Editorial:
The Real Agenda

It is only now, nearly five years after Sept. 11, that the full picture of the Bush administration’s response to the terror attacks is becoming clear. Much of it, we can see now, had far less to do with fighting Osama bin Laden than with expanding presidential power.

Over and over again, the same pattern emerges: Given a choice between following the rules or carving out some unprecedented executive power, the White House always shrugged off the legal constraints. Even when the only challenge was to get required approval from an ever-cooperative Congress, the president and his staff preferred to go it alone.