Bush Leaves - World Impulse Launches

George Bush is gone, and Pop Impulse readers have been enduring entirely too many political rants of late, due to an overpowering preoccupation with national and international affairs. In the interest of reserving Pop Impulse for music, travel and popular culture, The Author has launched World Impulse, the second member of the Pop Impulse family of blogs. So in a sense, the digital empire expands - if ever so modestly.

The latest post on World Impulse is an entire op-ed that ran today in Turkey's Today's Zaman. Formatted as a "letter to Mr. Bush," the piece is brilliant, the most appropriate farewell to G.W. Bush I've yet encountered. Penned by a Turkish professor, the piece gives readers the additional benefit of a moderate Muslim point of view. Altogether worthy reading. Read the original op-ed here.

Technorati Tags: George Bush, World Impulse, Farewell

German Paper: Impeach Bush

The German paper Die Tageszeitung called for the impeachment of president Bush a few days ago, according to this report in Der Spiegel.

The reason? Wanton disregard of the law of the land and the fundamental principles of the constitution. The proof? The recent Supreme Court decision extending the right to a fair trial to Guantanamo detainees, the third straight court rebuke of Bush's detainment policies. The paper accurately concludes that three, repeated transgressions of this dimension warrant grounds for Impeachment. One could add to that indictment: knowingly lying about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, as well as authorizing the largest most invasive government snooping program on private citizens in our history.

What really gets The Author worked up is the way that right-wing demagogues now direct their hatred and vitriol at the Court. This is certainly not the Warren Court, rigorously guarding our rights and privacy; however it is the most conservative court in recent memory - populated by Bush appointees as it is. So even when this court says enough, the right-wing of the Republican Party is not satisfied. No, any disagreement with their neo-facist policies is unwelcome. Here's what the left-leaning German paper had to say about Bush:

"Instead of keeping to the law and applying it indiscriminatively to all its people, the Bush administration has behaved like a regime that ignores the rule of law. In fact, the administration for quite some time has mocked -- and with outrageous impertinence -- the highest administer of justice in the US.

"Against any person who breached the law in this manner, the state would have at its disposal mechanisms to punish the individual. But they seem to be missing when it comes to punishing the state. According to the logic of the US Constitution, the judgement of the Supreme Court offers an extremely sound reason for the US Congress to launch impeachment proceedings against the president.

"That will not happen, of course, just half a year before the end of the Bush administration. However, there is still a job to do for Congress. The Democratic majority can at least oppose any new attempt by the government to introduce unconstitutional legal principles."

Impeach Bush
Supreme Court
World Opinion

DEBKAfile: Bush Close to Attacking Iran

A couple of days ago, Israeli MilStrat site DEBKAfile reported that their Washington inside sources indicate that George Bush is leaning much closer to launching some kind of air attack on Iran.

Now that's just what we need. Uh-huh. Ignite the Middle East, set off Shiites around the world, and prove once and for all that the US is only capable of "cowboy diplomacy." A nightmare scenario from this writer's point of view. Given how badly we've misunderstood the Middle East to date, and how badly Bush has managed the unnecessary conflict he got us in to in Iraq, this is not happy news. Iran is very large, and very well prepared. Their proxies are also many and motivated. This is not the time, and this is not the manner in which to respond to percieved (but never documented) Iranian threats. The Author decects the hand of the evil Dick Cheney on this file. First of all, we can't afford it. In so many ways. Second, a limited air-strike is based on a bunch of suspect premises and virtually no evidence on the ground is ill-advised and imprudent. Third, our military is already stretched beyond reasonable limits and this could open up a brand new theater of conflict. Fourth, a president should never presume to start a war and involve our country when his personal approval ratings are the lowest in history. The people, in case you haven't noticed, are no long "with" George Bush. And finally, a new administration will take office in January that should be allowed to formulate its own approach to Middle East diplomacy and peace.
George Bush
Middle East
Iran
war

Mission Accomplished? Not!

It has been five years since George Bush stood on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln under the now infamous banner declaring MISSION ACCOMPLISHED and announced victory and success in the Iraq war. Not!

Five years later and we've lost more troops, killed more Iraqi civilians, and spent our country into recession. Just today, the NYT reports that a car bomb in Bagdad killed nine. And this month alone, another 49 young Americans have died in this misguided conflict. Bush lied, people died. It really is that simple. You remember, there was incontrovertible evidence of WMD. Not! Then there was Al Qaeda, who it is now revealed came to Iraq only after we invaded. So countless lives and almost a trillion dollars later we're locked in a conflict that appears impossibly complex and difficult, with only the incompetent in both government and the military to lead us out of this Middle Eastern Hell. Proving once again that George Bush is without argument the most ignorant and clueless chief executive this great country has ever endured.

Iraq

The Magic is Over

According to French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, "...the magic is over," for the US. In an extensive interview with International Herald Tribune writer Alison Smale the founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) turned diplomat allows that the next president of the United States will have a daunting task ahead. He offers the dismal benediction that: "It will never be as it was before." Regrettably, I am forced to agree.

As a frequent overseas traveler, I am concerned about our country's international reputation. George Bush entered office with a clear disdain for foreign policy and nation building. So it comes as no surprise that his now obligatory focus on foreign affairs is myopic, ego-centric and belligerent. It is shocking that his administration's attempts at nation building have been so costly and incompetent - creating more problems than before his intervention. What has come as an additional surprise is the amount of blood he is willing to shed, the amount of our national budget he is prepared to squander, and the incredible level of incompetence and corruption he will abide in his mid-guided adventures. Put quite simply, we are ruined. Bankrupt. The price of our government's folly is staggering and ongoing. Our grand-children may not dig themselves out of this hole.

The sad truth is that George Bush is going to spend his last months in office systematically making things worse on every front. You can take that to the bank. He's determined to see his twisted vision through. Neither Congress nor the bureaucracy seems able to stop him. An unstoppable, downward trajectory that will surely take him and his cronies to the darkest place in recent history. It is an enormous irony that in the face of such deeds, Americans still obsess about the victimless-crime of Eliot Spitzer, the ill-advised but consenting dalliance of Bill Clinton and the current mental condition of Brittany Spears.

Big Brother FCC Plays Moral Police

You've got to be kidding. The Federal Communications Commission is seeking a $1.4 million fine against ABC, Disney's home network, for depicting a woman's buttocks in a 2003 episode of NYPD Blue? Read about it here. Jeez, female nudity, I'm shocked. After all, the human body is a dirty, shameful thing. Right? Well according to the FCC, we're just not adult enough to make that decision for ourselves and grab the remote control if we're offended and change the freaking channel. Yea, uh huh.

So let me get this straight. The FCC is populated by pious Neanderthals that want to take us back to the Victorian age by censoring our airwaves. The FDA is populated by physicians who decry valuable stem-cell research and believe that the proper approach to PMS is prayer and the answer to teenage pregnancy is abstinence. The EPA is populated by pseudo-scientists who deny species extinction and global warming; and the BLM and Forest Service are populated by bureaucrats determined to give away our natural resources to greedy ranchers and timber companies. Now that's obscene. Like killing over 100,000 Iraqi civilians and 4,000 young American GIs for oil. Sickening.

While we're talking about obscenities on the airwaves, let's take a look at what one network is doing to promote pornography during primetime. Check it out, then contact your member of congress and remind them that adult citizens don't need the Feds telling them what to watch on TV. And tell the radical, fundamentalist Christian right that censorship, denial and destruction don't sqauare with your values. Isn't it time to get the American Taleban to shut the hell up?

Nikkei Loses 200 at Opening in Tokyo

Will tomorrow be "Black Tuesday" on Wall Street? We'll know in just a few hours. An early indicator is not good. The Tokyo Stock Exchange, open now, dropped 200 points in a heart beat. It seems that the international meltdown, driven by the economic policies and runaway spending of George Bush and the Republican Party, has caused the Bank of Japan to reduce estimates of national growth. Other central banks in other developed nations will find themselves in similar straits in short order. We're in uncharted territory here. Like our 401k plans haven't tanked enough already!

Aussies Change Direction - Dump Howard

The results are in and one can only hope that U.S. voters are as resolute next November as the Aussies were in their national elections yesterday. Australians finally tired ot the neo-conservative ideology of Bush buddy John Howard and sent him away, with prejudice. Looks like he won't even hold on to his seat in parliament. The Australian Labor Party, led by Kevin Rudd, swept into office in a landslide. And in a time of relative economic growth and propserity.

Rudd, who will be the next PM, promises to immediately withdraw all Australian troops from Iraq (so much for the coalition of the willing) and to sign-on to the Kyoto protocols for reducing green-house gasses. Rudd is also an Australian republican, and though not a top-priority issue, the country's relationship with the British crown could change.

I know a little bit about Australian politics, as my second-cousin Frank Crean was a vice PM and a Labor Party leader for years - as his son Simon is now. To be honest, though family, Crean senior was perceived to be a bit stodgy - a remnant of the days when Labor was run by the dock workers and had a much more English-style feel. Rudd has transformed the party with new faces, celebrity candidates and more effective appeals to the average, working bloke. Simon Crean has been a shadow minister for a number of years and will likely now get the trade and development portfolio.

Bush and his minions made no bones about their high-regard for Howard. If Tony Blair was Bush's Poodle, then Howard was his pit bull terrier. Australians, in my experience, have a special love for Yanks and are inclined to go the extra mile as our loyal friends. That apparently has its limits and has - at least for a time - come to an end.