Bush-Bin Laden Symbiosis Reborn

By Robert Parry
September 8, 2007

Just as Sylvester and Tweety Bird achieved lasting Hollywood fame from their comical cartoon chases, the less amusing duo of George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden continue to benefit each other by reviving their long-distance rivalry, one posturing against the other in a way that helps them both.

In a new video, al-Qaeda leader bin Laden again taunts Bush, the United States – and then the Democrats for not forcing an American withdrawal from Iraq, which should help guarantee that the Democrats won’t dare press for a withdrawal from Iraq.

Read on.

Is Petraeus Today's Westmoreland?

By Ray McGovern
September 7, 2007

The killing in Hawijah, Iraq, of 18-year old Corporal Jeremy Shank of Jackson, Missouri (population 12,000) merited an article in his local newspaper, the Southeast Missourian.

Cpl. Shank was killed just over a year ago, on Sept. 6, 2006, and I was in that part of Missouri when his body came home for burial. According to the Pentagon, Shank was on a “dismounted security patrol when he encountered enemy forces using small arms.”

Read on.

Neck Deep reader reviews at Amazon.com

So far, there are two glowing reviews at Amazon.com for our new book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush. If you've read the book (or even if you're just familiar with our work at Consortiumnews.com), please feel free to put your two cents in at Amazon as well. Reader reviews really do have a big impact on whether an Amazon customer decides to buy the book, so if you want to kindly help us out with a review, we'd really appreciate it. Or, if you don't have the time, take a second to give the book five stars! (Of course, only if you think we deserve it... ;)

Anyway, in case you're interested, here are the two reviews that have already been posted:

raymond compton "racom" (kennewick, wa) - See all my reviews
  

If you are also tired of the DC spin then this is the book for you. Written by a team, family team, of honest to goodness investigative reporters who have documented the unbelievably long list of failed decisions, policies, executive orders, etc of this administration. The failures have come so fast, so sudden, so numerous we can hardly keep abreast. I plan to read this book at least once every year to never forget the many issues that the American public has been failed on. From even before 9/11 the problems were being planned. Today the mistakes are still coming at us, now the disaster in Iraq is being pushed aside to make room for the coming disaster in Iran. I recommend this book to all who question why we are where we are. The Parrys,father and sons team, have produced an excellent work in this book. Tired of the mind numbing politics and DC spin, then you'll want this book. Also if you really want to know the reason for Iranian distrust of US check out 'All the Shah's Men'. We have some bloody history!

D. Webster - See all my reviews
  

 

Robert Parry's book accurately and, for those who count themselves as lovers of liberty, excruciatingly delineates the deceitful, arrogant, and ironic rise of George W. Bush from military coward and failed businessman to President of the United States, via manipulation and coercion of the highest court in the land. Parry's book goes on to reveal that Bush and his political cronies may well have been able to thwart the horrific events of 9/11 had they not been more concerned with personal power and blinded by their hatred of their political opposition. Once again, irony comes to the forefront, in that Bush is looked upon by the American people as a strong and forceful leader in the wake of 9/11, when Parry shows that his bravado was nothing more than a flimsy facade created by a nervous and fearful media. And then, of course, comes the Iraq war, a war actually being fought for oil, but asking for the sacrifice of thousands of brave American soldiers being told they are fighting terrorism. But perhaps the most unforgivable and egregious act committed by George W. Bush during his reign, and revealed by Parry at great length and in minute detail, is Bush's flagrant and criminal disregard for the Constitution of the United States--in essence, making up his own rules as he sees fit, and interpreting the Constitution to suit his own purposes. Reading this book, I found myself asking the question time and time again, "why are we standing still for this, and not demanding reform?" I've since come to the conclusion that we, the American people, no longer deserve our country, and that we must accept whatever fate our lackadaisical attitude and behavior brings us. I commend and admire Robert Parry for having the courage to bring these sad and disastrous facts to light. At least there's still one real American among us.

NYT's Friedman's Addiction to War

By Norman Solomon
September 7, 2007

Nowadays you'll read the NYT's Thomas Friedman decrying the "madness that is Iraq," but the real Friedman is the man who called invading Iraq "one of the noblest things this country has ever attempted abroad."

Reading his "Letter From Baghdad" column in the New York Times this week, you'd never know that Thomas Friedman has a history of enthusiasm for war.

Read on.

Neck Deep: The Real Colin Powell

By Robert Parry
September 6, 2007

Though Colin Powell is still lying low about his role in palming off the Iraq War on a gullible American public, the retired Army general and former Secretary of State is back on the motivational speaking circuit, again raking in big bucks.

For a day-long “Get Motivated” seminar at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 6, Powell got star billing for a show also boasting names like Zig Ziglar, Steve Forbes, Robert Schuller and Sugar Ray Leonard. Admission price at the door was $225.

Read on.

Questions for General Petraeus

By Brent Budowsky
September 6, 2007

It is fashionable though wrong to state “the surge is working,” but this debate misses the point about the devastation to the United States Army, the destabilization of our global force structures, the near-total destruction of our conventional deterrent capability, the extreme damage to the war in Afghanistan and the collapse of recruitment standards imposed by the status quo policy in Iraq.

When Army Gen. David Petraeus testifies next week, here are the hard questions that the nation deserves to have asked and answered, clearly and unequivocally:

Read on.

Bowing Before an American Tyranny

By Robert Parry
September 6, 2007

The 9/11 tragedy did become a demarcation point for the United States, although not in the way many Americans understand. Before that date six years ago, there existed an American Republic – albeit one in decline – but afterwards a New Age authoritarian state quickly took shape.

Though some defenders of the old Republic rose up, nobody was strong enough to protect it.

Read on.

Buzzflash Interviews Robert Parry

Robert Parry Reporting on the Disastrous Bush Presidency, and the News Media's Helping Hand

You don't have liberty if the leader of the country can lock you up without a trial. You don't have liberty if the leader of the country can ignore the ban in the Bill of Rights against cruel and unusual punishment. These are classic definitions of tyranny.

-- Robert Parry, investigative reporter and author of Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush

* * *

Robert Parry is a former AP and Newsweek investigative reporter who now runs the website, Consortiumnews.com. Parry made his reputation reporting on corruption and governmental misdeeds in Central America and Iran-Contra. Now his Consortiumnews is a respected and invaluable online resource exposing the right-wing betrayal of the Constitution and democracy.

Parry's newest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, places the troubling events of the George W. Bush era into the fullest historical context. The book's title references Pete Seeger's anti- Viet Nam war lyric: "We were neck deep in the Big Muddy, and the big fool said to push on." Says Parry of the Bush debacle, "It was a perfect storm that has been building for a quarter of a century. Aggressive Republicans, accommodating Democrats, and a press corps driven more by careerism than a search for truth have caused our country to become what the Founders fought against."

Read the full interview here.

How VIPs Get 'Brainwashed' on Iraq

By Robert Parry
September 4, 2007

When members of Congress – or pundits and journalists, for that matter – are taken on tightly controlled visits to a war zone like Iraq, they undergo what the late Michigan Gov. George Romney famously referred to as “brainwashing.”

Romney said he had undergone a propaganda blitz when he visited Vietnam in 1965, persuading him that military progress was being achieved. Similarly, recent visitors to Iraq have flown home from August-recess trips with first-hand accounts about signs of success for President George W. Bush’s troop “surge.”

Read on.