Just yesterday I wrote the following words to describe what seems to be the open-ended and aggressive Bush foreign policy:

We now have a President whose actions, in some ways, parallel those of Hitler. He has engaged us in war that could last decades, against "enemies", some of whom are yet to be named... a global "holy democracy" war that is increasingly being referred to as a World War.

I had originally written that comparison between Hitler and Bush more directly, without the qualifier "in some ways". The mere mention of Bush and Hitler in the same sentence is harsh enough, I thought. Bush has, after all, really invaded "only" 2 nations, Afghanistan and Iraq. Maybe he'll stop there and back off, especially since both have been disastrous. As I soon discovered from a news report, I was on the money with "some of whom are yet to be named", and my "benefit of the doubt" to Bush was too optimistic and kind:

The US intelligence community is drawing up a secret watch-list of 25 countries where instability might precipitate US intervention, according to officials in charge of a new office set up to co-ordinate planning for nation-building and conflict prevention. The list will be drawn up and revised every six months by the National Intelligence Council (NIC)

TWENTY-FIVE?!

"might precipitate intervention"?!

How in the hell did a nation that was once considered isolationist become this monster that presumes to interfere in the affairs of ANY other nations? Where does this unlimited maniacal ego come from? What makes anyone in the U.S. believe that we have any RIGHT, much less the expertise, to run any other nation when we can't even do a decent job of running our own?

This insane "exporting of democracy" is no less a vicious farce than the pretences used by Hitler to justify invading his neighbors.

We can't "export" democracy because we don't HAVE democracy... The United States is a constitution-based federal republic, NOT a democracy.

We can't "export" free elections, because WE don't have free elections.

We can't even "export" freedom, because we're losing more of our own on a daily basis. We have MILLIONS in prison due to draconian laws (that the citizenry doesn't agree with). We have been guilty of violating our own most sacred freedoms, such as no taxation without representation, the presumption of innocence, the right to a speedy trial, and on and on... to say nothing of covert and overt torture and abuse both domestically and abroad. We do a piss-poor job of running our OWN nation, yet we presume to tell others how they should run THEIR nation?

If the U.S. weren't so dominant militarily, or if we weren't still a big market for foreign goods, the rest of the world would just grimace and then ignore us.

Looking at it a different way... if every other nation created their own similar "watch-list of unstable nations", the United States would surely be on ALL of them.

Finally, I want to make sure you notice that the news release I quoted above originated with a UK news group, the Financial Times. They repeated much the same story again today (March 30th)

I haven't been able to find any mention of the story from ANY United States media... except the libertarian Antiwar.com, which is what alerted me to it. The staff of Antiwar.com searches through HUNDREDS of U.S. and international media sources. If you decide to slide your head out of the sand and find out what is REALLY going on, there is no better place to start.

Our government (no, not just Bush) seems to be running headlong in a determined drive to create enemies of the rest of the world, while destroying us economically in the process. There is no doubt in my mind that we are witnesses to the beginning of the decline and fall of the United States.