Re: Bush junta is conducting secret operations against Iran, trying to provoke war

You've been splaining, spinning and spewing for
millenium...................The U. S. don't need no damned ME holy
land BS and or ME philosophies of eye for eye insanity. Our White
House is infiltrated with a viral bunch on Neanderthals who are bent
on revenge.

Hermann Goering
"Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in
England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after
all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is
always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a
democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist
dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to
the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to
tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack
of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in
any country."


Joseph Goebbels
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will
eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such
time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic
and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent,
for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension,
the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Heinrich Himmler
"The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands
respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love; only for
their fear."

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Avalon Project at Yale Law School

Washington's Farewell Address 1796


1796
Friends and Citizens:

The period for a new election of a citizen to administer the executive
government of the United States being not far distant, and the time
actually arrived when your thoughts must be employed in designating
the person who is to be clothed with that important trust, it appears
to me proper, especially as it may conduce to a more distinct
expression of the public voice, that I should now apprise you of the
resolution I have formed, to decline being considered among the number
of those out of whom a choice is to be made.

I beg you, at the same time, to do me the justice to be assured that
this resolution has not been taken without a strict regard to all the
considerations appertaining to the relation which binds a dutiful
citizen to his country; and that in withdrawing the tender of service,
which silence in my situation might imply, I am influenced by no
diminution of zeal for your future interest, no deficiency of grateful
respect for your past kindness, but am supported by a full conviction
that the step is compatible with both.

The acceptance of, and continuance hitherto in, the office to which
your suffrages have twice called me have been a uniform sacrifice of
inclination to the opinion of duty and to a deference for what
appeared to be your desire. I constantly hoped that it would have been
much earlier in my power, consistently with motives which I was not at
liberty to disregard, to return to that retirement from which I had
been reluctantly drawn. The strength of my inclination to do this,
previous to the last election, had even led to the preparation of an
address to declare it to you; but mature reflection on the then
perplexed and critical posture of our affairs with foreign nations,
and the unanimous advice of persons entitled to my confidence,
impelled me to abandon the idea.

I rejoice that the state of your concerns, external as well as
internal, no longer renders the pursuit of inclination incompatible
with the sentiment of duty or propriety, and am persuaded, whatever
partiality may be retained for my services, that, in the present
circumstances of our country, you will not disapprove my determination
to retire.

The impressions with which I first undertook the arduous trust were
explained on the proper occasion. In the discharge of this trust, I
will only say that I have, with good intentions, contributed towards
the organization and administration of the government the best
exertions of which a very fallible judgment was capable. Not
unconscious in the outset of the inferiority of my qualifications,
experience in my own eyes, perhaps still more in the eyes of others,
has strengthened the motives to diffidence of myself; and every day
the increasing weight of years admonishes me more and more that the
shade of retirement is as necessary to me as it will be welcome.
Satisfied that if any circumstances have given peculiar value to my
services, they were temporary, I have the consolation to believe that,
while choice and prudence invite me to quit the political scene,
patriotism does not forbid it.

In looking forward to the moment which is intended to terminate the
career of my public life, my feelings do not permit me to suspend the
deep acknowledgment of that debt of gratitude which I owe to my
beloved country for the many honors it has conferred upon me; still
more for the steadfast confidence with which it has supported me; and
for the opportunities I have thence enjoyed of manifesting my
inviolable attachment, by services faithful and persevering, though in
usefulness unequal to my zeal. If benefits have resulted to our
country from these services, let it always be remembered to your
praise, and as an instructive example in our annals, that under
circumstances in which the passions, agitated in every direction, were
liable to mislead, amidst appearances sometimes dubious, vicissitudes
of fortune often discouraging, in situations in which not unfrequently
want of success has countenanced the spirit of criticism, the
constancy of your support was the essential prop of the efforts, and a
guarantee of the plans by which they were effected. Profoundly
penetrated with this idea, I shall carry it with me to my grave, as a
strong incitement to unceasing vows that heaven may continue to you
the choicest tokens of its beneficence; that your union and brotherly
affection may be perpetual; that the free Constitution, which is the
work of your hands, may be sacredly maintained; that its
administration in every department may be stamped with wisdom and
virtue; that, in fine, the happiness of the people of these States,
under the auspices of liberty, may be made complete by so careful a
preservation and so prudent a use of this blessing as will acquire to
them the glory of recommending it to the applause, the affection, and
adoption of every nation which is yet a stranger to it.

Here, perhaps, I ought to stop. But a solicitude for your welfare,
which cannot end but with my life, and the apprehension of danger,
natural to that solicitude, urge me, on an occasion like the present,
to offer to your solemn contemplation, and to recommend to your
frequent review, some sentiments which are the result of much
reflection, of no inconsiderable observation, and which appear to me
all-important to the permanency of your felicity as a people. These
will be offered to you with the more freedom, as you can only see in
them the disinterested warnings of a parting friend, who can possibly
have no personal motive to bias his counsel. Nor can I forget, as an
encouragement to it, your indulgent reception of my sentiments on a
former and not dissimilar occasion.

Interwoven as is the love of liberty with every ligament of your
hearts, no recommendation of mine is necessary to fortify or confirm
the attachment.

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now
dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice
of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home,
your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very
liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that,
from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be
taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction
of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against
which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most
constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously)
directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate
the immense value of your national union to your collective and
individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and
immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak
of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity;
watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing
whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be
abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every
attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to
enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts.

For this you have every inducement of sympathy and interest. Citizens,
by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to
concentrate your affections. The name of American, which belongs to
you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of
patriotism more than any appellation derived from local
discriminations. With slight shades of difference, you have the same
religion, manners, habits, and political principles. You have in a
common cause fought and triumphed together; the independence and
liberty you possess are the work of joint counsels, and joint efforts
of common dangers, sufferings, and successes.

But these considerations, however powerfully they address themselves
to your sensibility, are greatly outweighed by those which apply more
immediately to your interest. Here every portion of our country finds
the most commanding motives for carefully guarding and preserving the
union of the whole.

The North, in an unrestrained intercourse with the South, protected by
the equal laws of a common government, finds in the productions of the
latter great additional resources of maritime and commercial
enterprise and precious materials of manufacturing industry. The
South, in the same intercourse, benefiting by the agency of the North,
sees its agriculture grow and its commerce expand. Turning partly into
its own channels the seamen of the North, it finds its particular
navigation invigorated; and, while it contributes, in different ways,
to nourish and increase the general mass of the national navigation,
it looks forward to the protection of a maritime strength, to which
itself is unequally adapted. The East, in a like intercourse with the
West, already finds, and in the progressive improvement of interior
communications by land and water, will more and more find a valuable
vent for the commodities which it brings from abroad, or manufactures
at home. The West derives from the East supplies requisite to its
growth and comfort, and, what is perhaps of still greater consequence,
it must of necessity owe the secure enjoyment of indispensable outlets
for its own productions to the weight, influence, and the future
maritime strength of the Atlantic side of the Union, directed by an
indissoluble community of interest as one nation. Any other tenure by
which the West can hold this essential advantage, whether derived from
its own separate strength, or from an apostate and unnatural
connection with any foreign power, must be intrinsically precarious.

While, then, every part of our country thus feels an immediate and
particular interest in union, all the parts combined cannot fail to
find in the united mass of means and efforts greater strength, greater
resource, proportionably greater security from external danger, a less
frequent interruption of their peace by foreign nations; and, what is
of inestimable value, they must derive from union an exemption from
those broils and wars between themselves, which so frequently afflict
neighboring countries not tied together by the same governments, which
their own rival ships alone would be sufficient to produce, but which
opposite foreign alliances, attachments, and intrigues would stimulate
and embitter. Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those
overgrown military establishments which, under any form of government,
are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as
particularly hostile to republican liberty. In this sense it is that
your union ought to be considered as a main prop of your liberty, and
that the love of the one ought to endear to you the preservation of
the other.

These considerations speak a persuasive language to every reflecting
and virtuous mind, and exhibit the continuance of the Union as a
primary object of patriotic desire. Is there a doubt whether a common
government can embrace so large a sphere? Let experience solve it. To
listen to mere speculation in such a case were criminal. We are
authorized to hope that a proper organization of the whole with the
auxiliary agency of governments for the respective subdivisions, will
afford a happy issue to the experiment. It is well worth a fair and
full experiment. With such powerful and obvious motives to union,
affecting all parts of our country, while experience shall not have
demonstrated its impracticability, there will always be reason to
distrust the patriotism of those who in any quarter may endeavor to
weaken its bands.

In contemplating the causes which may disturb our Union, it occurs as
matter of serious concern that any ground should have been furnished
for characterizing parties by geographical discriminations, Northern
and Southern, Atlantic and Western; whence designing men may endeavor
to excite a belief that there is a real difference of local interests
and views. One of the expedients of party to acquire influence within
particular districts is to misrepresent the opinions and aims of other
districts. You cannot shield yourselves too much against the
jealousies and heartburnings which spring from these
misrepresentations; they tend to render alien to each other those who
ought to be bound together by fraternal affection. The inhabitants of
our Western country have lately had a useful lesson on this head; they
have seen, in the negotiation by the Executive, and in the unanimous
ratification by the Senate, of the treaty with Spain, and in the
universal satisfaction at that event, throughout the United States, a
decisive proof how unfounded were the suspicions propagated among them
of a policy in the General Government and in the Atlantic States
unfriendly to their interests in regard to the Mississippi; they have
been witnesses to the formation of two treaties, that with Great
Britain, and that with Spain, which secure to them everything they
could desire, in respect to our foreign relations, towards confirming
their prosperity. Will it not be their wisdom to rely for the
preservation of these advantages on the Union by which they were
procured ? Will they not henceforth be deaf to those advisers, if such
there are, who would sever them from their brethren and connect them
with aliens?

To the efficacy and permanency of your Union, a government for the
whole is indispensable. No alliance, however strict, between the parts
can be an adequate substitute; they must inevitably experience the
infractions and interruptions which all alliances in all times have
experienced. Sensible of this momentous truth, you have improved upon
your first essay, by the adoption of a constitution of government
better calculated than your former for an intimate union, and for the
efficacious management of your common concerns. This government, the
offspring of our own choice, uninfluenced and unawed, adopted upon
full investigation and mature deliberation, completely free in its
principles, in the distribution of its powers, uniting security with
energy, and containing within itself a provision for its own
amendment, has a just claim to your confidence and your support.
Respect for its authority, compliance with its laws, acquiescence in
its measures, are duties enjoined by the fundamental maxims of true
liberty. The basis of our political systems is the right of the people
to make and to alter their constitutions of government. But the
Constitution which at any time exists, till changed by an explicit and
authentic act of the whole people, is sacredly obligatory upon all.
The very idea of the power and the right of the people to establish
government presupposes the duty of every individual to obey the
established government.

All obstructions to the execution of the laws, all combinations and
associations, under whatever plausible character, with the real design
to direct, control, counteract, or awe the regular deliberation and
action of the constituted authorities, are destructive of this
fundamental principle, and of fatal tendency. They serve to organize
faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in
the place of the delegated will of the nation the will of a party,
often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community;
and, according to the alternate triumphs of different parties, to make
the public administration the mirror of the ill-concerted and
incongruous projects of faction, rather than the organ of consistent
and wholesome plans digested by common counsels and modified by mutual
interests.

However combinations or associations of the above description may now
and then answer popular ends, they are likely, in the course of time
and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and
unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people
and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying
afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust
dominion.

Towards the preservation of your government, and the permanency of
your present happy state, it is requisite, not only that you steadily
discountenance irregular oppositions to its acknowledged authority,
but also that you resist with care the spirit of innovation upon its
principles, however specious the pretexts. One method of assault may
be to effect, in the forms of the Constitution, alterations which will
impair the energy of the system, and thus to undermine what cannot be
directly overthrown. In all the changes to which you may be invited,
remember that time and habit are at least as necessary to fix the true
character of governments as of other human institutions; that
experience is the surest standard by which to test the real tendency
of the existing constitution of a country; that facility in changes,
upon the credit of mere hypothesis and opinion, exposes to perpetual
change, from the endless variety of hypothesis and opinion; and
remember, especially, that for the efficient management of your common
interests, in a country so extensive as ours, a government of as much
vigor as is consistent with the perfect security of liberty is
indispensable. Liberty itself will find in such a government, with
powers properly distributed and adjusted, its surest guardian. It is,
indeed, little else than a name, where the government is too feeble to
withstand the enterprises of faction, to confine each member of the
society within the limits prescribed by the laws, and to maintain all
in the secure and tranquil enjoyment of the rights of person and
property.

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State,
with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical
discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn
you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the
spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its
root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under
different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled,
or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its
greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the
spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different
ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is
itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more
formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which
result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose
in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief
of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his
competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own
elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which
nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and
continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it
the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the
public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded
jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against
another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door
to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access
to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus
the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and
will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks
upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the
spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in
governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with
indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those
of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a
spirit not to be encouraged. From their natural tendency, it is
certain there will always be enough of that spirit for every salutary
purpose. And there being constant danger of excess, the effort ought
to be by force of public opinion, to mitigate and assuage it. A fire
not to be quenched, it demands a uniform vigilance to prevent its
bursting into a flame, lest, instead of warming, it should consume.

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free
country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its
administration, to confine themselves within their respective
constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one
department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends
to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to
create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just
estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which
predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the
truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the
exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into
different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the
public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by
experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under
our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute
them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or
modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong,
let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution
designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this,
in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary
weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must
always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient
benefit, which the use can at any time yield.

Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity,
religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that
man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these
great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of
men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man,
ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all
their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be
asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life,
if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the
instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with
caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained
without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined
education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both
forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of
religious principle.

It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring
of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less
force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere
friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the
foundation of the fabric?

Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the
general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a
government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public
opinion should be enlightened.

As a very important source of strength and security, cherish public
credit. One method of preserving it is to use it as sparingly as
possible, avoiding occasions of expense by cultivating peace, but
remembering also that timely disbursements to prepare for danger
frequently prevent much greater disbursements to repel it, avoiding
likewise the accumulation of debt, not only by shunning occasions of
expense, but by vigorous exertion in time of peace to discharge the
debts which unavoidable wars may have occasioned, not ungenerously
throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear.
The execution of these maxims belongs to your representatives, but it
is necessary that public opinion should co-operate. To facilitate to
them the performance of their duty, it is essential that you should
practically bear in mind that towards the payment of debts there must
be revenue; that to have revenue there must be taxes; that no taxes
can be devised which are not more or less inconvenient and unpleasant;
that the intrinsic embarrassment, inseparable from the selection of
the proper objects (which is always a choice of difficulties), ought
to be a decisive motive for a candid construction of the conduct of
the government in making it, and for a spirit of acquiescence in the
measures for obtaining revenue, which the public exigencies may at any
time dictate.

Observe good faith and justice towards all nations; cultivate peace
and harmony with all. Religion and morality enjoin this conduct; and
can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it 7 It will be
worthy of a free, enlightened, and at no distant period, a great
nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a
people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. Who can
doubt that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of such a
plan would richly repay any temporary advantages which might be lost
by a steady adherence to it ? Can it be that Providence has not
connected the permanent felicity of a nation with its virtue ? The
experiment, at least, is recommended by every sentiment which ennobles
human nature. Alas! is it rendered impossible by its vices?

In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential than that
permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular nations, and
passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in
place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be
cultivated. The nation which indulges towards another a habitual
hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave
to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to
lead it astray from its duty and its interest. Antipathy in one nation
against another disposes each more readily to offer insult and injury,
to lay hold of slight causes of umbrage, and to be haughty and
intractable, when accidental or trifling occasions of dispute occur.
Hence, frequent collisions, obstinate, envenomed, and bloody contests.
The nation, prompted by ill-will and resentment, sometimes impels to
war the government, contrary to the best calculations of policy. The
government sometimes participates in the national propensity, and
adopts through passion what reason would reject; at other times it
makes the animosity of the nation subservient to projects of hostility
instigated by pride, ambition, and other sinister and pernicious
motives. The peace often, sometimes perhaps the liberty, of nations,
has been the victim.

So likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another
produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation,
facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases
where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the
enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the
quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or
justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of
privileges denied to others which is apt doubly to injure the nation
making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to
have been retained, and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a
disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges
are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded
citizens (who devote themselves to the favorite nation), facility to
betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium,
sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a
virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public
opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish
compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation.

As avenues to foreign influence in innumerable ways, such attachments
are particularly alarming to the truly enlightened and independent
patriot. How many opportunities do they afford to tamper with domestic
factions, to practice the arts of seduction, to mislead public
opinion, to influence or awe the public councils 7 Such an attachment
of a small or weak towards a great and powerful nation dooms the
former to be the satellite of the latter.

Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to
believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be
constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign
influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.
But that jealousy to be useful must be impartial; else it becomes the
instrument of the very influence to be avoided, instead of a defense
against it. Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive
dislike of another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on
one side, and serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on
the other. Real patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite
are liable to become suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes
usurp the applause and confidence of the people, to surrender their
interests.

The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is in
extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little
political connection as possible. So far as we have already formed
engagements, let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let
us stop. Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none;
or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent
controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our
concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate
ourselves by artificial ties in the ordinary vicissitudes of her
politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her
friendships or enmities.

Our detached and distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a
different course. If we remain one people under an efficient
government. the period is not far off when we may defy material injury
from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will
cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be
scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the
impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard
the giving us provocation; when we may choose peace or war, as our
interest, guided by justice, shall counsel.

Why forego the advantages of so peculiar a situation? Why quit our own
to stand upon foreign ground? Why, by interweaving our destiny with
that of any part of Europe, entangle our peace and prosperity in the
toils of European ambition, rivalship, interest, humor or caprice?

It is our true policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any
portion of the foreign world; so far, I mean, as we are now at liberty
to do it; for let me not be understood as capable of patronizing
infidelity to existing engagements. I hold the maxim no less
applicable to public than to private affairs, that honesty is always
the best policy. I repeat it, therefore, let those engagements be
observed in their genuine sense. But, in my opinion, it is unnecessary
and would be unwise to extend them.

Taking care always to keep ourselves by suitable establishments on a
respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary
alliances for extraordinary emergencies.

Harmony, liberal intercourse with all nations, are recommended by
policy, humanity, and interest. But even our commercial policy should
hold an equal and impartial hand; neither seeking nor granting
exclusive favors or preferences; consulting the natural course of
things; diffusing and diversifying by gentle means the streams of
commerce, but forcing nothing; establishing (with powers so disposed,
in order to give trade a stable course, to define the rights of our
merchants, and to enable the government to support them) conventional
rules of intercourse, the best that present circumstances and mutual
opinion will permit, but temporary, and liable to be from time to time
abandoned or varied, as experience and circumstances shall dictate;
constantly keeping in view that it is folly in one nation to look for
disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of
its independence for whatever it may accept under that character;
that, by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of
having given equivalents for nominal favors, and yet of being
reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no
greater error than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation
to nation. It is an illusion, which experience must cure, which a just
pride ought to discard.

In offering to you, my countrymen, these counsels of an old and
affectionate friend, I dare not hope they will make the strong and
lasting impression I could wish; that they will control the usual
current of the passions, or prevent our nation from running the course
which has hitherto marked the destiny of nations. But, if I may even
flatter myself that they may be productive of some partial benefit,
some occasional good; that they may now and then recur to moderate the
fury of party spirit, to warn against the mischiefs of foreign
intrigue, to guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism;
this hope will be a full recompense for the solicitude for your
welfare, by which they have been dictated.

How far in the discharge of my official duties I have been guided by
the principles which have been delineated, the public records and
other evidences of my conduct must witness to you and to the world. To
myself, the assurance of my own conscience is, that I have at least
believed myself to be guided by them.

In relation to the still subsisting war in Europe, my proclamation of
the twenty-second of April, I793, is the index of my plan. Sanctioned
by your approving voice, and by that of your representatives in both
houses of Congress, the spirit of that measure has continually
governed me, uninfluenced by any attempts to deter or divert me from
it.

After deliberate examination, with the aid of the best lights I could
obtain, I was well satisfied that our country, under all the
circumstances of the case, had a right to take, and was bound in duty
and interest to take, a neutral position. Having taken it, I
determined, as far as should depend upon me, to maintain it, with
moderation, perseverance, and firmness.

The considerations which respect the right to hold this con duct, it
is not necessary on this occasion to detail. I will only observe that,
according to my understanding of the matter, that right, so far from
being denied by any of the belligerent powers, has been virtually
admitted by all.

The duty of holding a neutral conduct may be inferred, without
anything more, from the obligation which justice and humanity impose
on every nation, in cases in which it is free to act, to maintain
inviolate the relations of peace and amity towards other nations.

The inducements of interest for observing that conduct will best be
referred to your own reflections and experience. With me a predominant
motive has been to endeavor to gain time to our country to settle and
mature its yet recent institutions, and to progress without
interruption to that degree of strength and consistency which is
necessary to give it, humanly speaking, the command of its own
fortunes.

Though, in reviewing the incidents of my administration, I am
unconscious of intentional error, I am nevertheless too sensible of my
defects not to think it probable that I may have committed many
errors. Whatever they may be, I fervently beseech the Almighty to
avert or mitigate the evils to which they may tend. I shall also carry
with me the hope that my country will never cease to view them with
indulgence; and that, after forty five years of my life dedicated to
its service with an upright zeal, the faults of incompetent abilities
will be consigned to oblivion, as myself must soon be to the mansions
of rest.

Relying on its kindness in this as in other things, and actuated by
that fervent love towards it, which is so natural to a man who views
in it the native soil of himself and his progenitors for several
generations, I anticipate with pleasing expectation that retreat in
which I promise myself to realize, without alloy, the sweet enjoyment
of partaking, in the midst of my fellow-citizens, the benign influence
of good laws under a free government, the ever-favorite object of my
heart, and the happy reward, as I trust, of our mutual cares, labors,
and dangers.

Geo. Washington.



18th Century Page Washington's Papers Avalon Home Page



© 1996 The Avalon Project.
The Avalon Project : Washington's Farewell Address 1796 was last
modified on: 07/03/2008 00:01:59 <end


Peace,
Doc



On Jul 2, 8:17 pm, Kelley Eidem <awthraw...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Let me 'splain it all to you. War with Iran is a foregone conclusion
unless the iran leadership are all overthrown.

Our Special Forces are over there trying to prevent a war by helping
any overthrow...which is the longest of longshots but is worth so much
it is worth a shot.

They are also doing what they can to collect intel for the war that is
coming...such as which targets to hit.

War is a given. The only way the war is avoided is if Iran succeeds in
crushing the US, turning us into a nation of pestilence and starvation
with Iran's EMP nukes.

If Bush weren't ordering secret operations against Iran, he should be
impeached for neglecting our national security.

Besides, Iran is sending weapons and men into Iraq to kill American
troops. So it only makes sense that we return the favor.

On Jun 29, 4:38 am, "Kickin' Ass and Takin' Names"



<PopUlist...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh

L ate last year, Congress agreed to a request from President Bush to
fund a major escalation of covert operations against Iran, according
to current and former military, intelligence, and congressional
sources. These operations, for which the President sought up to four
hundred million dollars, were described in a Presidential Finding
signed by Bush, and are designed to destabilize the country’s
religious leadership. The covert activities involve support of the
minority Ahwazi Arab and Baluchi groups and other dissident
organizations. They also include gathering intelligence about Iran’s
suspected nuclear-weapons program.

Clandestine operations against Iran are not new. United States Special
Operations Forces have been conducting cross-border operations from
southern Iraq, with Presidential authorization, since last year. These
have included seizing members of Al Quds, the commando arm of the
Iranian Revolutionary Guard, and taking them to Iraq for
interrogation, and the pursuit of “high-value targets” in the
President’s war on terror, who may be captured or killed. But the
scale and the scope of the operations in Iran, which involve the
Central Intelligence Agency and the Joint Special Operations Command
(JSOC), have now been significantly expanded, according to the current
and former officials. Many of these activities are not specified in
the new Finding, and some congressional leaders have had serious
questions about their nature.

Under federal law, a Presidential Finding, which is highly classified,
must be issued when a covert intelligence operation gets under way
and, at a minimum, must be made known to Democratic and Republican
leaders in the House and the Senate and to the ranking members of
their respective intelligence committees—the so-called Gang of Eight.
Money for the operation can then be reprogrammed from previous
appropriations, as needed, by the relevant congressional committees,
which also can be briefed.

“The Finding was focussed on undermining Iran’s nuclear ambitions and
trying to undermine the government through regime change,” a person
familiar with its contents said, and involved “working with opposition
groups and passing money.” The Finding provided for a whole new range
of activities in southern Iran and in the areas, in the east, where
Baluchi political opposition is strong, he said.

Although some legislators were troubled by aspects of the Finding, and
“there was a significant amount of high-level discussion” about it,
according to the source familiar with it, the funding for the
escalation was approved. In other words, some members of the
Democratic leadership—Congress has been under Democratic control since
the 2006 elections—were willing, in secret, to go along with the
Administration in expanding covert activities directed at Iran, while
the Party’s presumptive candidate for President, Barack Obama, has
said that he favors direct talks and diplomacy.

The request for funding came in the same period in which the
Administration was coming to terms with a National Intelligence
Estimate, released in December, that concluded that Iran had halted
its work on nuclear weapons in 2003. The Administration downplayed the
significance of the N.I.E., and, while saying that it was committed to
diplomacy, continued to emphasize that urgent action was essential to
counter the Iranian nuclear threat. President Bush questioned the
N.I.E.’s conclusions, and senior national-security officials,
including Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice, made similar statements. (So did Senator John
McCain, the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee.) Meanwhile,
the Administration also revived charges that the Iranian leadership
has been involved in the killing of American soldiers in Iraq: both
directly, by dispatching commando units into Iraq, and indirectly, by
supplying materials used for roadside bombs and other lethal goods.
(There have been questions about the accuracy of the claims; the
Times, among others, has reported that “significant uncertainties
remain about the extent of that involvement.”)

Military and civilian leaders in the Pentagon share the White House’s
concern about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, but there is disagreement
about whether a military strike is the right solution. Some Pentagon
officials believe, as they have let Congress and the media know, that
bombing Iran is not a viable response to the nuclear-proliferation
issue, and that more diplomacy is necessary.

A Democratic senator told me that, late last year, in an off-the-
record lunch meeting, Secretary of Defense Gates met with the
Democratic caucus in the Senate. (Such meetings are held regularly.)
Gates warned of the consequences if the Bush Administration staged a
preëmptive strike on Iran, saying, as the senator recalled, “We’ll
create generations of jihadists, and our grandchildren will be
battling our enemies here in America.” Gates’s comments stunned the
Democrats at the lunch, and another senator asked whether Gates was
speaking for Bush and Vice-President *** Cheney. Gates’s answer, the
senator told me, was “Let’s just say that I’m here speaking for
myself.” (A spokesman for Gates confirmed that he discussed the
consequences of a strike at the meeting, but would not address what he
said, other than to dispute the senator’s characterization.)

The Joint Chiefs of Staff, whose chairman is Admiral Mike Mullen, were
“pushing back very hard” against White House pressure to undertake a
military strike against Iran, the person familiar with the Finding
told me. Similarly, a Pentagon consultant who is involved in the war
on terror said that “at least ten senior flag and general officers,
including combatant commanders”—the four-star officers who direct
military operations around the world—“have weighed in on that issue..”

The most outspoken of those officers is Admiral William Fallon, who
until recently was the head of U.S. Central Command, and thus in
charge of American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In March, Fallon
resigned under pressure, after giving a series of interviews stating
his reservations about an armed attack on Iran. For example, late last
year he told the Financial Times that the “real objective” of U.S.
policy was to change the Iranians’ behavior, and that “attacking them
as a means to get to that spot strikes me as being not the first
choice.”

Admiral Fallon acknowledged, when I spoke to him in June, that he had
heard that there were people in the White House who were upset by his
public statements. “Too many people believe you have to be either for
or against the Iranians,” he told me. “Let’s get serious. Eighty
million people live there, and everyone’s an individual. The idea that
they’re only one way or another is nonsense.”

When it came to the Iraq war, Fallon said, “Did I bitch about some of
the things that were being proposed? You bet. Some of them were very
stupid.”

The Democratic leadership’s agreement to commit hundreds of millions
of dollars for more secret operations in Iran was remarkable, given
the general concerns of officials like Gates, Fallon, and many others.
“The oversight process has not kept pace—it’s been coöpted” by the
Administration, the person familiar with the contents of the Finding
said. “The process is broken, and this is dangerous stuff we’re
authorizing.”

Senior Democrats in Congress told me that they had concerns about the
possibility that their understanding of what the new operations entail
differs from the White House’s. One issue has to do with a reference
in the Finding, the person familiar with it recalled, to potential
defensive lethal action by U.S. operatives in Iran. (In early May, the
journalist Andrew Cockburn published elements of the Finding in
Counterpunch, a newsletter and online magazine.)

The language was inserted into the Finding at the urging of the
C.I.A., a former senior intelligence official said. The covert
operations set forth in the Finding essentially run parallel to those
of a secret military task force, now operating in Iran, that is under
the control of JSOC. Under the Bush Administration’s interpretation of
the law, clandestine military activities, unlike covert C.I.A.
operations, do not need to be depicted in a Finding, because the
President has a constitutional right to command combat forces in the
field without congressional interference. But the borders between
operations are not always clear: in Iran, C.I.A. agents and regional
assets have the language skills and the local knowledge to make
contacts for the JSOC operatives, and have been working with

...

read more »- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

.

Loading