This was the week the Bush administration rolled out its new 'Terrorism Plus' campaign, complete with an energetic marketing campaign of pundits well-placed in all the cable pundit shows; 'Terrorism Plus' in that it claims to be the war on terrorism, but new and improved - but as with the introduction of New Coke, we're wondering what was wrong with the original. We're sending troops to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia, which those with a taste for history recognize as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, who played a rather prominent role in Soviet and Russian history. These troops are ostensibly to train Georgian troops to better go after Al Qaeda terrorists, which are alleged to occasionally hide in the mountains on the border; at least that's what the American media is saying, Reuters quotes Georgian sources as saying it has something to do with protecting an oil pipeline. Then, Reuters also quotes the spokesman for the Georgian Defense Ministry as saying the U.S. troops haven't been agreed to and really aren't needed. So, obviously not everybody's reading from the same script. (The Russians used stronger language in their dissent; but then a couple of weeks ago Putin warned that he didn't see any need for U.S. troops to remain in Central Asia after the Afghan war was over, so you can see how much attention Bush is paying him.)

Over on Lou Dobb's Moneyline though, everyone assembled was staying reliably on-message: the retired general on hand said that 'with this new global war without boundaries, we have to be able to send American troops everywhere our interests are threatened.' Elsewhere, another said 'We may have to protect Georgia from Russian invasion;' while yet another said, 'Russia doesn't really mind, they just have to protest for political reasons.'

Notice the increasing distance already admitted from any actual 'terrorist threat' - our 'interests' can be threatened in many ways other than by terrorists: by good old-fashioned geo-political alliances, historic vested interests, basic economic competition; but now we're claiming justification to intervene militarily against any and all such 'threats.' The United States is already in the process of building 13 permanent bases in 9 countries of Central Asia, with some 50,000 troops already on station. (And none to spare for peace-keeping in Afghanistan, so sad!) But as a Kazakhstan government official said to the Guardian this week, "The war on terror is just a pretext for America dominating our oil."

So Bush is making the big move - risking war with Russia to control the Caspian Sea oil reserves. Whether this is a justified strategic gamble, or simply an expression of impenetrable hubris, may be hinted at in White House press secretary Ari Fleischer's comments vis-a-vis Bill Clinton and violence in the Middle East. Bush White House agenda discipline is legendary, so we can safely assume that when he says that Bill Clinton's peace efforts were too strenuous, thus causing the current cycle of deepening violence in the Middle East, that he speaks the authentic thoughts of his bosses. This was the expressed White House thinking a year ago, in fact; that it remains so speaks volumes about the alternate universe this White House inhabits. It was just a few weeks ago that Shimon Peres, the Israeli Prime Minister at the time of Clinton's efforts, shared a stage with Bill Clinton in New York City and told the assembled crowd that if Clinton had had just a few more months in office, 'we would now have peace.' Most damning, it was also just a couple of weeks ago that the Washington Post broke the story of how the Saudi's were so livid last summer with Bush's do-nothing response to the escalating violence, they were at the point of breaking off diplomatic relations.

So there you have it - Peres giving unqualified praise to Clinton's efforts; the Saudi's giving a double-barrel shotgun blast to Bush's lack of effort. All this is known in the Bush White House, yet their opinion hasn't changed an iota from a year ago - they still maintain it's Clinton's fault. So it would seem there's nothing, literally nothing, that can penetrate the impenetrable arrogance of the George W. Bush White House. And whether in the White House briefing room or the far-flung outposts of attempted empire, pride goeth before a fall.