Surge Protection?

The state of the Union was about as exciting as Oscar night with Tom Hanks in the running. You knew the outcome before the envelope was opened. Bush blathering on about "victory this", "will and determination that", and some half-hearted domestic policy suggestions thrown out like parsley on meat loaf. Pathetic. I'd go on, but there's no point. You know and I know what the situation is, and of course, what the remedy is. So write your congress people. Get impeachment on the front burner before more of our brave children die in what Chuck Hegel rightly calls the meat grinder.

Let's talk instead about the spate of democratic presidential nominations that came out and a potential republican one. Pretty nifty of Obama to scoop Hillary so completely by not only announcing first, but by doing it on the internet. No nasty press questions that way-- just push play and poof! Message sent; message received. In looking to regain lost ground, Hil not only announces on the internet but then proceeds to host her own cyberfireside chats. A kinder gentler Hillary? Nah. She's still not baking cookies and she's not repudiating her war vote either. In perfect Clintonian cadence we got to hear yet again how if the information she had was what the facts on the ground really were she never would have ....blah blah blah. The bottom line is Hillary Clinton would take a poll before she turned over in bed for fear of flipping too far to the left or too far to the right. And if that's not bad enough-- who does she revive to run her campaign? Your favorite and mine-- Terry "Moneybags" McAuliffe! Yes, the man who sold the DNC and lost Al Gore the presidency! The man who anointed Tom Daschle as party leader...the hits just keep on coming! This is the man who rolled over after 9/11 and is in good measure responsible for the ineffectiveness of the democratic response to W and his thugs. Game Set Match.

As for Obama, I have no gripe with him-- except for the fact that he has no experience and has never run anything more complex than a 3-legged race. He's a charismatic, highly intelligent, extremely charming individual who could do more to re-establish American prestige-- at least in Europe-- than most. But face it, he ain't up to the cleanup we've got in front of us. So who does that leave? Edwards has been running since 2004 and could be an interesting candidate in his own right. He's got something to say and is no stranger to life and death decisions. Personally though, I think we've got to get Gore back in the race. He won once; he could certainly do it again. And if anybody's the rightful heir to the Clinton/Gore legacy, it would be, well.......Al Gore. But like Mario Cuomo before him: will he run or just tease?

And what of Chuck Hegel? He of the furrowed brow and Richard Burton looks? Will he run? There have been rumors of a unity ticket. Perhaps the Chuck and Joe (Biden) Show will leave the Sunday morning circuit (much to the chagrin of Wolf, Tim, Bob, George, and Chris) and make a stab for the WH. He's certainly scored big points with many dems, not unlike crazy John McCain did a few years back. But before most dems realized he really was a crazy ass right wing whacko and not just playing one on TV. Of course, Chuck is equally on the debit side of every other issue dems hold dear: a 0 rating from NARAL as an example. So applaud him for his stance on Iraq but he's not one of us no matter how hard we might wish to whitewash his voting record. We won't get fooled again...I hope.

Please write to your congressional representatives. Demand they submit articles of impeachment. If you don't take action, you condone what's being done in your name!

Eyes Wide Shut?

Another Sunday, another round of talking heads, and of course, another round of spin from the criminals in the White House. After the broasting, our gal Condi received last week at the congressional hearings, she was kept well out of site leaving the spin duties to a very busy Stephen "you've been" Had-Ley (appearing on both Meet the Press & This Week), and Darth Cheney himself on Fox (the media equivalent of Vice's unknown bunker). W, the idiot king himself, goes on tonight on 60 Minutes and to no one's surprise admits nothing, repents nothing and when asked if he'd do it again answers exactly as you'd expect...... "of course". The more stubbornly the administration digs--in and the more congress strikes back, we are rapidly moving to a constitutional showdown of epic proportions. Can congress rein in a renegade president and what will it take to bring things to this pass? The dangerousness of our situation cannot be understated. During the last days of Watergate there was serious concern that Nixon would attempt to stage a coup against the congress and so the oath of military loyalty was re-administered among the troops as a preventative measure. But with more and more belicose posturing against Iran, the administration is clearly pushing its final agenda with greater velocity and desperation.

This should take no one by surprise. After losing the popular vote in 2000, the Bush gang proceeded to govern as if they had won a mandate. The best analysis to date of what's happening was given by Robert Perry in his column on Truth Out entitled "The US-Iran-Iraq-Israeli-Syrian War. ( http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011207L.shtml)

In it, he clearly outlines how the combination of a new deployment of the Navy's fleet in the gulf (unnecessary for managing the situation in Iraq, but critical if he's planning on launching attacks on Syria and Iran) as well as the replacement of Army General Abazaid with Admiral William Fallon as Chief of the Central Command for the Middle East underlines his intention to pre-emptively strike outside of Iraq. In addition, in the international firestorm sure to follow, his placing Negroponte to back up the hapless Condi in the State Dept. as well as putting Zalmay Khalilzad as our UN face also makes perfect sense. In the context of a first strike at Iran's nuclear capabilities, mobilizing 20,000 additional troops now also makes a certain sense-- not to pacify the country as a whole, but to seal off Sadr City and the Shiite militias after the bombs stop falling in Natanz.

The Navy in charge of the Middle East Central Command?!?! I'm reminded of the famous exchange between Humphrey Bogart (Rick) and Conrad Veidt (Major Strassa) in Casablanca:

Major Strassa: So how did you come to be in Casablanca?
Rick: I came to Casablanca for the waters.
Major Strassa: Waters? But Casablanca is a desert?
Rick: I was misinformed.


Acknowledging no oversight but their own, no possibility of their own fallability, pathological stubborness, and a psychotic denial of reality on the ground, the Bush gang is driving the Porshe at 120 mph drunk and blindfolded and it is about to hit the wall. Unfortunately for us-- we're the Porsche. Congress must act and remove them from power with the same velocity and vigor that this gang has acted all along. Half-measures will simply not work any more. Legislative niceties and etiquette are nice but we simply don't have the time. Before more troops are committed, more lives lost, and the Middle East explodes beyond all hope of recovery, Bush and his gang must be ousted. Write your congresssional representatives-- keep the pressure up. They must be stopped and time is getting short. It's only a matter of days before we see him on our TV screens: blinking like a broken traffic light and saying the words that will truly end the "American Century" ...... "Today I ordered the 5th Navy Air Command to bomb the Iranian nuclear faciliites at Natanz."

Slouching Towards Babylon

20,000 more troops. 20,000 more brave children in the first blush of youth, potential, and power simply tossed away like so much trash. 20,000 more families torn apart with fear, uncertainty and grief. For what? The enormity of this tragedy is simply beyond the reckoning of any possible justification manufactured by the criminals in the White House. As I wrote back in October either we would have to begin to draw down our forces or a draft would have to be instituted to provide the necessary force concentration, to at a minimum, stabilize the country. For what? Why would the addition of 20,000 more troops - bringing overall troop strength back to where it was a year ago and ineffective then - make a difference now? It wouldn't and it won't. This is neither a strategy or a solution. It is simplistic and it is delusional. And It is in the final analysis, criminal.

The single largest conclusion drawn from this tragedy is that Iraq is not a "country" in the Western sense of the word. Iraq is an artificial creation of the British government which, in the aftermath of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire needed to create an administrative entity for this particular part of the middle east. With Kurds in the North, Shias in the South and Sunnis in the West - all with complex webs of mutually hostile tribal and clan alliances. Saddam kept Iraq together by pure brute force. And, even with his depravity Iraq was, prior to UN sanctions, a secular, stable, and safe corner of the middle east. A country with high levels of education, health care, women's emancipation and integration into the professional classes, and a modernized infrastructure. This is now only a fond memory to Iraqis. With the failure of the Iraqi government to control the violence and deliver basic services, Iraqis have reverted to the time tested method for protection - align with your clan and its militia. The middle class exodus from Iraq has been well documented - those that could re-enforce secularism and keep the engines of commerce going have left the country leaving the worst elements of the society in control - the mullahs, the criminals, the thugs. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.

In what is emblematic of this president, rather than elevate his capabiities to the level of the crisis - like Harry Truman or JFK, he approaches the crisis from within the narrow context of his minimal capabilities. He cannot move away from simplistic good-bad formulas and analysis. He cannot synthesize contrary opinions. He cannot adapt to new conditions on the ground. The devastating whirlwind of historic forces he has unleashed are so far beyond his level of understanding and vision that he is now truly at the mercy of events - not their master. While Bush fatuously demands that the Shia led Iraqi government step up and gain control of the situation and stabilize the country - there is no country left to stabilize. Bush's invasion saw to that. It is also not in the Al-Maliki's Government's interest to subdue the civil war because that is what its goals have been all along! An indepedent and ethnically cleansed Southern Shiite state, in control of significant oil reserves and aligned with Iran. The Kurds in the North have been simply running out the clock and waiting for the inevitable collapse so they can declare an independent oil rich Kurdistan. It is the Sunnis - cast out into the wilderness of Western Iraq without any oil or commerce areas that have the most to lose from this break-up and is why the Saudis and Egyptians (and don't forget the Israelis!?!) feel they may need to support their brothers. A third, hostile, fundamentalist Shiite state aligned with Iran is simply unacceptable. Turkey, always hostile to the idea of an independent Kurdistan looks on with increasing agitation and in the event of Indepedence may feel it necessary to invade the territory under the guise of quelching the PPK and other Kurdish seperatist activity. It is into this cauldron of scorpions that George W Bush wants to send 20,000 more our children.

If any Dictator consigned 20,000 of its own people to certain grievous injury or death, (s)he would be branded a pariah by the international community and a monster by history. And that is what we are dealing with now in no uncertain terms. The legacy of the Bush presidency is that of chaos, death, and destruction on a scale unimaginable. There is no turning back, there is no easy solution, only long, hard, and very painful choices for us, for the Iraqis, and for the middle East at large. We lost from the moment our Congress voted to endorse Bush and his war mongers on this absurd and tragic adventure.