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."