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.

Iraq Study Group? How about Detention...

"Way forward. A new way forward. The way forward to Victory. Victory. Can't have defeat, must have victory." The image of George W. walking the White House halls alone in the middle of the night babbling his inane drivel to the paintings of dead preseidents is almost too much to bear. The Fuehrer is in his bunker and the Red Army is at the Brandenberg Gate. As Bush waits to deliver his "way forward" until after the New Year - maybe Santa will put the plan in his Christmas stocking - he sends more brave Americans to die into the hell pit he created. "Legacy, gotta save my legacy. I'll be dead, up in heaven with the lord, but I'll be vindicated!" Since it's clear that Baker's Dozen hasn't come up with a strategy the Fuehrer approves of, he's going shopping for that 2nd, 3rd, 4th, opinion. At least until he finds one that'll agree with him. That however is going to be a problem as the yes men are growing fewer and farther away. The neocons have deserted him, Wolfowitz is at the world bank, Bremmer's vanished, Tennet's vaporized, Franks' blitzed, Rhummy's kaput, Cheney is sidelined, Moma Karen Hughs is silent, Condi is all he has left - but no one is listening to her any way.

The pictures of Hitler sending the Children's brigade off to the Russian front becomes a more and more obvious comparison to what we're seeing now in the White House. The reports are coming out fast and furious that he now wants to send more troops. More troops, more lives, more violence, more madness. A new way forward. indeed. Because of this maniac the world is at a cross roads unimaginable just 6 years ago. Because of Bush, his mirror image is now in Iran and busy developing nukes of his own. Lebanon is facing civil war - again. And, Afghanistan is falling back to the Taliban and opium with every day. We won't even begin to talk about Pakistan. With a holocaust denial conference in full flower in Tehran, not to mention more speeches about Israel's imminent destruction, the Israelis' trigger fingers are getting itchy. If those planes fly, that's all folks. While the worse-case scenarios had this playing out in the first phases of the Iraq war, it now looks like it just took some time to germinate. I guarantee the results will not look or smell pretty.

Time is the one thing we are now officially out of. While Bush holds out the vain hope that some new plan or miracle will bring some truth to Mission Accomplished, events on the ground are far out-pacing his ability to control them. We are at the mercy of forces that are 1000's of years old, in a political and religious culture he doesn't understand, and we are facing a violence that was simply never part of his plan for "victory".

The way forward for us, as stated in the last post, is one way only - impeachment. He and his whole adminstration must be purged as quickly as possible. Brent Budowsky in The Huffington Post has called for a new POTUS initiative - bring back ALL the former Presidents to create a bipartisan Uber Executive Task force to take over the Executive branch for the remainder of this term. Working in concert with the new congress, all the former Presidents - with their skill, knowledge, and experience - not to mention diplomatic skills (think about it, all the ex-POTUS alive today are superb diplomats - Bush Pere included). We need a sure hand on the rudder of state and I for one can't think of a better solution. We face an unparralled crisis in the world right now and must embrace new possibilities and a new realism if we are going to get through it successfully. Time is not on our side - nor is the maniac roaming the halls of the White House.

Smells Like Victory?

It's been awhile since the Hippo's been tapping the keys and so much has happened since the election! Frank Rich, Keith Olbermann, Paul Krugman, and Matt Lauer(!?!) have been doing an outstanding job keeping us all informed that there just wasn't much to add...

Rhummy Von Doom has gone the way of all spectacular failures, to the ash heap of history - without even a whimper. Truly has any ending ever been more anti-climatic? Of course, you could see it coming when before the election the Last Crusader steadfastly asserted that RVD would be there to the end. Should've seen it coming - a perfectly executed "Heckuva Job Brownie" Judas Kiss. Given the death, destruction, and diminishment incurred by this man's incompetence and stubborn refusal to be guided by "facts" the only thing left for The Last Crusader to do is give him the Medal of Freedom and be done with it - (or maybe remove Wolfowitz at the World Bank and let RVD have a shot - would certainly cement his status as the 21st Century MacNamarra...) Pity we spared a bullet...

So at long last Baker's Dozen has released their findings. Guess what? Invading Iraq was a mistake. Has ever so many people waited so long for so little? Really if the Democrats have been basing their Iraq strategy on what this bunch of old Caucasians (sorry Vernon Jordan) cobbled together, then they're on as safe ground as John Kerry without a script. Yes, they called the baby ugly, and they used the F word - as in failure. But there were no firm demands for retrenchment. No timelines. In fact this report had as much teeth as Sandra Day O'Connor. Of course, the more attention paid to the report the more angry Chicken George becomes. The melt-down is now palpable. The words keep falling from those twitching lips, the fingers snap, the sweat builds, the eyes open, but the magician can't make the body disappear anymore and the audience is getting restless. Victory indeed.

While everyone with sense and an understanding of history has been shouting this truth to the heavens for years, the rest of the country is coming to terms with the fact that labels such as the worst president in history, stupid, incompetent, moron, etc., - pale before the awful truth. George W Bush is responsible for the worst global catastrophe since Hitler. The parallels are stunning - an aimless, ignorant, incurious, reactionary cipher guided by a fanatical belief in his own destiny combined with a messianic mission from god to be accomplished by force of arms and we have a stunning re-occurrence. Add nuclear arms, oil, and Islamic fundamentalism and we now have a situation that could make the slaughter of the 1930's seem like a garden party. George W. Bush single-handedly ended the American Century at the exact moment it seemed ready to go on forever. And now, even he knows it. And that is the scariest thing of all - this man has his hands on the button. What visions of gotterdammerung are running through his diseased mind as the end looms large?

The time has come for the other branches of government to take control as the founding fathers intended. We are facing a catastrophe unparalleled in our short history and so need to take drastic action. This man needs to be removed from power by whatever means available. The bottom line is that victory in any form is no longer possible in Iraq or for that matter, Afghanistan. The time has come for us to take matters in hand and force our representatives to keep us safe from the only threat that really matters right now - George Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Alberto Gonzalez, Michael Chertoff, and the whole horrific lot of them. Write your congressman - demand impeachment! We must act now or we're all complicit on what happens next...

Stop the Presses?

This past week's coverage of the House Democratic leadership election should, once and for all lay to rest the concept of a Liberal Media bias. As reported in most major news organizations - including the NY Times and Washington Post - instead of an orderly leadership selection process, we witnessed a bizarre menage-a-trois between Nancy Peolosi, Jack Murtha, & Steny Hoyer. The MSM painted Speaker Pelosi as some Beltway Borgia feverishly scheming to have the white smoke plume blow for Enforcer Jack, while the Party establishment did an end run around her in favor of Hoyer. This was largely brought about by Enforcer Jack's somewhat checkered past with lobbyists, fake Saudi Princes (ABSCAM) and other forms of typical DC debaucherie. Of course on careful inspection, what becomes obvious is a very simple chain of events that let everybody save face:

1. Speaker Pelosi shows loyalty to Enforcer Jack by nominating and supporting him
2. Dems do their bit and vote in the right man - Hoyer
3. Murtha loses fairly in a floor vote but can continue to function as Pelosi's enforcer since she publicly supported him

End of story, everyone's happy, but not the press who rely on the cliche of disorganized, fratracidel democrats to either appease their corporate media masters or because they're too lazy to do real reporting. Yet again. Can you spell W-M-D?

That's not to say that the Democrats aren't fratracidel - to wit - James "I married a Nazi" Carville and his very public fight with Howard Dean and the DNC. Why anybody would still pay attention to this idiot (Paul Begala too) is simply beyond me. The bottom line is that Dean's 50 state strategy as Joe Conason rightly points out in Salon, worked. The Dems were effectively able to roll-back the GOP in states that were totally written off by the party establishment - including Mr. Carville & Begala. They are now and always will be the attack dogs for the Clinton Party - not the Democratic Party. And if Hillary is going to get the nod, it won't be because the DNC is going to be loud, active, and motivated to support her. So better to try and take out Dr. Dean - again. Remember folks, the scream wasn't leaked by Republicans but by the Party establishment personified by Jimmy the C and Lil' Paulie. So now that the opposition is in the driver's seat the Dems need to take a page from the GOP - create and manage the story - but STOP becoming the story!

All too often Dems focus on their own, limited and independent agendas while foresaking the message of the party. This has got to stop or the GOP will be back with a vengence in '08. It's up to all of us to make sure this does not happen. Monitor the news - where you see the press being lazy and indulging in their penchant for cliche - write them! Make them work for a change and really report. When you see needless sniping between party spokespeople - call them on it. Write their offices, call them, tell them we won't stand for this nonsense anymore. That they need to keep these things and themselves out of the media and focus instead on advancing the party agenda. Enough is enough! Tell the talking heads to shut the f@#* up and help us accomplish something the next 2 years!

We Won?

We won. Simple words. Short, sweet, and pregnant with meaning. But after the balloons and confetti are cleared and the champagne hangovers start to fade, the words are amended to - Holy shit we won. Anyone who's been following the US political landscape over the last few years has been painfully aware of the viscious reactionary nature of the US electorate. "Values" voters with paleolithic agendas such as anti-gay marriage, anti-stem cell research, anti-evolution, and the full endorsement of a fundamentalist christian agenda. Nothing's changed. And that is the significant detail that we must bear in mind as we go forward to clean up the tragic mess that BushCo and their minions have created. This was a vote against BushCo - not a vote for a progressive agenda. This was a much needed message against incumbants and one party rule - not a repudiation of "family values". Ken Mehlman (RNC Chairman) has already been making the rounds of the AM talk shows putting significant distance between BushCo and real republican Party values in preparation for 2008. You see, the last 6 years have really been an aberration - watch how they spin.

Yes our democracy worked - a day late, a dollar short, but the peaceful transfer of power is being accomplished at the will of the people. The bums have indeed been tossed out. Nancy Pelosi is the speaker of the House and it looks like we will claim the senate as well. So yes - by all means, let's enjoy the day - the week even. But let's be focused on the fundamental issues still facing the country - a significant plurality of our countrymen refuse to use their native common sense and continue to reject fairness, equality, and science. Iraq is still burning, N Korea and Iran are still churning, and loving people now can't get married in seven more states.

Whoo hoo! We won