About The Teacher’s Survey

i wrote a piece not too long ago about taking the Delaware Department of Educations teacher’s survey. In it, I said that having an overwhelming response from Delaware’s teachers, one that could be corroborated by sending the same response also to he DSEA, would be the best policy.

I said it would do these things.

It would stop the current corporate trends that are harmful to our children.
It would create dialogue which could point the corporate resources ($$$) towards actually improving education.
It would stop the notion that “teaching to the test” was real educational improvement.
It could create the winning combination of being pro teacher and pro corporate which would make Delaware pro student.

(Disclaimer: Some may think I was the author because of this idea way back here.)

John Young countered with another opinion. Being part of corporate America myself, that criticism struck home….
As a corporation, we rely on surveys. Just as polls are used in campaigns to determine whether or not to throw money into a state’s campaign, or not, in the corporate world where everyone also has an opinion related to their paycheck, getting the correct read is vital. Surveys widen the market place. Which is why every cashier is “forced” to entreat you to fill out a survey for your visit… The more information, the better the decision.

That goes for employee’s surveys as well. In the corporate world there are good and bad corporate captains. The good ones want clear data and work hard to make sure the data they have coming in is real. They bad ones, are looking for snakes. Their intent is to find out who is their enemy, without even wondering what they are doing so wrong that they would be in that position. There are good firms out there who comprise these surveys, and their prime selling point is their confidentiality. They do not identify their callers because if they did, they would not be hired by other companies… Gallup is a trustworthy polling outfit for this reason.

Now in today’s age, when one takes a survey, one’s phone number, one’s computer ID, and all of one’s cookies are recorded at the time of the survey. It is possible for someone to determine the location, the time, and perhaps get an idea of whom is making the survey. They then can set them up to be fired.

That is the warning John was making, and it would be worth taking that into consideration.

it is probably best that you get both sides. It is as if two people at work gave you both sides, and you then have to choose which you want.

Considering both options I would argue continuing with the high turnout on the survey for this reason…. Your lives as a teacher are hell right now. For any change to ever occur, it will have to come from an overwhelming response to this survey. If there is no forceful push on this survey to explain the frustration being felt by every teacher in these trying times, things will continue as they are. If things continue as they have, you will probably quit in four years anyway out of sheer personal frustration. If the place is going to hell in a bucket, you are better off getting fired. So take the survey. Likewise if the place is seriously going to get better at some future point, it can only happen if you take the survey… So my advice is…. take the survey.

it will probably be the bravest act you could do. It will probably be one of the most selfless acts you could do. It could, be one of the most beneficial acts you could do… if the results are read, tabulated, analyzed and if it becomes apparent to those running the Race to The Top, that those who will actually be doing the running, need to be a big part of the program.

Which means, constant measuring has to go out the window. Keep the best parts and throw the rest away.

Which means firing teachers by test results has to go out the window. keep the best parts, and throw the rest away.

Which means that Common Core has to go out the window. keep what works, and throw the rest out the window.

Remember, it would be just as bad to lose the good aspects of these programs the corporatizing of America’s education has given us, as it would to lose the good aspects the teaching profession has given over the past centuries of public education.

Only a union of the best of both, can move us forward. And the only conceivable way I can see this happening, begins with step one: which is having an overwhelming response to the survey….

How Clean Is Your Air, Delaware?

Courtesy of the Delaware Energy Office

Why Delaware Should Move Forward With It’s Own National Park

A recent commenter inquired why establishing a National Park for Delaware should be a priority…

Considering today’s economy, that is a fair question…

The best answer I can come up with is Mr. Pam Scott.. The group of developers and their liaison with the building trade unions, have no qualms about destroying Delaware’s history to build slums. There…. someone said it.

Federal protection of those historic sites would take them off the table….

Because Delaware is developed, at least in New Castle County, the proposed park will have to be an amalgamation of a series of plots, spread over the whole of the state… It should be offered as a chance to glimpse America as it was during the time of our Independence… There are not many other places where that can be done.. At first thought, the only one I can think of is Fort Louisburg.. and that is not even in the United States… Ok, …Williamsburg, even though it is not original, and was rebuilt with Rockefeller money… Hey, wait! New Castle is mostly original buildings!

Point is, Delaware is an amazing place. The park should somehow encompass and protect the following: Delaware Seashore, Mason Dixon markers, Fenwick Lighthouse, America’s first offshore wind farm, Cyprus swamp, Ceasar Rodney’s Gravesite, the Parson Thorne mansion, the Millers House, Dickenson House, Georgetown Circle, The Green in Dover, an Amish farm, the Chesapeake wetlands surrounding the Tina Fallon ferry, Leipsic, Prime Hook, Port Mahon, our Delaware Bay lighthouse, Historic Lewes, the Underground Railroad sites, Historic Odessa, Blackbird Forest, the Sassafras River, the Delaware-Chesapeake Canal, Delaware City, Endangered Riverbank Beaver Dens, Pea Patch Island, Fort Delaware, Frenchtown Railroad, Historic New Castle, Scenic Route 9, Christiana watershed, White Clay Creek, Red Clay Creek, and Brandywine River scenic rivers, the Pencader encampments, Iron Hill, Cooch’s Bridge Battleground Memorial, Delaware Park, Hagley Mills, Rockford Tower, Winterthur, our Chateau Region, Mushroom farm in Hockesin, University of Delaware Green, Deer Park Tavern, Old Christiana, Delaware Memorial Bridge, Kalmyer Nickle, Trinity Church, The Rocks at Wilmington, American trenches in Marshalltown, the British encampment of Mill Creek.. Home of Judy Johnson, birthplace of Nancy Willing….. so many possibilities….

Some of you may remember the piece I did last year covering this piece of local history, history that almost changed everything….(Refresher?.. it is here)… The reminisces of that event are to be bulldozed under by Pam Scott at the site called The Grange, where Nancy has kept us abreast of this travesty on the level equivalent to the Taliban’s destruction of 1000 year old Buddhas…What Pam Scott’s group plans to do there is just retchably sickening.

Likewise, what Mark Baker was planning to do to Sussex County, was just as retchably sickening… Thank heavens Joan Deaver won with a field goal. Equally disturbing… is that which Rich Collins hopes to do to Kent County…. Fortunately, again, the Levy Court has kicked in his teeth… As long as evil in the form of greed lies unchecked, those parts of Delaware that have survived in part to development passing us by, are in severe danger of being destroyed… Developers have no qualms of torching national treasures, as was done to the historic and magnificent Booth House, just so the Capano White Oak Group could build 10 more units of “affordable housing”..

There is so much that Delaware has to offer, and many Delawareans themselves are unaware of just how magnificently special this region is… We can fight little battles each time a Paul Clark-Pam Scott connected developer wants to build…. or we can fight one big battle in the national limelight….bring in national publicity, national donations, and preserve the traces of liberty that have languished here unnoticed for so long…

That is just a brief window into why bringing a National Park to Delaware should be a priority this decade. You know, if just one tenth of New York or DC visited us over the next fifty years….. it would pay for itself in tourist dollars….

Battles

Off the top of my head, the following are a synopsis of battles being waged over the election districts of Delaware…

Property Rights:

Do developers have more of a right to your property than you do?

Do property owners have any right to control what happens in their neighborhood, especially alongside their parcels of land, if it directly impacts those very parcels?

Do manufactured housing owners have any rights to the rented property under which they built?

Open Government

Should caucuses and every meeting be open to the public?

Should all expenses be posted on line?

Should all budget and bond bills have 3 days scrutiny before being voted upon by the entire legislature?

State Budget:

Can we possibly cut spending any more, or are we finally forced to raise taxes this session?

Should the State augment local school spending to bring teaching up to standard?

Do we need to spend for more auditors?

How can we do what we do …. cheaper?

Education

Should we continue with Charter Schools?

Should we eliminate the DSEA or whittle down their influence, as voice by Copeland and Lee?

Should Wilmington become it’s own school district, and busing inner city kids out to the suburbs be eliminated?

Environment:

Should we hold those accountable who did not support the Bluewater Wind deal, and who threw up roadblocks at every attempt made to force our electric bills to go down?

Should we do better at holding large corporations accountable to environmental regulations, at the risk of losing jobs to another state which is less stringent?

Should we legislate environmental laws tougher, or more lenient due to economic reasons”

Morality:

Should we reward someone with office, who 1) went to Seacrets, 2) included his legislative id with his driver’s license when pulled over, 3) drove 30 miles in Delaware while intoxicated (oh, he didn’t kill someone?), 4) cause his wife to call for back up in a domestic matter, 5) ask (threaten?) the babysitter not to tell a soul about what she had witnessed?

If he wins, can we still call Millsboro “God’s Country”, and can it still keep the insigna, In God We Trust, up on the corner bank?

Sussex in Trouble

Much hot air has been written on whether Atkins is making a comeback in Sussex County. I am somewhat shocked that there is anyone left to defend poor Atkins. After all he allegedly hit his wife.

What? He hit his wife? Perhaps to those who defend him, such actions are acceptable. Particularly the honorable Sen. Bunting and Sen. Hocker who seem more concerned with public manners than with the slime such manners cover up. (Al Mascitti: great line by the way.)

I may ride a high horse sometimes. But anyone,…… (WGMD, Sen. Bunting, or Sen. Hocker himself) who still wallows in their support of Atkins, is sending this signal that hitting one’s wife can be winked away and is therefore still an acceptable form of behavior. I find that repulsive. Of course none of these few would do the unthinkable in their own drunken stupor, but to accept it and justify it as a reasonable course of action, by supporting someone for public office who actually did so? C’mon! There is something seriously wrong in this state’s Southern half of the Republican party.

One cannot effectively vote for legislation affecting the 440,000 or so women in this state, and still feel strongly that any man is entitled to hit his wife whenever he drinks.

Dave Burris is absolutely dead-on-right about this one. The rest of the Republican Party (if they still have any moral decency), needs to line up solidly behind him or…….. form a new party.

Outside the Perimeter: Halloween Version

Courtesy of Department of Defense

Seems to be a quiet week in blogger land, at least in Delaware. Perhaps everyone is resting for the high intensity moments arriving exactly a week away, in the special election to fill the seat of Jim Vaughn. The wind controversy gears up tomorrow as well when the letters released today become public. (I had better hurry, it’s out now.)

Delaware Liberal: Although headaches are usually bad, it looks like one spared Jason from an even bigger headache caused by one snooze of a Jefferson-Jackson dinner. Bottom line: it does not look good for John Carney. His association with Minner is too hard to disconnect. Like a Siamese twin, he is attached at the hip. DWA and a comment provide more insight. But to stop a blogger from live blogging, now that IS bad……..
Sorry John.

However Joanne Christian, (Dave’s girl) politically speaking, actually spoke to Jason 330, a brave act for a Republican. I think it speaks highly of her character and courage that she did. I don’t think I would have the guts to do so; (especially if I had to wear a dress). Has Ennis sat down with Frank Knotts, in a dress? No?

Perhaps I was looking for more local opinions facing those living in that area, but Jason’s interview was a good start. Perhaps light can be shed on whether the interview was carefully screened by Dave while live, or screened by Jason during editing. For me it did not answer enough questions such as: How do you feel about Bluewater Wind’s proposal? How do you feel about funding SCHIPS to 300% poverty level. How do you feel about requiring the Bond Bill and Budget to be available for public scrutiny at least three days before it is voted upon? How do you feel about funding charter schools, or at least allowing them to borrow money to continue their existence? Do you think and would you support, keeping committees and caucuses open under FOIA and would you support Karen Peterson’s Bill as is, next year? Where do you draw the line between the rights of developers and the rights of current residents of a locality. Which of their sides will you favor?

Not to dis the interview. But with only a week away, these questions have not been answered, by EITHER CANDIDATE!!!!!!

Dana hints of this by calling Bruce Ennis on his “Tricky Dick” defense. Is it just me, or is Dana attempting subliminal electioneering. Tricky Dick…..B. Ennis……Tricky Dick ……B. Ennis….

What does that say about us as Delawareans? What does that say about us a bloggers? How dare we have the right to complain later once the election is over, when we can’t even get information out to voters to make even an educated guess as to how the candidate will vote next general assembly.

Perhaps there is no discussion because it is already common knowledge and I was out that day and missed it. If so, sorry. But from my searches, we have much more available to us today about the Millsboro election last spring. The really big question is: do voters have adequate access to facts to make informed choices?

No offense intended to fellow bloggers. Just addressing the fact that there is a 800 pound gorilla in the room.

Almost to prove the point, we had our own version of a early morning CBS/Bob Barker game show, titled ……”Who Stole The Sign ?…..” Again sign vandalism is important, only for the fact that it pushes real discussion off the front page…..

Bounce back: Delaware Liberal, at least it founder Jason 330, throws his support for Bruce Ennis here. This is the first informative piece of information on either candidate so far. Hat’s off for doing so. Bruce has a lot going in his favor. I just don’t know how he will vote on the issues I and my neighbors think are important. Has he, as of yet, distanced himself from Joe Hurley??? Inquiring minds want to know…….

Liberalgeek (Welcome Back: this time I know our side will win.) writes about Health Insurance invoking one of the greatest movies made during the Bush Administration’s tenure: The Incredibles. It is a must read as we consider how our Health Care should evolve after 08.

FSP surprised everyone by changing his banner. He says it was for fall, but speculation abounds that since Mitt Romney did not show up in a knit sweater at the top of his website, something else is afoot. Dave has allowed the speculation to continue by not reiterating his avid support for this year’s Bob Dylan candidate. Also at FSP, one of their crowd tries to mimic Dean, but instead creepily reminds one of the movie Deliverance.

A must read at FSP is this post by the other David, David Anderson which shows that cheap sources of energy and its environmental effects are far too serious of a solution, to be played with by wannabe career politicians…..As someone once said, based on the term paper given by Bluewater Wind, “For twenty five years, we will pay less for electric, than twenty states now…” When it comes to Delaware’s competitive economic future, a fixed cost for energy from wind, cheaper for twenty five years than twenty states offer now, would certainly not hurt…..I wish that in 1982, during Reagan’s first term off-election year, someone had the foresight to lock US into a price of gasoline that was cheaper than twenty states paid then……I believe it was somewhere around $1.30? Hat’s off to David. (Proves what I have always said: being wrong on tax policy does not make you wrong on everything.)

DWA has this important Public Service announcement. I wish I could provide the irritating Comcast siren sound as it does for weather watches, but I was unable to keep the link formated from going 401. Consider yourself spared.( It was pretty cool while it lasted, if your geek age was 6 or under). His distinctive glasses……that should give him away. We’ve never seen him in contacts…..

Cathcart is in a tizzy over missing another Public Service Announcement. Actually the comments here are insightful, should you be somewhat historical and interested in the Atkins Affair.

DWA also provides significant background on what will become a big story now that the PSC has changed tack on the Wind Farm, and that is the influence of one shadowy Joe Hurley. His play-book was leaked on line here.…..

Dana provides his take on Bidens comments. But as Loudell comments, the timing was all wrong………Dana however goes mainstream this week, landing a televised appearance on WHYY. It is about time they put some “learned” people on some of their panels. If WHYY keeps continuing to use bloggers, I may watch more often. Prior to this, their panels supported the Incumbent Party of Delaware.

Kilroy takes an educational piece of legislation in New Jersey, and turns it into a damning indictment of educating by rules. When will they realize student learn by teaching? He also shows us a seagull just before it gets killed by an offshore wind farm….

Jerry shows us that all the news about the Bush Administration is NOT bad. Painstakingly he has done the opposite of what critics accuse the MSM of doing: showing only the dark side…….

Nancy continues to focus on Delaware’s local politics. Working stories in both MOT and Sussex County, she has two controversies that have one thing in common: DELDOT. FSP tries to pin the latter on Minner. Why do they blame men and not nature when Democrats are involved, and then turn around and blame Nature when republicans are involved?

As if to prove a point I made earlier today, the the Main Stream Media is alienating itself from both the right and left at the same time, The Colossus of Rhody does his take on how the media is favoring Democrats. But try finding anything negative about Cheney, even read glowing reports excusing his shooting someone full of bird shot…..It’s republican control, I tell you……

For fans of his global warming posts he has this take. He also noticed as did I back in September while looking for one Israeli airbase, that using Google Earth to target missiles into Israel would be a bad idea. It appears it may also be a bad idea to go door to door this Halloween should you happen to live in an area where they kill people.

Most importantly to fellow bloggers as well as any new entrant into our small world, is

Your [un]abashedly thorough guide to the Delaware blogosphere!

Where do you stand? I have to agree with his perceptions and good taste, (example: Dave Burris is the right’s answer to Dana Garrett and Mike Matthews) except to note he definitely overrates this humble blog

That is probably the best news on our local scene. There are some things that should not be missed. Laugh now, for next week between wind and an election, we will all be very serious indeed….Matt Marshall at the Soapbox found something that at least describes me, and may apply to some of you as well. Duffy has some profound items here at Pencader Days. Bingo anyone?. The Fantastic Forefathers almost fill in for Hube’s lack of Marvel cartoon commentary…….

Update: And I almost missed it in my hurry to revisit the formula I footage I previewed last week. But my vote for the best post this week goes here, and if there was anyone who drives blogger’s ire more then Minner, then it may be this local hero. There are a lot of funnies on Delaware’s blog scene, but Duffy had me rolling on the floor. (Warning: appreciation of fine writing, with special expertise in sarcasm, required for first time viewing.)

Mikes Musings left his usual laid back comfortable mood on all who dropped in this week. As Delaware’s photographer laureate, at least in volume, we understand how special this state is, or was before the wind blew…..

Shirley, our cantankerous Curmudgeon, leads with Ron Paul’s assessment of our future relations with Cuba. As usual, he makes more sense than the usual prattle echoing off the walls of congressional committee walls. Again like Dorothy in Jerry McGuire, he has me here: “It’s time to stop talking solely in terms of what’s best for the Cuban people. How about the wishes of the American people, who are consistently in favor of diplomacy with Cuba ?” She follows with three more Ron Paul articles, then does a dust up of FSP, which may not get the coverage it deserves….especially this line which if I were not genetically programed to cause salacious trouble, I would leave unpublished……(I can’t help it….The Rockies lost…and it’s Mischief Night!!! ) The line was this: “Now, I don’t know FSP, but this reply sort of sounded like this to me: “Now, now there honey, don’t worry your purty little head about setch and setch. Leave it to the menfolk, darlin’, and grab me a beer. “

Poor Dave. He’s done it now…… But nothing defeats a hearty laugh like bad economic news. And sometimes enjoying the fruits of life requires a momentary lapse of facing reality. Alan Coffey uses the Digital Federalist to profile an article that should give every American pause, if they can pull themselves away from “Dancing With the Stars” long enough. Tough times, are coming. Many will not pay their mortgages. Such sullen news brings the phrase: “There, but for God, go I.”
What is interesting to the local scene, is that the company profiled in the article, Goldman Sachs, tends to be the consulting firm whenever one considers privatizing Delaware’s or any other state’s toll roads…….scary……….

And since tomorrow is Halloween I must, in deference to Jason330, end with something scary…After all, it is Halloween. As I struggled to figure out what was the scariest scenario with which I could close this post, I had to choose between Freddy Kruger, The Scream, Ghosts, Skeletons, Jabba the Hut, it was a complicated choice, involving the search of many images. And after much thought, and frightful consideration, I finally settled on this, which at least for Delawareans, would be the scariest thing possible……Happy Halloween…..

Ok, So What’s This New Deal About Wind?

Last February, as the wind movement was picking up steam, Charlie Copeland made a strange statement supporting Delmarva power. Due to the public outcry at the time, he pulled back into his shell, and has been curled up there until now.

Sensing that it again was safe to stick his head out, he and a group of fellow legislators often seen with ring-in-nose tied to Delmarva’s Gary Stockbridge, have again tried to disrupt Delaware’s quest for energy independence. In a letter to Russel Larson, who serves as comptroller general, Copeland tries to intimidate with the following words. Pay attention to the tone:

that before you cast a final vote binding the GENERAL ASSEMBLY, you are obligated to return to the GENERAL ASSEMBLY for instructions as to how the GENERAL ASSEMBLY wishes to vote on the matter in question.

Sounds reasonable, so let is see what the law says, you know, House Bill No. 6, that I believe has Harris McDowell’s name on the sponsor list…..Fancy that.

So what exactly did the General Assembly pass into law that fateful day when they voted for House Bill No. 6 and started us down the hopeful path to a Blue Water Wind Farm off Rehoboth Beach?

Here is a copy for those purists who enjoy following along.

In my search I found absolutely no explicit instructions resembling those mentioned in the letter. In fact, the letter itself may be illegal because in itself, it violates the spirit of the law that was passed by a majority of the General Assembly. I certainly do not expect bumbling legislators to be held accountable for trying various options, (that is often what we ask them to do), but should they continue to attempt work against letter of the law, there is excellent ground for those forces supporting Blue Water Wind, to file a lawsuit restraining those perpetrators from doing so.

The law is clear. All power was given to the Public Service Commission to make the necessary actions. The General Assembly, almost acted as if it did not trust its own various elements of its own body, once the process was begun. The General Assembly passed the bill, and then washed its hands right afterwards. From the language of the Bill, it is quite clear that there was to be no wiggle room for lobbyists, at some future date, to change at whim this bill, once it had passed both houses and been signed into law by the governor…..

In Section 6, we see this:

(b) Subject to the approval of the Commission, the Standard Offer Service Provider to meet its electric supply requirements shall have the ability to:

“(1) enter into short- and long-term contracts for the procurement of power necessary to serve its customers; (2) own and operate facilities for the generation of electric power; (3) build generation and transmission facilities (subject to any other requirements in any other section of the Delaware Code regarding siting, etc.) (4) make investments in Demand-Side resources, and (5) take any other Commission-approved action to diversify their retail load. “

Obviously the same power that the commission holds over Delmarva in controlling its rates, also was intended to apply in the search for alternative sources of electrical generation.

Here is how one aspect of rate determination will be handled by the Public Service Commission:

“the Commission shall hold an evidentiary hearing on DP&L’s request and shall approve the request if the Commission finds that such action is in the public interest. If the Commission approves such a request, the Commission shall review all reasonable incurred costs of the contracts, facilities or programs in accordance with Chapter 1, Subchapter 3 of this Title. Costs from these projects which have been approved by the Commission shall be included in Standard Offer Service rates.”

So sets up this next statement. Obviously the crafters of the House Bill 6 and all those that enacted it into law, intended the Public Service Commission to independently search, find, explore, publicize, vet, and decide what was best for the citizens of Delaware. Here is the proof:

“3. The Commission shall have the authority to promulgate any rules and regulations it deems necessary to accomplish the development of IRPs by DP&L.

There is no mention anywhere that anyone is:

“obligated to return to the GENERAL ASSEMBLY for instructions as to how the GENERAL ASSEMBLY wishes to vote on the matter in question. ”

As we have seen, the above statement is in direct violation of the law passed in 2006. But if one probes hard and deep enough, he comes across this one line which mentions any reporting back to any government agency other than the Public Service Commission:

“Commencing in 2009, DP&L shall submit a report to the Commission, the Governor and the General Assembly detailing their progress in implementing their IRPs.”

There you have it. The only fingerhold within this bill that Copeland and Co. have a chance to disrupt the windfarm from going forward, says specifically, “IN 2009″ and ” D,P & L” (Delmarva) shall submit a report, letting them know how they are progressing, not Russell Larson.

The Delmarva posse has been exposed by the words of House Bill 6 itself. It is now clear to all that there is no legitimacy in the blatant attempt by a disfranchised minority leader to disrupt the natural trend of events, already set in motion by “the Commission“, which was, and still is solely responsible for finding, abetting, and approving Delaware’s future energy supply.

It would certainly be fitting if Delaware’s voters would remember in 2008 exactly who tried to set up Delmarva to rape them again a second time. If “politicians” are going to act “stupid”, they should be accountable to the price, right?

For the record:

Harris B. McDowell, III
State Senate, 1st District
Robert L. Venables
State Senate, 21st District
Charles L. Copeland
State Senate, 4th District
Gregory F. Lavelle
State Representative, 11th District
Gerald W. Hocker
State Representative, 38th District
Hazel D. Plant
State Representative, 2nd District

Obviously Delaware can do better.

WTF

photo by SUCHAT PEDERSON, News Journal

Can Someone Take Santorum to Guantanamo?

Possibility of another terrorist attack?

Unconfirmed talk is that international terrorist chatter is as high as it was in August of 01, just before the planes came………Definitely expect an attack within 90 days we are told. Code Red.

Wasn’t it a former Pennsylvanian senator named Santorum who said last week that what ultraconservatives needed to push their agenda forward is another terrorist attack like 9/11? What?

Isn’t that what Mitch McConnell is currently peddling around Congress, this heightened level of chatter? But who is the source? Silence…..Is there any independent confirmation? Silence…… The only answer the public hears is a rumble from the gut of Chertoff. ……..Feed me……

The fear every American has, is not from the random violence of a terrorist, who supposedly will fight the sharks and swim across the ocean to get here, but of our own self-appointed president, declaring martial law, stripping us of our rights, in order to stay in power forever. What better method than to use a massive terrorist attack to push ones agenda…… It worked the last time, right?

This time I am not so sure it would work. If one has an employee who makes the same mistake twice, big time, one fires his ass. A terrorist attack is definitely big time. And whose ass did we entrust the last time to make us safe? And now miraculously those same people are telling us that Al Qaeda is as stronger than it was in the summer of 01?

That doesn’t make me scared. It really pisses me off!  How on earth can the greatest country in the world, be completely powerless to contain Robin Hood and his band of merry men, climbing over moon rocks while carrying a kidney machine? Bottom line is that they can’t…. unless not finding him is being done on purpose.

“What is most troubling is that no one in a position of authority is trying to get to the bottom of this.

If GOP leaders like Dennis Milligan (R-Ark) and former Senator Rick Santorum (R-Pa) possess information that could protect the American people from another terrorist attack, the CIA should interrogate them using the techniques our Vice President has approved,” Fetzer observed. “Let’s water-board them and subject them to sexual humiliation. After all, that’s what we are doing to prevent attacks abroad. Why aren’t they being used here? Chertoff appears to be making no effort to get to the bottom of this. Bush can’t claim to be ‘the security president’ if he won’t keep us secure.”How much money have we sunk into Iraq, where according to every nation’s intelligence agencies, there were NO terrorists before we started. How many bridges could we have inspected and repaired in this country if we had used that money less foolishly?……..

If we have an administration that allows us another terrorist attack, this time killing between 30,000 and 300,000, we need to impeach that administration; not give them more power. What the hell have we been spending our children’s money on? and they are telling me that terror is worse now?…. than it was before 9/11?

And they want us to trust who? Should another attack occur, an attack more viscous than 9/11, the ugly truth is that such an attack could only occur because one man fell asleep at the wheel: George W Bush. America will be furious. They will not reward him with powers of tyranny, they will impeach!

Cheney’s diversion in Iraq provided a lull in the war on terrorism. Had we finished Afghanistan first, maybe made a couple or secret raids across the border into Pakistan, there would be no Al Qaeda. But no, we are now being warned of an eminent attack………..

If the unthinkable occurs and we are attacked, America must get it’s own house in order first before striking back. America must replace its 2 leaders with ones who are competent,… so that when our time comes to return the favor to Al Qaeda………we won’t make the same mistake twice………..

Bush can’t claim to be ‘the security president’ if he won’t keep us secure

Cheney determined to strike in US with WMD

The greatest threat now is “a 9/11 occurring with a group of (neocon supported) terrorists armed not with airline tickets and box cutters, but with a nuclear weapon in the middle of one of our own cities.” –Dick Cheney on Face the Nation, CBS, April 15, 2007

I was planning on doing something like this on August 6, the anniversary date of the now famous memo. But whereas mine would have poked fun at, and needled the administration, this guest is dead serious. I never have said this before (I think) but this post is a must read. It may be far fetched and never materialize, but on August 6, 2001 most of us would have laughed out loud if we were told not to climb the Twin Towers 26 days later. But like any threat, from the Russians, Cubans , Chinese, or even the Canadians, it COULD happen ………And because it could happen, all efforts need be employed to insure that it NEVER happen.

Warning: it is comprehensive and long, and makes a great deal of sense.

The greatest threat now is “a 9/11 occurring with a group of terrorists armed not with airline tickets and box cutters, but with a nuclear weapon in the middle of one of our own cities.” –Dick Cheney on Face the Nation, CBS, April 15, 2007

Cheney determined to strike in US with WMD this summer; only impeachment and removal, or a general strike, can stop him
By Webster G. Tarpley
Online Journal Contributing Writer

A few days ago, a group of lawyers from western Massachusetts met with the local congressman, Democrat John Olver. Their request was that Olver take part in the urgent effort to impeach Bush and Cheney. Olver responded by saying that he had no intention of doing anything to support impeachment. He went further, offering the information that the United States would soon attack Iran, and that these hostilities would be followed by the imposition of a martial law regime here.

According to reports in the British press, the Cheney war party has gained the upper hand in the secret councils of the Bush White House, pushing aside the purported hesitations of Miss Rice, Secretary Gates, and the NATO allies to chart a direct course towards war with Iran:

‘The balance in the internal White House debate over Iran has shifted back in favour of military action before President George Bush leaves office in 18 months, the Guardian has learned. The shift follows an internal review involving the White House, the Pentagon and the state department over the last month. Although the Bush administration is in deep trouble over Iraq, it remains focused on Iran. A well-placed source in Washington said: “Bush is not going to leave office with Iran still in limbo.” . . . at a meeting of the White House, Pentagon and state department last month, Mr Cheney expressed frustration at the lack of progress and Mr Bush sided with him. “The balance has tilted. There is cause for concern,” the source said this week. . . .”Cheney has limited capital left, but if he wanted to use all his capital on this one issue, he could still have an impact,” said Patrick Cronin, the director of studies at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.’ (“Cheney pushes Bush to act on Iran; Military solution back in favour as Rice loses out; President ‘not prepared to leave conflict unresolved’,” Guardian, July 16, 2007.)

Deluded supporters of the Democratic Party may soon have to throw away their pathetic countdown clocks, those self-consoling little devices that remind them of how much time remains until noon on January 20, 2009, the moment when it is thought that Bush will finally leave office. These countdown clocks make no provision for the Cheney doctrine, which calls for a new super 9/11 with weapons of mass destruction in the US, to be used as the pretext for a nuclear attack on Iran and for martial law at home. Those who think the Republicans cannot hold the White House in 2008 have forgotten that neocons always prefer a coup d’etat to an election. As Cheney told Bob Schieffer of CBS’s Face the Nation on April 15, 2007: ‘The greatest threat now is “a 9/11 occurring with a group of terrorists armed not with airline tickets and box cutters, but with a nuclear weapon in the middle of one of our own cities.”’

Pelosi and Reid need to toss out their fatuous countdown clocks, and get out their impeachment stopwatches — fast.

Chertoff’s gut feeling for terrorism

Integral to the Cheney strategy has always been to orchestrate a climate of public terror. As Cheney told WLS in Chicago on Friday April 13: “It’s important that people remember 9/11.”

Nine-eleven remains the basis of every one of Cheney’s intrigues. One of Cheney’s terror facilitators in this sense is Michael Chertoff, the cadaverous secretary of Homeland Security. Although an experienced bureaucrat, Chertoff is now contemplating his navel as he searches for new ways to intimidate the American people, who have essentially no natural enemies at all, into the hallucination that they face an acute existential threat of being wiped out from one moment to the next. Chertoff told the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune — once the voice of isolationism — that the US faces an increased danger of attack in the summer of 2007. This wild fabrication, not based on any specific information of any kind that he could cite, Chertoff called his “gut feeling . . . the nation faces a heightened chance of an attack this summer.” “I believe we are entering a period this summer of increased risk,” said Chertoff. “Summertime seems to be appealing to them. . . . We worry that they are rebuilding their activities.”

The desperate demagogues of the Republican Party are facing a hecatomb at the polls in November 2008. Their idea seems to be that of the fascist Prime Minister Aznar of Spain in March 2004: if you are sure to lose an election, stage a terror attack, declare martial law, and perpetuate your power that way. Aznar was stopped by a general strike of about one third of the entire Spanish people. If all else fails, would Americans be capable of a mass strike against war and dictatorship? We may soon find out.

Chertoff’s troubled gut has already given rise to a White House interagency group of top intelligence and law enforcement functionaries that meets every Friday afternoon at 1 p.m. Will this committee run the coup? Reports followed of dozens of FBI agents fanning out to pursue a “worry list” of some 700 alleged leads, including 100 in the New York area. Some of these derived from the recent British terror stunts in London and Glasgow used by MI-5 and MI-6 to smooth the transition from the Tony Blair quasi-police state to the Gordon Brown version of the same thing.

MI-5 and MI-6 displayed the same mixture of comic ineptitude and phlegmatic homicide which was their hallmark during the long years when London was the prey of bombs by the “Irish Republican Army,” now revealed to have been top-heavy with government intelligence agents who called the shots. The Glasgow airport event consisted of a burning car crashed into a building, the films of which were shown all afternoon the by the US cable news networks. One was tempted to propose a caption: “Only one burning car — a good day on the Cross-Bronx Expressway.” Yet for one burning car, the world was supposed to stop. These British events had been preceded by several weeks of hysteria about allegedly looming terror attacks against US installations in the Rhein-Main area of Germany, featuring the Wiesbaden spa, all based on CIA claims made to the government in Berlin and relentlessly trumpeted through the controlled media.

A new 9/11 the key to bolstering Western resolve

Chertoff’s rationale was illuminated by an interview with Lt. Colonel Doug Delaney, the chair of the war studies program at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, a NATO intelligence center. Delaney was addressing the problems raised by the rising Canadian losses in Afghanistan, but he provided a valuable window into the minds of military planners when he observed, in the words of the interviewer: “It may well be that the key to bolstering Western resolve is another terrorist attack like 9/11 or the London transit bombings of two years ago, he says. If nothing happens, it will be harder still to say this [Canadian meddling in Afghanistan] is necessary.” In other words, it may be time for a new false flag synthetic terror operation to gin up hysteria in North America to permit the present bankrupt elites to retain power and further grind down any spirit of popular resistance to such irrational rule. Chertoff’s fear-mongering was backed up by ousted Republican senator and notorious scoundrel Rick Santorum, who told a radio interviewer that “between now and November, a lot of things are going to happen, and I believe that by this time next year, the American public is going to have a very different view of this war.” Chertoff’s reckless and inflammatory ventriloquism was the harbinger of the new US National Intelligence Estimate issued on July 17.

The Booz Allen National Intelligence Estimate: “Al Qaeda” Threat to USA Looms

This pitiful NIE ranks with the lying NIEs issued before the attack on Iraq in 2003 as a tissue of lies and prevarications. The main thesis is that al Qaeda branches around the world are striving to infiltrate more operatives into the US for terror attacks on the US “homeland:” “Although we have discovered only a handful of individuals in the United States with ties to al Qaeda senior leadership since 9/11, we judge that al Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put operatives here,” opines the declassified summary of the underlying secret screed. “As a result, we judge that the United States currently is in a heightened threat environment.” (cnn.com, July 17)

The new faked NIE has been produced under the supervision of Admiral Michael McConnell, the current US intelligence czar, whose credentials include 10 years at Booz Allen Hamilton, the premier private military firm. Some analysts have asked what was going on at Booz Allen on September 11, 2001, and in the days leading up to that event, and what McConnell personally might have been working on. Back on January 7, 2007, Raw Story had portrayed the newly-nominated McConnell as a Cheney asset, and quoted CIA old boy Vince Cannistraro calling the McConnell nomination “a disaster.” In the same article, CIA vet Larry Johnson predicted that McConnell, a weak manager, would cave in to Bush-Cheney on key issues. The fabrications of the new NIE have been assisted by Cheney’s office, by convicted Iran-contra felon Elliot Abrams (now a dominant personality inside the Bush White House), by Abrams’ military aide Gen. Kevin Bergner, and by other neocon assets.

Intelligence community veteran Philip Giraldi of the CIA has dismissed the new NIE with its talk of “high impact plots” against the US as “a tour de force of misinformation disguised as fact.” Giraldi also noted: “It is possibly no coincidence that there has been a significant increase in the anti-Iran rhetoric emanating from both the Bush administration and Congress over the past few weeks, mostly seeking to establish a casus belli by contending that Iran is masterminding lethal attacks against US troops in Iran and NATO forces in Afghanistan.” (antiwar.com, July 17)

Cheney’s Persian adventure

A nuclear attack on Iran remains the central obsession of the George Shultz-Rupert Murdoch-Cheney faction. On July 10, the Pentagon announced that it would be sending another aircraft carrier battle group, this time that of the USS Enterprise, to the waters off Iran. This means that whenever that carrier joins the two already there, three US attack carriers will be within striking range of Iranian targets. The Pentagon followed up shortly thereafter with another statement, assuring the world that soon only one carrier would patrol off Iran. But that was only a dubious promise, and in the meantime the three carriers would shortly be ready to attack.

On July 10, the Washington Post and Reuters stoked international hysteria with reports that mysterious and sinister tunnels were being built by the Iranian authorities near one of the suspected nuclear facilities of Natanz. These reports were accompanied by aerial photographs and satellite imaging that has been gussied up with labels to make them look as much as possible like the famous U-2 photographs of Soviet medium-range missiles in Cuba back in October 1962. The claim was that the supposed tunnel “could be used to hide and protect key nuclear components.” The implication was that the Iranian atomic bomb could not be far off, a notion for which there is no proof.

In the late winter, Pelosi, House Majority Leader Stenny Hoyer and Reid had bowed to the demands of AIPAC, the subversive pro-Israeli lobbying organization whose employees have been implicated in espionage, and removed from the defense bill a provision warning Bush that he was required to consult Congress before attacking Iran. A similar provision pushed for awhile by Senator Webb of Virginia has also disappeared from view. As for the Republican presidential candidates, on June 7 they — with the solitary exception of maverick Ron Paul — outbid one another in enthusiasm for a nuclear attack on Iran. These ultra-Hitlerian outbursts occurred in response to manipulation by Wolf Blitzer, an obvious asset of the war party. For the good of the American people, the warmonger GOP candidates, along with Blitzer, should have been hauled away at once in a net by burly orderlies in white coats.

Cheney’s breakaway ally charade

A key component of Cheney’s argument is that Israel may soon strike unilaterally against Iran with a sneak attack deploying nuclear weapons, breaking the post-1945 taboo on atomic bombs. This would represent the old “breakaway ally” scenario, by which Israel presents the US with such an attack as a fait accompli, and then expects Washington to enter the war on the side of the Israeli aggressors. Cheney’s talking point is that the US must be ready to strike because the Israelis are going to act on their own anyway. The lying nature of Cheney’s line is shown by Bush’s remark to Chirac at the St. Petersburg G-8 summit in July 2006, when Bush was adamant that the Israeli aggression against Lebanon then ongoing was not an Israeli-conceived war, but rather a US war which had been assigned to Israel as a proxy and surrogate for the US. According to Will Thomas, a dress rehearsal for the breakaway ally charade occurred on January 7, 2007, when Israeli warplanes flew over Iraq and manifested the intention to “go downtown” — meaning an apparent nuclear strike into Iran. At some point the Israelis were allegedly told by the US to go back, and they desisted from the attempt. This reported incident came shortly before the US raided the Iranian consulate in Irbil in northern Iraq, illegally arresting Iranian diplomats. Around the same time, reports that an Iranian missile had hit a US ship caused a stir on Wall Street, while Iran reported shooting down another US drone over its territory. (infowars.com, willthomas.net)

The Israeli war party is represented first of all by Avigdor Lieberman, the Minister of Strategic Threats who is himself a strategic threat. On Friday July 13, a day of ill omen, Lieberman boasted before a group of NATO and European Union officials that Israel had received a green light from the U.S. and Europe for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “If we start military operations against Iran alone, then Europe and the U.S. will support us,” said Lieberman. According to Israel Today magazine, Lieberman argued that ongoing hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan are “going to prevent the leaders of countries in Europe and America from deciding on the use of force to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities,” so they are telling Israel to “prevent the threat herself.”

Another Israeli incendiary is Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser, the former head of the Research Division of Israeli Military Intelligence. On July 10, Kuperwasser told the Jerusalem Post that economic sanctions alone will not stop Iran, and that the window of opportunity to launch a military strike against Iran’s nuclear installations was running out. Kuperwasser claimed that Iran is “very close” to the technological threshold for enriching uranium at an industrial level. The Iranians will then be able to manufacture a nuclear device within two to three years, according to Kuperwasser. “The program’s vulnerability to a military operation is diminishing as time passes,” Kuperwasser said, “and they are very close to the point that they will be able to enrich uranium at an industrial level.”

El Baradei warns against neocon “new crazies”

This kind of thinking in the US, UK, and Israel was what Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had in mind when he issued his famous June 2, 2007, warning about a coming attack on Iran: “I wake every morning and see 100 Iraqis innocent civilians are dying . . . I have no brief other than to make sure we don’t go into another war or that we go crazy into killing each other. You do not want to give additional argument to new crazies who say ‘let’s go and bomb Iran.’ ” And who are the “new crazies”? “Those who have extreme views and say the only solution is to impose your will by force.” It is not possible to “bomb knowledge.”

A grave doubt casts its shadow over any scenario of US nuclear attack on Iran: as William Thomas reported last February, the fuses of cheap Chinese silicon chips now being used by the US military in ships, tanks, planes, and other applications may be too weak to resist the high levels of electromagnetic pulse (emp) which would be unleashed by a nuclear bombardment of the Iranian nuclear sites. The outsourced chips, coherent with the Rumsfeld “war on the cheap” strategy, could cripple a large proportion of the US Central Command’s military hardware, with disruptive effects that would reach back to the command’s Florida headquarters and possibly to the Pentagon. (rense.com, February 21, 2007, and willthomas.net) If these report are correct, US nuclear bombers might crash, the the carriers that launched them might suddenly find themselves dead in the water, quite independent of what the Iranians might do.

Cheney’s Lebanon-Syria gambit

In addition to the hypothesis of an attack on Iran, there is also the immediate threat to Iran’s ally, Syria. According to a UPI dispatch dated July 9 under the byline of Claude Salhani, numerous signs currently point towards hostilities between Israel and the Damascus government, with a renewed Israeli attack on Lebanon a likely element in this strategy. According to former State Department official Dennis Ross, “there is a risk of war” between Syria and Israel in the summer. Ross told YnetNews, Yedioth Ahronoth’s Internet edition: “no one has made any decisions, but the Syrians are positioning themselves for war.” The neocon exoteric New York Sun claimed to cite a supposed Syrian official saying that by allegedly pulling Syrian nationals out of Lebanon by mid-July, “Damascus is preparing for Israeli retaliation following Syrian guerilla attacks and for a larger war with the Jewish state in August or September.” “If Israel doesn’t vacate the strategic Golan Heights before September, Syrian guerillas will immediately launch ‘resistance operations’ against the Golan’s Jewish communities,” the alleged Syrian added. These remarks reflect scenarios being developed by the Israelis.

But the Masada party of national suicide is not the only game in town for Israelis. On July 11, an anonymous leaker from inside Israeli Military Intelligence warned his associates to remember their ignominious defeat at the hands of Hezbollah in last summer’s war. According to this source, “war with Syria would be 10 times worse than with Hezbollah.”

The attack on Pakistan: midsummer of neocon madness

Cheney also has the option of attacking Pakistan. Cheney had visited Pakistan at the end of February with an obvious ultimatum to General Musharraf to get ready to mount a land war against Iran this summer. Equally and immediately obvious was the fact that Musharraf, who considers himself the heir to the great Mustafa Kemal Ataturk of Turkey, had told the vice president to go Cheney himself.

With Pakistan refusing to attack its neighbor, Cheney suddenly discovered that Osama bin Laden was being protected by Musharraf! The US-UK destabilization of Pakistan began in grand style, with the New York Times helpfully publishing lists of generals whom Washington would be delighted to see take power in a putsch in Islamabad. Pawns of the destabilization included the Chief Justice of Pakistan, reputed to be a British agent, and riots by lawyers in business suits. Then came the slaughter at the Red Mosque, staged by the usual CIA/MI-6 fundamentalists. Pakistan, under tremendous pressure from the US, has announced a military crackdown on so-called Taliban forces in the northern tribal areas of Waziristan, an enterprise sure to stir up a hornet’s nest of resistance even if none had been there before.

The neocons demanded that the US invade Pakistan, under the pretext of looking for Osama bin Laden. On July 12, neocon fascist madman William Kristol told Fox News: “I think the president’s going to have to take military action there over the next few weeks or months. . . . Bush has to disrupt that sanctuary. I think, frankly, we won’t even tell Musharraf. We’ll do what we have to do in Western Pakistan and Musharraf can say, ‘Hey, they didn’t tell me.'”

Ironically, bin Laden’s second in command, reputed MI-6 speaking tube Ayman al Zawahiri, at around the same time issued a fatwa declaring jihad against Musharraf’s Pakistani regime. If Musharraf were haboring Osama, why would al Qaeda declare war against Musharraf? The answer is what it has always been: “al Qaeda” is a troupe of agents provocateur founded by the CIA and the British, and remains so until this day. As for the neocon plan to attack Pakistan, it is the very midsummer of madness: if Iran has three times the population of Iraq, Pakistan with 164 million is more than five times more numerous than Iraq. If the neocon plans succeed, the US would soon be at war with almost 300 million people — far too many for the hollow US force of 10 divisions, whatever technology they might possess.

Warnings: Ron Paul, Paul Craig Roberts, Cindy Sheehan, Pat Buchanan

Among other authoritative voices across the political spectrum warning of an imminent Bush-Cheney attack on Iran:

Republican Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul commented to Alex Jones: “I think we’re in great danger of it. We’re in danger in many ways, the attack on our civil liberties here at home, the foreign policy that’s in shambles and our obligations overseas and commitment which endangers our troops and our national defense.”

Paul Craig Roberts, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration, wrote in his latest column: “Unless Congress immediately impeaches Bush and Cheney, a year from now the US could be a dictatorial police state at war with Iran. Bush has put in place all the necessary measures for dictatorship in the form of ‘executive orders’ that are triggered whenever Bush declares a national emergency. Recent statements by Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff, former Republican senator Rick Santorum and others suggest that Americans might expect a series of staged, or false flag, ‘terrorist’ events in the near future.” (Paul Craig Roberts, “Impeach Bush And Cheney now,” Online Journal, July 17, 2007)

In a July 19 interview with Thomm Hartmann of Air America, Roberts cited Bush’s July 17 executive order, which allows the US regime to seize the property of anyone found to be interfering with the reconstruction of Iraq. This radio warning was reported by the RIA-Novosti news agency of Moscow in numerous languages. The Moscow summary, dated July 20, begins: “A former Reagan official has issued a public warning that the Bush administration is preparing to orchestrate a staged terrorist attack in the United States, transform the country into a dictatorship, and launch a war with Iran within a year.”

Pat Buchanan is convinced that the danger of a new war provocation by Bush-Cheney will come in August, when the Democratic Congress will conveniently be out of Washington and on vacation. Buchanan asks important questions:

Is the United States provoking war with Iran, to begin while the Congress is conveniently on its August recess? One recalls that it was in August 1964, after the Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater, that the Tonkin Gulf incident occurred.

Has Bush secretly authorized covert attacks inside Iran? Are U.S. and Israeli agents in Kurdistan behind the attacks across the border to provoke Iran? On July 11, Iranian troops clashed with Kurd rebels inside Iran, and the Iranians fired artillery back into Iraq.

Is this yet another abdication by Congress of its moral and constitutional duty to decide when and whether America goes to war?

Why is Congress going on vacation? Why are a Democratic-controlled House and Senate not asking these questions in public hearings? Why is Congress letting Bush and Vice President Cheney decide whether we launch a third war in the Middle East? Or is Congress in on it?” (“Tonkin Gulf II and the Guns of August?,” World Net Daily, July 17, 2007)

Based on the John Oliver remarks, the Democrats are in on it. As for Buchanan, he should say these things on MSNBC.

Also warning of new war provocations was Cindy Sheehan, who was traveling towards Washington, DC, to declare her challenge to failed House Speaker Pelosi. She commented that there was a “distinct possibility” that America will be hit with another staged terror attack that will allow Bush to enact the martial law provisions he recently imposed by executive order. These measures allow Bush to declare a domestic state of emergency in response to virtually any minor incident anywhere in the world. (Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet, July 12, 2007, “Sheehan: Distinct Chance Of Staged Attack, Martial Law; Peace Mom warns of false flag terror as she prepares to take on sell-out Pelosi.”)

Bush antics stun Republicans from the Hill

This past week, the tenant of the White House showed new signs of mental instability by barging in to a routine meeting between White House communication director Ed Gillespie, spokesman Tony Snow, and a group of Republican congressional leaders. Bush was there to insist that everybody stay the course in Iraq.

“It was stunning,” said one GOP aide who attended the meeting. “We couldn’t believe he came in.” “We kept looking at each other, amazed he came in,” said another Republican colleague. According to one press account, “Bush was described as folksy, adamant and mildly profane as he interrupted the meeting. . . . His message: the policy on Iraq isn’t changing. He is not backing down and no one on Capitol Hill should be confused into thinking he is letting up.”

A new threat to US policy comes from the formidable Turkish military establishment, which is sick and tired of constant cross-border attacks by PKK Kurdish terrorists operating from the Kurdish enclave in northern Iraq. The US, UK, and Israelis are using the PKK for terror operations into Kurdish territories of Iran. These PKK terrorists are paid and armed directly by the US military, bringing any notion of a US “war on terror” to a new nadir of absurdity. For some time, the Turks have been lobbing shells and making raids into Kurdish Iraq. One hundred thousand-forty Turkish troops are massed along the border in question, and if Turkish patience runs out, the Kurds will be crushed.

US-Iraq supply lines in grave danger

Washington still cultivates delusions of grandeur: the moment of truth for Iraq will be in mid-September, or perhaps in November or December. . . . But, as one British writer once put it, what if the bear blows first? What if US forces in Iraq experience catastrophic military defeat at some point in the future? What if it takes the form of pocketing or encirclement, the “Dunkirk if you’re lucky, Stalingrad if you’re not so lucky” outcome?

It is not clear whether or when Iraqi resistance forces will move decisively to attack the Achilles’ heel of the US occupation forces, the 400-mile truck convoys between Kuwait City and Baghdad, but the longer the US forces continue their present futile efforts, the more likely this tragic outcome will become. These are trucks driven by Pakistanis, Turks, Bangladeshis, and Filipinos, and protected by private military contractors — by poorly armed mercenaries. A recent report by Jim Michaels in USA Today indicates that the strategy most dangerous to the US forces is indeed gaining ground among the resistance: Michaels writes that “attacks on supply convoys protected by private security companies in Iraq have more than tripled as the U.S. government depends more on armed civilian guards to secure reconstruction and other missions. There were 869 such attacks from the beginning of June 2006 to the end of May this year. For the preceding 12 months, there were 281 attacks.” Of all the news coming out of Iraq, this is perhaps the most ominous. Any military debacle by the US forces in Iraq would be immediately blamed on Iran, and would infallibly be seized upon by Cheney as a pretext for massive retaliation against Iran.

Dollar hyperinflation a factor

An important contributing factor in the Cheneyac war hysteria is the beginning of dollar hyperinflation. Two Bear Sterns hedge funds have blown up, wiping out $9 billion of capital in a few days, and Helicopter Ben Bernanke of the Federal Reserve says that the subprime mortgage bubble meltdown will lead to $100 billion in losses by US banks, and this is clearly a lowball figure. Two analysts quoted by the Toronto Globe and Mail on July 19 suggest that the entire US banking establishment may now be looking at a 15 percent to 20 percent devaluation because of mortgage-related losses. Only frenetic pumping in of new dollar liquidity by Helicopter Ben and his men is staving off big bankruptcies, but this sloshing liquidity spells hyperinflation . The Dow has passed 14,000, but the dollar has also reached an all-time low of almost $1.40 to a euro, with a 26-year low against the British pound. With oil well above $75 and gold above $680 per ounce, while raw materials and food prices skyrocket, the US may soon resemble Germany of 1923, when people took their money to the grocery store in a wheelbarrow, and brought home their purchases in their pocket. Small wonder that the worldwide dumping of the bankrupt US dollar continues apace, with Iran now asking Japan to pay for oil transactions in yen, cutting Wall Street out of another lucrative commodity flow.

US situation tragic

These points bring into sharp relief the dire predicament of our tragically drifting country in the summer of 2007, a summer which Cheney’s backers and controllers are determined to transform into the Summer of Fear. Skeptics may object that they have heard all this before — in the spring and the autumn of 2004, in the late summer of 2005, and in March-April of 2007 — and that so far the general war with Iran had not occurred. This is true, but it is no argument against the urgency of the warnings that the present writer and others have issued from time to time over the last three years. It only shows that the world has been lurching and careening along the edge of a much wider war in the Middle East since about May of 2004 at the latest. For much of this time we have lived in the shadow of the Cheney doctrine, which calls for a nuclear attack on Iran in the wake of a new super 9/11 terrorist provocation (coming from the bowels of the US intelligence community) — as revealed by Philip Giraldi in The American Conservative in August of 2005. Each time some combination of internal US institutional resistance and inertia, objections by NATO allies, and foreign threats or pressure have somehow avoided the worst. So far we have muddled through. But Cheney’s backers and controllers — the ones designated as the Cheneyacs in this analysis — have unfailingly pulled themselves together after each rebuff, and have marshaled their forces for a new drive over the brink of the abyss.

As long as Bush and Cheney are in power, as long as the 9/11 rogue networks in the US intelligence community continue their work unpurged and undisturbed, we will face one war emergency after another, until the likely moment when humanity’s luck runs out. Under any political system committed to its own survival, each of the Cheneyac war drives over the past three years should have led to the impeachment, removal from office, and indictment of the dour and snarling old reprobate himself, and a general mop-up of his followers. It is the fact that the corrupt and cowardly parliamentary cretins of the Democratic Party have failed to impeach and oust Bush-Cheney over the last six months since they took power, which represents the most immediate cause of the fix we are now in. Congressman Kucinich has introduced the needed articles against Cheney, but the Pelosi-Reid opportunists have been hostile to this needed measure. It is time for honest activists to join with the Philadelphia Platform to get on with the business at hand before martial law is imposed by these neocon fascist madmen, since by then it may be too late.

Brzezinski: “A terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran”

The Democratic Party congressional leadership has known all about Cheney’s plans for six months or more, as can be shown from the public record. On February 1, 2007, Zbigniew Brzezinski warned the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of ongoing machinations designed to procure war with Iran and beyond: “A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks, followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran; culminating in a ‘defensive’ US action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.”

Over the past half year, events have followed Brzezinski’s scenario closely. Blaming Iran for the missed benchmarks in Iraq is now the daily stock in trade of the Bush administration and the US Central Command, who whine continuously about Iranian interference in Iraq. There have been several military provocations in Iraq which the US has tried to pin on Iran, most notably the March 23, 2007 incident involving 15 British Royal Navy and Royal Marines personnel who were taken into custody by the Iranians. This incident was a part of Cheney’s winter-spring war drive, which peaked with two US B-1 bombers deliberately violating Iranian airspace over the city of Abadan in oil-rich Khuzestan province on March 31. This crisis was defused by a mobilization of persons of good will around the world, with Russian President Putin and the RIA-Novosti news agency playing a critical role. In particular, a pointed March 28 warning from Putin to Bush about attacking Iran created enough uncertainty in Washington about how Moscow might respond to nuclear aggression against Iran so that cooler heads than Cheney’s prevailed.

Fight back with the Philadelphia Platform

That leaves us with Brzezinski’s third scenario point: a terrorist act in the US blamed on Iran. What Brzezinski is talking about here is high treason, insurrection , genocide, high crimes against humanity under US law and the Nuremberg Code. Why has he not been called upon to tell all he knows about this sinister plot, so obviously operating through the Cheney-Addington office, and through Eliot Abrams at the White House? Because the Democrats who heard that warning — Senators Biden, Dodd, and Obama on the committee, plus Hillary Clinton — have done nothing to raise a hue and cry, hold hearings, issue subpoenas, demand documents, or begin impeachment hearings against those involved. The Democratic Party must therefore be seen as fully complicit under the Nuremberg Code in any future crimes by Cheney regarding a wider war in the Middle East. The Democratic Party has failed, and the viable peace movement must now organize independently on a multi-issue basis including 9/11 truth, as called for in the July 4, 2007 Philadelphia Platform, which can be seen at actindependent.org.