The Fat Goose Is Getting Stuffed

The reason I began listening to local station WDEL, was because they dropped Rush Limbaugh from their afternoon programing. Instead of hate and stupidness, I got to hear of matters important to me. My county government. My city government. My state government. And of course, national politics always interjected.

I can’t get enough of it. I read the paper in the morning, and I can’t wait for the local talk shows to come on. The progressives own the morning. The conservatives own the afternoon, and I’m still trying to figure out who owns the evening…

It is kinda silly, I know, but because I listen and hear the advertisements, my kids sing their jingles in the car. Driving down Main Street in Newark, they’ll blurt out, “there’s Alex and Ani’s“. The older kids insist they want music on, but I’m the boss.

Some of the advertisers seem like old friends. One hears them over and over, and even can go back and note the different commercials back through time. Calvert Plumbing and Heating is one I hope to use next time fate strikes. The best one, besides the “Alex and Ani” with sitar music put in place by Rick Jensen, is the DelmarvaJobs.com featuring the harp player. I hope that gets nominated for CLIO, the advertiser’s equivalent of the Oscars….

And this should be in everyone’s Northern Delaware bookmarks. It is the tower cam. One rarely thinks of us being in eyesight of downtown Philadelphia, but we certainly are. One can tell the weather with one visual click.

Anyways, the point of this was not to brag on WDEL and extol how fortunate we were to have it at our disposal, but to point to the dark side, which is about that human being whose leaving is what drove me to begin listening to WDEL in the first place.

Rush Limbaugh is in trouble. For a while he was harmless harping at Democrats, and we all know, sometimes Democrats need harping at. But as his worth became higher, he had to push buttons to justify his high expense. His audience no longer consisted of regular Joe’s, but had to become fanatics who would listen and respond. And the biggest thing fanatics crave, is more fanaticism, and Rush obliged.

Now, he bashes the poor. Now he bashes every gay person. Now he bashes Liberals. And last March, he bashed a woman for simply being a woman.

That made people take notice. WHOA, this guy is an ass…… Seriously, when you demean 53% of the population (women), knowing that at least half the men are married and will dutifully side with their spouses (YOU’D BETTER!)….. ticking off 75% of the American population, can’t be good for business.

That is bearing fruit.

Arising from that, several organizations are targeting his advertisers. This is not a hate campaign. It is a calm, respectable, and very businesslike campaign. They are calling up advertisers and saying …”yesterday your ad played on this station at this time, and this is what went before and after it… Advertisers were appalled…. Most of them do not support Rush Limbaugh, but buy ads with a local radio station…. The radio station then puts their ads in holes where ever they need them… Radio stations that carry Rush Limbaugh are bound by contract to still do so, and are having a terrible time scheduling just those advertisers who … so far… have not expressly said…” Make sure we aren’t on Rush.”

2200 sponsors have pulled their ads so far. At first these were mentioned but Rush supporters attacked these businesses with threats of shooting them with NRA sanctioned assault weapons (they were idle threats, no events occurred) that now, the names are kept hidden. But anyone listening over time, can certainly, after hearing only one advertisement on his program get played over and over, realize his brand is in deep trouble.

The show is doing so badly that Freedom Works, the Karl Rove PAC that garnered $300 million dollars, is using their money just to keep Rush on the air…

So in what seems like an outrageous chain of events, the only reason Rush Limbaugh is still on air it appears, is because billionaires have too much money on their hands… In 2013, Freedom Works plans to spend between $25 and $30 million. Glenn Beck is also included in its largess.

Freedom of speech is a right. No one is arguing over whether Freedom Works benefactor Stepheson can say what he wants with his $100 million donations. But that right goes both ways. Advertisers have the right to know what their money appears to be saying about themselves when their ads show up on Rush Limbaugh.

It says, “I the advertiser, support the embarrassment of the poor. I support the deportation of Mexicans. I support the incarceration of the entire black comminity. I support the killing of Liberals with assault weapons, and I support the rape of women”… In fact, supporting Rush, say something like this: ” Hey, woman, come take your clothes off and dance for me….. After all, that’s all you’re good for!!!! Ha, ha, ha.”

You too must join in taking him down, for the simple reason that it allows many more Americans to enjoy the benefits of local radio programming as we have here in Delaware for 6 years….

https://www.facebook.com/groups/flushrush/

https://twitter.com/search?q=stoprush

http://www.change.org/petitions/sign-here-tell-40-of-his-sponsors-like-amberen-sweetjack-and-genesis-diamonds-we-will-not-buy-products-that-support-misogyny-and-racism

The stuffing of the goose is done. Time to cook the goose, and at the feast, get back to being Americans again. Working together, and not against each other…..

For Those Who Follow DelawarePolitics.Net

I’m trying to put all your ideas together into one package. So, let me get this right… All you are asking is for, is a country where:

1) There is no universal healthcare.
2) Few entitlement programs.
3) Low Flat Tax System.
4) Faith based Government.
5) A deep reverence for God.
6) Extremely strict rules against abortion.
7) Marriage has already been strictly defined as between man and woman.
8) Homosexuality is a sin, and illegal.
9) Dress Codes are strictly enforced.
10) Tattoos, piercings, baggy pants, are banned.
11) Has the Death Penalty which they aren’t shy about using.
12) Strong private school system with religious focus.
13) Widespread dependency on oil and natural gas drilling.
14) Growing nuclear program
15) Nonexistent environmental nuisances
16) Culture that promotes family and stereotyped roles for men and women.

I’ve endeavored to put all your values on one page. I share your frustration because today, ever since 2008, it seems like America is moving further and further away from these values.

But you don’t have to be frustrated anymore. I have looked far and wide and have discovered a place already in existence that has those values in place, and more. If you sorely long for those values above, it is sincerely a place where you and your family would be very happy.

It is Iran.

You don’t have to pay me. I don’t need any commission. Just glad to help a fellow Delawarean out…. No problem.

Of Course Mother Nature Hates Republicans!

Many of the areas hit by the storm had also been hit by Irene. In New Jersey’s Hamilton Township, Tom Jacobsen also recalled heavy spring flooding and a particularly heavy winter before that.

“I’m starting to think we really ticked off Mother Nature somehow, because we’ve been getting spanked by her for about a year now,” he said while grabbing some coffee at a convenience store…..

OF COURSE YOU DID, DUMMY. YOU VOTED FOR REPUBLICANS!

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.

kavips Fable: The Uncontrollable CEO

Recently in Delaware, a well know auto parts company did a comparative study and decided that Delaware was ripe for expansion. The acquisition costs were low, taxes low, and competition was archaic and outdated. They received the required financing and moved in.

They built a new store every 120 days. Gradually they had received all but the most loyal of its competitor’s regulars. They began to set the standards of how business could be run. Were one to write a textbook on how to succeed in acquiring a new market, they would have been the most quoted source. Comparatively their service times per transaction were faster, their customer satisfaction results the highest, and their return to the bottom line was better than those same company’s stores in other states.

Every opportunity was met with success. Investors as well as customers were happy they had moved in.

Then, almost inexplicably, the upper management decided to buy a local strip club that was up for sale. They tackled the purchase with meticulous detail. They wined and dined, then cold shouldered the prospective seller, until he, desperate to unload the property, gave it up for a song. No one is certain as to why this company would go into a venture half-cocked. Some thought it was for reasons, deep, secret personal reasons, that guided the chief executives decision. But for a song, the place was acquired and a great party was thrown to celebrate the new diversion. It was even whispered by some, that all entertainment costs charged to the auto parts conglomerate, would be at cost, if even charged at all. Those few who fearlessly stood up to the executive and challenged him to explain his weird choice of action, were chastised publicly and told not to worry, it would pay for itself ten times over……

But no one knew how to run it……Apparently upper management was so concerned with the acquisition and the possibility of future profits, that in their rush, they had failed to plan for its management.

“Don’t worry. We will do it” they said. They chose a bright young parts manager and put him in charge. Since the facility was intact, they placed want ads for employees and prepared to open their doors. But being new to the porn arena, caused many of the local entertainers to become a little leery of signing up. “Let’s wait and see” was their approach.

Desperate, because of upper management pressure to get something done immediately, the young part’s manager asked some of the company’s most loyal employees to moonlight for him in their off hours………Opening day was a flop.

Jeers, hoots, holla’s were shouted at the dancers. The locals treated them with contempt. Who pays to see a middle aged pot bellied male clerk, dance around in a thong? Not only did the employees get shouted off of stage, but they failed to receive tips as well. Desperate, the young parts manger made deals from his car’s window with hookers off of Route 13. He asked them to come in and fill his roster. The hookers would do so only if he stipulated that they could ply their other trade within the club’s walls. He felt he had no choice but to agree.

Costs were running 200% more than anticipated. They had underestimate the clientèle. Southern businessmen, these locals were not. Heroin was sold openly.

They had bitten off more than they could chew. Those who had supported the diversionary financial venture, began to come under fire by stockholders. Over and over the CEO reassured them that all would work out.

Close it down to stop the financial bleeding he was told. No he insisted. That would be a failure. He would not do that. Instead we will staff it with all our employees. Every employee will work half a day at one of the stores, and the other half would be at night, inside the strip club.

As the staff levels increased, operations stabilized. However the client base hemorrhaged. Most nights were devoid of customers. Occasionally a group would arrive from out of town. The strip club soon sucked up more profits than the auto part’s stores could afford. For the first time, the company dipped into the red. It never recovered…………

Then came the vice squad. Arrests were made and prostitutes and management were incarcerated. Fines were levied against the holding company. There was no money left to pay them. Under court order, the doors were closed.

For whatever the reason, whether it was due to loyalty, or trust in his past brilliance, or personal fear, no one stood up to the CEO. All who came to advise him, left with head hung, hat in hand……No one pushed back…at least not hard enough…….and as the result,…..the entire enterprise was eventually auctioned off to pay the creditors no more than 18 cents per dollar invested……….

Moral of the story: Extravagant adventures sometimes end where you least want to go……Planning make perfect……

Relevance of the story: I’m sure you are smart enough to have figured it out by now.

Shall We Go With Fact, or Fiction

I came across this item buried in the LA Times while trying to find some information on Turkey.

Biden was asked about the Armenian Genocide Bill. Here is some of his reply.

I support it. And the reason is simple: I have found in my experience that you cannot have a solid relationship with a country based on fiction. It occurred. It occurred. And to continue with this fiction that it never occurred — let’s shove it down their throats, that it never occurred — means that you never get to the place where you have a relationship based on a factual set of norms. And they’ve got to get over it.

Biden then continues:

I have very serious staff. My staff says, “You sure you want to do this, Senator? Because look at the circumstance right now, with Gul being denied the presidency […] and a real nervousness out there that the Army may very well take over. […]

My view is, it’s the same way I think we oughtta be dealing with Russia and every other country: If you want to be a member of the international community in good standing, it’s got to be based upon historical fact. You can’t pretend. And we’ve allowed Putin lately to pretend, and we’re gonna pay a hell of a price for it. We have not in the last six years made clear that we want you part of Europe, we want you part of us, but there are certain basic ground rules.

How does this view stack up against those of the current administration?

According to O’Neil, it was on day 10 of the first term of the Bush administration, that the topic of the first Security Council was the invasion of Iraq. “How can we go in.” “What excuse can we use to invade.”

Could someone in the inner, inner circle have said, let’s allow the terrorists to strike, sow fear upon the public, and blame Saddam? Of course not. We just sat on knowledge that “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Targets In US“. August 6th video: Crawford, Texas.

After 9/11 happens, Terrorist czar Richard Clarke gets hauled into the Oval Office. According to Mr. Clarke, he gets told by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, to find a connection to Iraq. Clarke explains that he has gone over it repeatedly. There is no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. “Wrong answer” he is told. ” You are not looking hard enough. Find a connection between the two.” Ironically in the days immediately after 9/11, while the rest of us were reeling from the shock, our nation’s number one counter-terrorist was occupied searching for something that did not exist. After the invasion, we discovered………there was no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

Anthrax is released simultaneously with the air attack. Iraq is first blamed. But then later, when the anthrax is analyzed, we find out that it derived from an American strain only harbored in a secret US military facility.

Karl Rove reports to the inner circle that his marketing has determined that Americans will only support an invasion into Iraq, if they believe Saddam has WMD’s and perceive him to be a threat.

The drums of war start pounding. WMD’s become the tool. CIA analysts who do not subscribe to Iraq having WMD’s are demoted or fired. Tenet becomes politicized, and clear judgement is lost. Cheney is given his own reading room in Langley Field to personally go over satellite intelligence to find evidence of WMD’s in Iraq. (When did he become America’s number one satellite expert?) Yellow cake and aluminum tubes are inserted in the State of the Union address. When an ex-ambassador writes an op-ed piece titled “What I didn’t find in Africa,” his wife is outed, to silence her (by law you are imprisoned if you speak within five years after leaving the agency, effectively silencing her.)

Powell is told intelligence is solid, ( he was apprehensive and skeptical) and he goes before the world, and with Tenet sitting behind him, shows photos of two trailers that were used to make hydrogen for weather balloons, and declares it is proof that WMD’s exist in Iraq.

Days later Congress votes to authorize Bush to use force in Iraq.

Now no longer a secret, the buildup of military surrounding Iraq, continues in the open.

What were the facts?

The best of our intelligence agencies could find NO evidence of WMD’s. The UN task force that was scurrying all over Iraq, could find no evidence of WMD’s. The best intelligence organizations in the world, told us that there was no way Saddam had any WMD’s. The British, French, Russian, Israeli, Chinese, as well as other Mid Eastern countries, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Djibouti, Kuwait all answered NO to Saddam having WMD’s.

Americans are told to expect mushroom clouds at any time, first by Cheney and then by Rice, and finally Bush..

After troops are in place, we decide after a brief meeting on the Canary Islands, to invade on Humanitarian reasons…..because, Saddam is a torturer…..No one should be allowed to remain in power for what they were doing to Iraqi citizens at Abu Ghraib.

We get a hot tip on where Saddam is; we bomb his ass anyway, despite our fake ultimatum’s clock still running, not yet having expired.

In other words, just as soon as the Supreme Court made it clear that there would be no recount in Florida,…… “We’re going to Iraq, Baby! This time, we are gonn’a get that guy………”

Oh did anyone consider what we do after we capture a country of 20 million people who hate each other? “Don’t worry about it Mr. President, its all under control. They got oil.”

Hat’s off to Cheney. He is the only one who had a plan after we invaded. 30 billion barrels of oil have disappeared without a trace.

This is all old news. But stringing it together and looking backwards over seven years to the beginning, one notices how the appearance of deception is prevalent. Even if one takes the laughable position that each of these mis-steps were misguided, and that those who were making them were just incompetent and wrong, the dark allusion remains, looking back over time, that impropriety occurred or had the potential to occur. As Scooter Libbey is now finding out, the direct hands-on influencing of events, gives one little place to hide when such activities are brought forth into the bright light of our justice system.

At the best, even if no high crimes or misdemeanors come to light, the United States of America was pushed along our current path of destruction, not by facts, but by fiction.

We were force fed a diet that (like most diets I’ve been on), was purely bogus. America listened to the sales pitch, America got suckered, America bit, and now we are paying the price.

We are paying the price all over. In our economy, in our deficit, in the quality of our education, in the quality of our environment, in the quality of our future political campaigns, in each of the categories, mis-truths, fake truths, and just plain lies are fed daily through our television sets by a media incapable of questioning what they are fed………..

As a nation, it is just a phase. It is not the end of the world, for we have weathered this same slop before. If memory serves correctly, we underwent the same collusion and silence on the part of the media, during the Hayes/Garfield/ McKinley, and the Harding/Coolidge/Hoover administrations. After each of these episodes, America attempted to correct itself with a Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, and a Harry Truman.

These men were not bound by ideology, and yet today all are called up on as great leaders by both major political parties . Two of men had the presidency thrust upon them, having been sidelined as Vice Presidents until destiny transpired to bring them to the forefront. But they were bold, aggressive, and were willing to try anything if facts supported it. They also were advised to go forward with what could have been great misadventures: such as building a canal across Nicaragua, or nuking the Soviet Union in a preemptive strike, or declaring Taiwan to be a state of the US as Mao took over the mainland. But they, to our credit, wisely chose not to: the facts didn’t support it………………………

America needs to look a little harder at those candidates who are running this time. Having just been burned on a candidate who ran on an ‘agenda’, we as a nation need to be a little more circumspect. Those candidates who utter the “I” word, as in “I will”, or “I shall”, or “I am the best”, whose debates are a string or “I”, “I”, “I”, “I,” should probably be dealt with suspiciously. Those who deal with facts: “Iraq is like this now, this is how to fix it” are better served to deal with the myriad of problems they will inherit, the minute they finish taking the oath of office………

“Just the facts, maam.”

So Who Is to Blame………..

As the Bush administration struggles to weave together any positive pieces out of Iraq, into a quilt large enough to hide themselves and his administration behind, more servicemen die each day. More money goes bye-bye. More bad news filters back.

With everything going on I missed the anniversary of a deceit fostered on Congress by this administration. Just a little over a year ago today, Bush spoke before a large Chicago convention and said, ” We have now reached a turning point in the struggle between freedom and terror”, he said, pouring on the optimism. “Iraqis have demonstrated that democracy is the hope of the Middle East, and the destiny of all mankind. …….Years from now, people will look back on the formation of a unity government in Iraq, as a decisive moment in the liberty, a moment when freedom gained a firm foothold in the Middle East and the forces of terror began their long retreat.

Two days later an intelligence assessment (pg 471), classified as SECRET, was circulated among White House staff members that showed the forces of terror were not on retreat. It was a stunning refutation of the president’s forecasts most recently made in Chicago, just two days earlier.

In large print it stated: “ATTACKS IN MAY WILL LIKELY SURPASS APRIL LEVELS WHICH WERE THE HIGHEST EVER RECORDED. THE SUNNI ARAB INSURGENCY IS GAINING STRENGTH AND INCREASING CAPACITY DESPITE POLITICAL PROGRESS AND IRAQI SECURITY FORCES DEVELOPMENT.

This was next to a chart showing average attacks per day climbing consistently from January 06 at 72, up each subsequent month: 87, 95, 110, 113 in May 06. A ten point average daily climb would result in an increase of 30o each month. It is the trend that is noticeable, not the number of attacks. As we Americans back home were propelled towards a midterm election, we were being force fed on our progress in Iraq, not that we were steadily losing the battle of security.

This SECRET report continues: INSURGENTS AND TERRORISTS RETAIN THE RESOURCES AND CAPABILITIES TO SUSTAIN AND EVEN INCREASE CURRENT LEVEL OF VIOLENCE THROUGH THE NEXT YEAR. The picture could have not been darker.

The US had about 130,000 troops, about 80% of the height of 160,000, and the Iraqis had steadily added security forces and now had some 269,000 military and police. Many of these Iraqis had taken the lead, running security operations within Iraq, although even they had US military advisers embedded with them. We were doing all the right things……….why was it not getting better?

The SECRET transcript says more. ASSESSMENT: CONTINUING SECURITY AND SABOTAGE DIVERT RECONSTRUCTION FUNDS TO TRIAGE REPAIRS AND FUEL IMPORTS. PRODUCTION UNLIKELY TO MEET 2006 MINISTRY OF OIL TARGETS WITHOUT INFRASTRUCTURE REHABILITATION, ENHANCED SECURITY AND EXPANDED FOREIGN INVESTMENT.

The political front was preoccupied with the fight for control between the ministries of Sunnis and those of the Shiites. MINISTERS WILL BE POLITICALLY LOYAL TO THEIR RESPECTIVE PARTIES AND SOME MINISTRIES ARE LIKELY TO BECOME HAVENS FOR THE POLITICAL PARTIES WHO CONTROL THEM.

THREATS OF SHIA ASCENDANCY COULD HARDEN AND EXPAND SHIA MILITANT OPPOSITION AND INCREASE CALLS FOR COALITION WITHDRAWAL.”

SHIA MILITIA INTEGRATION MAY ALIENATE SUNNI ARABS, MANY OF WHOM VIEW SHIA GROUPS AS COMPLICIT IN EXTRAJUDICIAL KILLINGS.

Other intelligence added to the bleak picture. It was at this time that advanced IED’s called explosively formed penetrators (EFP’s) were tearing apart our Humvee’s, Bradley’s, and even penetrating our Abrams. They were not that high tech, but required sufficient sophistication that they could not have been handmade. The high quality of machining and the higher quality of triggering devices had been traced to Iran. Some were triggered by passive infrared devices that could overcome US countermeasures.

It is obvious why this was not made public. If it had leaked it would have cause a fire that could have cost the election. First to fall would be the administration’s credibility. “Hey republicans, are you sure it’s not another WMD?” Second, if it were true, it meant that Iran was killing American soldiers, an act of war. Opponents of the original war had proposed that it would lead to war with Iran…..and here it was proving true. Third, the EFP’s were being fed to a few Shia groups in the south. Suppose the Iranians were to give the technology and knowhow to the militant Sunni’s, the group responsible for 95% of the attacks on US forces? Polls showed that 50% of Sunni’s had positive feelings towards the insurgency. Since Sunnis were 20% of the population of Iraq, that means that at least 10% of the entire population of 20 million, or at least 2 million, looked favorably upon the insurgency. It is now too late. There is no way to turn them around. To win, as republicans want us to do, we will have to kill 2 million people, one third of Hitler’s Holocaust totals.

Here is what we heard, the next day, if you dare remember. This is General Pace, Chairman of Joint Chief of Staff: ” Sure the attacks are up. Folks want this place to be ungovernable so that when it is ungovernable, we will walk away and they can take over. So you can expect the attacks to stay up because every day that Maliki and parliament meet it is a bad day for those who are creating the attacks.” The reporter asks: “so are they on the ropes?” He answered, ” they are on the ropes …………if this parliament continues to function, and this prime minister continues to function.”

” You are going to sound like Cheney…” commented the reporter. “You want to retract that?” “I do,” he replied. “I would like to retract that. Thank you. I appreciate that. I appreciate the courtesy.”

The reporter then asked about victory and how it might be achieved? He acknowledged that there would have to be self government and physical reconstruction of the country for that to happen. “Is this going to happen in your lifetime?” he was asked and he replied in true military fashion: “Yes it is. Well, I hope, yeah. I don’t know, “ he said. “I should retract that line. It can happen in my lifetime…….”

Here is the kicker. On May 26, two days after the intelligence assessment, and one day after Pace’s acknowledgment that we at least had very difficult times ahead, the Pentagon released a mandated public report to Congress entitled “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq.” Although there was a report embedded in the middle of the 65 page document, that showed the attacks per week were over 600, the document put its most positive spin on stability and security.

Some of the happy talk: “Anti Iraqi forces, extremists and terrorists continue to fail in their campaign to derail the political process. and to foment civil war.” the report said, omitting any mention of the dark estimates lifted from the recent intelligence assessment. ” “More than 80 percent of attacks were concentrated in just four of Iraq’s 18 provinces”, it said as if violence had actually gone down. It failed to mention that those four provinces, included Baghdad, and contained 47% of the population. The report predicts that Iraqi rejectionists will maintain strength levels through 2006. But the report went on and completely fabricated this line: ” that the appeal and motivation for continued violent action will begin to wane in early 2007″. The Pentagon report to Congress flatly contradicted its own secret assessment two days earlier that said that terrorists and insurgents retained the resources and capabilities to ” sustain and even increase current levels of violence through the next year.”

Isn’t lying before Congress a crime?

So who’s to blame. You can’t blame the military. They are being forced to put their best face forward and spin positive the impossible task to which they have been given.

You can’t blame the soldiers. They truly are America’s best and are doing an amazing job. They have but one order: to do their duty. And they do it so well. When asked to serve, they stepped up, and anywhere they go, they make a large impact. If anyone is to receive the blame for this shame, it belongs, not so much to those who are responsible for putting our troops into this mess, but to those who abdicated their responsibility to pull them out on time, thereby abandoning them and leaving them stuck in Iraq.

The President is in denial. His administration can pursue only one option. We had this before, when the Nixon administration hunkered down, defending its cover up of the Watergate affair. We can yell at him all we want, but he can’t hear us…………

If America is to pull back from the precipice, and acknowledge that we can’t butcher the 2 million Sunnis required to win, and recognize that we need to pursue other options besides the military one, ir America is to change its destiny, the push that will tip the balance, needs to come from Congress. Not the Democrats mind you, for they do not have the 67 votes needed to overcome the certain veto. It will require the defection of Senate Republicans, one by one, away from the failed policies of Cheney-Bush who commenced a policy so flawed, that even our generals estimate that it will take the Holocaust of 2 million Sunni’s to win the war. It is strictly on the shoulders of these 18 republican (or independent) Senators, that all hope lies. If you have a Republican senator, they need to hear from enough of you, their constituents, to know that their jobs are in jeopardy should they fail. They also need to know they will be forgiven, if they change their votes right now. It is not the brave, but the fence sitters who now hold America’s future in their hands. The destiny of those who will not come back, lies in their decision. Those eighteen are in need of our prayers and our support. They need to know you care. Each voter who has a Republican Senator should take on as their personal responsibility, to call them and ask how long the are willing to prolong a dying cause. Tell them you know it will take the slaughter of 2 million Sunni’s for us to win? Tell them that is unacceptable for Americans. For without your pressure, calls, and letters, those eighteen would continue to plod along through a vacuum devoid of facts, spun by this administration deep in denial, and unknowingly throw this country’s reputation away for some cheap assurances of political loyalty.

Republicans, Too, Can Support Withdrawal

Most often in the banter over the course of Iraq, two camps emerge. The one supporting withdrawal, is often considered to be Democratic in nature, and the other, promoting escalation, is primarily considered to be Republican. Evidence of such partisan bantering can be found in the comments on this post here.

However I have found that is not true. There may be some generalities that occur, party vrs. party, but more appropriately would be a classification of two camps based solely on their views, and not on their party affiliation.

Here is what changed my mind.

In the fall of 2005, a respected, noted Republican was sat next to Senator John McCain. McCain, who had campaigned with Bush said that he had grown to kinda like the guy. This Republican asks McCain, “So, does he ever ask you opinion?”

“I don’t believe in giving my opinion when I am with him campaigning,” McCain said. “These guys come up, they get two minutes with the president, and they try to tell him how to run the country. I don’t”

” That’s not what I asked,” said our Republican. “Has he ever said “John, tell me, what do you think about………..?”

“No, no he hasn’t” said McCain. “As a matter of fact, he is not intellectually curious. But one of the things he did say to me one time is he said: ‘I don’t want to be like my father. I want to be like Ronald Reagan.

Now this just happened to burn this Republican, who by now was feeling increasingly hopeless. It was obvious that this administration was doing the unthinkable, repeating the mistakes of Vietnam. Few people knew more about Vietnam than this Republican, who had worked on Vietnam for Presidents Nixon and Ford. Now he felt that there was even a lesser chance of building an army out of Iraqis than there had been in Vietnam three decades earlier, when they had been trying to build up the South Vietnamese army, which had existed as a powerful, even almost autonomous force in Vietnam in its own right. Unlike Vietnam, in Iraq, the armies were split among factions of the Shiites, Sunnis, or Kurds. It was a catastrophe in the making.

Over the course of the reconstruction, this Republican was disappointed with the performances of those he had previously worked with and mentored. He considered Hadley who had been on his staff in the early 70’s, as a dear friend. But Hadley would not stand up to anybody. not Cheney, not Rice, and certainly not to Rumsfeld. He wouldn’t even stand up for his own opinions. Even the president’s father had confided he was not happy with the performance of Rice. “Condi is a disappointment, isn’t she?” He added, “she is not up to the job”

Looking over at the Pentagon’s table, this Republican noted that General Myers, the outgoing chairman of the JCS, was a broken man, a puppy dog. General Pace was worse. Pace had watched Myers get stomped on by Rumsfeld for four years, knew exactly what he was getting into, and took the job anyway.

Cheney was the worse, this old Republican felt. “What’s happened to Cheney” all the old friends were saying to him, those who had know him for years. It was a chorus. “We don’t know this Dick Cheney.”

Rumsfeld was behaving as he always had, going back to the Ford administration–“enigmaic, obstructionist, devious, never know what his game is.” Rumsfeld was viewed as a wholly negative factor.

However most tragic, this Republican felt, was that this administration had believed Saddam was running a modern, efficient state, and that when he was toppled, there would be an operating system left behind. They hadn’t seen that everything would collapse and they would be left to start with zero. They were blind to the need for security, and did not see that over 90% of the Iraqi army could be saved and used. So the Iraqis, with this power vacuum, felt overwhelmingly insecure. For without security, there was little opportunity to give Iraqis a stake in their society, little for them to have a positive attitude. It seemed as if the Iraqis were in despair.

But this administration wouldn’t reexamine or reevaluate it’s policy. ” I just don’t know how you can operate a government if you don’t stop, reassess, and challenge your own assumptions.”

But most heart wrenching was watching this Republican’s good friend, Bush’s father, in “agony”, “anguished”, and “tormented” by the war and it’s aftermath. It was terrible. The father still wanted his son to succeed, but what a tangled relationship. In his younger years, this Republican thought that “W” could not decide whether he wanted to rebel against his father, or beat him at his own game. He chose the game and now it was an unmitigated disaster.”

So my apologies go out to Republicans. I can only ask that you too speak out against this war, so that even the most sycophantic Republican, still afraid to put one toe out of line, can finally recognize that this is not a partisan issue, it is an American survival issue.