The Last War Crime

Ask Viacom why they won't take advertising from the filmmakers and Google why they pulled the waterboarding scene from Youtube:

http://www.lastwarcrime.com/

 

Political porn star Sarah Palin hopes to beat record of porn star Lisa Sparxxx

You have to love it when aspiring candidates dip their toes into the water to see whether the public loves or hates them. According to a recent AP poll, Americans almost roundly hate former GOP VP candidate Sarah Palin, but there she is, all over the media, all over the place, being handed microphones and positioned in front of the cameras like Dick Cheney and his diseased brood. I should mention that they hate Rudolph Giuliani as well, contrary to another unpopular delusion.

Say what you want about Americans, but being immersed in advertising 24/7 has taught them one thing: they know bullshit when they see it.

The rest is like dating and bad relationships where we kid ourselves that that special someone might change one day, something that's going on with President Obama right now as one campaign promise after another is discarded. It's not gonna happen. Like any bad relationship, you tell the bastards to change or get out; if you don't, you only have yourself to blame for what comes after that. But some relationships should never have been entered into in the first place...

Looking at Palin, it's obvious to all but the most delusional that we're being presented with yet another pile of shit in her and the message she's spouting is equally worthless and part of the past that got us into the mess we're currently in. The public at least senses this, but it's really down to the presentation and her attitude, something that most can't put a finger on, but know intuitively anyway. There's something atavistic about her, something one could identify squarely in Greek or historical tragedy, something about blindness and unbelievable hubris that finally wrecks a nation.

Palin has said that she would like to play a role in the 2012 elections, "if the people will have me." But the people don't want her and it isn't dissuading her from forcing herlself on them, just like most mainstream politicians. More importantly: Is she really capable of breaking the Gangbang World Record, and could this non-sequitur I'm writing ever be as leading as the memes the mainstream constantly bombards all of us with? "My ambition, if you will, my desire [clearly, her bloodlust] is to help our country in whatever role that may be [great, how about hostess?], and I cannot predict what that will be [I can, and it's not being president], what doors [the gates of hell] will be open in the year 2012," then she sacrificed a small mammal and made some bizarre utterances, and attempted to read its entrails, a little haruspicy for old time's sake.

Palin recalls the crazed Maenads, a cult to Dionysus, in her mindless drive to power, any power at all, for no particular purpose but her own. She most certainly isn't the Pythia of Delphi who only told those who came to her where they were screwing-up. What be the fate of Orpheus and Mount Parnassus? Ruins. Sometimes, even a little help from the divine and our genetic material isn't going to save us.

"I'd probably rather write than talk." This is true, but most men would rather fuck than eat, and Palin's looks are clearly a part of why she was chosen by a decidedly sexist and racist Republican Party leadership to run in the first place. Now she's "going rogue," something she probably did well when she fucked the football team back home in Alaska during her salad days. Welcome to the United State of America, not that Alaska's part of it. But ask anyone--any man--and they'll tell you that most of us wouldn't want to be in that gangbang line, huh-uh. Lisa Sparxxx claims to have had sex with 919 men, which is clearly depraved and as pointless as a Palin candidacy--but what's the point of it all? No one had to tell Americans that politics was masturbation. It takes a nation, and lubrication, but there's no lubricant on earth that's going put Sarah together again when she was never whole or sane in the first place and the public never wanted her, let alone knew who the hell she was before 2008. At best, she's helped us see what part of the public is as crazy and detached from reality as she is, and that at least is a good thing.

The ancient truly manifesting in the modern world can only be a disaster, but we might be better served with the Apollonian were there no other option. Sarah Palin is the Oracle without any eyes, the Blind Seer, a Shibboleth, the Hierophant. Don't underestimate her, she is walking, shambling death.

Corrupt Govt. contractor SAIC moving major operations closer to DC

Washington D.C.--You know, it's easier to bribe someone in-person, get real. Less of a paper trail, no compromising calls that can be monitored, and so on. The public really needs to know about these bastards, they really have slipped under the wire over the last forty years. SAIC is a defense contractor that does a lot of communications related work for the intelligence community and military.

They are truly a case for corporate military-industrial welfare run amok:

The state and county are providing a $3 million grant upfront and SAIC will be eligible for another $7 million after it expands. Dahlgren, who spoke at Thursday's formal announcement, said he will stay on the SAIC board as chairman and maintain his San Diego office, and sought to ensure employees there that the SAIC plans to grow its operations there. SAIC derives about three-fourths of its income from defense contracts. Its annual revenue exceeds $10 billion a year. The improvements to SAIC's northern Virginia campus coincide with a major redevelopment effort in Tysons Corner, where construction is under way to extend the region's Metrorail system to Dulles International Airport. ("Calif. defense contractor moving to Va.," AP, 09.24.2009)

How lovely for them. Providing any tax deferrments to a corporation that's employee-owned seems pretty cracked, but maybe that's just me. At best, SAIC's a fiefdom for the privileged, but rest assured that they're working on various intelligence programs that are spying on American citizens as I write this.
They also have what appear to be some very curious lobbying practices and employ some very strange people as operatives. SAIC comes up a few times in the phone records of the late DC Madam, and one of their operatives--Ret. Col. Ron Roughead, a former Defense Attache--made an unmistakable call three times on one day in late 2005. Clients of Pamela Martin & Associates were required to make multiple-calls to confirm a rendezvous with an escort. Col. Roughead has yet to explain the call, he's not talking, and neither is SAIC. So did the mistress of Iraq invasion architect and former World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz, Shaha Ali Riza. Not only that, but she and Col. Roughead worked for the Iraqi Media Network, a defense contractor boondoggle if ever there was one.

They should have a bake sale for the move, it might pad their bottom line. But now that they're moving closer to the primary source of their income, things should be rosier. These kinds of corporate fiefdoms are shelter from the rules of the marketplace. While the rest of us suffer under the dunderheaded economic policies of the establishment, these rich twits have their nice little castle system to hide within. I'd love to see a veritable army of the homeless tear their shiny buildings down, which wouldn't necessarily be so hard since many of them are veterans and have seen real combat.

Are they paid well? Do we even need SAIC? What do you think? I think SAIC shouldn't exist at all. Why do foreign operatives work there? In a time of economic crisis, the last thing SAIC should be getting is $8.5 million from the state of Virginia, it's outrageous, therefore, it must be done. Forget the fictional "Yo-yodyne," this is the real evil.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/gen?guid=20090924/4abafcd0_3ca6_1552620090924174477725

Does Fox News talking neck Chris Wallace covet the bum of Dick Cheney?

Faux Universe--He was preening, pawing, and only corrected the former VP once in the entire interview so as not to look like the obvious whore that he is, but nothing doing, Chris Wallace still came off like a whore to the powerful.

Worst of all: Wallace and Cheney were wearing virtually the same kind of pants and suit, just to let us know they're both of the same class, meaning privileged criminals. You'd think Wallace was interviewing his favorite pop star, and in-essence, he didn't even need to be there prompting Cheney's rehearsed statements to save his own ass and to keep the criminal programs he helped create and authorize going. Wallace was just a prop, a stool to stand on while Cheney used Fox News (the only news network he watches, just read a past rider) as his personal soap box.

Is there a word for this? Don't get me wrong, I stand for sexual freedom and have no issues or problems with homosexuals and people being who they are...well, until it impinges on the rights of others, and that's what we have going on here with these morons. Wallace was literally feeding Cheney his cues, it couldn't have been a more baldly-staged event, call it guerrilla theater since it's obvious Cheney never got over the 1960s-70s:

...WALLACE: Do you think this was a political move not a law enforcement move?

CHENEY: Absolutely. I think the fact is, the Justice Department has already reviewed the inspector general's report five years ago. And now they're dragging it back up again, and Holder is going to go back and review it again, supposedly, to try to find some evidence of wrongdoing by CIA personnel.

In other words, you know, a review is never going to be final anymore now. We can have somebody, some future administration, come along 10 years from now, 15 years from now, and go back and rehash all of these decisions by an earlier administration.

WALLACE: Let me follow up on that. The attorney general says this is a preliminary review, not a criminal investigation. It is just about CIA officers who went beyond their legal authorization. Why don't you think it's going to stop there?

CHENEY: I don't believe it. We had the president of the United States, President Obama, tell us a few months ago there wouldn't be any investigation like this, that there would not be any look back at CIA personnel who were carrying out the policies of the prior administration. Now they get a little heat from the left wing of the Democratic Party, and they're reversing course on that.

The president is the chief law enforcement officer in the administration. He's now saying, well, this isn't anything that he's got anything to do with. He's up on vacation on Martha's Vineyard and his attorney general is going back and doing something that the president said some months ago he wouldn't do.

WALLACE: But when you say it's not going to stop there, you don't believe it's going to stop there, do you think this will become an investigation into the Bush lawyers who authorized the activity into the top policymakers who were involved in the decision to happen, an enhanced interrogation program?

CHENEY: Well, I have no idea whether it will or not, but it shouldn't. ...

I wish to God it wouldn't stop there, but President Obama doesn't have the balls or the principles to do much about it--that is, without immense public scrutiny and pressure, and he's getting it. The reality is that this isn't really a criminal probe at all, but you can learn a lot of Cheney's fears and create a road map of what should happen out of his very foolhardy statements. If you know one thing about criminals, it's that they tend to give away everything if you're listening closely enough, they're perverse. To be sure, he's scared shitless, and this talk of it being "political" just shows his contempt of the public, the people who are keeping this alive because they don't want torture done in their names, and because they know full well none of Bush II's programs were making them any safer.

Wallace's very leading questions don't remotely constitute journalism on any planet in any known universe, but I do think the ass-lick has a yen for Dick. Fine, but be honest, admit you're a sycophant and that your parents beat you and touched you inappropriately, then we can move forward rather than all of this looking back (in anger). Here's to the demise of the mainstream media and news networks, the time of reckoning has come for these bastards and their ilk. Give the man a microphone...again, and again, and again, and again, until nobody ever wants to hear him ever again (too late).

Americans will continue to have their backs pushed up against the wall and there won't be any choice left but to confront these problems, and that means strikes, demonstrations, and rallying against the program that is rocketing us towards the abyss. It's time to muster the winter soldiers, and that's not a call to violence, it's a call to civic duty. The time has come, now. But look at Cheney and his preening apparatchik, his dog, Chris Wallace, and know the face of human tyranny. It's an ugly, pathetic picture of humanity, isn't it?

The suits, and the damage done:

http://www.foxnews.com/fns/

On the recent revelations surrounding profound torture and mistreatment at Guantanamo and around the globe by American authorities

The recent release of documents authorizing torture at Guantanamo and in prisons in Afghanistan, Iraq, and other parts of the globe by American operatives has proven that torture was authorized by the hierarchy of the former Bush II administration. It's now irrefutable and part of the historical record.

This week, we're getting some more corroboration in the form of an oral testimony that was posted by CSHRA (The Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas) on their website of Spc. (Specialist) Brandon Neely, a former U.S. Army MP who served at the detention facility in its first months. Neely's story account is a short one, but it indicates a compartmentalized bevy of horror that would shock and stagger the imagination of Edgar Allan Poe.

Neely's story corroborates previously released documents that state medical doctors, psychiatrists, and nurses were utilized in torture sessions on Guantanamo inmates on numerous occasions, and at various locations around the world. The use of physicians by the CIA for these purposes is not unknown, however, and is nothing new. But the solid proof of authorization by the executive branch is, and it's going to open a Pandora's Box that could hamper such methods. The Obama administration's recent comments on the issue aren't reassuring.

It should be a foregone conclusion in our culture that these methods are a direct threat to the liberties and human rights of almost everyone, especially our children. Children? Yes, children.

While it's doubtful that many of these physicians are working in the outlying society (we can presume that many are military physicians and medics), they are committing not only grievous actions that deprive these internees of their basic human rights, they are violating their oaths as practitioners. Where is the AMA and the rest of the medical and mental health profession over this? The suicides of three Guantanamo detainees in 2006 prompted action on their part.

On July 3rd, 2006, along with the American Psychiactric Association (APA), the AMA ruled that physicians couldn't participate in interrogations in any way of war on terror detainees.

The CEJA opinion also says physicians have a duty to disclose how much access interrogators have to prisoners' medical information and to report any coercive interrogations to authorities. If action isn't taken after they raise awareness, the opinion says, doctors are ethically obligated to report the offenses to independent authorities empowered to investigate.

David Fassler, MD, an American Academy of Adolescent and Child Psychiatry delegate who proposed a resolution on interrogation at the 2005 Interim Meeting, applauded the CEJA report. "Physicians should not design, participate in or monitor the interrogation of prisoners or detainees," he said. "Such activities are incompatible with our primary obligation to do no harm. ... I'm glad to see that organized medicine will now be able to speak with one voice on this issue." ("AMA adopts policy on interrogations," AMNews, 07.03.2006)

But the Pentagon's rules around that time allowed for psychiatrists to intervene in some cases "to monitor questioning," and presumably still do. What if laws are broken? Who reports them then? The key appears keeping certain personnel under military authority and control, ignoring civilian professional rulings when it comes to psychiatrists. While I don't entirely agree with journalist Larisa Alexandrovna's recent take (see link at the bottom) that these people could be treating some of our loved ones now (we don't really know, as she points-out, but we definitely should know, and soon), some of them will be.

The CEJA's recommendations were picked-up, and follow that physicians:

• "Must neither conduct nor directly participate in an interrogation;"
• "Must not monitor interrogations with the intention of intervening in the process, because this constitutes direct participation in an interrogation;"
• And when physicians "have reason to believe that interrogations are coercive, they must report their observations to appropriate authorities. If authorities are aware of coercive interrogations but have not intervened, physicians are ethically obligated to report the offenses to independent authorities that have the power to investigate or adjudicate such allegations." ("AMA: Prisoner Interrogation Unethical for Physicians, Declares AMA Panel," Medpage Today, 06.12.2006)
  

I agree with Ms. Alexandrovna and others who contend that the physicians who violated their professional oaths should be stripped of their licensing--all of them, even military ones--for their participation in these activities that they agreed to engage in at Guantanamo and other locations. After that, they should be investigated for the commission of war crimes, human rights violations, and the violation of international and American law.

Spc. Neely's account offers some insights, and others who worked in these facilities are beginning to come forward. Additional details are emerging from documents that go as far as detainees being beaten to death, their genitals mutilated with a scalpel, and even the sexual abuse and the detention of the elderly and children, and there are more revelations to come. Authorizing torture techniques that result in death, even one, is a criminal act and a war crime.

No accountability means that these people--these psychopaths who broke their professional ethics and got involved in torturing human beings--are murders among us. Best to start prosecuting from the top, down. Ask yourself why the mainstream media isn't covering this. While you're at it, why not ask them directly some time? At the moment, the new administration isn't offering much change in this direction at all, but redress could be coming from certain quarters of Congress, two bills calling for looser state secrets rules have been proposed. The new president has a strange way of interpreting the constitution, being a scholar of it.

"AMA adopts policy on interrogations," AMNews, 07.03.2006: http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AMA/3530

"AMA: Prisoner Interrogation Unethical for Physicians, Declares AMA Panel," Medpage Today, 06.12.2006: http://www.medpagetoday.com/MeetingCoverage/AMA/3530

2002 Bush II administration memos authorizing torture (available since 2004): http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB127/

"Unspeakable Abuse at Gitmo--We Need the Names of These Medical Personnel," Huffington Post, 02.16.2009: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larisa-alexandrovna/we-need-the-names-of-thes_b_167247.html

"Newly Unredacted Torture Documents Reveal Deaths, Abuse," Blog.ACLU, 02.11.2009: http://blog.aclu.org/2009/02/11/newly-unredacted-torture-documents-reveal-deaths-abuse/

The ACLU's Page on National Security and Torture (lots of links): http://www.aclu.org/safefree/torture/index.html

"Two Bills in One Day-State Secrets Fix on the Horizon," Blog.ACLU, 02.13.2009: http://blog.aclu.org/2009/02/13/two-bills-in-one-day-state-secrets-fix-on-the-horizon/

The U.S.S. George H.W. Bush: Obsolete before it ever leaves port

Norfolk, Virginia--Costing over $6 billion before all the other fittings and aircraft, the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush was not applauded as it was commissioned today in the presence of its namesake, his mentally retarded son and his family, President Dick Cheney, and the largest gathering of Village People fans in human history.

The gathered dignitaries were applauding themselves and the fact that they were still bilking the American public for defense contractors and corporations everywhere, their latest contribution coming in the form of a now-obsolete weapons platform, the aircraft carrier.

Why is the aircraft carrier obsolete? The U.S.S. George H.W. Bush is the last of ten in the "Nimitz" "supercarrier" class, the kind of hulking behemoth that was rendered useless the moment the Enola Gay dropped its payload on Hiroshima to keep Soviet influence off of the Japanese mainland. Subsequent weapons platforms have made the obsolescence of the aircraft carrier a strange part of the arsenals of many nations, but it's good for the gander. Like the former president it's named after, the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush is part of a dying order, a hangover left to us from the WWII generation.

What's so remarkable is that the ship isn't even finished, but far be it for the Bush dynasty not to have an occasion to cry for themselves, never mind their victims. All that said, naming a boat after just one more executive war criminal and systematic human rights violator doesn't seem such a bad idea, since it's emblematic of the dead-end of a militarized society and economy. War and the unleashing of violence by the Bush dynasty have been its hallmarks, it's history, and a big part of America's history in general. Naming it after a washed-up warmonger with his draft-dodging son present in his last days as president has all the airs of reality parodying itself. How Bush of them.

When the U.S.S. George H.W. Bush is finally torpedoed, sunk by a low-yield nuclear device, or simply destroyed when it's anchored in port, nobody's going to care. When there's no more money to help the American public in an unprecedented economic crisis, it's going to be because of the frivolous spending on worthless weapons systems like this one, and the wars in the Middle East.

It would behoove the incoming president-elect to shutter these types of programs that are currently in the developmental stage, such as the longstanding "Star Wars" (aka "Missile Defense Shield Part I") space defense program that scientists have told us "does not work, and will never work" for over twenty years. The Star Wars program has cost an estimated $107 billion since the 1980s, just one more gift from Ronald Reagan and his cohorts, many of whom will be leaving and entering the White House after January 20, 2009.

The Bush II administration increased spending on the Star Wars program by 20% during its tenure. It's unlikely that a President Barack Obama will end the program--or others like it--however, because nothing succeeds like failure. But, with money running as short as it's appearing to be, he and Congress might have no other alternative. The Senate can enable all it wants, and the GOP incumbents in it can obstruct all they want, but eventually that wall called reality is going to rear its ugly head. The horse and pony show will be over. That time is coming very soon.

"Opinion: The First Cut is the Deepest," The Harvard Crimson, Dylan R. Matthews, 12.03.2008:

http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=525673

"5 Reasons the Aircraft Carrier is Obsolete," NewWars.blogspot, Mike Burleson, 09.04.2007: http://newwars.blogspot.com/2007/09/5-reasons-aircraft-carrier-is-obsolete.html

The Bush II administration's time is finally ending, but...

"Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."--Abraham Lincoln

It's incumbent on all of us to demand a Truth Commission on every single crime committed by them from the 2000 elections until their final day in office. The involvement of the RNC and her operatives should also be thoroughly investigated. This Truth Commission should be hydra-headed because of the multifarious nature of the crimes due to their breadth and scope and the fact that they were ongoing.

Every single pertinent classified record of the Bush II years must be declassified and reviewed by a special non-partisan prosecution and investigation team and all records must be preserved. If key records are found to have been negligently destroyed or eliminated with a dark purpose, all federal laws applying punitive legal sanctions should be employed swiftly and aggressively.

Any loopholes found in procedural laws regarding the executive branch should be noted, legislative proposals made to seal them by the special prosecution, and Congress should act swiftly with enforceable legislation to heal the breach. The whole point of this is not to allow the policies that expanded executive power to stand, this being a system of precedents. Each expansion of power should be challenged at every turn.

It would behoove President-elect Barack Obama to renounce these policies in no uncertain terms and it should be part of his first 100 days in office, making the top of the list of Bush II executive orders that must be rolled back with his pen. This is where the wildcard factor comes into play with the new president: for a past constitutional law scholar he's shown peculiar voting behaviors, made especially obvious in his "yea" vote for retroactive immunity for the telecommunications companies in the Bush II administration's warrantless surveillance program. This is just one of many troubling signs, but it begs-the-question of whether they were votes predicated on every occasion with a hint of a political calculus. He wanted to be president, after all.

But if ever there was a clear violation of the precepts of the Constitution of the United States, it was this NSA program whose entire scope we still don't know, but assuredly violated the Fourth amendment rights of tens of thousands of American citizens. What did the Bush II administration tell Obama and others in classified briefings about the program and the necessity for it? Did they lie to him and other members of Congress to intimidate them into an agreement to extend it and grant unprecedented legislative immunity? What is President-elect Obama's current knowledge of the program now that he's been given intelligence briefings?

With just 19 days left for the sordid Bush II administration, it's time to breathe a little easier. After taking those long, deep breaths, it's going to be time to roll-up our sleeves again and to begin demanding a Truth Commission. Democracy in North America depends on it. Our rights are non-negotiable and it's time to start acting like it for a chage.

President-elect Obama has said that Abraham Lincoln is his favorite American president, and as flawed as Lincoln was, I concur with him. He's always been my second favorite after FDR. But both men did things that caused significant damage to the rights of Americans at the same time they were adding to them. FDR and Lincoln began systematic extralegal surveillance through technological means of their perceived political enemies through the us of wiretaps.

So many presidents have engaged in this kind of behavior that it's a bipartisan tradition, and one that needed to die with the twentieth century, but has its convenient place when power feels threatened. It's the gun that all would-be presidents want to keep in the vest-pocket of the executive branch, as Noam Chomsky has pointed-out.

Time for some real gun control. The late President Lincoln's name is being bandied about a lot these days without much substance to it. We should change this, we should be sincere--we should say what we mean, and mean what we say. Without that, the future looks anything but bright.

"Obama bristles as the bubble closes in" --Politco.com

"Journalism is the one solitary respectable profession which honors theft (when committed in the pecuniary interest of a journal,) & admires the thief...However, these same journals combat despicable crimes quite valiantly--when committed in other quarters."
--Mark Twain, 1880.

WWW--Can you blame Obama? Is it really necessary for the press to come along every time the presidential motorcade goes out on a jaunt for an ice cream cone, or when the president-elect/president wants to take his kids to a park? Is it really relevant at all, is it newsworthy? Of course not, and the press are taking umbrage at President-elect Barack Obama for suggesting otherwise.

Yes, it's more about that ugly little troll in the room (not the GOP), the Holy of Holies, "access." Sounds lewd--I know--but there it is.

Yet, they've done very little bickering over following the most powerful man in America besides Karl Rove (whose constant whereabouts never concerned them much during his unfortunate tenure-by-appointment in the White House) these last eight years: that would be Vice President Dick Cheney, who has been hiding in "undisclosed locations" more often than not.

After ordering a tuna melt on 12-grain bread, Obama approached reporters and placed his hand on the shoulder of pool reporter Philip Rucker of The Washington Post, who was scribbling away in his notebook.

“You don't really need to write all that down,” Obama said.

All presidents and would-be presidents struggle with “the bubble” – the security detail and the always-there reporters that impose barriers to any spontaneous interaction with the outside world. ("Obama bristles as the bubble closes in," Politico.com, 12.28.2008)

Right, this is the most important thing in the world, getting down exactly what the president-elect ordered at a Chicago deli, that's wonderful and a great example of cutting-edge journalism. But what do you expect from a publication that did its best to protect George W. Bush and his administration as much as it humanly could for "access"?

"Press gaggle" has a derisive ring to it that's inevitably earned, and there are valid reasons (like the above and aforementioned) why the public invariably hates the press and journalists. This is because they're human, vulnerable to pressure from established power (making most of them traditional appendages of someone else's agenda), and because they tend to get their facts wrong, often knowingly.

A wonderful local example should do: A past acquaintance of mine was sleeping in the basement of his parent's home when a fire started, trapping him for a time, but he managed to escape the flames. Somehow, his dog also escaped on its own. Eventually, the fire trucks and the press belatedly arrived--the firemen extinguishing the blaze, while creatively took their notes. The next day we all sat reading the story that contended he had "run into the house to heroically rescue the family dog."

The problem? Nothing of the sort ever happened--not ever--and he hadn't even mentioned anything resembling the newspaper account to the journalist. He got out of the house and the dog was found wandering around by a fireman (they tend frequently to smoke pot and like hookers, just an FYI). The journalist and their editors just thought a rescue would read as more interesting, giving those blessed column inches that added "human element", ostensibly to sell more papers with ad-space. I could go on and on. When you cry wolf too often, people stop listening and reading, which they're doing-in-droves with the newspapers. Very soon, they will be gone and they won't be missed.

This harping over President-elect Obama wanting his own personal space implies that this desire somehow has sinister implications to it, which is a pretty silly reaction to someone asking logical questions--watch him when it counts. If only the same attention had been paid to the Bush II administration, although it's not as though Congress or the Courts were going to do anything, we already know this. No, get close to "inside sources," cultivate them, and act like we actually have a "Fourth Estate," a myth of that peculiar religion of journalism that worships falsehood with enough of a smidgen-of-truth so that they can sleep better at night. Adversarialism with the political class? Get real.

Look: monitor any given president's activities on the Hill, in the Oval office, in his choice of appointments, in the legality of his policies and his behaviors, but don't tell me he had a tuna sandwich on 12-grain bread. Nobody but the senile or the emotionally retarded care about that particular piece-of-information.

You can take your "access" and shove it. Journalism should never have become a profession, and today, it's a joke on the rest of us.

"Obama bristles as the bubble closes in," Politico.com, 12.28.2008: http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20081228/pl_politico/16882

The coming meeting at the White House of all living presidents, Dick Cheney...and Donald Rumsfeld

Washington D.C.--George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney...and Donald Rumsfeld are meeting at the White House in what's a very rare occasion indeed. The meeting is being announced as having the ostensible purpose of "helping President-elect Barack Obama in his transition" in extraordinary times. OK, I can buy that--but why Rummy?

The meeting is scheduled to take place on January 7th, 2009, with just thirteen days left in second presidential term of George W. Bush.

I think there's a very strong possibility that they're going to start talking about international law and the issue of war crimes and human rights abuses emanating from the Bush II administration's conduct in Iraq, Afghanistan, and in the war on terror domestically and internationally. This would mean Donald Rumsfeld's role in abuses, as well as Dick Cheney's, and perhaps the roles of others in Bush II foreign policy.

Jimmy Carter is bound to have some comments ready on human rights, which he'll be sure to whisper so that he might be overheard. Bill Clinton? He'll smile a lot and slap a lot of backs. I'm sure he'll have some constructive advice for the president-elect.

Rumsfeld's role in creating a "smooth transition" for the incoming Obama administration has a hollow-ring to it, he's a wild card here in some way. The story is being put out there that Cheney and Rumsfeld are being brought in to advise the incoming administration--Rumsfeld was President Gerald Ford's (still dead, so he won't be able to make it) chief of staff, Cheney succeeded him.

Both are well-known friends and associates.

Certainly, they're going to acquaint the incoming President-elect with "the ropes" of running an administration, although considering the disastrous ones that they all led or served under cannot be good examples. But, nothing teaches better than failure so they should have a lot to offer. Still, it nags-the-question: why Rumsfeld? War crimes issues? Executive privilege and legal issues? Who to fire at the Pentagon? Surely, these are going to be some of the topics. It's a very curious meeting. Will it be a "Mad Hatter's Tea Party"?

With Henry Kissinger having advised the current-and-outgoing president in the last few years, it just looks like another indicator of a lack of leadership in the White House, a final collapse, the crashing of a facade. We've been leaderless for a very long time.

A Requiem for the Ramp at "Ground Zero"

New York City, New York--It was an exquisite ramp, a 460 foot-long one that ferried construction and recovery workers into the gaping 80-foot-deep chasm that used to be the foundation of the World Trade Center, but its time had come.

It was a sad day when they made the announcement on December 10, 2008: No more photo-ops, no press junkets, and no more political careers would be built across its span and on the bones and the ashes of the victims whom they were inhaling on their visits. George W. Bush, the Nazi Pope, President-elect Barack Obama--just about all the somebodies came out of the woodwork to be photographed visiting ground zero.

The end of the Bush II era is the filling of this grave and in the construction of a new building complex there. The Bush II administration built two illegal wars, Guantanamo, illegal rendition, illegal domestic surveillance of the American people, torture, and a lawless chaos in government at home that could become a fully-functioning police state. Oh yes, and they were instrumental in wrecking the economy, yet somehow we're still not calling for impeachment in Congress, it's shameful.

The mythology behind 9/11 can no longer be milked as it was in the immediate aftermath of the event, and future attacks are probably coming from the imbecilic overreactions that followed the September 11 attacks. Reacting the same way--with military force--will continue to prove disastrous. The best way to prevent terrorism is to stop engaging in it abroad militarily. If President-elect Obama thinks he's going to use 9/11 in the same way as George W. Bush, he'd better think twice.

The Cult of the Dead Soldier has morphed into the Cult of the Dead Terrorist Victim (never mind the Cult of the Dead Cop). That's a very risky iconography to be toying with, deifying the dead to use as a rallying cry for war. Watching that ramp go is a good thing, its time had come.

The Bush II administration will leave behind no triumphal arches, no libraries but a presidential one to hide his sins a little longer, no parks through public works, no cleaner air or water. While they ruled, all they had to offer was the grave, a hole in the ground in Manhattan. All the warning signs were there. No one heeded them, revanchism (and the ability to profit from it) won out. So mote it be.

Obama chooses longtime Sen. Joe Biden

Springfield, Illinois--It's great to be wrong about this choice! Senator Obama has made a much better decision than I thought he was capable of--he's no slouch, and an intelligent man. I do believe he's going to win thanks to this decision. While Biden voted to approve the use of force in Iraq, he was one of the first in the Senate who did so to admit it was a big mistake.

Biden isn't perfect--not by a long-shot--but he's better than most of the other possible choices that Obama could have made. Choosing Hillary Clinton would have been a bad idea of variety of reasons.

Namely, that the Clinton campaign was willing to do anything to defame candidate Obama to win. You cannot trust someone like that as a running mate under any conditions, and it's likely that Mrs. Clinton would have done a lot of back-stabbing.

Considering the new and expanded power of the office of the vice president under Dick Cheney, the damage could have been incredible to an Obama presidency, a potential death-blow (that we wouldn't know the details of for years). The wounds between both camps are hardly healed, but they might be with the voters.

For myself, the real tests will come in the first month of an Obama presidency. Some of the "fixing" is going to require going after the former members of the Bush II administration. I don't expect that there will be any significant or fundamental changes in their economy, their government (not really ours), the damage done to our Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and our illegal presence in the Middle East.

The GOP is not solely responsible for all of this. The Democratic Party and their incumbents in Congress own a great share of the blame for standing down on their responsibility to rein-in a lawless presidency--the most lawless in our history, bar none. These precedents cannot be allowed to stand and their reversal must be part-and-parcel of a genuinely progressive agenda.

Now, the GOP is making all kinds of predictable comments on the Biden nomination that aren't going to float with any but the most ignorant authoritarian, but there are similar threads in the speeches of Obama and Biden that are sometimes troubling. How much they invest in these themes will be borne-out in their policies. But: it's good to be wrong sometimes. Senator Joe Biden voted against the revision of FISA and the telecom immunity provisions. The best part of all of this will be watching Biden beat on the GOP's incumbents. They've earned it, and-then-some.

Does D.C. Have Her Own Salon Kittys? (Revised version, originally written in June of 2007)

Washington D.C./Nazi Germany--It's highly doubtful that Deborah Jeane Palfrey knew anything about the subterranean activities of some of her associates, but could some of them have been agent provocateurs or spies? Or, with the capabilities of current surveillance technology, would it even be necessary? Could elements within the government and the two major political parties run sexual blackmailing operations under the color of legitimate investigations? Could foreign agencies be using escort services for similar ends? There is smoke.

Time and technology have changed the West's social landscape in substantial respects since 1933-1945 , but some things never change. Generally speaking, only the technology changes. This is another age, and some political tactics never die because they're always going to be useful later-on, and sometimes they get results. Instant communication was once the sole domain of the State, but today, we all have cell phones, pagers, laptop computers, GPS locators, unparalleled surveillance capabilities, and toys like the Blackberry and the new iPhone. Things have changed in the "secret world" as well, though the full-extent of these technological developments are unknown.

On Salon Kitty:

Although brothels were officially outlawed by the Third Reich, the elite Nazi SS security police had been authorized by Himmler before the war to engage prostitutes in intelligence gathering. The infamous Salon Kitty in Berlin's Giebachstrasse [11] was the brainchild of the Deputy Reichsfuhrer SS, Reinhard Heydrich. The high-class brothel was set up to increase surveillance of foreign diplomats and visitors as well as to gather dossiers on the sexual indiscretions of Nazi party big-wigs and government guests [Ed.-my emphasis]. ... (pp. 241-242) (heretical.com, "Love, Sex and War," by John Costello From Chapter 12: 'Black Propaganda and Sexpionage')

But Nazi Germany was hardly the precedent of this approach--it's ubiquitous throughout human history in various incarnations. The story of Samson and Delilah comes-to-mind. "Honey traps" or "plots" are nothing new, and the examples are common in the secret world. Interestingly, "Operation Kitty" was an overall failure for the Nazis controlling the enterprise. It didn't provide the huge-swath of intelligence that its creator--Reinhard Heydrich of the SS--had wanted, just a lot of compromising smut on NSDAP party officials and lower-rung functionaries.

This was most useful against other "Gauleiters" in the National Socialist hierarchy. Heydrich likely used some of this information, though the extent is unknown. Heydrich was assassinated by Czech partisans in 1943, and had been an architect of the "final solution." Interestingly, it was an "open secret" amongst NSDAP functionaries who frequented Giebachstrasse 11 that all conversations were being recorded!

The Salon Kitty was a German SD (Gestapo) establishment in which, according to German spy chief Walter Schellenberg, "...important visitors from other countries could be 'entertained' in a discreet atmosphere and...offered seductive feminine companionship. In such an atmosphere the most rigid diplomat might be induced to unbend and reveal useful information." Salon Kitty was set up in a large multi-storied apartment structure in a fashionable district of Berlin. Today, it's another kind of shop. It is described in The Schellenberg Memoirs (1956):

["]Double walls were built for the incorporation of microphones. These were connected by automatic transmission to tape recorders which would record every word spoken throughout the house. Three of our department's technical experts, bound by oath, were put in charge of his apparatus. The ostensible owner of the house [Kitty Schmidt] was provided with the necessary domestic and catering staff for the establishment to be able to offer the best service, food, and drink.["] (Spy Tech Agency.com, 12.02.1999)

The brothel's madam--Kitty Schmidt--had no control over the arrangement, and was a virtual captive of the regime, just like everyone else under the rule of NSDAP. It's entirely possible we have an entire network of this sort in North America today, just with different contours. This leads us to the role of sexual blackmail in politics.

There have been quite few "retirements" at the Pentagon under the Bush administration, and under Donald Rumsfeld's Department of Defense, there was an intense struggle for control of the Pentagon's bureaucracy. Of course, it hasn't been isolated to the DoD under Bush and Cheney. One can safely assume that the officer class of the United States are amply represented in the D.C. Madam's phone records, especially considering the presence of several numbers originating from Annapolis, as well as most of the region surrounding Washington D.C. Hotels adjacent to the Pentagon are also present.

There is a possible analog here from the era of NSDAP. In 1938, Hitler was finalizing his consolidation of power, but there were a few loose ends in the officer corps of the Wehrmacht:

For Hitler, the moment had arrived to clean house, to replace the crusty old generals with younger men eager to serve their Führer and follow orders, regardless of the consequences. The two highest ranking officers in Germany at this time were hold-overs from the days of President Hindenburg; Field Marshal Werner [V]on Blomberg, the Commander in Chief of the German Armed Forces, and General Werner [V]on Fritsch, the Commander in Chief of the Army. These stiff-lipped men with their rigid codes of honor were about to be toppled by that most vile of all things from their point of view, personal scandals involving sex. (historyplace.com, "Hitler Becomes Army Commander," 2001)

For Blomberg, it would involve the fact that the elder Field Marshal married a "former-prostitute," conveniently found in Weimar police records by Herman Goering, the founder of the SD. Himmler also got in on the game. Thanks to this information, on January 25th, Hitler could finally force Blomberg's resignation. Finally, no one would stand in-his-way, and there would be war. For General Werner Von Fritsch, things would be worse than Blomberg's predicament. Much worse.

He would be blackmailed by an obscure account in Gestapo files that he had had an homosexual encounter in an alley in 1935, the same year that Hitler purged the SA (Brown shirts) in the "Night of Long-knives." In short, Fritsch was felled by a "confidential informant." At about that same time, Stalin was using similar methods in purging the Central Committee of the Communist Party, killing his prey outright...because he could.

The irony was, the informant who "outed" Fritsch (the notorious Hans Schmidt--no relation to Kitty) had the wrong man. It was an officer named "Frisch." It didn't matter to the blackmailers and state pimps: Hitler moved swiftly to remove Fritsch anyway. Sixteen other generals would be removed through various methods, but the downing of Blomberg and Fritsch was that crucial beginning of total control over the German Army by NSDAP. Ironically, a number of these generals would be brought back as the war deteriorated...

"Hitler Becomes Army Commander," 2001:
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/triumph/tr-army.htm

"Love, Sex and War,":
http://www.heretical.com/costello/12sexspy.html

Spy Tech Agency, December 2nd, 1999:
http://216.87.7.9/Intel%20Bulletin/Intel%20Bulletin%20019991202.htm

Prosecutors in Palfrey Case Refuse Once Again to Present List of Accusers or Any Evidence for Pretrial Hearings

Washington D.C.--In a repeat performance from June 5th of this year, the government's prosecution has refused to provide the names of the women (and anyone else, not even military strategist Harlan Ullman or "Jennifer," a former employee of high powered law firm Akin Gump) testifying against Deborah Jeane Palfrey, with an impending hearing for discovery slated for November 28th. The public has the right to know this, and other evidence the prosecution has, as does the defendant.

Some have presumed that the defense is aware of who all the accusers are, and while this is likely to be true overall, there could still be some surprises. Other interesting events occurred on that same day of June 5th: Ms. Palfrey's ailing mother was confronted at her Florida home by agents of the IRS and the Justice Department just minutes after Palfrey had left the residence for a visit.

This means these federal agents were lying-in-wait at a very close proximity, making for some possibly humorous imagery. One can imagine a gaggle of these individuals hiding in the brush somewhere, or chewing on donuts and gum in their vehicles paid for by the average American taxpayer. Maybe they were just bored and impatient. Predictably, they aren't explaining their investigative procedures (or legal demeanor), and they're still not telling....anything at all. Considering how bumbling they all come-off, they might not want anyone to know what their actual investigative procedure entails--and certainly not the federal grand jury. It's unknown whether the jury is aware of the backgrounds of Palfrey's accusers or not, though it's doubtful.

It should also be noted that on-or-around June 5th the pseudo story that Dick Cheney "might" be in the phone records of Pamela Martin & Associates was trotted-out by the poorly-dressed Wayne Madsen. This writer ponders whether Madsen will ever reveal any of his sources, though it's also doubtful. Dissemination of the "Cheney story" was immediate and nearly ubiquitous. The week centering around was an awfully active one, wasn't it? Why it was gulped-up by far too many sites, blogs, and even some of the mainstream media is probably a matter of economics. Again, just another quick-fix that leads nowhere and means nothing, smelling more like disinformation than anything else. But since it brings in so many hits to a site, it's considered valuable. This is a point of vulnerability that legitimate and sincere sites should be considering...

And so, in this context it should be considered by all that Ret. Colonel Ronald Roughead (of SAIC) ran propaganda operations through the IMN (Iraqi Media Network), a fact that is pregnant with possibilities. It appears some of his work at SAIC focuses on "terrorist" activities on the internet and the dissemination of information. Surely, he's acquainted with affecting the flow of information, and could possibly be involved in activities on the web meant to isolate and channel information damaging to himself and his brother. He's got the skills and the resources, and considering the anarchic era we're in, it's not unlikely that he's been using them, having an entire crew to work with. In the private sector, this might not be illegal, unless it was work being done under a government contract, then the rules could be very different.

But according to the mainstream media--and even so-called "progressive" publications, sites, and blogs--none of this is important. Either the story isn't important (Corn's likely assertion), or maybe she's "lying. This appears to be John Cook's (Radar) and Larisa Alexandrovna's (Rawstory) contention. Just ask David Corn of the Nation. On this note, you can kiss your credibility goodbye, Mr. Corn. Either you're incredibly naive, or you might just be protecting people of the same class. Something is blinding many of you in the press to the possibilities of this story, and this writer believes many of you have been had.

Perhaps its a matter of professional loyalty to one's peers, which this writer rejects wholly. Do you really want to end this war and this criminal presidential administration or not? What's obvious is that Ret. Colonel Ron's brother Rear Admiral Gary Roughead--or someone under his command--has been searching the internet on the story relating to themselves, and from various geographic locations from U.S. Navy ISPs. Rear Admiral Gary Roughead is the current CNO of the entire U.S. Naval Fleets, but obviously this isn't newsworthy.

All of this is documented elsewhere on this site. Considering that one of the women testifying against Palfrey that she engaged in prostitution for Pamela Martin & Associates is still serving as a supply officer at Annapolis, and you could have a very real case of conflict of interest regarding the Roughead connection. But that kind of a relationship seems to be at the heart of the entire affair, and this is the second Bush era, after all. British military authorities shot Mata Hari for reporting information on the British tanks before the Battle of the Somme in 1916, tipping-off the Germans. Are similar actions being expedited in Washington thanks to the corruption and incompetence of those sworn to protect us?

CONGRESS DECIDES TO SELF-DESTRUCT WITH BUSH PRESIDENCY: ON NON-BINDING RESOLUTIONS AND SUPERFICIAL TALK FROM JOE DONNELLY, ET. AL.

"The American people have lost faith in President Bush's course of action in Iraq and they are demanding a new direction."
--House Speaker Nancy Pelosi today (AP, 02.13.2007)

"I haven't decided yet."
--Joe Donnelly killing his own political future.

WASHINGTON D.C.--Like Athenian democracy, Congress has decided to shoot itself in the foot with non-binding resolutions. Thinking that this is going to make the public forget that many incumbents and presidential candidates voted for the authorization for the use of force in Iraq, they've deluded themselves as most corrupt individuals do.

Worse still, the public shares some of the blame in allowing the vote to occur at all with nary a fight. It's true, once again, those of us on the real Left had to do this, and few wanted to listen. We can blame George W. Bush as much as we want, but we're in Iraq because we want cheap-gasoline, and because we weren't civically active, let-alone responsible. That's right, it's not just the Bush administration, it's collective-guilt. That guilt is being acted-out--pathetically--in our House of Representatives right now.

But, if you look at the prewar statistics, over 50% of the public was against going in if the conflict was a prolonged one. This is why there was no postwar planning, and such low troop-levels in the aftermath--to do so would have altered the public to the fact that this would inevitably be prolonged based on the plans of PNAC and neocons within the Bush administration. A cabal. But it was an above-ground one that everyone knew about, tolerated it, and allowed it to flourish and hijack our political system. Only radical reform can undo the damage that was allowed by political elites who only view democracy as a means for their own advancement as politicians.

The public deserves this out, but was too-easily deceived to be safe. The GOP seems to be totally committed to self-destruction in their blocking-measures, and their tepid bills that merely allow the Bush administration a continued blank-check:

Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate concurring), that _
(1) Congress and the American people will continue to support and protect the members of the United States Armed Forces who are serving or who have served bravely and honorably in Iraq; and (2) Congress disapproves of the decision of President George W. Bush announced on January 10, 2007, to deploy more than 20,000 additional United States combat troops to Iraq.(AP,02.13.2007)

Mainstream Democrats--reluctantly emboldened by the November midterms that gave them a congressional majority--only seem willing to support non-binding resolutions (not binding as law). Vice President Cheney has stated on CNN that "it won't stop us." This war will be four-years-old in March, and the political-cost will only continue to escalate.
The Bush administration's response to the bills (besides Cheney's): support the troops, the old broken-record we've been hearing for four-years, yet another underscoring of the Bush administration's inherent contempt for the rule of law and democracy. Some congressional GOP incumbents attempted to bring-up the ghost of Vietnam and the disdain most of the public had for returning-troops--save the crocodile tears, wimps:

It was the first debate about the war in either house of Congress since November's midterm elections, when public opposition to the conflict helped power Democrats to control of the House and Senate. Bush's decision last month to deploy an additional 21,500 troops to help stop sectarian violence has quickly become a flashpoint for critics of the war in Congress. There are currently about 141,000 American troops in Iraq and 27,000 in Afghanistan. The nonbinding measure states simply that the House "will continue to support and protect" troops serving in Iraq but that it "disapproves" of the troop buildup. (AP, 02.13.2007)

So, all it does is attempt to apply pressure to an administration that has never made any bones about kicking decorum to-the-curb. The war will continue, and thousands of Iraqis will be murdered by this ongoing-policy. This inaction makes all members of Congress who do not aggressively-oppose this administration fellow travels--war criminals. During a pause in the debate, Republican congressman Charles Norwood was eulogized.
Nobody was salivating over it since the GOP has no-chance of a majority in the House at present, and received a page-nine treatment (in stark-contrast to the stroke of Democratic Senator, Tim Johnson).The AP reports that, "Norwood was part of the Republican wave that took control of Congress in 1994." (AP, 02.13.2007) My, my, if only most Americans got the health coverage he did.

Amazingly, our own Joe Donnelly (here in the 2nd District of Indiana) was interviewed by AP, and had some disappointing things to say:

"The most important part of this to me is standing up for the troops and making sure we have full funding for them," Donnelly said Tuesday, after a weekend meeting with veterans' groups and constituents back home in his conservative north-central Indiana district. "I haven't made up my mind yet." The concerns of members like Donnelly are behind Democrats' strategy for this week's Iraq debate, which was carefully calibrated to bar votes on a GOP alternative that could expose a potentially messy divide within Democratic ranks over whether to cut off or restrict funding for troops on the ground. (AP, 02.13.2007)

A Hint to Joe: if you want to remain in Congress, you had better back defunding this war now. The majority of the public backs this measure, and yet you and the rest of the Democratic mainstream will not even pen a binding-resolution to halt any more troop-escalations.

You and I know this will mushroom into a military disaster, and that your real option is to defund the occupation, giving funds that mandate a demobilization. It doesn't bother me--or anyone except the GOP--that they've been relegated back to minority-status, and barred from watering-down an already watery-bill with their stupid amendments. They should shut up and accept their status.

The AP is siding with the GOP on this one, while they essentially ignored the shutting-out of the Democratic minority during the four-year GOP-majority. Frequently, they ignored the Democrats altogether, barely giving them the ink that the GOP-minority affords today.

This is because most of the mainstream media and the Republican Party are allied through an unconstitutional concentration of media ownership authored and engineered by the Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton administrations and Congress. A situation like this that crosses party-lines, done with premeditation over decades, can only emerge from the culture of a class of people.

That would be America's ruling-class and her functionaries in the media, academia, and the other various professions that service them. There is no GOP alternative for Iraq, it will just be more-of-the-same, which is what they're always going to be about.

AP on the Debate: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070213/ap_on_go_co/us_iraq_27;_ylt=AspApysA5fArp38emfb7OheGbToC

"Democrats Bar GOP Alternative on Iraq":
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070213/ap_on_go_co/democrats_iraq;_ylt=AmIL_vNRpZiVwOAkDwTq3m2MwfIE

Text of the Resolution ("Bad boy, you stop!") :
http://www.foxnews.com/wires/2007Feb12/0,4670,USIraqResolutionText,00.html

Chimpy McFlightsuit (TM) almost speaks: "Iraq is straining the nation's psyche."

"These are challenging times, and they're difficult times, and they're straining the psyche of our country. I understand that. You know, nobody likes to see innocent people die. Nobody wants to turn on their TV on a daily basis and see havoc wrought by terrorists," stated the Chimp in Chief to the White House Press Stenographers. Does he really understand?

Just a few years ago, we were all told Bush never reads-newspapers, never watches the news, and even recently has stated he isn't affected by the polls. YET, he makes comments like the above, so it's clear that he has recently taken these factors into account.

Right, we know Cheney never watches any other news except on Fox(http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/0322061cheney1.html ). He's really the President, after all, and who wants to watch bad news that relates to oneself? Anyway, Bush keeps insisting that if we leave, then a disaster will become a "disaster" and it "would provide a safe haven for terrorists and extremists and give them revenue from oil sales."

Oh, instead of oil revenues to our own terrorists at the White House and the oil-sectors of the "global economy". And what happened to that $9 Billion that simply vanished when Paul Bremer left Iraq?( http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/meast/01/30/iraq.audit/ And funny, no accountability whatsoever. Did it happen under Bill Clinton's watch? Of course, the right wishes they could blame it on him, but no-dice. The whole thing is just another resource war, and 2/3rd's of the American public aren't going-along anymore. They're too lazy to do anything, including going-along. The Preznent's angry, which is tough-shit, the people have spoken: "We're too lazy, and besides, American Idol is on." Sometimes, apathy is a double-edged sword. Soon, they'll probably be speaking-loudly when gasoline is $5-6 dollars-a-gallon, and their atrophied-buttocks can get some circulation.

Like Joseph Goebbels during Stalingrad, the neocons and their supporters think if they keep spinning, lying and obfuscating the truth, that reality will conform to their propaganda on the ground. History has never worked this way, and it never will.

Before the invasion: Iraq was not a haven for terrorists, though it became one once we invaded. It's also becoming a combat training-ground for terrorist groups, where it had never been one before. Having been created by the British as an artificical nationstate with artificial borders, Iraq has been a hodge-podge of rival ethnic-groups, and it really isn't worth-saving. There have been many experts in geopolitics who have said splitting the "failed nation" into three-parts is likely the best route for Middle Eastern stability. Ah, and then there is the influence of Iran in Iraq nowadays, something that was impossible under Saddam Hussein. I think it's time--we need to invade our own country, but how will we justify it? Who knows, but we'll find one.

Speaking of justifications, the last pillar of "Why we went into Iraq" fell last week--with no reaction in the press whatsoever. The Bush administration, and the State Department are thinking seriously of "alternatives to democracy", because they have finally realized that the hodge-podge was only governable with an iron-fist (almost there!). We created this mess and we cannot avert a Civil War once it has begun, and it began long ago. The bill is coming due, much of it from People's Republic of China. We could build a bunch of escape pods and do a collective dine-n'-dash, but that would be communist.

Eventually, they're going to want Taiwan in the package too. Oil might not be based on the US dollar anymore. While morons talk about antiwar activists and the Left "appeasing" (who? North Korea?) "Islamofascists" (an oxymoron for oxymorons), the reality on the ground is going to make it clear what is really going on. We illegally invaded Iraq, and we are being repelled by attrition like any imperial power. Just like France in Indochina, just like Great Britain in North America and just like Spain and America from Cuba. Bye-bye empire, the gambit failed. We'll be better off for it in the end. But then, I believe everything I see on CNN and Fox. Oh, and I'll have fries with that too.