More Screwed Now Than Ever Before

My rusty old steed has finally gone to CPU heaven; rather than changing careers, I decided to get a new computer. I do not like the new keyboard at all, nor do I care much for the new OS. And they don't seem to like me, either. So we're having a big battle and not much else is getting done. All my blogs have been dormant.

But I've been reading as much as possible ... and I can't shake the feeling that we're more screwed now than ever before, though it seems hardly anyone agrees with me.

Perhaps that's why I don't agree with them.

I thought Mark Morford was making sense in his newest -- Greetings from "the angry left" -- until the end of his column:

But don't you worry, because there's an even bigger secret looming that the right wing can't really mention right now. See, much as they want to sling "angry left" around and hope it sticks, there's simply no getting over the fact that, despite how it will take the Obama administration many years to repair the incredible damage Hurricane Bush hath wrought, most of us on the left are actually feeling pretty damn good these days. Happy, even.

See, we know the tide has turned. The Bush Dark Days are nearly over. The Obama groundswell is historic, extraordinary, unstoppable. The GOP had its turn, was handed six years of unprecedented, unchecked power, and very nearly destroyed the country. Even Republican leaders now openly admit their party is a mess, shattered and gutted by Bush, will take years and decades to restore to something resembling dignity. And McCain/Palin? An aberration, one of the most disquieting quasi-conservative tickets to ever give a nation the creeps.

So then, trust me when I say, try as they might, "the angry left" won't stick. As anyone with the slightest sense of history and poetic justice knows, such a jab is merely the final, desperate wailings of the bankrupt, the shameful, and the doomed.

It's too bad how he's got it all twisted around there. It's America that's bankrupt and doomed, not the Republican party. As for shameful, I would use that word to describe Barack Obama and the people who still support him.

But Mark Morford thinks the Obama administration is going to reverse the depredations of the Bush administration and that's why The Left is not Angry. Uh-huh. Sure, Mark.

The only problem with this analysis in my opinion is that there isn't a shred of evidence that Obama wants to do anything of the kind, and plenty of evidence to the contrary; in the meantime Obama is showing himself to be utterly shameless with respect to a massive war crime as well as the betrayal of the vast majority of American voters. In other words, he is ready to be Commander-in-Chief.

And Mark Morford may speak for The Left but he certainly doesn't speak for me. Oh well.

At At-Largely, Jeff Huber slays a pack of stupid little lies in his newest -- They Lied with Their Boots On -- but along the way he sips from the Magical Chalice containing the Big Lie. As usual.

Huber rips into David Petraeus for saying things he can't prove, writing:

It's the eye-watering lies of the neoconservative oligarchy that everyone remembers, but I've come to believe the little lies they tell reveal more about their malignant nature, and I'm particularly interested when these venial mendacities get dropped not by our politicians, but by our ever growing phalanx of political generals.
...

[Petraus] said that senior Al Qaeda leaders "might be" diverting fighters from the war in Iraq to the Afghan frontier area. He also said that Al Qaeda "might be" reconsidering Iraq as its highest priority war front. What made him say this "might be" happening is "some intelligence that has picked this up.” In case you're wondering what "some intelligence" might consist of, Petraeus explained that, "It's not solid gold intelligence." And "not solid gold intelligence" means what, exactly, General?

“There are unsubstantiated rumors and reflections that perhaps some foreign fighters originally intended for Iraq may have gone to the FATA," Petraeus finally told AP, which means in point of fact that the entire story about al Qaeda in Iraq transferring itself to the Bananastans is total f***ing bulls***; but that didn't keep Petraeus from telling it or the Associated Press from running it.

And that's quite legitimate, but on the other hand consider this nonchalant reference to an even bigger lie, portrayed here as truth:

... you can smuggle dribs and drabs of martyrdom interns from Baghdad to Islamabad or wherever. You'd do that with key leadership personnel, or with special task operatives like the carload of out-of-towners who pulled off the 9/11 attacks. But it's not like the Petraeuses of this world would have you believe ...

The problem, of course, is that IF a cartload of out-of-towners had pulled off the 9/11 attacks, the entire terror war might be somewhat justified and the fact that Petraeus is exaggerating wildly now would be of minor import.

In order to believe the big lie, you also have to believe that a 47-story skyscraper that wasn't hit by a plane disintegrated in seven seconds, due to thermal expansion -- the first and only building to do so in the history of the world.

Yeah, right!

The NIST report by its own admission is utter horse manure, but Barack Obama buys the 9/11 Myth just as fully as John McCain does ... and while guys like Huber and Morford drink from the poisoned chalice, shake their bloody pom-poms and dream their pipe dreams, the biggest lies of all are still standing, and growing, and being reinforced in hundreds of millions of ways.

The foul and bloody chimera erected seven years ago is becoming more solid all the time.

Meanwhile, Robert Parry has been both Too Bad and As Usual lately as well, as prior trends have continued, and the former Consortium News has now become Cheering For Obama.

Recently, Parry has been writing about McCain and Palin and how phony they are; nothing of the sort about Barack Obama and Joe Biden. They're the good guys in an ever-evolving tale of news and politics, from one of the formerly great investigative journalists of his bygone era. Very sad and getting worse.

Why, among all the chumps writing today, do I pick on these three? Some sort of moral deficiency on my part, I suppose.

I used to think these three writers were excellent. I used to read them all the time.

Now I can't break the habit, even though they make me so sad and/or angry so often.

Sometimes I think that by sidestepping the big questions and/or supporting the big lie and/or ignoring the words and sponsors of their chosen candidate, they're insulting my intelligence.

Other times I think I'm insulting my own intelligence by continuing to read them ... but what else is there to read?

Plenty.

Gandhi is all the way in Australia but he can see what Obama is up to.

Sept. 4 (Bloomberg) -- Barack Obama said the surge of American forces in Iraq has ``succeeded beyond our wildest dreams,'' though Iraqis still haven't done enough to take responsibility for their country.

``The surge has succeeded in ways that nobody anticipated,'' Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, said in a recorded interview broadcast tonight on Fox News's ``The O'Reilly Factor'' program.

Gandhi asks:

Is it time to vote Green yet?

Yes!

John Caruso was paying attention and his post at A Distant Ocean bears the perfect title: "Obama and O'Reilly share a sip from the blood cup":

Just in case you missed it, here's another lovely nugget (or see the video here) to share with your Democrat friends:

Sen. Barack Obama: “Bill, what I’ve said is—I’ve already said it succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.”

Bill O’Reilly: “Right! So why can’t you just say, I was right in the beginning, and I was wrong about the surge?"

Sen. Obama: “Because there is an underlying problem with what we’ve done. We have reduced the violence…”

O’Reilly: “Yeah?”

Sen. Obama: “...but the Iraqis still haven’t taken responsibility! And we still don’t have the kind of political reconciliation. We are still spending, Bill, $10 [billion] to $12 billion a month.”

O’Reilly: “And I hope, if you’re president, you can get them to kick in and pay us back.”

Sen. Obama: “They’ve got $79 billion in New York!”

O’Reilly: “And I’ll go with you!”

Sen. Obama: “Let’s go!”

O’Reilly: “We’ll get some of that money back.”

As a friend said: let's make them pay for the whip we're using to beat them!

Exactly. Why not? Iraqis have to take responsibility for their own country now; this is an ownership society! And as the "Angry Left" used to say, we don't own Iraq.

Instead Iraq is the scene of an enormous and ongoing crime -- a war crime, a crime against humanity, the most serious offense against the most serious legal strictures ever passed -- and nobody -- left, right, or center -- will say anything about it, other than a few madmen on the net.

Chris Floyd must be the maddest of all the internet madmen; his four most recent posts combine to tell an awesome tale:

Surge Protectors: Obama Embraces Bush-McCain Spin on Iraq

Both parties support a heinous lie, a brutal crime against innocent people which is hailed as a success. Meanwhile ...

Work of Evil: Beyond the Worst-Case Scenario in Somalia

... yet another country is being destroyed as part of the Terror War, by proxy and for gas and oil, and without the knowledge or consent (or, apparently, much concern) of the American people.

Rebel Yell: Resistance and Renaissance in the Age of Terror

What's a self-respecting human to do? Submit to the craziness, or fight back in defense of life and dignity?

Fight back against what? The root of all evil?

Gobblers on Parade: Portrait of a Highly Successful System

Share it fairly but don't take a slice of my pie...

To comment on this post, please click here and join the Winter Patriot community.

Howard Out! Gandhi Gone!

The war criminal Australian government led by the war criminal John Howard has been soundly thrashed in parliamentary elections.

Now, George Bush's Australian ally and his band of blood-drenched swine should proceed directly to The Hague for a free and fair trial before their mass execution for crimes against humanity.

But of course that will never happen.

In related news, one of my favorite bloggers has shut down all his blogs, or so he says (for what appears to be the final time).

The Australian writer known as Gandhi began with a blog called "Bush Out", and later shifted his focus to Australian politics and "Howard Out" (and he's been "Riding The Juggernaut" along the way, too).

He's called it quits before, and he has quit -- for a day or two, or even a week -- but this time seems different.

Howard really is out now -- finally! And "Howard Out" is all done too, as of Thursday -- apparently. I'll keep the links to Gandhi's blogs on the sidebar, but I may move them from "news" to "resources" if he really does keep himself away from the blogs.

Somehow I get the feeling that this retirement is more permanent, since rather than just trying to quit blogging, Gandhi's begun work on a book.

It's tentatively called "Gandhi's War", and he says it's

based on my blogging experiences here and at BushOut. It explores the human cost of blogging news that is relentlessly depressing. I know I am not the only one who has suffered these "bloggers blues", and I think it's a story that should be told.

If anyone wants to contribute their own stories, or knows a good publisher, please email me: gazo a@t dodo dot com dot AU.

He gives us a sneak preview, which is definitely worth a read, but we may have to wait quite a while for the rest.

But in the meantime:

Good riddance to Howard!

Best wishes to Gandhi!

Pop Quiz For Terror Suspects -- Oops! You Fail!!

Suppose while living and working in a foreign country, you were arrested on "terror" charges that turned out to be groundless.

Suppose while you were detained, your work visa was revoked.

Suppose the "case" against you collapsed quickly and you were released.

What would you do?

[1] Go back to your native country, see your wife and the rest of your family, find another job, and resume your life as quickly as possible ...

[2] Stay in the country where you had been arrested even though you couldn't work there ... or ...

[3] Wait a while and see what happens.

Be careful! One of the above may raise suspicions!

An Indian doctor detained in Australia over failed car bombings in Britain has only raised suspicions by heading home so soon after being cleared, Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews said Sunday.

Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef spent more than three weeks in detention on one count of "reckless" support for a terrorist group, but the case against him collapsed Friday for lack of evidence, and the charge was dropped.

Haneef quickly arranged a flight out of Brisbane, and was due in the southern Indian city of Bangalore at 9:30 pm (1600 GMT), where he was to reunite with his wife and meet his one-month-old daughter for the first time.

Andrews said the rapid departure only made the 27-year-old Muslim medic look more suspicious.

"If anything, that actually heightens rather than lessens my suspicion," he told commercial television.

Wow!

What would they be saying if he hadn't left?

Well you know his family is overseas, and he has no job here, and he can't get a job here, so why is he hanging around? Do you not find that suspicious? Do you think he might be planning something?

You heard it here first: These guys are absolutely shameless.

My Australian friend Gandhi has been blogging the Haneef story at Howard Out.

Click here for all the details.

Gandhi: Why Are We Over There Again?

Here's one of Gandhi's latest, in full:

Qui Custodiat Custos? Custos Ipsum!

[Latin: "Who guards the guard? He guards himself!"]

The latest reason why UK troops have to stay in Iraq: to protect themselves:

Hopes of a rapid British withdrawal from Iraq appeared to diminish yesterday after a minister said the present force level was needed for the safety of the troops.

Bloody hell.

Meanwhile our brave Aussie diggers have murdered another innocent man in Afghanistan. Oh, sorry - he couldn't have been innocent, because they shot him. So he must have been guilty. Of something.

Why are we over there again?

I know that's a rhetorical question, but here's a simple answer:

Client Regime. Oil Law. Permanent Bases.
Client Regime. Oil Law. Permanent Bases.
Client Regime. Oil Law. Permanent Bases.
Client Regime. Oil Law. Permanent Bases.

Gandhi: Revolt Of The Journos?

Here's an interesting observation from my down-under friend:

(can't see the video? click here)

Mika's not the only pissed journo in Bush's USA today. The LA Times' Managing Editor has abruptly quit the paper, saying he "would like to return to being a reporter."

And Wall Street Journal reporters across the country chose not to show up for work [June 28], citing threats to their independence and credibility.

He may be right, you know: The Revolution May Be Televised After All ...

... especially if our "suits" get a sniff of this!

What's The Angle? Is The WaPo Cheney Series Ace Journalism, Or Subtle Psy-op?

The Washington Post has been a bit more interesting than usual lately, with an epic four-part series by Barton Gellman and Jo Becker about Dick Cheney and how he has changed the role of "Vice" President.

I've been reading and reading and my eyes are going wonky and I'm still trying to decide what to make of it. Is it "Pulitzer-quality journalism", as Gandhi suggests? Is it really as "breathtaking" as Larisa Alexandrovna thinks?

Or is it just another dose of the usual Bush-administration bunk, spun through an exceptionally clever filter: yet another limited hangout, slightly damaging but not really all that bad, something the spin-meisters think they can contain with a barrage of falsehoods which in turn will serve as a platform for further lies? At this point the jury's still out, in my estimation. (Your mileage may vary and vive la difference!)

Some passages in the series just beg to be highlighted. This passage grabbed Gandhi by the throat:

In a bunker beneath the East Wing of the White House, Cheney locked his eyes on CNN, chin resting on interlaced fingers. He was about to watch, in real time, as thousands were killed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Previous accounts have described Cheney's adrenaline-charged evacuation to the Presidential Emergency Operations Center that morning, a Secret Service agent on each arm. They have not detailed his reaction, 22 minutes later, when the south tower of the World Trade Center collapsed.

"There was a groan in the room that I won't forget, ever," one witness said. "It seemed like one groan from everyone" -- among them Rice; her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley; economic adviser Lawrence B. Lindsey; counselor Matalin; Cheney's chief of staff, Libby; and the vice president's wife.

Cheney made no sound. "I remember turning my head and looking at the vice president, and his expression never changed," said the witness, reading from a notebook of observations written that day. Cheney closed his eyes against the image for one long, slow blink.

Three people who were present, not all of them admirers, said they saw no sign then or later of the profound psychological transformation that has often been imputed to Cheney. What they saw, they said, was extraordinary self-containment and a rapid shift of focus to the machinery of power.

Let that sink in for a moment, will you? Why not just hang around and let that gun smoke awhile?

Larisa quotes the same passage as well as the following:

While others assessed casualties and the work of "first responders," Cheney began planning for a conflict that would call upon lawyers as often as soldiers and spies."

I would suggest that the word "began" in the previous sentence is misleading. But whatever the case,

"In expanding presidential power, Cheney's foremost agent was David S. Addington, his formidable general counsel and legal adviser of many years. On the morning of Sept. 11, Addington was evacuated from the Eisenhower Executive Office Building next to the White House and began to make his way toward his Virginia home on foot. As he neared the Arlington Memorial Bridge, someone in the White House reached him with a message: Turn around. The vice president needs you.

Down in the bunker, according to a colleague with firsthand knowledge, Cheney and Addington began contemplating the founding question of the legal revolution to come: What extraordinary powers will the president need for his response?

Before the day ended, Cheney's lawyer joined forces with Timothy E. Flanigan, the deputy White House counsel, linked by secure video from the Situation Room. Flanigan patched in John C. Yoo at the Justice Department's fourth-floor command center. White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales joined later.

Thus formed the core legal team that Cheney oversaw, directly and indirectly, after the terrorist attacks."

Larisa highlights it differently but she has this to say about it:

This is still September 11, 2001 remember and seemingly - although I may be reading this wrong - still during daylight hours, that is to say, in the process of the attacks. You will recall that building 7 did not collapse until around 5 PM EST. So we don't know who attacked us (we suspect), we don't know what the security breach was (how they boarded the planes, how many there were, etc.), in fact, at this point - and this I remember very well - there are still rumors that the Empire State building had a bomb in it, that the Holland tunnel had a bomb in it, and that there was still a 20th hijacker somewhere out there. I remember too a flight in Cleveland being suspected and grounded, and all major cities being evacuated. In fact, I remember that day from my vantage point almost play by play, where I was, how the day progressed, what the various threat alerts coming in were. It was chaos and confusion and no one knew if the country was secure, that is, if the attacks were over, for what appeared to be an eternity.

Yet as this is going on, Cheney's concern is not making sure the country was secure, or making sure that he knew - as best as could be known at the time - what the damage was, etc. His concern was a power grab? On 9/11, during the attacks, he calls in lawyers? This is horrifying to me because it shows a man so emotionally vacant that his reaction to horror is to figure out how it best benefits him?

I really don't see what the big surprise is here. Is it such a stretch -- especially given Norman Mineta's testimony -- to understand why Cheney didn't bother trying to find out whether the attacks were over? Or who was behind them?

Larisa finds it horrifying that a power grab was Cheney's immediate reaction.

But what if it wasn't a reaction at all? How horrifying is that?

To speak plainly: on this particular point I do not get Larisa. She's been dogging these guys for years; she knows how they operate; she has excellent sources; she's a fine investigator and a very capable tactician. And there was already plenty of evidence on the table suggesting that Cheney was not the slightest bit surprised -- or appalled -- by anything that happened on 9/11.

Obviously Larisa didn't know who attacked us, or what the security breach was, or the source or veracity of the rumors about the bombs in the Holland Tunnel and the Empire State Building, or anything about the other threat alerts that kept coming in all day long, or whether the country was secure, that is, whether the attacks were over.

Not that there's anything wrong with not knowing! There would in fact be something wrong with knowing!

None of us knew, except whoever planned the attacks. But if somebody did know, it would explain why he might not have been concerned with the answers to any of these questions, and it would also explain why he might show no sign of surprise or sadness -- not even a groan -- nothing but "extraordinary self-containment and a rapid shift of focus to the machinery of power".

~~~

Let us now turn to one of the results -- some would say the defining result -- of Cheney's rapid shift of focus to the machinery of power. Larisa said this made her skin crawl:

Cheney and his allies, according to more than two dozen current and former officials, pioneered a novel distinction between forbidden "torture" and permitted use of "cruel, inhuman or degrading" methods of questioning. They did not originate every idea to rewrite or reinterpret the law, but fresh accounts from participants show that they translated muscular theories, from Yoo and others, into the operational language of government.
...

No longer was the vice president focused on procedural rights, such as access to lawyers and courts. The subject now was more elemental: How much suffering could U.S. personnel inflict on an enemy to make him talk? Cheney's lawyer feared that future prosecutors, with motives "difficult to predict," might bring criminal charges against interrogators or Bush administration officials.

Geneva rules forbade not only torture but also, in equally categorical terms, the use of "violence," "cruel treatment" or "humiliating and degrading treatment" against a detainee "at any time and in any place whatsoever." The War Crimes Act of 1996 made any grave breach of those restrictions a U.S. felony. The best defense against such a charge, Addington wrote, would combine a broad presidential directive for humane treatment, in general, with an assertion of unrestricted authority to make exceptions.

I agree about the skin crawl but unfortunately I no longer see any of this as a reaction.

Unfortunately? Well, it's unfortunate for me, because it makes my internal organs crawl too.

As far as the series is concerned, I'm still reading, and thinking ... and trying to figure out what has happened here. If this is for real, it's a big step forward -- especially for the Washington Post. And that's why I don't trust it.

But if it's a psy-op then it's a subtle one. I know, I know, psy-ops can be exceptionally subtle, and I can be exceptionally dense. But in my opinion, if it's a psy-op then it would likely be one of two kinds.

There's the all-discrediting psy-op in which somebody spots a flaw (or an alleged flaw) in one paragraph of one article and uses it to allegedly discredit the entire series, as well as the real-life story on which it is based (thus Rather-gate; in this instance it would be used to "legitimize" Cheney's every illegal action). I don't see that happening in this case but it's still early and I wouldn't eliminate the possibility just yet.

Then there's the thin-edge-of-the-wedge, limited-hangout approach which we noted quite recently, where everything turns out to be worse than it was originally portrayed. If this is the case here, there are going to be a lot of spontaneous human cranium implosions, even among the most jaded analysts. On the other hand, this is one of the administration's favorite tactics, so I'll be having my skull reinforced, and as soon as possible.

There are other kinds of psy-ops as well, of course, so it could very well be something else ... if it's a plant.

If it's real, we get a whole 'nother set of questions, like: What does it all mean?

I think Larisa has it right when she says:

I am not a legal scholar, but it appears there has been a coup and no one told the President about it.

That's pretty clear, in my opinion. Or at least the first half of it is. Perhaps they told him but he didn't get it. Or maybe they told him but he doesn't care. Or maybe they told him but there's nothing he can do about it. I don't know. How can anyone really know things like this?

And what can we say about the Washington Post's role in support of real journalism (if that indeed is what this is)?

Would it signify a revival in American journalism? Or just a speed-bump on the road to hell?

And where did all this inside information come from? And why is it all coming out now?

On this question, Larisa has an idea I find quite intriguing:

I get the sense now that Bush's family is hitting back via the WaPo piece, likely bringing in all of their contacts and former officials from the Bush 41 administration to castrate Cheney as all other measures appear to have failed, including the Iraq Study Group, Gates at DOD, and Negroponte at State.

We'll see ...

On a possibly related note, why has the CIA released so much incriminating information all of a sudden?

TIME Magazine's Robert Baer says it's an attempt to send a message to the White House:

Hayden's plan is not only to draw a line under the past but make a point to this and future White Houses: Politicize intelligence and you'll find your name on the front page of the newspaper.

But when is intelligence not politicized? When is the President's name not on the front page of the newspaper?

So why else would could it be? It couldn't possibly be an attempt to draw attention away from the WaPo series on Dick Cheney, could it?

Nah! I didn't think so either.

So I'll leave you with one more good quote from Larisa:

I am starting now to believe that the President of the United States and the Vice President did likely have an agreement, described by Cheney as "an understanding," in part one of the WaPo series. Bush wanted the office and title, Cheney wanted the power. If this is in fact the agreement, then the public is owed an explanation and the Congress needs to take a look at the legality of such an agreement. Would a Cheney-Bush ticket have won do you think? Would anyone have elected Dick Cheney as President of the United States? Never.

We didn't elect George Bush, either. Never. But in a sense Larisa is still right: if the ticket had been Cheney/Bush, neither "election" -- 2000 or 2004 -- would have been close enough to steal.

Nonetheless I think Larisa is right when she says:

Cheney needed Bush to get elected it appears and to mislead the public as to who the actual President would be. That is my sense after reading the first two parts of this series.

Someone needs to ask the President (if we only had a press corps) if he agreed to abdicate his role as President to Dick Cheney before the election... not in title, but in authority. If not, then someone needs to ask the President if he minds that there has been a coup in his administration.

David Horsey has it right, too:

Gandhi: 'The Collective Failure Of The US People'

The collective failure of the US people to act against the criminal Bush administration has had an extremely negative ripple effect around the world

according to the fine Australian blogger Gandhi, whose most recent post I reproduce in full below.

This -- the first new post at Bush Out in three weeks -- may be the last new post we ever see from Gandhi at Bush Out. But on the other hand, Howard Out may be the best place for him to apply his considerable talents.

Gandhi's newest at Bush Out will be a fine way to leave it, IMVHO, (if he does decide to leave it):

I know, I know. I am neglecting this blog. But I am focussed on getting rid of my own Bush-loving government in Australia.

I mean, what more is there for a non-US blogger like me to say about Bush? Everything you need to know (and much more) is available somewhere on this blog, or via the links (like TPM, Juan Cole, ICH, Alternet, and antiwar.com).

From my point of view, the case against Bush and his cronies has been closed for some time. Bush is polling in the gutter now, largely thanks to years of scrutiny from blogs like this one (and this one!), plus the blatantly obvious failures of his own policies. Bringing such public attention to Bush's criminally immoral administration was my original intention when I started this blog: now it's up to the people of the USA to deliver the coup de grace.

Bush doesn't give a shit about his low poll numbers. He and his Big Money friends are doing just fine, thank you very much. It's now up to the people of the USA to do something! Get off you ass, get active, and make sure the NEXT administration (and the NEXT, and the NEXT...) is not just as bad as this one.

If you are looking for a place to start, I suggest y'all take a good long look at this link. Explains a lot, doesn't it? Now what are you going to DO about it?

Come on! Bush is the symptom of a very sick society: you guys have a lot of work to do!

The USA remains (for now) the world's only superpower. The collective failure of the US people to act against the criminal Bush administration has had an extremely negative ripple effect around the world. Conversely, if the USA can get its own house in order, and show the world what truth, justice and real Democracy is all about, then perhaps - just perhaps - the inspiring dream that once was "America" might yet live again.

Aside from the friendly mention, I must say I agree with the sentiment -- what are we waiting for? Nice weather?

In November of 2004 I was saying "What more proof do you want? Get out in the streets!" and I was hearing things like "Yeah, but the weather! It's too wet, it's too cold, it's too dreary ... "

What's the problem now? Is it too warm? Too dry? The sun is too bright?

'The Iraq War Was A Game To Us', 'Just A TV Game, A Fantasy'

The following email was received and posted verbatim by my Australian friend Gandhi under the title "Confessions Of An Anonymous Wingnut".

As is my custom, I have corrected spelling and punctuation and added a few links, which I do hope you will explore. The emphasis below is also mine.

Gandhi,

OK. I visited your blog again today after seeing your latest comment at ITM. And your last post is exactly right.

I remember you from your previous atttacks on Omar and Mohammed. I always thought you were a jerk, and I admit that I was one of the people who used to post nasty comments about you. To be honest, I guess I never thought too much about what you were saying or why you were saying it. I was just angry that you were disrupting a blog where I enjoyed spending time.

Sorry about that.

My attitude to the Iraq War and other things has changed a lot in the last few months. I no longer believe that the USA will achieve anything like "victory" in Iraq. In fact, I think the whole thing has been a big disaster, and I am very angry about it.

I am angry at all the people like George Tenet and Wolfowitz, who lied to us, but I am also angry at myself for believing the lies. Actually I don't think I ever really believed them, I just accepted them thoughtlessly because they fitted with what I wanted to believe. I didn't really care if they were true of not.

I am also really sorry that I have spent so much of my time and energy on something that was not just worthless, but actually WRONG. Countless people have died because of lies that I helped to spread. When you stop and think about that, it is chilling.

For my "friends" and I the war was never real, it was just a TV game, a fantasy. We were a big, strong "team" and we worked hard to defeat "the enemy" (and that made us feel good about ourselves). But our enemy was never really Al-Q'aeda or even the insurgency, it was people like YOU. I only just realised that recently.

The Iraq War was a game to us. The rise of blogs and the Internet made it possible for us to join in, to be players on the field of battle. We already knew which "side" we were going to be on when President Bush stood in the rubble of 9/11 and called us to action. What we didn't know was where that action would lead us. Or who we were following.

You need to understand that many of the people "fighting" you are actually good, decent people who are just going in the wrong direction. BTW I still think that people like you and Michael Moore are jerks. Your rudeness actually forces people like me to ignore you, or fight you. A more polite and humble approach would be better. But that's just free advice. What I really wanted to say was "thanks" because you were right and I was wrong, and maybe people like you helped me to wake up, in the end.

Also, I wanted to say about your comments about Mo and Omar being CIA agents, and people who post comments there being paid US agents and stuff. It's not true, at least I don't think so, but in a way it is true too.

For example, I know a guy with a kinda popular blog who makes a lot of money from advertising right wing stuff. He is also increasingly skeptical about the war but he is afraid to say anything in case he loses his sponsors. Another guy got onto a college campus he never thought he would get and the dean (or somebody) said something like "Great work on the Internet, J." Then you have those US Attorneys, right? It's not as obvious as you think it is, but it's there: everybody supporting the war knows that it could be good for them one way or another, just like everyone who helps out on campaigns knows it could lead to a job or something later.

I'm sure the military is doing PsyOps too, of course, and there have been a few strange comments at ITM that made even me think "HMMM", but I doubt it's like you say.

OK. I gotta go. But I just wanted to say sorry.
...

I guess I can't blame you if you want to publish my email address, but please don't: I am working to fix some of the damage I have helped cause, so please give me a chance. Like I said before, don't be a jerk! LOL.

LOL indeed. Cheers, mate!

Do Supposedly Sexy Women Manipulate Us Through The Media? That Is The Question ... One Of The Questions, Anyway

Are we, the morally outraged citizens of the Western world, actually paying the cost for our leaders' sexual frustration?

That's another good question, and it's part of a great post, from Gandhi at Howard Out.

No more excerpts, no more hints. Go ahead and click the link.

Sex, Media and Wendi "Mrs Murdoch" Deng

Anger And Wit: A Powerful Combination

Democratic Presidential candidate Mike Gravel, formerly virtually unknown although first to declare, made a lot of sense on Thursday night in a debate I couldn't catch. Fortunately Joe Lauria of the Boston Globe had me covered, and reported that during the debate, Gravel

said the early leading Democratic candidates "frightened" him because they had taken nothing off the table, including nuclear weapons, for possible military action against Iran.

"Tell me, Barack, who do you want to nuke?" he asked Senator Barack Obama of Illinois.

"I'm not planning on nuking anybody right now, Mike," Obama replied.

"Good, then we're safe for a while," Gravel said.

He's not just funny; he's absolutely spot-on!

"This war was lost the day that George Bush invaded Iraq on a fraudulent basis," he said in the debate.

No kidding, Mike! ... um ... Right ON, Senator Gravel!!

You can see more of Mike Gravel here:

Gravel has a solid anti-war history but and therefore no money:

A native of Springfield, Mass., Gravel served two terms in the Senate, representing Alaska from 1969 to 1981. He made his mark as a fierce Vietnam war critic who staged a one-man filibuster that led to the end of the military draft. He drafted legislation to end funding for the war and released the Pentagon Papers, which detailed government deception over Vietnam, at the end of June 1971.
...

"He started out with less money than the cost of a John Edwards haircut," said Elliott Jacobson, Gravel's national finance director.

Gravel told reporters after the debate: "We stayed in a $55 motel. I'll hitchhike to the next debate if I have to."

He's not just anti-war and anti-Bush; he has some good ideas too:

Believing that Congress has the power to both declare and end wars, he called for a law to end the war.
...

Gravel advocates a constitutional amendment and a federal statute establishing legislative procedures for citizens to make laws through ballot initiatives.

He also supports the Fair Tax, which would eliminate the Internal Revenue Service and corporate and individual income taxes, replacing them with a 23 percent national sales tax on all new goods and services. Each month, taxpayers would receive a check to offset the tax on basic items such as food and medicine.

Whoa! No wonder I'd never heard of him! I'll be paying attention from now on, though, and so will a lot of other people.

"He's the one to say not only that the emperor has no clothes, but that the emperor wannabes have no clothes," said national pollster John Zogby, adding, "There is an angry voter. I don't know how that will take shape, it's way too early. But you got a sense why Mike Gravel is in the race on Thursday and that he is in the race."
...

The reaction to Gravel's performance has overwhelmed his campaign. His aides said they got more requests for interviews yesterday than in the first 12 months of the campaign.

Gravel's website could not handle the flood of hits after the debate, they said. Bloggers complained that they were ready to donate money but were unable to get into the website.

I'm pretty sure they'll get that fixed right away.

There's more on Mike Gravel here and here, and a tip of the frozen cap to my Australian friend Gandhi for another good catch -- and a whole passel o' great blogs: Bush Death Watch, Howard Death Watch and Riding The Juggernaut!

There's even more about Mike Gravel here, and another frozen tip to another down-under friend with another passel o' blogs: Keep an eye on Lukery and Wot Is It Good 4, Kill the Messenger, Let Sibel Edmonds Speak, and disclose, denny!

Zogby usually gets the numbers right, but he may have been misunderestimating when he said "there is an angry voter."

There are zillions of angry voters. And David Michael Green is one of them. He makes a lot of sense, too, despite (or maybe because of) the anger, in "Schadenfreude Is My Middle Name"

I’m not an angry man. But I am angry.

I’m not a bitter person. But, boy, am I bitter.

And I’m not generally given to vindictiveness. But, you know what? Right now I’m open to persuasion.

The Bush administration is now beginning an inexorable process which will change its status from the worst administration in American history to the publicly-acknowledged worst administration in American history. I, for one, couldn’t be more delighted.

That delight is only partly based on having been on the receiving end of their atrocities these last six years. And it is only partly based on the assurance that those gifts will keep giving for decades into the future, like a bad case of political herpes.

And that delight is also only partly based on their motivations and the scale of their transgressions. People who believe that the regressive right came to Washington to implement a legitimate ideology that just happens to be different from ours, or who believe that they meant well but, ironically, the first MBA president couldn’t manage his way out of an empty wading pool, even with the entire federal bureaucracy to assist him – such people fundamentally misunderstand this administration and the movement which they spearhead.

I can't run it all here, and no excerpt can do it justice. You just have to read it all. Then hang around and discuss it in the comments thread, if you will. Good points, bad points ... certainly lots of interesting points to talk about.

Bob Koehler: Devil Weed

Here's a rarity: a column by one online friend about another.

The friends are Bob Koehler (photo ==>) and Bernie Ellis (<==) respectively. Bob is (among other things) a columnist whose work has appeared here once in a while; Bernie is (among other things) an election integrity advocate. And that's how all our paths crossed.

Back in July of 2005, Bob and Bernie were both kind enough to participate in the first annual one and only "BradBlog Blogathon", for which event it was my honor to serve as host (and to contribute a few articles).

The other guest bloggers, by the way, were Clint Curtis, Bob Fitrakis, Larisa Alexandrovna, David Cobb, Chris Floyd, Gandhi, Josh Mitteldorf, and John Amato. And they all contributed good articles and/or live-blogged very interesting threads (in other words, all these links lead to gold!). But I digress.

Fast forward to the present, or nearly so, anyway. Bernie has been ...

Wait a minute. I'm getting ahead of myself here. I should know better.

The thing to do is let Bob tell the story.

Devil Weed
Dark shadow of ignorance hangs over Bernie's farm

“We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.”

So of course a guy like Bernie Ellis — who signs his letters with this catchphrase, and who lives it in so many ways, doing what needs to be done, putting himself in the vanguard of vital social movements like the one for fair elections (which is how I know him) — would eventually get nailed for crossing a line.

How easy to have played it safe, but Ellis, who until a year and a half ago lived on a 187-acre farm 40 miles southwest of Nashville, Tenn., and worked as a public health epidemiologist, had been growing, along with other crops, a small amount of medical marijuana on his farm. The recipients over the years, via their social workers, were terminally ill AIDS and cancer patients, who obtained nausea and pain relief from what has been called (by no less than Francis Young, a Drug Enforcement Administration law judge) “one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”

For reasons that will probably forever remain murky, Ellis’ farm was raided in August 2002. A few days earlier, a local dealer had tried to buy some pot from him and was told to shove off, so the suspicion lingers that the dealer turned him in. Two helicopters swooped overhead and eight or nine officers of the Tennessee Marijuana Eradication Task Force entered his property — a lot of hoo-hah, you might think, for seven pounds of weed, worth about $7,000.

Ellis was interrogated for two hours and freely “confessed” to his activities. Indeed, at the very moment of the raid he’d been crafting recommendations, at the request of New Mexico’s then-Gov. Gary Johnson, on how that state could establish a program making cannabis available immediately to patients in need. He gave the officers a printout of his proposal. How guilty can you get?

“I said this from the beginning,” Ellis told me. “I’m not ashamed of what I’m doing.”

And he wasn’t arrested. The Task Force officers did some checking around and learned that Ellis was not only well known but highly respected among county officials. His troubles didn’t begin till the federal government became interested in his case — and this gets at the core outrage of the whole matter. The zeal to keep marijuana criminalized in the face of so much evidence — it has 50 to 100 therapeutically beneficial subcomponents and has been studied in connection with the treatment and control of Alzheimer’s, brain tumors, epilepsy, MS and even schizophrenia, among much else — emanates from the federal level.

Welcome to the Bush administration’s other bogus war: the war on drugs. Science be damned. Rationality, compassion and state’s rights be damned. What matters is the continual drawing of random and arbitrary borders, which are then ruthlessly defended no matter what. And with the drawing of borders comes the creation of enemies, and in the world of herbs, marijuana is the enemy — the devil weed, no matter how medically useful.

As Ellis noted, “Every federal commission since Nixon has recommended reclassifying marijuana, allowing it to re-enter the medical pharmacopoeia.” Yet the feds have been known to prosecute medical marijuana growers even in states that have legalized it. Twelve have done so, including, most recently, New Mexico, whose law, signed last month by Gov. Bill Richardson, incorporates the recommendations Ellis was working on at the time of the raid.

No matter. In federal court, Ellis was prosecuted as an ordinary drug dealer and convicted. Though his sentence was relatively lenient — an 18-month term in a federal halfway house, which ends in May — he has incurred some $70,000 in legal debt and, far more frightening, faces the loss of his farm in a federal civil action.

The Nashville community has rallied to his support, and a series of benefits are planned. If you’re interested in contributing to the cause, see www.saveberniesfarm.com.

“If you really do believe what you’re doing is not wrong, then you’ve threatened the foundation of their legitimacy,” Ellis said. “You’ve raised your head above the foxhole.”

For my friend Bernie’s sake, I truly hope the forces of rationality are successful. And I recoil at the idea that his beautiful farm, where he has lived for four decades, could be fed into the maw of “example,” a reminder to like-minded others that an ignorant and arrogant administration is in power right now and will impose the Dark Ages on all of us for as long as it can.

Thanks once again to Bob and Bernie: please support the effort to save Bernie's farm (if you can), and do be sure to bookmark Bob's excellent "Common Wonders", where there's a new column every week and the archives are worth their weight in gold pixels.

There's Nothing Left But Spin

Please savor this amazing post from my Australian friend, Gandhi, on the best-known of his blogs (BushOut):

Bush Cites Fadhils For Proof Of "Success" In Iraq!

When the President of the United States of America is reduced to quoting propaganda nonsense fabricated by his own neocon supporters, that's pathetic.

When he does so specifically in order to justify failed policies which continue to see dozens, if not hundreds, dead every day in Iraq, that's worse than tragic. It's criminal.

Here's what President Bush just said [Thursday]:

The missions I described are only the opening salvos in what is going to be a sustained effort. Yet, the Iraqi people are beginning to say -- see positive changes. I want to share with you how two Iraqi bloggers -- they have bloggers in Baghdad, just like we've got here -- (laughter) -- "Displaced families are returning home, marketplaces are seeing more activity, stores that were long shuttered are now reopening. We feel safer about moving in the city now. Our people want to see this effort succeed. We hope the governments in Baghdad and America do not lose their resolve."

That's a direct quote from the Fadhil brothers' Wall Street Journal piece I just linked to five minutes ago. Bush is really scraping the bottom of the propaganda barrel here, folks.

Where do I start? Let's hope Bush's remarks shine some long-overdue light on the neocons' favourite fantasists.

For anyone not familiar with the story, which is a long-running saga on this blog, Omar and Mohammed Fadhil run a blog called Iraq The Model (ITM). They have a brother named Ali Fadhil who angrily departed the blog under very odd circumstances just before the 2004 US election, when Omar and Mohammed went to Washington to meet with Bush and Wolfowitz in the Oval Office. The White House meeting was organized by a bogus US "charity" called Spirit of America (SoA), whose CEO Jim Hake was also present.

Ali Fadhil alleged that the SoA staff were using the Fadhil brothers for propaganda purposes. He said that SoA CEO Jim Hake and his former "Director of Logistics and Procurement" Kerry Dupont were "stealing donors money" and lying to both Iraqis and Americans. He said Dupont offered the brothers $300,000 "that we could use to do what we want".

Three hundred thousand dollars! Not bad cash for a bit of blogging!

There's a lot more. I have the urge to call it "incredible", but it's all true. Please read and learn how cynically these neocons work the "news".

OOPS! Here's a NEWS UPDATE from Juan Cole at Atlantic Free Press:

The US embassy in Baghdad circulated a memo to all Americans working for the US government in the Green Zone. It ordered them to wear protective gear whenever they were outside in the Green Zone, including just moving from one building to another. Guerrillas have managed to lob a number of rockets into the area in recent days, and killed one US GI on Tuesday.

The Green Zone is therefore actually the Red Zone. I.e., it is no longer an area of good security contrasting to what is around it. Senator McCain was more wrong than can easily be imagined. Not only can American officials not just stroll through Baghdad districts unarmed and unprotected by armor, but they can't even move that way from one building to the next inside the Green Zone!

Anti-War Protesters Hassle Democrats!

Protesters disrupt press conference on lobbying reform

by Kent Hoover | Washington Bureau Chief | Washington Business Journal | January 3, 2006

House Democrats tried to unveil their lobbying reform package today, but their press conference was drowned out by chants from anti-war activists who want Congress to stop funding the Iraq war before taking on other issues.

Led by Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a slain soldier, the protesters chanted "De-escalate, investigate, troops home now" as Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., began outlining the Democrats' plans to ban lobbyist-funded travel and institute other ethics reforms. The press conference was held in the Cannon House Office Building in an area open to the public.

Emanuel finally gave up trying to be heard over the chants, and retreated to a caucus room where Democrats were meeting.

Anti-War Protesters Hassle Democrats! Dems Run Away!!

Sheehan says she has nothing against lobbying reform, but she and her fellow anti-war activists want Democrats to know they will keep pressuring Congress to end the war in Iraq.

"We wanted the Democrats to know they're back in power because of the grass roots," Sheehan says.

The anti-war activists held their own Capitol Hill press conference earlier in the day before deciding to attend the lobbying reform press conference as well.

Before the chanting started, Sheehan got a hug from Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., the new chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

A great catch from my Australian friend Gandhi, who remarks:

This will confuse the wingnuts no end.

In Good Company

Somehow I've managed not to mention any of this until now, but look what's been happening in the Netherlands! Atlantic Free Press has been publishing excellent dissident writing since its inception in October, 2006 -- just last month? astounding! -- led by editor-in-chief Chris Floyd (of Empire Burlesque), assisted by Rich Kastelein (ditto) and Chris Cook (of Vancouver's PEJ News) and featuring contributions from a wide and deep cast of characters, including: senior writer Paul William Roberts, Craig Murray, Mike Whitney, Manuel Valenzuela, Mark Crispin Miller, William Blum, Nafeez Ahmed, David Lindorff, Will Durst, William Bowles, David Swanson, and many more ... and (can you believe it?) within the past week they've been joined by the nearly frozen Winter Patriot.

The good folks at AFP have published two of my recent items: Tony Blair Makes a Donation -- to a Government including an International Terrorist and Foiled German Terror Plot Was A Joke? and if all goes well they'll continue to inflict the worst of my politically oriented material on a mostly unsuspecting world.

Something quite similar has been happening already, via another European-based site (although it may soon be moving to Asia -- how global!) where I've been making so-called "contributions" on a semi-irregular basis: Start The Revolution had been a one-man-show (featuring some amazing writing from Shaun, who is also the webmaster, of course!) but it has expanded to included the occasional frozen rant as well as semi-irregular contributions from our friend Gandhi, the aforementioned Bill Blum and Daithí Mac Lochlainn, who (fortunately for us) writes in English much of the time.

So please visit both Start The Revolution and Atlantic Free Press now and then, where you can see what your frozen scribe's frozen scribblings look like among such distinguished company... and even better: you can read the distinguished company!

What Can We "Do" About Iraq?

From Simon Jenkins, in Wednesday's Guardian, an exceedingly realistic analysis of the situation in Iraq:

As we approach the beginning of the end in Iraq there will be much throat-clearing and breast-beating before reality replaces denial. For the moment, denial still rules. In America last week I was shocked at how unaware even anti-war Americans are (like many Britons) of the depth of the predicament in Iraq. They compare it with Vietnam or the Balkans - but it is not the same. It is total anarchy. All sentences beginning, "What we should now do in Iraq..." are devoid of meaning. We are in no position to do anything. We have no potency; that is the definition of anarchy.

From all available reports, Iraq south of the Kurdistan border is beyond central authority, a patchwork of ganglands, sheikhdoms and lawlessness. Anbar province and most of the Sunni triangle is controlled by independent Sunni militias. The only safe movement for outsiders is by helicopter at night. Baghdad is like Beirut in 1983, with nightly massacres, roadblocks everywhere and mixed neighbourhoods emptying into safe ones. As yesterday's awful kidnapping shows, even a uniform is a death certificate. As for the cities of the south, control depends on which Shia militia has been able to seize the local police station.

The Iraqi army, such as it is, cannot be deployed outside its local area and is therefore useless for counter-insurgency. There is no central police force. There is no public administration. The Maliki government barely rules the Green Zone in which it is entombed. American troops guard it as they might an outpost of the French Legion in the Sahara. There is no point in patrolling a landscape one cannot control. It merely alienates the population and turns soldiers into targets.

To talk of a collapse into civil war if "we leave" Iraq is to completely misread the chaos into which that country has descended under our rule. It implies a model of order wholly absent on the ground. Foreign soldiers can stay in their bases, but they will no more "prevent civil war" than they can "import democracy". They are relevant only as target practice for insurgents and recruiting sergeants for al-Qaida. The occupation of Iraq has passed from brutality to mere idiocy.
...
Bush and Blair are men in a hurry, and such men lose wars. If there is a game plan in Tehran it will be to play Iraq long. Why stop the Great Satan when he is driving himself to hell in a handcart? If London and Washington really want help in this part of the world they must start from diplomatic ground zero. They will have to stop the holier-than-thou name-calling and the pretence that they hold any cards. They will have to realise that this war has lost them all leverage in the region. They can insult and sanction and threaten. But there is nothing left for them to "do" but leave. They are no longer the subject of that mighty verb, only its painful object.

I disagree with Jenkins on one point only, and it's a minor one. I agree that they need to leave, but I think there are plenty of other things that they also need to "do".

What are they? I think my Australian friend Gandhi has hit the nail on the head with a recent post:

Gandhi's Plan For Peace In Iraq

Here are five concrete and much-needed steps that will make an IMMEDIATE difference to the situation on the ground:

1. Bush must announce immediately that:
- the USA will be withdrawing 100% of its forces from Iraq as soon as possible,
- the USA will not be maintaining permanent military bases in Iraq,
- US government advisors will be removed from Baghdad, and
- the Green Zone and other US-held assets will be handed over to the Iraqi Government.

2. The USA must immediately stop pressuring the Iraqi government to sign the proposed Oil Law, which will give US-based Big Oil control of Iraq's oil resources for generations to come. The Iraqi government must announce immediately that any changes to laws governing revenue from Iraq's oil resources will need to be approved by the Iraqi people in a referendum.

3. The current Iraqi government must immediately announce new elections, to be held after the last US forces have withdrawn.

4. The USA must immediately pledge to finance these elections, and the UN must be prepared to monitor them and deploy peace-keeping forces at short notice. The USA must also finance these UN missions.

5. Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and other regional powers must immediately pledge to respect Iraq's borders and support the elected government.

These simple steps will have the immediate effect of removing support for fanatical anti-US propaganda and terrorist groups. They will convince people that there is a peace dividend to be reaped if only they can wait for US forces to withdraw and elections to be held.

The Iraqi people have already shown that they are more than capable of holding their country together (mostly through religious and tribal cohesion) during such a period of instability.

These are immediate steps which can easily be done right now. In particular, let me say this:

If Bush is not prepared to renounce permanent US military bases and control of Iraqi oil, nobody should take all this talk of US withdrawal seriously.

As for withdrawing "with honour", the most honorable thing the USA can do now is to honestly confess to past mistakes, including the political manipulation of WMD intelligence, pledge to make amends to the Iraqi people, and hold those responsible for this disaster accountable.

In the technical, practical sense, Gandhi may be correct to say that these steps "can easily be done right now", but in the political sense they are -- in my opinion -- millions of light-years away from being possible. After spending so much blood and so much money (none of which matters to him personally, of course), the Great Divider is not about to turn around and throw all that oil away. Contrary advice from Jim Baker, confirmation of Bob Gates, a slap across the head from #41, or all of the above, notwithstanding.

None of these good ideas will ever come to pass, and instead what we will see will most likely be the opposite: more troops thrown into the cauldron, more blood, more death, more depleted uranium, more cancer, more birth defects, more grief and more suffering, not only in Iraq but throughout the Middle East, and indeed throughout the entire world. And when we are all dead, they will call it "peace".

My track record for predicting the future is exceedingly miserable, and I hope I'm wrong about this one too. But this is how I see it at the moment.

As usual, I welcome your comments.

Ted Rall Knows A Lying, Cheating, Coke-Sniffing, Drunk-Driving. Money-Grubbing Mass Murderer When He Sees One

From Ted Rall via Gandhi:


Click the image to see a larger one (if available in your viewing area).

No Wonder There's Nobody To Vote For

On Wednesday, as you may remember, The Lancet released a report estimating at roughly 655,000 the number of dead Iraqis who would still be alive had the USA had not invaded, destroyed, and continued to occupy their country.

So-called conservative supporters of the so-called president have been making specious claims such as that the number is absurd on its face and that the process by which it was obtained was flawed. As if, I suppose, a number such as this would have to absolutely correct to have any value. It's an estimate, for crying out loud, and it was announced as such. Nobody ever said it was absolutely correct.

So-called liberal opponents of the so-called president have been pointing out that the people attacking the report are doing so without any evidence or logic to support their claims, and defending the report, its methodology and its conclusions. All this is remarkably easy to do, since the report seems quite solid and the attacks against it seem so flimsy.

I haven't read up the entire left side of the blogosphere on this, but I have checked out most of the usual suspects, including Gandhi at Bush Out and Glenn Greenwald at Unclaimed Territory, and I've seen all sorts of discussion from all sorts of angles. And rightly so, in my opinion. There's clearly a lot to talk about. Greenwald makes as much sense as anyone I've read on this topic lately. But I really don't think he gets it.

Counting Iraqi deaths

Nobody disputes that the survey used scientific methodology to reach its findings, although everyone recognizes there is inherent uncertainty in counting the number of civilian dead in a war zone, and even the researchers themselves acknowledge a huge margin of error.

Fair enough. Better than that. But...

Whether entirely accurate or not, there is no question that there are tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians at the very least who have died as a direct result of our invasion and, in that regard, the study underscores a critically important point about the nature of our ongoing occupation. In most wars, the number of dead on the "other side" is a secondary consideration. If anything, the objective often is to inflict as much damage as possible on the enemy's population in order to force their government into submission. In many traditional wars, especially modern wars, a high death toll would be an indicator of success, not failure.

But the opposite is true with the war we are waging in Iraq. Ever since the "threat" rationale for the war vanished (that Saddam had WMDs which would be used against us), the principal, if not exclusive, "justification" for the war was that it would improve the situation of the Iraqi people. Achieving that, so the argument goes, is both morally right and a significant boon to our own security, since improving public opinion of the U.S. in the Muslim world is critical to enhancing our influence and undermining Al Qaeda recruitment efforts. That rationale transforms Iraqi anger towards our war effort from what it would be in most normal wars (an irrelevancy, or even something to be desired) into the greatest impediment to "victory."

What is this talk of "victory"? Kudos for the quotation marks, but what does "victory" mean in this context?

How does this qualify as a different kind of war? Just because the administration says it is?

As for undermining al-Q'aeda recruitment efforts, what difference does it make? -- or more properly, how can we hope to undermine al-Q'aeda, when al-Q'aeda is connected to ISI is connected to MI6 is connected to CIA?

How can we even talk about undermining al-Q'aeda's recruitment efforts when we have a deliberate plan -- formulated in the Pentagon and operational since last spring, if not earlier -- to infiltrate and incite terrorist groups?

The fact that there were no weapons to eliminate made the war useless.

What do you mean, useless? The so-called weapons were only a pretext -- and a flimsy one at that! This war is being fought for a very clear purpose, and it is extremely useful to certain people, and it's up to people like us to find that purpose and those people, and expose them.

There's nothing at all to be gained by calling this war "useless"? I disagree with Glenn Greenwald about this and so many other things. And that scares me, because he's regarded as one of the best the left side of the blogosphere has to offer.

The fact that we have created extreme, uncontrollable chaos -- which provides a vacuum which the Iranians and Al Qaeda are happily filling -- makes the war dangerous.

All wars are dangerous. The fact that we have created extreme, uncontrollable chaos is bad enough. The fact that we have done it deliberately is infinitely worse.

And the fact that huge numbers of Iraqi civilians continue to die as a direct result of our ongoing occupation and want us to withdraw immediately makes the war completely counter-productive even when measured against the objectives which the administration currently claims are the ones which justify the war in the first place.

But this is exactly my point, Glenn. Why should we measure anything against the objectives currently -- or ever! -- provided by the administration? Why do we need to stay in their frame?

We are not even close to leaving Iraq or even decreasing our troop levels by any meaningful amount. If anything, a Republican victory in three weeks would make it highly likely that the neoconservative dream of still more troops would be fulfilled. The trend of violence and death in Iraq is unquestionably worsening, and not only do we achieve nothing by staying, but the situation in Iraq worsens every day -- not just for Iraqis but for our own security.

This has nothing to do with our own security except in the sense that it is being used as an object of fear-mongering in order to convince us to give up our Constitutional rights in the name of safety and security -- never mind the fact that our true security -- as individuals and as a nation -- is to be found in the zealous protection of those rights!

The invasion of Iraq is one of the greatest strategic disasters in our country's history, and this new survey, independent of morbid and inconsequential quibbles over its accuracy, underscores why that is the case.

We need to get beyond the idea that the invasion of Iraq was a strategic disaster. We need to get some clarity here. The invasion of Iraq was a deliberate and very expensive act of treason -- one of many from this administration.

And as for the study: In my view, the quibbles over its accuracy reflect a reality so grotesque that it is hardly ever mentioned, except sideways, in passing ...

Ronald Waldman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University who worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for many years, called the survey method "tried and true," and added that "this is the best estimate of mortality we have."

This viewed was echoed by Sarah Leah Whitson, an official of Human Rights Watch in New York, who said, "We have no reason to question the findings or the accuracy" of the survey.

"I expect that people will be surprised by these figures," she said. "I think it is very important that, rather than questioning them, people realize there is very, very little reliable data coming out of Iraq."

In my view, the most important question that can be asked here -- the one that I have not seen anyone asking -- is: WHY?

Why is there "very, very little reliable data coming out of Iraq"?

It's quite simple, really. Hospitals are notorious sources of enemy propaganda. From hospitals come pictures of dead and wounded people. So we attack the hospitals first. And we keep coming back to them.

After the hospitals are "secured", we turn our attention to the ambulances (to keep wounded people from gathering at the hospitals) and the journalists (to keep the stories of the dead and wounded people from being told), and of course we don't forget the television stations (to keep the stories from being disseminated).

It's all part of a very slick plan which falls under the heading of "perception management" and which so far seems to be working extremely well. The idea is, public opinion is heavily influenced by what the public perceives. Therefore the easiest way to control public opinion by controlling public perception.

Eason Jordan made a mistake a while ago, mentioned a very small part of this twisted reality last year and it cost him his job. Dahr Jamail has been talking about all these things ever since he went to Iraq, and in his view, this is his job. It takes all kinds, I suppose.

Pentagon spokesmen have admitted that part of their job is to make sure you know as little as possible about what's going on in Iraq, and what has been going on there for the past three and a half years, and what has been going on all over the world for the past fifty or sixty years ... or even longer.

The more I read Glenn Greenwald, the more I wish he were talking about this, and about the plan of battle that the USA keeps following in Iraq, and about depleted uranium, and about two more little things that nobody seems to want to talk about, even the best of our so-called "lefty bloggers": that the "terror" we are "fighting" seems to be almost entirely bogus, and that "we" don't seem to have any intention of "winning" the war in Iraq in particular, nor the so-called War on so-called Terror in general.

It's a rare politician who sees the world more clearly than Glenn Greenwald.

No wonder there's nobody to vote for.

Kurt Nimmo says what Glenn Greenwald can't (or won't):

After the Democrats take back the House and the Senate, do you think anything will change? Democrats are onboard with the neocon phony war on terrorism, the occupation of Iraq, the re-invasion of Afghanistan—now that the Taliban are resurgent, not that they ever went away, as resistance to occupation is to be expected, as we can expect the sun to come up tomorrow—and the dismantlement of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the construction of a police state at home. Democrats will change none of this. Democrats simply represent a new management team.