Decapitating the War Party -- the Presidential Election 2008

Bush's Poker Tell

by Propagandee

December 06, 2007

While I don't claim to be any great expert in body language, studying Bush closely these last few years has revealed what I think is his tell:

Whenever that part of his anatomy located between his upper chin and below his nose moves, he's either lying, or preparing the ground for one.

Groundhog Day Alert

by Propagandee

December 6, 2007

From Sy Hersh's 11/06 New Yorker article The Next Act:

The C.I.A. assessment warned the White House that it would be a mistake to conclude that the failure to find a secret nuclear- weapons program in Iran merely meant that the Iranians had done a good job of hiding it. The former senior intelligence official noted that at the height of the Cold War the Soviets were equally skilled at deception and misdirection, yet the American intelligence community was readily able to unravel the details of their long- range-missile and nuclear-weapons programs. But some in the White House, including in Cheney�s office, had made just such an assumption�that �the lack of evidence means they must have it,� the former official said.

Compare:

"The very fact that no sabotage has taken place, is a disturbing and confirming indication that such action will be taken." - General John Dewitt, rationalizing the internment of Japanese during WW2 despite no proof of spying.

Now, back to the future.

FEMA's Fake News Conference

by Propagandee

Octorber 27, 2007

Is there no end to the Bush's Administration maniacal effort to control the news?

Usually its propaganda is a lot more sophisticated, but it appears that the further down the food chain it goes-- Bush demoted it from a cabinet level agency to a backwater swamp operating out of the Dept. of Homeland Fascism Security-- the quality of its propaganda diminishes.

As the LA Times reports it:

No one had any hard questions for the deputy administrator of FEMA, an agency deeply tarnished by its delayed action after Hurricane Katrina, when he held a news conference Tuesday to talk about the California wildfires.

"Are you happy with FEMA's response so far?" someone asked.

Indeed, the deputy administrator was. "I am very happy with FEMA's response so far," responded Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson Jr.

[...]

On Friday, however, the agency admitted that the softball questions were posed by FEMA employees, not reporters.

Why bother with all the elaborate staging, starring FEMA employees in the role of reporters asking questions? 'Hekuva Job' Johnson wielding a hand puppet would have served just as well.

As DailyKos diarist Avenging Angel reminds us:

The instances of media manipulation and outright fraud by the White House are simply too numerous to list here. The Bush administration paid "journalists" Armstrong Williams and Maggie Gallagher for friendly coverage of the No Child Left Behind and new marriage initiatives. The Department of Health and Human Services distributed video news releases (VNRs) to peddle the President's Medicare drug program. The White House tried to block the release of Pentagon, NASA an other studies on the impact of global warming. The administration stonewalled decision by FDA career staffers to make the emergency contraceptive Plan B available for over the-counter sales. And former Surgeon General Richard Carmona found his report "Call to Action on Global Health" dead on arrival with Bush White House political commissars.

While his administration continues to erect its Potemkin fa�ade to, in the President own words. "catapult the propaganda," George W. Bush is back to doing what he does best: scripted appearances before friendly, invitation-only audiences.

These guys are going to put Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, Saturday Night Live and the rest of the 'fake news' business out of business!

Former US Iraq Commander Disputes Surge "Success"

by Propagandee

October 13, 2007

General Chickenhawk Kagan, ready to lead at least a battalion of Pillsbury Doughboys into battle.

Fred Kagan, an early proponent of the disastrous Iraq war and occupation and most recently the "intellectual author" of The Surge (4.0), weighed in recently on the latter's alleged "success."

Last night, former US Iraq commander Lt. Gen. Sanchez begged to differ. As recounted by the AFP:

"There is no question that America is living a nightmare with no end in sight," said Sanchez on Friday, addressing a meeting of military correspondents and editors in Arlington, a Virginia suburb of Washington.

He blasted President George W. Bush's "surge" strategy which calls for maintaining more than 160,000 US troops in Iraq until the end of the year in the hope of reducing sectarian violence and bringing political stability.

The strategy has since been adjusted, with the current plan calling for the withdrawal of about 21,500 combat troops by next July to bring the total to the "pre-surge" level of 130,000 servicemen.

But Sanchez said he did not believe these changes would prove effective.

"Continued manipulations and adjustments to our military strategy will not achieve victory," he said. "The best we can do with this flawed approach is stave off defeat."

Additionally, the NY Times reports him saying:

"There was been a glaring and unfortunate display of incompetent strategic leadership within our national leaders," he said, adding later in his remarks that civilian officials have been "derelict in their duties" and guilty of a "lust for power."

The Kagan Clan (see Glenn Greenwald's take here) and their fellow neo-cons were responsible for getting us into this mess and they seem intent on perpetuating the madness rather than admitting it was all one horrendous mistake. This is CYA taken to a level of monstrous moral absurdity.

Taking Kagan's word for "success" in Iraq would be like accepting Dr. Victor Frankenstein's assessment that his rampaging creation, despite having just terrorized and killed a bunch of villagers, was a success as well.

Speaking of which, this passage from Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein: The Modern Prometheus reminds me of the neocons "democratization/occupation" project in Iraq:

The dissecting room and the slaughterhouse furnished many of my materials; and often did my human nature turn with loathing from my occupation, whilst, still urged on by an eagerness which perpetually increased, I brought my work near to a conclusion.

Sounds like Kagan's Iraq to me. All except the conclusion part. And the fact that the victims in the novel included Victor's brother and wife, whereas the neocons have little or no skin in the game.

There's no Victor here.

Bushaddam

by Propagandee

September 22, 2007

As in the movie The Fly, some of Saddam Hussein's DNA must have gotten into the matter transporter cum transmogrifier pod used by George W. Bush on his way to Iraq.

The details of which are evident in the current cover story of Canada's weekly newsmagaze Maccleans titled How George Bush became the new Saddam: Its strategies shattered, a desperate Washington is reaching out to the late dictator's henchmen.

Money grafs:

Instead of polls and data mining, the governing Shia parties have taken control by using militias to “sectarian cleanse” Baghdad, a retaliation against al-Qaeda’s spectacular car bombing campaign. By one estimate, Baghdad was once 65 per cent Sunni; today it is 75 per cent Shia. Deaths from sectarian killings are reportedly down, in large measure because there are few mixed neighbourhoods left. Almost the entire Sunni middle class lives in Jordan or Syria. If you are named Omar, a traditional Sunni name, chances are you are dead or living abroad. Under Saddam, no one on the streets of the capital ever uttered the word mukhabarat, mean­ing the feared security police. Today, no one says maktab, meaning “office,” but in fact referring to radical Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army’s bases from which members control neighbourhoods. Their preferred method of torture is the electric drill.

The great irony of Maliki is that under other circumstances a government like his—one that is: a) accused by the U.S. of close relations with an American enemy (Iran); b) running a strategically important country (like Iraq); c) involved in the oppression and murder of one of its minorities (the Sunnis), which is closely linked to an important U.S. ally (the Saudis)—is an administration that many Americans would want to eliminate. There is a good chance that if the U.S. Army wasn’t there already, Washington would have invaded to get rid of Maliki.

One angle the article doesn't cover is the sheer number of Iraqi dead since the war/occupation began in 2003, which by some estimates, is greater under Bushaddam than his predecessor.

And there's the Rove-a-Maliki phenomenom to ponder:

Like Karl Rove, who hoped to make the Republican party supreme, Maliki seems to want to set up Shia-dominated rule that will control Iraq for generations. And like Rove, he focuses on his base, with little regard for any other point of view unless the U.S. pressures him

And FYI, Bushaddam: Nelson Mandela isn't dead. Your attempt to excuse the chaos you have unleashed in Iraq, its dysfunctional government, etc. by blaming it on the psychological trauma they suffered under your predecessor is lame beyond belief.

For an earlier look [6.06] at the growing legacy of Bushaddam , see Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's, by Counterpunch's WILLIAM BLUM, which begins thusly:

National Public Radio foreign correspondent Loren Jenkins, serving in NPR's Baghdad bureau, met earlier this month with a senior Shiite cleric, a man who was described in the NPR report as "a moderate" and as a person trying to lead his Shiite followers into practicing peace and reconciliation. He had been jailed by Saddam Hussein and forced into exile. Jenkins asked him: "What would you think if you had to go back to Saddam Hussein?" The cleric replied that he'd "rather see Iraq under Saddam Hussein than the way it is now."

Alan Greenspan & Naomi Klein's Disaster Capitalism

by Propagandee

September 21, 2007

As should be evident by now, the invasion of Iraq was due to a perfect storm of converging factors-- control of the world's second largest reserve of oil, the looming displacement of the dollar as the world's reserve currency, neoidiot ideology, enduring US military bases in the Middle East, Junior's Oedipal issues, his messianic delusions of grandeur...

Coming not a moment too late, we now have it from the lips of none other than the execrable former Head of the Fed, Alan we don't need no stinkin' surplus Greenspan that he is “...saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”

No dinosaur shit, Sherlock.

What I'm saddened by is that he didn't speak up when it might have made a difference to nearly 4,000 dead Americans, a million dead Iraqis and over twice that many refugees, hundreds of thousands of severely wounded and traumatized human beings, not to mention the peace and security of the entire Middle East.

Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern in his article in Current Affairs notes three of the larger factors: oil, enduring military bases and the influence of the Israeli lobby here in the US.

(The latter includes Christian Zionists who pine for Armageddon and the destruction of Israel pursuant to their imagined date with destiny. Thence they can spend all eternity watching the Ultimate Rapture Reality Show, hosted by their messianic deliverer, George W., featuring us unsaved saps screaming in agony as we are dipped into the Lake of Fire on the Meat Hooks of the Lord. )

I would only add here some larger context to the role that followers of the Milton Friedman school of unrestrained capitalism played in launching the disaster in Iraq, as detailed in Naomi Klein's new book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

As Klein explains it, Freidman and his ilk at the University of Chicago (including a young Don Rumsfeld) believed that the best way to instill their laissez-faire, take no prisoners form of capitalism-- a reaction to what they perceived of as the evils of Roosevelt's New Deal social welfare capitalism-- was to seed it in a country that had been 'cleansed' of its existing social, political and economic structures. (An earlier demonstration project was Pinochet's Chile.)

Ideally, the country would have just experienced the shock and awe of either a natural disaster (Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, 2005, the Indonesia coast after the tsunami of 2004); or in the case of Iraq (2003 to present), one that had been bombed back to the Stone Age.

Recall US Viceroy L. Paul Bremer's infamous 100 Orders. Taken as a whole, they have attempted to force Iraq to accept the Friedman/Neocon model of unregulated, low or no tax vulture capitalism. A capitalist paradise, as it were. (Friedman is often referred to as the capitalist Mao.)

Of course, this didn't sit so well with the Iraqis who were forced give up their previous lifestyles, which included things like basic law and order, sanitation, clean water, electricity, free health care, education, and other despicable socialist percs. Such services could only be legitimate if they were totally privatized.

The Iraqis, a once proud people who had enjoyed the highest standard of living in the Arab world before the reign of the Bushes, had to be shown that resistance to the Friedman/Neocon proto-Borgs is futile. Thus they have been subjected to a relentless campaign of oppression, humiliation, violence and fear-- forced to eat PTSD for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Foreign soldiers kicking down doors in the middle of the night, the women folk humiliated, the men dragged off to places like Abu Ghraib where they were stripped naked, hooded, tortured and even killed; foreign mercenaries like Blackwater shooting whoever they want, whenever they want without fear of prosecution-- all key factors in creating in Iraq a tabula rasa, a country remade in the image and likeness of pure fantasy capitalism.

Klein's introduction sums up the larger philosophical implications of Disaster Capitalism:

"But it is also true that certain ideologies are a danger to the public and need to be identified as such. There are the closed, fundamentalist doctrines that cannot co-exist with other belief systems; their followers deplore diversity and demand an absolute freehand to implement their perfect system. The world as it is must be erased to make way for the their purest invention. Rooted in biblical fantasies of great floods and great fires it is a logic that leads ineluctably toward violence. The ideologies that long for that impossible clean state, which can be reached only through some kind of cataclysm, are the dangerous ones."

Retroactive Immunity for the Telecoms

by Propagandee

September 18, 2007

During his testimony before the House Judiciary Committee today, the director of national intellience Michael McConnel sought retroactive immunity for the telecoms who helped Bush violate FISA to spy on American citizens.

McConnel has long time financial ties to the telecoms.. Having him argue for their immunity is like hiring O.J. Simpson as a spokesman Ginzo knives.

Have these people no shame? (Rhetorical question.)

Just another example of Bush's adolescent personality. Not hard to imagine him telling fart jokes and yucking it up with Rove as they chortle over rubbing the Dems' noses in their bs once again.

You'd think the Dems would wise up to the "Kick Me" sign that the Repugs keeps sticking on their backs.

The Authoritarian Political Brain

by Propagandee

September 3, 2007

Drew Westen's The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation helps explain the neuro-cognitive mechanisms involved in rationalizing away inconvenient truths, something we all do regardless of political affiliation. From the Introduction:

The neural circuits charged with regulation of emotional states seemed to recruit beliefs that eliminated the distress and conflict partisans had experienced when they confronted unpleasant realities. And all this seemed to happen with little involvement of the neural circuits normally involved in reasoning.

The results show that when partisans face threatening information, not only are they likely to "reason" to emotionally biased conclusions, but we can trace their neural footprints when they do.

When confronted with potentially troubling political information, a network of neurons become active that produces distress. Whether this distress is conscious, or unconscious, or some combination of the two, we don't know.

The brain registers the conflict between data and desire and begins to search for ways to turn off the spigot of unpleasant emotion.

Nothing earth shattering there. But here's where it gets interesting (italics in the original):

But the political brain did something we didn't predict. Once partisans found a way to reason to false conclusions, not only did neural circuits involved in negative emotions shut off, but circuits involved in positive emotions turned on. The partisan brain didn't seem satisfied in just feeling better. It worked overtime to feel good, activating rewards circuits that give partisans a jolt of positive reinforcement for their biased reasoning. These reward circuits overlap significantly with those activated when drug addicts get their "fix", giving new meaning to the term political junkie.

[See also Westen, et al (2006) The Neural Basis of Motivated Reasoning: An fMRI Study of Emotional Constraints on Political Judgment During the US Presidential Elections of 2004. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 18, pp.1947-58]

So we are all 'guilty' of the same sort of cognitive biases. But authoritarian personality types do seem to take it up a notch, and are thus worthy of further investigation.

My working hypothesis is that because authoritarians are less capable of living with uncertainty and ambiguity, they dig their claws deeper into the emotional centers of the lizard brain and the security it provides. (Picture Jack Nicholson yelling at Tom Cruise in A Few Good Men: "Uncertainty? You can't handle uncertainty!")

The rewards angle is also interesting, and might explain why progressives who get high on things other than politics are less inclined to authoritarianism-- they have others ways of engaging their dopamine receptors than their authoritarian counterparts. Anybody who came of age in the late '60s and early '70s knows that they had far greater chance of getting high and laid after a Vietnam war protest rally than say, a Young Republican manning a table at a local college encouraging other kids to enlist.

The increasing amount of vitriolic aggression we see coming from the right these days reminds me of a drug addict who needs ever increasing amounts of dope to maintain his fix. And given the psychological and neurological underpinnings of bias, we are no more likely to persuade authoritarians to change their minds on Iraq or anything else than we do at talking a junkie out of his stash.

Pentagon Hands Bush A Crap Sandwich

by Propagandee

August 30, 2007

Though the bread is fresh, the garnish elegant and the presentation to die for, the meat inside is putrefying and there's no way to disguise the smell.

Tired of being punked by Bush & Cheney over for the failed occupation of the Country Formerly Known As Iraq, both the Suits and the Brass at the Pentagon have adopted a new strategy for their upcoming "surge" report-- putting the decision square in the hands of the Commander in Chief, without a consensus recommendation.

Knowing how our enfante terrible Commander in Chief hates to hear bad news, this unusual display of division within the ranks is being spun as a good thing. Pentagon spokesman Geof Morrel tells us that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is:

"...looking for a way to sort of make sure that the normal bureaucratic massaging that sometimes eliminates the rough edges or the sharp differences between individuals does not victimize this process so that the president can get distinct � if that's the way it turns out to be � points of view on where we are and where we need to go,"

Bush's I follow the troop level recommendations of my generals excuse, his shameless use of those troops as props to sell the occupation, and his rosy reports of success on the ground has run its course. Though careerists like General Petraeus can be expected to give a thumbs-up for "staying the course", those with a different career path, one that hopes to survive the imploding Bush Administration, seem to be willing at last to speak truth to power. While this doesn't rise to the level of Seven Days in May style revolt, it does foreshadow the larger political who lost Iraq debate when the inevitable withdrawal occurs.

Bush's increasing isolation and detachment from reality reminds one of the collapse of the German war machine at the end of WW2, when Hitler placed his trust in non-existent divisions that would come to the rescue of Berlin as the world closed in around him and his bunker. Just a few more Friedman Units and another $50 billion, Bush demands from his supine Reischstag Congress.

But the Pentagon's new no-consensus strategy has its weaknesses, as seen in its failure so far get the GAO to change its own analysis of Iraq's political progress. Leaked copies of the report is said to conclude that of the 18 benchmarks set out by Congress, only 3 get a passing grade. The Administration (via the Pentagon) is 'suggesting' that this impartial investigative arm of Congress change its criteria for success to something more subjective and spinnable.

Karl Rove's does have one more day left in his White House, after all.

Senator Craig's Family Values

by Propagandee

August 28, 2007

As one caller to the Stepahie Miller radio show noted today, though Sentaor Craig was born in Idaho, he was reared in Minnesota.

Film at 11:00.

Seriously though, as Josh Marshall and others have already noted, it isn't Craig's sexual procliviites that are at issue. But the rank hypocrisy of his stance on issues concerning gay rights.

Here's the vid of Craig's endorsement of Romney the latter would just as soon have 'disaapeared.'

Back-filling To the Future: Surge Narrative Redux

by Propagandee

August 26, 2007

As the date for the much ballyhooed Iraq "surge progress report" to Congress draws nigh, the Administration's fallback narrative is already apparent. The existing narrative, that a necessary "surge" of American troops would provide sufficient "breathing space" for Iraqi political reconciliation, is DOA.

The (not-so) new rationale will be that despite the failure of Surge 4.0 to accomplish its goals, America's own vital security interests are at stake, so never mind. Mix, stir, and reheat for a few more Freidman Units.

Nonetheless, I'm sure the Administration will go through the motions of trying to convince Congress and the American people that a few sporadic military successes, achieved by increasing the number of US troops to record levels, justifies business as usual.

But just last week, a single incident in a northern part of the country deemed pacified killed over 500 Iraqis and wounded over 1500. And in the southern part of the country around Basra, another area deemed pacified, various Shia militias battled over turf and resources, highlighted by the assassination of a governor of one of the southern provinces.

"The number of Iraqis fleeing their homes has soared since the American troop increase began in February, every month, according to data from two humanitarian groups, accelerating the partition of the country into sectarian enclaves", the NY Times reported on Thursday.

This suggests that, ultimately, there will simply be no "enemy" for the Iraq's multitude of sectarian militias left to kill! No doubt this milestone will be spun as proof by the Bush Administration that The Surge succeeded, despite the whining of the whimpy "defeatocrats." This would include the Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, Peter Pace, who is reported to be arguing for a major withdrawal below 100,000 troops by the end of next year.

In a pen full of rattlesnakes, enough 'boots on the ground' can keep them pinned down for awhile. But removing X amount of boots, as we must do by April at the latest given the strain on our military, means a proportionate number of 'liberated' snakes.

These include Sunni nationalists who, having killed the lion's share of American troops since the occupation began and who remain existentially opposed to the very Shia dominated government we ostensibly support, are now being armed by the American taxpayer via the Poles, a charter member of the Coalition on the Billing. (Embarrassing, that, since 193,000 AK-47s over 100,000 semi-auto handguns and copious amounts of body armor from that particular shipment have gone missing. Even the Italian mafia is trying to get in on the act, as revealed by the recent interdiction of a shipment in Italy of weapons meant for Shia militias working inside of one of Iraq's Shia controlled ministries.)

Back to the Coalition, their combined military command structure is run by the US through something called the Multi-National Corps- Iraq (MNC-I). What I want to know is who is the genius that chose this for their logo:

In the film biz, a better example of foreshadowing would be harder to find. Residents of Flatland, especially, can be forgiven for wondering just why you would want to show a lion, a traditional symbol of strength in the Middle East and elsewhere, being skewered by a spear!

Symbolic subtext: The MNCI's has hoisted itself upon its own petard. (BagNews take note, if you haven't already.)

While there has been no shortage of American generals on television extolling the great military successes of the surge, coupled with pleas to only let their highly motivated soldiers to finish their mission, the grunts on the ground may see it a bit differently, reflected for instance in last Sunday's NY Times Op-ed by seven non-coms, who concluded:

Armed Sunni tribes have indeed become effective surrogates, but the enduring question is where their loyalties would lie in our absence. The Iraqi government finds itself working at cross purposes with us on this issue because it is justifiably fearful that Sunni militias will turn on it should the Americans leave.

[...]

Political reconciliation in Iraq will occur, but not at our insistence or in ways that meet our benchmarks. It will happen on Iraqi terms when the reality on the battlefield is congruent with that in the political sphere. There will be no magnanimous solutions that please every party the way we expect, and there will be winners and losers. The choice we have left is to decide which side we will take. Trying to please every party in the conflict � as we do now � will only ensure we are hated by all in the long run.

[...]

In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to regain dignity is to call us what we are � an army of occupation � and force our withdrawal.

Until that happens, it would be prudent for us to increasingly let Iraqis take center stage in all matters, to come up with a nuanced policy in which we assist them from the margins but let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities.

We need not talk about our morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through.

Loyalty, irony and tragedy combined as only Shakespeare could imagine. But that was before the enfante terrible currently occupying the White House cursed us with his presence.

Perhaps the most haunting passage from the article gave the lie to another primary component of the Administration's narrative: that as the Iraqi forces stand up, we will stand down. Would that be these American financed, trained and armed Iaqi forces?

A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor-piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi Army checkpoint and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and Army officers escorted the triggermen and helped plant the bomb.

These civilians highlighted their own predicament: had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi Army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families.

As many grunts will tell you, this is a near-routine event. Reports that a majority of Iraqi Army commanders are now reliable partners can be considered only misleading rhetoric. The truth is that battalion commanders, even if well meaning, have little to no influence over the thousands of obstinate men under them, in an incoherent chain of command, who are really loyal only to their militias.

We are so screwed.

Joseph in Wonderland

by Propagandee

August 24, 2007

Hours before the government released the new NIE report that is highly critical of Maliki's government in Iraq, Joe Lieberman scoriated Dems like Carl Levin and Hillary Clinton for leveling the same basic critique as the country's 16 intelligence agencies. Today's front page article in the LA Times sums up the report:

Though cautiously worded and full of caveats, the estimate presents a stark conclusion: Even though the troop increase has given the Iraqi government more breathing room, Maliki and other leaders are no closer to achieving the political reconciliation necessary to keep the country from disintegrating.

The report cites "measurable but uneven improvements" in security, but says the level of violence in Iraq remains high. "Iraqi political leaders remain unable to govern effectively," it added.

Said Joe in his press release yesterday:

Forced by facts on the ground to acknowledge the progress of the American and Iraqi militaries since the new surge strategy started, some of these opponents of the war are now turning their harshest criticism on our allies in Iraq instead of our enemies. This is a mistake. Whatever the shortcomings of our friends in Iraq, they are not an excuse to retreat from the real enemies who threaten our vital national interests there.

[...]

"We have made enormous progress in defending and advancing America's vital national interests in Iraq over the past six months against our two deadliest enemies in the world�-al Qaeda and Iran. Realism requires that we recognize these gains, not dismiss or disparage them--and that we distinguish between our allies in Iraq, and our enemies."

"Realism requires" that Joe look deeply into a mirror and STFU, at least until he's had a chance to read and digest the report.

Out of Sight, Out of His Mind

by Propagandee

August 23, 2007

From yesterday's WAPO article about how the Bush Administration deals with 1st Amendment Evil Doers viz the recently revealed Presidential Advance Manual:

"But that does not mean the White House is against dissent -- just so long as the president does not see it. In fact, the manual outlines a specific system for those who disagree with the president to voice their views. It directs the White House advance staff to ask local police "to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in the view of the event site or motorcade route."

Using the Bush Bubble Police to herd protestors into pens outside the Emperor's line of sight is to be expected. This is a man who has documented problems handling cognitive dissonance. Consider, for example, the lead story in the September 28, 2005 issue of Newsweek by Evan Thomas titled How Bush Blew It:

It's a standing joke among the president's top aides: who gets to deliver the bad news? Warm and hearty in public, Bush can be cold and snappish in private, and aides sometimes cringe before the displeasure of the president of the United States, or, as he is known in West Wing jargon, POTUS. The bad news on this early morning, Tuesday, Aug. 30, some 24 hours after Hurricane Katrina had ripped through New Orleans, was that the president would have to cut short his five-week vacation by a couple of days and return to Washington. The president's chief of staff, Andrew Card; his deputy chief of staff, Joe Hagin; his counselor, Dan Bartlett, and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, held a conference call to discuss the question of the president's early return and the delicate task of telling him. Hagin, it was decided, as senior aide on the ground, would do the deed.

When the next edition of the DSM-Manual is published, under aggravated narcissistic personality disorder there should be a picture of Geroge W. Bush.

The Fox War Channel Is At It Again

by Propagandee

August 23, 2007

History repeating itself: Iraq then, Iran now.

"Iraqi Army soldiers and policemen who aren't working within the law"

by Propagandee

August 21, 2007

On yesterday's Hardball program, substitute host Mike Barnicle moderated a discussion between veterans Jon Soltz from VoteVets.org, dedicated to mobilizing current and former members of the military to get us the hell out of Iraq, and Peter Hegseth from VETS FOR FREEDOM, a Republican front group.

The subject was the recent op-ed in the New York Times by a group of non-coms currently stationed in Iraq titled The War as We Saw It.

Money graf:

BARNICLE: Let me read this to both of you and then, Pete, you jump in first after I read this. This is a paragraph from the piece yesterday in the Times The Was as we Saw It: "A few nights ago, for example, we witnessed the death of one American soldier and the critical wounding of two others when a lethal armor piercing explosive was detonated between an Iraqi army check point and a police one. Local Iraqis readily testified to American investigators that Iraqi police and army officers escorted the trigger men and helped plant the bomb. These civilians highlighted their own predicament. Had they informed the Americans of the bomb before the incident, the Iraqi army, the police or the local Shiite militia would have killed their families. " That's not exactly a winnable situation. Peter?
HEGSETH: There's no doubt there are Iraqi army soldiers and Iraqi policemen not within the law there. That is not necessarily indicative of the security situation. It's also indicative of an environment where Americans have not provided security.

So, what some would call the treasonous murder of our troops by the very people we've armed and trained, Hegseth refers to as "Iraqi Army soldiers and policemen who aren't working within the law there."

Now that's world class spin of Tasmanian Devil proportions. If an anti-war commentator had said that he would be tarred and feathered as a traitor by the War Party, who would no doubt be mounting an advertiser boycott of what Bill O'Reilly calls the far-left liberal NBC.

**************

Speaking of which, Bill-O can't be happy with his competition over at MSNBC, Keith Olbermann, who meteroric rise in the ratings has succeeded in knocking CNN's Paula Zahn off the air in the coveted 8:00 PM time slot, and who is chomping at Lieutenant Loufa's butt.

Said the NY Times in July of last year:

The age discrepancy has led Mr. Olbermann to dish out even more mockery in his attacks. "It's slipping away from you," he said, addressing Mr. O'Reilly on a Countdown segment last month. "You don't know what to do. You can't even lie well any more. Seriously: I understand. It's called panic." He added, "You begin to see the audience dying off, and the creases deepening in your forehead."

Maybe that accounts for the extra makeup one sees Bill-O sporting these days.

No End In Sight

by Propagandee

August 18, 2007

For those of you who ever asked What were they thinking? when CPA Director Paul L. "Jerry" Bremer, acting under the authority of Donald Rumsfeld and the civilian wing of the Pentagon disbanded the Iraqi Army, a new documentary titled No End in Sight traces the chain of command responsible for the greatest FUBAR occupation in American history.

How did wunderkinds like Paul Wolfowitz conclude that creating an instant ready reserve of unemployed and well-trained insurgents, lied to in a pre-war propaganda blitz about their status under a Saddam-less regime and denied even their pensions, would somehow contribute to the stability of a new Iraq? Or how those Iraqi nationalists might feel about turning over their country and its resources to greedy Western corporations and oppressive sectarian forces?

The clip below features Walter Slocombe, Senior Advisor for National Security and Defense for the CPA, sputtering an answer (watch his facial tells) to the question about why the US military forces on the ground in Iraq were not informed of a decision for which they had to bear the most direct and devastating consequences.

We also see a clip of Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's right hand man, tell of the Department's surprise at such a boneheaded strategy. This has led to speculation that Powell might be called to Congress to testify as to his analysis of the so-called "surge", a prospect that fosters a certain uneasiness among the Busheviks.

Make my day.

U.S. To Re-Hang Saddam Hussein

by Propagandee

August, 16, 2007

Via The Onion

August 15, 2007 | Issue 43-33

WASHINGTON, DC Calling last December's execution of Saddam Hussein "anticlimactic," White House officials announced Monday their intention to hang the late Iraqi dictator again this year in an attempt to garner a more favorable response from the public.

"We're really looking for something that will refocus the American people's attention on all the positive aspects of this war," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "We were counting on the death of this brutal despot-- who, by the way, gassed his own people and was just like Hitler-- �to be a major media event for us. Instead, we wasted three or four great news days at a time when we really could have used a few high points."

[...]

In the event that the execution fails to create the desired positive effect, authorities said they would not rule out hanging Hussein a third or even a fourth time, if necessary.

I guess that would mean that Saddam was, er, well hung.

Rove, Romney & Ghouliani

by Propagandee

August 13, 2007

When pro-war Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney was asked if any of his five sons had volunteered for military service, he replied that they were showing their support "for our nation by...helping to get me elected."

As Blogosfear's military consultant, General Snark, observed: "What an inspiring sight. Five strapping young men braving the heat of the Iowa corn fields in their air-conditioned, up-armored Winnebago." Now that's shared sacrifice for you.

Not to be outdone, Rudy Ghouliani tries to convince us that posing for photo-ops in front of the ruins of the World Trade Center put him at equal risk for health complications as the rescue and recovery workers digging their way through all that toxic rubble. No word yet whether he will accompany Michael Moore on his next mercy trip to Cuba for medical treatment.

Meanwhile, the Dems are home licking their wounds from the thrashing they took over the FISA Bill, wondering whether the secret Presidential Daily Briefing Memo they were shown titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the US During Your Vacation If You Don't Give Us Everything We Want" was real or just Karl Rove's parting dirty trick.

Speaking of Karl's departure, what's Charlie McCarthy going do now without Edgar Bergen's arm up his ass?

Update: Has anybody seen Turdblossom's watch?

Will Bush's New War Czar Be Shinsekied Too?

by Propagandee

August 11, 2007

When the then highest ranking officer in the US Army, General Shinseki, told Congress that it would take several hundred thousands of troops to secure in Iraq before the war cum occupation began, he was immediately ridiculed and marginalized by then Sec Def Donald Rumsfeld and his Deputy, Paul Wolfowiz.

Ever since, military commanders with direct responsibility for Iraq, such as Generals Abazaid and Casey, who dared speak a discouraging word about the prospects for a military victory there, not to mention specific criticism of Bush''s January '07 "surge" announcement, have found a quick road to retirement or re-assignment.

Thus we must wonder about the fate of Bush's new war czar, Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute who, on NPR's "All Things Considered" yesterday (8/10/07), stated that with respect to the draft:

"I think it makes sense to certainly consider it..."

Oh my.

Time to register another batch of 18 year olds to vote.

What We Really Need: Another 9/11 Attack

by Propagandee

August, 10, 2007

In early June, the new head of the Arkansas GOP Dennis Milligan told a reporter from Arkansas Democrat-Gazette:

"At the end of the day, I believe fully the president is doing the right thing, and I think all we need is some attacks on American soil like we had on [Sept. 11, 2001], and the naysayers will come around very quickly to appreciate not only the commitment for President Bush, but the sacrifice that has been made by men and women to protect this country."

On July 10 the Director of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff kept the ball rolling when he announced he had a "gut feeling" of an increased risk of a terrorist attack this summer.

Then came the Dems' capitulation to Bush on amending FISA to allow for extended eavesdropping (and data mining), fueled by rumors of an imminent attack on Washington, as reported by Roll Call Magazine, and propagated by Trent Lott:

Capitol Police Boost Security to Deal With Threat of Pre-Sept. 11 Attack by al-Qaida By John McArdle Roll Call Staff Thursday, Aug. 2, 2007; 4:33 pm Capitol Police officials have stepped up the department�s security presence on Capitol Hill in response to intelligence indicating the increased possibility of an al-Qaida terrorist attack on Congress sometime between now and Sept. 11... Senate Minority Whip Trent Lott (R-Miss.) ominously advised Thursday that Congress needed to pass changes to terrorist surveillance laws before leaving for the August recess and warned that otherwise �the disaster could be on our doorstep.�

Doing his part to keep fear alive this week was Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky, who titled his 8/9/07 column To Save America, We Need Another 9/11 .

Apparently, Stu is dispirited by a couple of things.

Firstly the lack of subsequent attacks on the Homeland since 9/11 has dissipated the sense of the unity that led even the surrender monkey Frenchmen to proclaim "We are all Americans Now."

Secondly, there is that blood filled quagmire we have created in The Country Formerly Known As Iraq Iraq. As Stu laments:

Iraq has fractured the U.S. into jigsaw pieces of competing interests that encourage our enemies. We are deeply divided and division is weakness.

His solution?

Because we have mislaid 9/11, we have endless sideshow squabbles about whether the surge is working, if we are "safer" now, whether the FBI should listen in on foreign phone calls, whether cops should detain odd-acting "flying imams," whether those plotting alleged attacks on Fort Dix or Kennedy airport are serious threats or amateur bumblers. We bicker over the trees while the forest is ablaze. America's fabric is pulling apart like a cheap sweater. What would sew us back together? Another 9/11 attack. The Golden Gate Bridge. Mount Rushmore. Chicago's Wrigley Field. The Philadelphia subway system. The U.S. is a target-rich environment for al Qaeda.

If such a dastardly attack does occur, say on The Philadelphia subway system, one can only hope that Stu will be there, heroically reporting on the event in real time, at least until the lights go out and the rubble buries his cell phone.

Here's Stu being interviewed on the Fox Propaganda Channel by John Gibson, who agrees with him that "it will take a lot of dead people to wake America up."

Note that Stu doesn't even know what he wrote as he denies using the word "need" in the text. Waddevah.

One can be forgiven for being a just a teeny bit concerned that all these events taken together suggest something diabolical is in the works.

Our Compassionate Conservative President: MN Bridge Collapse and SCHIP

August 2, 2007

by Propagandee

W's compassion was on full display yesterday AM when he issued a statement on the MN bridge catastrophe. After a few perfunctory words, he launched into a rant about how "disappointed" he was that Congress hasn't sent any spending bills to my desk"-- to veto, one presumes, as he also excoriated them for spending too much, going on vacation, yada yada yada.

Today, he sends his wife to MN to comfort the afflicted while he stays in the Washington to push his new domestic spying bill. (Odds, anyone, that somewhere between the final Congressional legislation and the printer a clause will magically appear that indemnifies the Administration for past violations of the FISA Act?)

Funny how he didn't mention that he'd vowed to veto a Congressional infrastructure spending bill that exceeded his own request that was, in turn, half of what independent analysts have concluded was necessary to start repairing the country's infrastructure, including some 160,000 bridges. Nor did he mention that MN's Republican governor, Tim Pawlenty, just had his own veto of a state infrastructure bill sustained. Seems he'd objected to raising the gas tax a few pennies, which to an ardent, ambitious Norquistian tax cutter like Pawlenty is anathema.

Another sterling example of how Bush feels our pain was mentioned in Paul Krugman's July 30 op ed "An Immoral Philosophy" concerning the Administration's attempt to hamstring a bipartisan attempt by Congress to expand the State Children�s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). Money quote:

But President Bush says that access to care is no problem - �After all, you just go to an emergency room� - and, with the support of the Republican Congressional leadership, he�s declared that he�ll veto any Schip expansion on �philosophical� grounds.

First of all, anyone who has had to visit a county emergency room (as I did 18 months ago) knows what trauma is in store for them as they wait to be checked in, triaged, and if they aren't bleeding to death, a desperate search for a seat or some floor space to wait the hours that it usually takes to see a doctor. In my own case, because the gurneys were all in use, I was ushered to a folding chair where my head was but a few inches from a large sink where they emptied the bed pans. The reader is spared further details.

A May 18, 2007 California Assembly Committee on Health Informational Hearing titled Hospital Services and Emergency Care: An Emerging Crisis found that:

... from 1996 to 2006 almost 80 hospitals closed in California, including 39 emergency departments. Almost 70% of the closures were located in Southern California....65 emergency rooms in California have closed in the last decade. In Los Angeles County, one fifth of emergency rooms have closed since 1995, leaving only 75 emergency rooms open for the county's 10 million residents.�

It's not like LA County is experiencing a boom in new hospital construction. Currently, it accrues $1.6 billion annually in unpaid emergency room visits. (LA Times, 1/22/07).

Like his father before him, who marvelled at what was then a ten year old scanning technology used in supermarkets where the little people buy their food, W should have some vague idea what he's talking about before he insists on a "philosophy" that, among other things, will drive additional hospital emergency rooms-- Bush's 'compassionate' answer to universal health care for uninsured children-- out of existence. And as for the hypocrisy embedded in said philosophy, Scarecrow sums it up (emphasis mine):

So we�re talking about expanding a highly successful program to anywhere from 3 to 5 million more of the estimated 9 million uninsured children. However, the House proposal would also reduce current subsidies for private health insurance, and that has sent Bush, the Republican leaders and the insurance company into full demogoguery [sic] about government takeover of health care, and misleading ads about taking away health coverage.

Bush is obviously suffering from PDS (Privitization Derangement Syndrome), complicated by a sociopathic inability to relate to others people's suffering. Whether the latter is due to a deficiency in nurturing-- imagine for a moment being raised by a mother who was out on the golf course shooting birdies with her friends the day after your younger sister died from a disease you were never told she had, and for which you were never given a chance to grieve; or whether his problem is biological in nature, from say, irreversible scarring of the empathy areas of the brain by excessive cocaine use and binge drinking-- it really doesn't matter. The corrosive effects on society are the same.

[Continued in: The Forbidden Planet of George W's Id: How a PsyFi Horror Play Became Our Very Own Reality Show]

Will Bush Fix or Cancel the 2008 Election?

by Propagandee

August 1, 2007

Harvey Wasserman, who along with Bob Fitrakis and Steve Rosenfeld co-authored WHAT HAPPENED IN OHIO?, has just published an article titled Will Bush cancel the 2008 election?

In it, he briefly recounts the history of the 2004 presidential election, noting that:

As a result of the King-Lincoln- Bronzeville federal lawsuit (in which we are plaintiff and attorney) we have now been informed that 56 of the 88 counties in Ohio violated federal law by destroying election records, thus preventing a definitive historical recount.

He goes on to argue that if it appears that the Republicans will lose (i.e. can't fix) the '08 election, they will likely cancel the elections altogether. He cites a "partial list" of legislative enactments like the Patriot Act, as well as Presidential Directive 51 and a half dozen executive orders that would provide a faux-legal infrastructure for such an action.

Since any failure of the fixing scenario would make the cancellation scenario more likely, it's worth noting a few recent developments not mentioned in the article.

Firstly, California's Secretary of State just announced the results of a hacking test of all of the state's electronic voting machines, made by three different companies: Diebold, Hart InterCivic and Sequoia. Everyone of the machines were easily hacked. Votes were flipped and no trail left of the changes. CA 's Sec State has until Friday to decide what to do about it. (CA's presidential primary is Feb 08.) Also, there is an initiative on the CA ballot that would re-allocate CA's winner take all electoral votes that could swing the state to the Republicans, a strategy in the Rovian playbook that could be used in other key electoral college states.

Secondly, the Department of Justice's procedural manual regarding voting fraud has just been revised. Prior policy was to forgo announcing investigations or prosecutions close to an election date so as not to bias the results. (Recall that was an issue in the firing of one or more of the US attorneys currently being investigated by Congress.) The manual has been changed to allow for announcements at any time...such as when a Republican is behind in the polls.

WRT the prospect of calling off the '08 election, Wasserman argues:

"Those who think this crew will quietly walk away from power are simply not paying attention."

Or to frame it another way: Who thinks that Cheney, having achieved his lifelong goal of consolidating dictatorial powers in the executive branch is simply going to hand it all over to the Clintons on a silver platter some 17 months hence?

Besides, without a Rovian apparatchik running the Justice Department, planning a five year reunion of Bush era Republicans will be problematic given the regional disbursement of federal prisons across the country.

Pentagon Tries to Re-brand Itself

July 31, 2007

by Propagandee

In her front page July 21, 2007 WAPO article Pentagon Gets a Lesson From Madison Avenue, Karen DeYoung depicts the Pentagon's efforts at an Extreme Makeover, apparently their attemp to reach out and better bomb someone. She begins by saying:

In the advertising world, brand identity is everything. Volvo means safety. Colgate means clean. IPod means cool. But since the U.S. military invaded Iraq in 2003, its "show of force" brand has proved to have limited appeal to Iraqi consumers, according to a recent study commissioned by the U.S. military.

How to remedy the situation? Bill the taxpayers for $400,000 and hire the Rand Corporation to conduct a study:

The key to boosting the image and effectiveness of U.S. military operations around the world involves "shaping" both the product and the marketplace, and then establishing a brand identity that places what you are selling in a positive light, said clinical psychologist Todd C. Helmus, the author of "Enlisting Madison Avenue: The Marketing Approach to Earning Popular Support in Theaters of Operation." The 211-page study, for which the U.S. Joint Forces Command paid the Rand Corp. $400,000, was released this week.

Helmus and his co-authors concluded that the "force" brand, which the United States peddled for the first few years of the occupation, was doomed from the start and lost ground to enemies' competing brands. While not abandoning the more aggressive elements of warfare, the report suggested, a more attractive brand for the Iraqi people might have been "We will help you." That is what President Bush's new Iraq strategy is striving for as it focuses on establishing a protective U.S. troop presence in Baghdad neighborhoods, training Iraq's security forces, and encouraging the central and local governments to take the lead in making things better.

Alas, it may be too late:

Many of the study's conclusions may seem as obvious as they are hard to implement amid combat operations and terrorist attacks, and Helmus acknowledged that it could be too late for extensive rebranding of the U.S. effort in Iraq. But Duane Schattle, whose urban operations office at the Joint Forces Command ordered the study, said that "cities are the battlegrounds of the future" and what has happened in Baghdad provides lessons for the future. "This isn't just about going in and blowing things up," Schattle said. "This is about working in a very complex environment. At the same time, Helmus said, U.S. military and civilian authorities must stop thinking of themselves as a "good-idea factory" whose every thought has greater merit than those of their customers. "Procter & Gamble doesn't even do that," he said. [...]

Well, that explains it. The utter failure of the Bush Administration to accomplish even its own ill-defined, let alone illegal and immoral goals in Iraq is, at bottom, a failure to communicate. A failure of advertising.

It's probably too late, but here are some pitches they might want to consider:

Thank you for smoking. Aimed at the gallows humor that helps ordinary Iraqis cope with the relentless terrorist truck bombs and US air assaults that make their daily lives a living hell.

I'd walk a mile for a camel. Since getting gasoline for their cars is an all day endeavor, providing an alternate and even traditional form of transportation reminds ordinary Iraqis that they aren't completely helpless during this difficult transition period. The fact that this ad slogan first appeared in 1921, the year that the British Empire was busy carving up that portion of the former Ottoman Empire that later became the country of Iraq, provides a powerful, subliminal, historical subtext.

Don't leave home without it. [superimposed over the image of an AK-47]. To accompany the new policy of arming the same Sunni militias in Anbar Province that were killing US troops yesterday so that they can kill the foreign jihadis that we are unable to kill today, notwithstanding the fact that those same Sunnis will be killing us tomorrow.

It's Miller time! Given the growing influence of Shia enforced Sharia law in the southern provinces, where stores that sell liquor are ritually fire bombed, it is important to remind Iraqis that there is light at the end of the tunnel, that the days when Iraqis could kick back and enjoy themselves will one day be restored.

Where do you want to go today? Since actual travel can result in being kidnapped, killed at fake police checkpoints, or having your car and family reduced to smoking flesh and metal by nervous G.I's, firing streams of 20mm and 50 cals into any car sharing the road, this highly successful slogan borrowed from MSFT when passed out with pharmaceutical grade LSD, offers all the advantages of virtual travel, restoring a sense of freedom of movement to an otherwise paralyzed country.

My bill to the taxpayers is in the mail.

Even Scaife is Beginning to Think Bush Is Wacko

by Propagandee

July 28, 2007

The Pittsburg Tribune-Review is owned by billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, perhaps the largest single donor to right wing causes in the last 30 years; e.g., he heavily funded the Arkansas Project which provided the money that funded the investigations that led to the impeachment of President Bill Clinton.

Its July, 15, 2007 (Sunday) editorial is titled The war in Iraq. Some highlights:

Perhaps Jack Murtha put it best: The Pennsylvania congressman, among the first to make the cogent argument that staying the course in Iraq was the exercise in futility that indeed the war has become, says President Bush is delusional.

Based on the president's recent performance, we could not agree more. "Staying the course" is not simply futile -- it is a prescription for American suicide...

And quite frankly, during last Thursday's news conference, when George Bush started blathering about "sometimes the decisions you make and the consequences don't enable you to be loved," we had to question his mental stability...

Richard Mellon Scaife: Probationary member of the reality based community?

Help! Smoke is coming out of my keyboa