Get traction

The story the bloggers are developing on the "Great DOJ Republican Conspiracy" has not appeared in the mainstream media, until yesterday.

The LA Times printed an op-ed piece by Joseph D. Rich, former DOJ official in Civil Rights. Rich says,

Over the last six years, this Justice Department has ignored the advice of its staff and skewed aspects of law enforcement in ways that clearly were intended to influence the outcome of elections.

Air America is trumpeting the story--in connection with the Senate Judiciary hearings on the US Attorney firings--and Waxman had the head of BushCo's GSA in for questioning this week about a partisan meeting regarding organizing the GSA to promote Republican candidates in 2008.

The pieces of the puzzle are all there, and they fit. Will the mainstream media give this issue any traction in the teeth of Iraq/Iran?

Remember this?

Bush Failed has the quotation from back in the 2000 campaign about how Bush and Cheney were going to restore the military:

". . .these are signs of a military in decline and we must do something about it. The reasons are clear. Lack of equipment and material. Undermaning of units. Overdeployment. Not enough time for family. Soldiers who are on food stamps, and soldiers who are poorly housed. Dick Cheney and I have a simple message today for our men and women in uniform, their parents, their loved ones, their supporters: Help is on the way!"

"A generation shaped by Vietnam must remember the lessons of Vietnam. When America uses force in the world, the cause must be just, the goal must be clear, and the victory must be overwhelming."

George W. Bush VFW speech 8/21/00

Fair and Balanced

From Crooks & Liars

Col Ted Westhusing

Alternet has a disturbing tale today that Wayne Madsen also weighed in on once. Robert Bryce of the Texas Observer seems to suggest that there was no foul play involved.

This is the kind of thing that gets buried in a private war half way around the world where everyone speaks Arabic. Who the hell knows what really happened?

Busy

I'm too busy to write in this blog right now, but next week I hope to be back. I gave my students their midterm on Wednesday, I took my midterm last Friday, and next Thursday and Friday I'm going into the studio to film the pilot for my MNN show.

But I have to say that I've been watching the Plame testimony before the Committee on Government Oversight in the House, and she is dropping bombs all over Cheney and Rove.

I feel safer now!

From the trenches--the front lines of the true War On Terror and not the SCWOT (So-Called War On Terror), President General Musharraf of Pakistan assuaged the fears and concerns brought by US Vice President Dick Cheney to a meeting in Islamabad earlier this week. According to the Boston Globe:

Musharraf vowed yesterday to take "stiff action" to expel foreign militants from Pakistan's mountainous border regions, the Associated Press of Pakistan news agency reported.

"These people are putting Pakistan in danger. These people should leave and go, otherwise we will have to deal with them , and we are dealing with them," APP quoted him as saying.

AP reporter, Munir Ahmad, elsewhere in the article, also pointed out that new US Intelligence Chief, Mike McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he thought bin Laden was in North Waziristan. He said he was very concerned that the Taleban were planning a major Spring offensive against the government of Afghanistan and the coalition forces there.

In reference to the region of northwest Pakistan where al Qaeda is allegedly setting up jihadi training camps, McConnell added:

the camps are in an area that has never been governed by any state or outside power.

Maybe we need Bush to do a Teddy Roosevelt and lead the charge into the terrorist sanctuaries, the no-man's land in the remote foothills of the western Himalayas. That would calm everybody's fears!

US to Occupy Iraq for 30 Years

If you thought the "So-Called War On Terror" (SCWOT) was a hoax, you were right.

From 9/11 to EFPs, it's all a pretext for occupying permanent bases in the Middle East.

In his article, U.S. Commanders Admit We Face A Vietnam Style Collapse, Simon Tisdall writes:

Possibly the biggest longer term concern of Gen Petraeus's team is that political will in Washington may collapse just as the military is on the point of making a counter-insurgency breakthrough. According to a senior administration official, speaking this week, this is precisely what happened in the final year of the Vietnam war.

Any senior administration official who really thinks this is true should not be in a position to make policy decisions. He is obviously unable to differentiate the truth from the party line. One can only surmise--from our historical vantage point--that the administration official Tisdall quoted is patently lying as his job to promote the Administration's policies to the public. That kind of cynicism is borne from believing in the fundamental ignorance and indifference of the American people. We have seen too much of that during this Administration.

Another example comes from our old friend and patriot, Karen Kwiatkowski. James Harris interviewed her for a piece entitled, Pentagon Whistleblower on the Coming War With Iran. There's an audio file there, too.

Vietnam is filled with examples. And Daniel Ellsberg’s information and his Pentagon paper that he released factual information that contradicted what political appointees at the top of the Pentagon were saying to Congress and saying to the American people. Yeah, this is typical of how it works. Now, having said that, most people who serve and wear the uniform or give a career of service to the military, whether civilian, civil service or military, we don’t think that our bosses will do that. We don’t think that our military will do that. But in fact history is full of examples of bald-faced lies being told to sell particular agendas. Often times those agendas include war making, certainly in Vietnam they did, under LBJ and a few other presidents.

While we as American citizens do not like being lied to, particularly being lied to into a stupid quagmire that makes no sense. We don’t’ like being lied to. Congress doesn’t like being lied to. However, many in Congress, and certainly in this administration agree, and this is Democrats and Republicans, like the idea that we have gone into Iraq, we have built four mega bases, they are complete. Most of the money we gave to Halliburton was for construction and completion of these bases. We have probably, of the 150,000, 160,000 troops we have in Iraq probably 110,000 of those folks are associated with one of those four mega bases. Safely ensconced behind acres and acres of concrete. To operate there indefinitely, no matter what happens in Baghdad, no matter who takes over, no matter if the country splits into three pieces or it stays one. No matter what happens, we have those mega bases, and there’s many in Congress and certainly in this administration, Republican and Democrat alike that really like that. Part of the reason I think that we went into Iraq was to reestablish a stronger foothold than we had in Saudi Arabia, but also a more economical, a more flexible, in terms of who we want to hit. If you want to hit Syria, can you do it from Iraq? Of course you can. And now you can do it from bases that will support any type of airplane you want, any number of troops in barracks. I mean we can do things from Iraq. And this is what they wanted. So, yeah, we don’t like being lied to. But quite frankly, many people in the Congress, and certainly this administration, when they call Iraq a success, they mean it, and this is why.

We’re in Iraq to stay. And can we strike Iran from Iraq? Well, I don’t know if we’ll do that next week, but we can.