BANKING LEAK & INSURGENT NOIR?

By now everyone knows the NYTimes broke the story of the Bush administration's secret investigation of potential terrorism financing everywhere by penetrating the most secret/secure banking records of most if not all of the world's major banks and financial institutions-- Not disputing the most obvious most bankers everywhere in the world are rather upset to put it mildly and not to mention peeved world governments who might not like having their business secrets open to neocon snoopery but the White House spin centers on the messenger and not its damning message-- Said another way it's easier for Porky Rove to blame or possibly intimidate the newsboy than the cat already out of the bag but why is that so?-- What is the intimidating tantrum designed to deflect our attention away from?--

In previous come-to-light malodorities (oooops! almost opined illegalities) would not the outrage usually be directed toward the leaker?-- the spiller of the embarassing beans?-- 'You can run but you can't hide' kind of tough talk delivered from the invective lectern for a nightly newspot meant to frighten other potential whistle blowers and truth tellers-- Not this time though-- Rove and Company know who the leaker might be or at least where the leak generally came from and they are not, obviously, as cozy as a fiddler crab on a marsh bank (as John Wayne might have once said) about it and what it might pertain to future leaks --

Speculation deserves its day on occasion and perhaps on this occasion it has earned its due-- The leak came from the CIA-- Not new man Hayden or his personal crew but someone obviously disgruntled-- someone with an old axe to grind-- someone whose arm the Bush sidekick Cheney once twisted-- someone or more than one perhaps whom CIA Helmsman at the time Porter Goss unceremoniously and disgracefully purged from the agency too little and too late to turn the diminishing agency into a simple administrative rubber stamp but once again in an attempt to intimidate some of 'those left behind'-- An Insurgency in the Intelligence Community????-- Clancy LeCarre et. al. must be drooling at the prospect--If the Department of Defense now gets roughly 80% of all the spy money and a concommitant 80% of mission priorities any number of former CIA analysts, agents, and operatives of sundry and various rank finding themselves all of a sudden out in the proverbial cold conditional to of course their having been correct about the intel surrounding pre-shock and awe Iraq would have speculatively sufficient and dramatic (job loss) reasons to be a continual thorn in the side of the stupidly short-sighted kind of hardball Mr. Rove and his power entourage seem to take such relish about engaging in-- Rove and the boys know that there may be more leakers than news outlets (speculative hyperbole) and that they probably face a two and a half year run through a precisely paced gauntlet of exposed revelations scandals and misdemeanors perhaps even salted here and there with felonious criminalities of both local and international import timed to continually intersect with any potential gains in political momentum Bushido and Company might be tempted to claim--Bend over, Karl, reap what you've sown--It's the Book of Revelations --isn't it?

The demise of the Rumsfeld-glamorized thug Al Zarquawi portended the very momentum the neocon misadventure needed to spin a positive light of progress around the upcoming mid term elections when out of the blue Bush's handpicked ambassador to Iraq Mr. Khalilzad purveyed a super secret cable(supposedly read by Bush as he sneaked into the Green Zone for a post-Zarquawi photo-op) to State Sec. Condi graphically delineating the potential disintegration and collapse of 'liberated' Baghdad and boom! There it is!!--THE CABLE-- The Washington Post scoops them all-- Zarquawi who?--Perhaps these are the Final Days-- at least for some (indigenous iraqis employed at our Green Zone embassy find Baghdad's survival conditions deplorable enough to inquire about U.S. contingency plans for evacuation) and they certainly bode well worth watching--

WHERE ARE THE REAL DEMOCRATS

Yes, where are they?-- FEIGNING RESOLUTION on a disunited call to bring the troops home--That's right-- Faking it-- A counter ploy designed to alleviate the abject embarassment foisted on them by Chubby Rove's boys reveling in another nonbinding senate resolution for which the Democrats had no answer but to perpetuate their standard low grade whine -- Fed a plate of humiliating crow poop ('Hmm! buttery a touch of oak'-- like it's wine tasting)-- The dysfunctional dems failed to achieve anything resembling consensus mumbled musings about phased redeployments and strong stands and timetables and soon the platform agenda is rendered MIA for the midterm elections this fall--Afraid meanie Rove will lable them cowardly, how they appear now weighs more on the gravitas scale than real substantive stands-- Their finger in the wind platform for the fall (double entendre/ help me, rhonda) is exhibit A should they be indicted for acting devoid of political conviction--

A viable political party must have coin-of-the-realm Moral Credibility--The Moral Creed of the Republicans is well summed in the word Greed (for which some of them should be rewarded with a conviction) and they proudly display greed's victorious ribbon rack on their chest touting as an example various successful tax cuts for the bloated rich as well as the glorious subversion (directly in the face of elitist democrats who meekly aquiesced) for ten years so much as a meager dime's increase in the minimum wage-- But we certainly know where they stand as do those who support them which is probably why they are the majority party-- As a functionally principled political party the dems have no discernably principled position on Foreign Affairs--no discernibly principled position on the Iraq War-- no discernably principled position on Immigration-- no discernably principled position on Health Affairs-- no discernably principled position on the coming collapse of the Housing Bubble--no discernably principled and knowledgeable position on a viable energy future other than the shallow techie canards of alternativity-- thirty five discernible positions though they do have on gender identity crises for which now a confluence of dem leaders disagreed to agree on extolling the wonderful diversity of opinion in 'our potty'-- Thirty years of soccer mom feminism co-opting once strong masculine labor agendas and in the first two games of the World Cup we managed no shots on goal--NONE!!!!!-- NADA!!!!-- NIL!!!!!!-- Oh, the Humanity!!!!!!!!

Something is drastically and acutely wrong with this picture-- You can't win if you can't score--You can't score if you can't shoot at the goal-- To shoot at the goal you must be able to see the goal--Once you see the goal you must attack with a real plan consisting of true leadership and a unified teamwork-- Sorry, but worrying whether the opposition bully will call you names is nothing more than unvarnished cowardice-- You deserve the yellow card--Leave the field-- Fear is not a real plan, it is only darkness and if not faced and not overcome paralysis of the will can indeed insue-- Somewhere in the Middle East a real insurgency is battling (with real not digital bullets bombs and blood) to 'Take Back Our (their)Country'-- That the cozy elitist minority party would adopt such a shibboleth as a campaign slogan seriously mocks the nature of the work required for such an 'visionary' outcome-- Get serious!!!! Was it ever 'your' country to begin with????--And why?????-- Self-inflicted ineptitude would be amusingly pathetic were the consequences so trivial as the outcome of a soccer game-- The real danger is the republic itself could perish/collapse by this in-action and the so-called best and the brightest of our fundraising statesmen/poseurs on both sides of the aisle will be the last to know-- Shine, D.C., shine!!!!!!--

THE AMBASSADOR"S GRIM CABLE

Although his name appears at the bottom of the page the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Mr. Khalilzad apparently now is not the signer of the cable leaked to the media and published by the Washington Post claiming Iraq as a country is on the gloomy verge of complete disintegration. Not a surprise to those tuning into the real state of affairs on the ground but clearly a shock to the falsely confident light at the end of the tunnel viewpoint which gained steam behind the Zarquawi demise-- Every momentum conferred by met war milestones has led to an increase in attacks and the death count then ratchets upward-- Sectarian cleansing across wide swaths of territory isn't new-- Indigenous iraqis working as embassy employees nervously ask U.S. officials what contingency plans exist for their evacuation-- Checkpoint guards(iraqis) inside, yes that's right inside the green zone aren't trusted by the locals who live in constant fear their employment by the Americans will come to light and their families will be attacked and killed-- Not prominently reported or highlighted in very many newspapers apologists for the criminal neocon cabal that hijacked our government for this war are quickly attacking the messenger/leaker (whoever that might be) as another traitor hoping to deflect attention away from how dangerously grim life is everywhere in Iraq-- This information was/is readily available inside the Green Zone-- Reporters don't have to endanger themselves in the real Baghdad to access embassy employees-- Where is their overview of the country??-- The media members who leave the Green Zone to report the real situation risk life and limb and should be honored as the true heroes of their profession-- But why does it take a leaked cable from the Ambassador's office to survey such information?-- Why is anybody in the Media truly shocked??-- Or is this another professional pose??-- Today the new prime minister Mr. Malicki imposes a state of emergency on Baghdad and demands a timetable for troop withdrawal--Apparently insurgents battled in broad daylight uncomfortably close to the Green Zone fortress-- Didn't Jerry Paul Bremer once claim "We will impose our will on Iraq"-- Fat chance--News reports that weapons of mass destruction in the form of nerve gas were found are now being denied by intel officials but the damage has been done--The cable of doom lost its salient urgency and stay the course regains top media billing-- Next up, where are the democrats??-- How would they know?--And besides who cares?--

JAMES WEBB & MARIA CANTWELL

James Webb won his primary race against a fairly formidable Democratic opponent and will face Republican George Allen in the battle for Virginia's U.S. Senate seat this November-- Webb staunchly opposes the Iraq War and forthrightly campaigned on that issue and a handful of others-- Some gnashing-of-the-teeth Democrats of the DLC AUB LDP ilk have carped about Webb's obvious military legacy and criticized his 'vagueness' on many issues and an apparent refusal to take a stand on others deemed important to those critics-- Those party purists think their candidates should have thirty-second sound-bites on seventy-five issues so smoothly rehearsed and slickly deliverable only the shoeshine-and-a-smile of America's perpetual Salesman WillyLoman would dare a challenge--As if politics should be played as Jeopardy(Saddam for a thousand, please, Alex)-- Other pragmatic demo.'s lauded Webb as their only opportunity (therefore there is nothing to really lose) to defeat incumbent Allen in the fall-- Frankly Webb's unvarnished choice to actually run stoutly on PRINCIPLE instead of an expedient POSE is what truly engenders fear and trembling among the faithless hacks and shills promulgating candidacies everywhere-- One seems to know for dead certain that Webb will never have to recuse himself due to a gender identity crisis when the feces hit the fan and the beleaguered demo's real fear is that such spineful behaviour could somehow someday be demanded of them-- Webb may never magnetize the big-money needed to upset the well heeled incumbency of media 'cash cows' like Allen* but so far he is clearly the most interesting 'bellweather'-type challenger to the current corrupt one-party order--

From the other end of the Democrats' specious spectrum runs the incumbent Iraq War supporter Maria Cantwell-- Her marginalized anti-war primary opponents are former Marine family man Mark Wilson and the principled Vietnamese woman Hong Tran both of whom were initially denied speaking privilege at a recent Seattle Incumbent-Only Democrat Confab under the arrogant guise that incumbency actually bestowed upon Cantwell the rich privilege of being ordained rather than challenged-- The Party somehow must exist to facilitate only the incumbent candidate even when former shoo-in status of her campaign begins volubly hemorrhaging local support-- Even the Seattle Times runs a guest op. ed. extolling professorial advice on how Cantwell can re-right her badly listing ship-- In another regular newspiece the Times recounts how Cantwell sought an updated Iraq War de-briefing from a high-profile Lawrence Korb D.C. think-tank cravenly admitting the stubborn ineptitude of Iraq-as-a-year-of-TRANSITION-- Exposed as largely a political-stance-as-mirage since its' frequently repetitive voicings have failed to garner any re-vivified campaign traction it also exposes the deeply misinformed nature of her own Iraq intelligence about what is authentically transpiring/expiring ground level in Iraq-- Her poorly calculated subterfuge seeks to camouflage her disingenuous spin and only mirrors the incredulity of Bush's futile 'stay the course' slogan-- Transition to what, Mariah?-- A Republican upset??-- The rich and privileged Cantwell seems at a loss for what to do or say next-- Because Cantwell has proven herself a confident and very capable fundraiser the media has granted her cash cow status* and now actively seeks to aid her troubled campaign with unsolicited political advice printed as an editorial service from the Op. Ed. page directly to the incumbent herself-- Like Webb's primary success Cantwell's primary difficulties may also serve as an interesting possible Bellweather phenomenon--

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**** Incumbent Senators, conventional wisdom factoids around the web, need to average $10,000/day in re-election campaign contributions--Where does all that money go the MEDIA might but then again might NOT ask??--Why???-- Because it goes to them largely paid out to generously enhance the incumbents chances through lavish state of the art campaign advertising purchases-- The more moolah you generate the more ads you can purchase flattering your political image and attacking your lesser funded opponents -- Why would the media interfere with a bona-fide five star fundraiser reinforced with deep-pocket personal riches (how gained is of little import) seeking ordination?? Your guess is good as Hong Tran or Mark Wilson--

ZARQUAWI MILESTONE

Zarquawi's dead and gone but the violent contagion called Iraq immediately spiked once again at the news-- Must be former Zarquawi supporters now in their 'last throes' to borrow a disingenuous Cheney analysis from the early insurrection-- No one is sorry to see the big bad beheader gone-- Indeed some among both Al Quaeda and the Sunni resistance are probably pleased-- Armed with the knowledge/intel that by and large most Americans are seriously weary of the war and very wary of the ominous economic clouds mounting their summer horizons, the Sunni insurgents must plan for a day American troops go home and their expedient and once vitally necessary alliance with Al Quaeda is probably not on the front burner of renewal-- Inflating Zarquawi's purported role and capabilities beyond his much deserved reputation for brutality capped off with a ridiculous $25 million bounty Doctor Rumsfeld sought to portray the rising idigenous insurgency as minimal and ineffective while ascribing the lion's share of the ascending violence to foreign born fighters-- Facts on the ground documented by our own military soon dispelled Rumple's account even as he persisted in defending his oneiric paradigm-- Zarquawi indeed appeared to have been somewhat marginalized in recent months-- Had he been killed early in the war before he convinced Bin Laden that al Quaeda must attack the new Iraqi police and army recruits so as to deny the provisional occupational government and anyone else interested in collaborating with the U.S. the air of legitimacy that is automatically conferred(to the degree of their demonstrable effectiveness) upon those able to muster such field forces, his death would have had a much greater impact on the insurgent proceedings-- The chaotically internecine mayhem that in many areas has been expanded splintered replicated retreated reconstituted and continually re-armed and re-financed in a non-hierarchically organized manner did not take its orders top down from Zarquawi anyway-- That he almost escaped due perhaps to the length of time needed to plan and execute a mission from the point actionable-intelligence arrived at the chain of command's top echelon delineates the difficulty of dousing so many different insurgent fires networking their destruction any and everywhere in the country--So far the attained milestones of our so called progress have met with more rather than less attacks many of increasing lethality and frequency from the obviously dedicated insurgency-- Their ability to sustain their fight continues unabated on time and terrain mostly of their choosing--The prospect of a successful conclusion(not easily rendered into a workable geographically tactical or strategic definition) to the neocon misadventure in Iraq is not made inevitable by Zarquawi's demise but no one should mourn his meeting with martyrdom however that is defined--

MARINES

Americans CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH-- Aghast that american boys--American Marines-- may have committed a massacre of innocents in Iraq the punditocracy that largely cheerled the shock and awe ("we're all neocons now") pre-emptive regime change are now repulsed by the most recent horror of a war gone wrong-- Actually the war hasn't gone wrong it is only the naive and false idea of how war should go that has basically gone wrong-- The late David Hackworth once commented on the difference between war and combat being thus "War is hell but combat is a shrieking bitch." Everything confluent to making war hellish and combat a shrieking bitch is information off-limits to the public in the run-up to war--

The nature of the beast must be sanitized by the media to be palatable to both the media and the public-- Retired Generals telestrating the elaborate five star digital hotels Al Quaeda accesses five stories down in the digital caves of Tora Bora-- At Tora Bora's real caves the U.S. allowed Osama Bin's escape to Pakistan-- Blowhard political FieldMarshalls portly silverhaired lame knee-ed never served but suddenly erudite beyond question in the digital fields of tactical strategery one after the other stepped up to the deadly digital lectern to pontificate America's indisputable need for world credibility-- Remember how effortlessly the regimes of the Evil Axis would be 'taken out'--(Almost every pundit in mediasphere central seemingly fell over themselves to report with such a macho ring someone somewhere would be "TAKEN OUT"-- alas a digitally macho ring) -- Saddam ? Five days max!--Iran's Ayatollah? Two Weeks--Korea's Il ? Three months at most-- Half the world instantaneously and blithely remade--Heady hubris to say the least-- Walking Tall in the television studio--

Imagine now having to face head-on the grisly brutality of such a ghastly scene as Haditha and the kind of nauseating puckering effect that might have while you are making a serious sidebet about who will win the American Idol contest--A contest by the way which garnered more American votes (among the living that is) than our last Presidential election--Americans softened obese and hyper-entertained by the non-negotiable way of life Mr. Cheney has proclaimed so authoritatively have no stomach for the reality of war and re-elected a man who told Pat Robertson (when he vowed to pray for the casualties) apparently in all seriousness there would be no casualties-- The new Iraqi prime minister(virtually installed by the U.S.) shrugged recently and stated that these massacres happen all the time in Iraq-- A stunning comment (grantedly uttered by a man whose security is so deathly challenged he cannot venture from the Green Zone) followed by an oceanic silence from most supposedly interested parties--Rumple ducked and so did Condi--How about most everybody from Hannity to Woodruff et. al.?--Too much TRUTH?????--

Let's pretend real war is a computer video game where the bombs are absolutely smart and the blood is only digital-- From the reclining overstuffed chair deployed on the frontlines of air conditioned beer soaked suburban foxholes a generation or two removed from the Shores of Tripoli Bloody Tarawa and the Seige of Khe San most Americans don't seem to give even a digital rat's ass--The dead belong to the lower classes anyway poor whiteblackbrownredyellow--No flag draped caskets on the evening news-- The honor of their sacrifices not digital enough, or what??

POSTSCRIPT:

Marine Corps Commandant Pace has been rumored to have told the Commander in Chief to expect the worst from the investigative report upcoming-- Should worst come to worst and the marines stand court-martial to and are found guilty of a capital offense the digital firing squad who will pull the digital trigger should, at least, be composed of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, Wolfewitz, Tenet, Bremer, Perle, Kristol, Krauthammer, Feith, Addington, Libby and the whole neocon criminal phalanx who dreamed up this non-digital disaster-- The order to FIRE has already been given by Mr. Bush-- BRING IT ON!!!!

CANDIDATE HONG TRAN

Just when one thought the Democratic Party had sunk to the lowest of the low comes the story of Seattle resident Hong Tran--It seems she wanted to exercise her once inalienable right to challenge the rich and talented pro-IraqWar incumbent Senator Maria Cantwell to be the Democratic nominee for the Senate seat up for grabs in the mid term elections in November-- Not only was Tran informed she would not be allowed to hang any of the handfull of her own campaign signs in the room already replete with Cantwell banners but also Tran would be disallowed any speaking privileges at the big Party meet-up-- This from the Party always championing the right to free speech-- This from the Party who used to speak for the little people for the working people-- This from the Party who always touted inclusion and diversity-- That vietnamese Tran should meet with such arrogant elitism really isn't so surprising-- Tran opposes the Iraq war while the Democratic Party wishes the issue would disappear or resolve itself before it is forced to confront its own stupid complicity in this unnecessary daily slaughter and its morally vapid failure to stand up and join the majority of the American people (My God, even Muskogee redneck Merle Haggard is publicly speaking out) now in frustrated opposition-- Cantwell so far has shown herself to be an artless dodger tepidly aping the Bush credo of stay the course but attempting to make it appear only quasi-supportive (sort of Bush Lite) meanwhile the tempo of violence escalates and the so-called unity government fails to unify anything-- Cantwell's camp has admitted trouble in attracting activist help to man phone banks and go door to door and her lead in the polls drops-- Has she shown real leadership ?--Does she really deserve their support?-- If the Iraq war spells out higher oil prices and ultimately financial bankruptcy for the country as well as the government shouldn't she be held responsible/accountable??--

While the incumbent senator spins her lack of a real position as a year of transition for Iraq echoing the pre-Tet Light at the End of the Tunnel banality of another not so long ago quagmire the dual insurgencies Sunni and Shia prepare for a much longer more violent fight-- The poseur Democrats arrogantly flatter themselves they are playing Hardball by denying the courageous Hong Tran air time-- (Hardball ? !! Isn't that what the insurgents are playing??)Let's hope she wasn't solicited to make a monetary contribution to the millionaire senator's PAC-- The rumored political obscenity of anti-war soccer mom Russ Feingold appearing at this incumbent-only Democratic Party confluence to rally support for the incumbent Bush lackey is quite troublingly ironic-- The lack of evident conviction melds again with molten political expediency--The good news is Hong Tran's principled persistence finally cowed the Democrats into allowing her a three-minutes-only speech and may have gained her my write-in vote come November's election day--