JAMES BAKER: COURSE CORRECTION

Is James Baker consigliere extraordinaire of the Bush Family Dynasty really riding to rescue Sonny from his misadventure in Iraq or is his propositional change of course in Iraq simply a trial balloon??-- Maybe a trojan horse aimed at the midterm election the entire blathersphere has now posited into the win column for the demi-crats due to the hysteria surrounding the latest scandal at the pageboy club-- If Mr Bush is the stay-the-course, progress-is-around-the-proverbial-corner automaton programmed to stubborn repetition in order to reinforce and invigorate a flagging base of ardent war supporters('catapulting the propaganda'), then Mr. Baker arrives Tea for Texas-smooth and soothingly offers the undecided voters, who find the dDemi-proposals indecipherable or easily eviscerated by Rove's boys as misinformed and unattainable, a moderate sounding plan Change of Course (viable or not!) in a month or two disingenuously casual and equally as vague and hopeful as the original but at least its a plan--....... Whatever!!!

The US Army Chief of Staff points out that our troops will be in Iraq until 2010 which is longer even than Bush himself has stated-- Problematical to the Baker plan??-- Not too!-- Everybody has a plan and tomorrow the blathersphere will have largely forgotten all of todays' contradictions, all the objections and all the haphazard opinions emanating from DC because tomorrow there will be a fresh plethora to dissect and ruminate on but it does reflect the blatant fact the Iraq War is getting more bloody and more violent--

The facts are the facts on the ground in Iraq and despite the media obeisance paid to Bush, Baker, Kissinger, Cheney (now in the backseat), Rice (sidelined but rested and ready), and of course Rumsfeld (dutifully still at the oblivious lectern), someone must admit sooner or later that these leaders are not in control of those facts-- Beyond this incontrovertible dictum, great gobs of time, energy and resources go into fruitless efforts to keep from acknowledging the negative news publicly -- 300 US Troops wounded last week and nearly fifty killed thus far in October, both stark increases, is palliated into Baghdad becoming 'safer'-- Nevermind that even if this canard were true no goverment high official will acknowledge that the insurgent activity in the very dangerous Anbar Province from which American troops withdrew to reinforce Baghdad has troublesomely increased-- To help douse one fire we are forced to allow many others to ramp up-- Who determines whose plan or what course the administration chooses and when it wishes to is open to speculation and media odds but the entity with the most operative votes currently is the Iraqi insurgency opposing US Troops and all the sectarian warriors opposing each other, add in also the foreign mujahideen devoted to jihad in country-- They currently control the time and terrain on which they battle our troops with definitely increasing effectiveness--

The progress the administration intones for votes is a complete canard-- One course so far not publicly ballooned up this election season is the ominous albeit a currently longshot possibility that any Change-of-Course will fail to stave off outright defeat should the Shiite majority including southern Iraq decide to oppose the occupation en masse-- Contrarily Al Quaeda types to borrow a Cheneyism are purported to desire a continued US presense for jihadic propaganda purposes but soldier blogs portray an American Army stretched thin and demoralized-- The Mahdi Army was reported to have been ordered by Moqtada al-Sadr to temporarily lay down their weapons and cease engaging American forces-- A temporary reduction in US casualties would enhance the reelection chances of Repo-man stay-the-course types akin to the 2004 Bin Laden endorsement of Bush-- Casualty counts mounting higher over the past ten days would argue against the efficacy of the al-Sadr strategery if indeed it has been employed-- The news is still not good--

Fareed Zakaria longtime hawk prominently declared recently “it is time to call an end to the tests, the six-month trials, the waiting and the watching, and to recognize that the Iraqi government has failed. It is also time to face the terrible reality that America’s mission in Iraq has substantially failed.” Zakaria like Baker and those many others on the right that not only read the handwringing on the wall but comprehend the full measure of this looming disaster can only cringe at the prospect of what awaits them in congress should the agenda diminished demi-crats gain the investigatory power that goes with committee chairmanships should the repo-men lose the midterms-- The reticence to level with an American public that already knows the war is irretrievably gone(the information is too available) is a way of denying the no-confidence vote the non-voters will display in early November--They will reap what they have sown one way or the other .....perhaps, both--