LOST TIME IS NOT FOUND AGAIN

Onward in this macabre effort to stabilize the Middle East through de-stabilization-- New Central Commander Admiral Fallon has acknowledged the miscalculation of our policy elites with regard to the initial and ongoing fiasco in Iraq-- Most senior officers in the military have spent their entire careers working up and through the vagaries of careerism to one day earn a major command-- The one offered may not match the requisite talents of the man or may not match the man to the most optimal extant situation-- Chances are they accept the offer in a 'can do' spirit and set about to make the most and/or best of the situation-- In some situations the handwriting is on the wall as to the efficacy of any change of tactics in turning around a seriously deteriorating condition but honor, duty and country does call--

Lt. Gen. David Petraeus accepted such a call in President Bush's new war plan but his comments to Congress and the American people reflect in no uncertain terms how difficult he perceives his mission to be--"None of this will be rapid," told the Senate Armed Services Committee....The way ahead will be neither quick nor easy......The situation in Iraq is dire. The stakes are high. There are no easy choices. The way ahead will be very hard. ... But hard is not hopeless...."-- Any denial of hopelessness always reflects the severe abscence of any visibly rudimentary control of the situation on the pertaining ground but Petraeus game as a flaming pissant(an old Australian compliment honoring high degree of mettle) has accepted the gambit--

"The military forces that successfully defeat insurgencies are usually those able to overcome their institutional inclination to wage conventional war,'' the U.S. military's counterinsurgency manual says, "The side that learns faster and adapts more rapidly wins.'' The manual co-authored by Petraeus(Princeton PHD) himself along with Marine Lieutenant General James Amos, was revised for the first time in 20 years-- Such insight might have been better employed in 2003 or early 2004 but overcoming 'institutional inclination to wage conventional war' was not an option especially given the administration's recalcitrant and blindly petulant efforts during this period to, first, deny any insurgency existed and, later, to deny any sectarian/civil war had even begun allthewhile hectoring those who publicly disagreed-- Petraeus didn't receive his orders to re-author the manual until late 2005-- So much for quicker learning or faster adaptation-- We are way behind the curve here and as knowledgeable and as talented as Petraeus appears to be is he not being asked to execute a fatally bankrupt strategy many a day too late and many a dollar too short???--

So too Admiral Fallon Cent Com who gets his theater command shift late in the day with respect to Iraq-- Like Petraeus he is not blind to the hard facts on the dusty ground and offers a litany of caveats to our ability to prevail at least militarily-- Political progress including the Iraqi government's acquiesence to a hydrocarbon law giving American Oil Companies the lion's share of future oil pumping rights and profits with the disparate sectarian groups receiving proportionate leftovers sufficient enough to induce them to lay down their arms(such are pipedream plans in DC) and all this must precede any such military success on our part, hence, the caveats.... "What we've been doing is not working. We've got to be doing something different," he said. "I believe there will have to be a firm understanding that we are not in an open-ended situation where we're just going to sit around and wait for things to happen............I believe in giving the Iraqis some time. How much time I don't know. But time is running out...." --

The question here is 'running out' for who????--- The Iraqi government can't even put together a quorum-- It appears that these political hacks have actually been living in Europe most of the time and occasionally fly into the Green Zone to pick up their mail and join in a Lobster Fest-- At the same time, Fallon demurs that it would be "wise to temper our expectations....Let's get an assessment of what's realistic and what's practical and maybe we ought to redefine the goals here a bit and do something that is more realistic in terms of getting some progress, and then maybe take on the other things later".--

Sorry, this is not can do confidence speaking-- A naval theater commander suddenly thrust into theater command of a failed state (fait accompli) and a raging guerilla style sectarian ground war would be a stretch were it the real reason Fallon won this lateral promotion-- He seems to be saying with little if any obfuscation that Iraq is so close to being a basket case realistically that we should turn our attention ("then maybe take on the other things later.") to, what say, a possible aerial engagement of Iran which would be more in line with his naval/carrier expertise-- Asking at such a late date for an "assessment of what's realistic and what's practical" is truly damning and were it not so tragic would be laughable-- My God, can anyone in DC discern reality anymore??-- Do any of these senior commanders ever leave the Green Zone for first hand evidence of boots-on-the-ground facts or do they rely totally on briefings given by those currying their favor??--

Meanwhile congressional attempts to offer non-binding resolutions to facilitate some kind of solution to the mess appear to be dramatically and irresolutely faltering-- Void of real courage political cant and high profile accusation appear to be the order of the day-- The blustery resolution chimera occupies the fickle congress while the winds of more war blow Iranward-- The rhetoric sharply increases daily but skirmishing on the ground has begun in Iraq-- The US roundup of Iranian operatives at the so called consulate answered by the Karbala holy city raid that kidnapped and killed four American soldiers that is now being ascribed to Iranian special force revolutionary guard types because of the level of sophistication--

The failure in Iraq now belongs to the Iranians goes the newest Bush deflection and the meek mouse-hearted demies search for their Aipac cushioned holes while the repo-men on the other side of the aisle bluster and fume about responsibilites unmet years ago-- A complete abdication of present duty where no one offers a profile in courage or a legitimate and credible antithesis to the negative events unfolding so quickly around Iran-- No wonder VP Cheney arrogantly and contemptuously dismissed any potential effort by the new demi-Congress to stop their plans to escalate war drums into Iran-- They can't and they won't-- "In the case of Iraq, Democrats have demonstrated that they are just as capable of letting American service members die in order to preserve their own political ambition as their Republican counterparts are," Scott Ritter the Marine who valiantly stood opposed to the menace of Neocon War in Iraq now watches his tragic pre-war predictions of acute disaster coming incontrovertibly true--

Rattled by these sharp-edged developments occurring hourly even the harried ineffectual leader of the faux government in Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki echoes the trepidation many Middle Easterners feel, "We have told the Iranians and the Americans, `We know that you have a problem with each other but we're asking you, please, solve your problems outside of Iraq'...We do not want the American forces to take Iraq as a base to attack Iran ... we will not accept Iran using Iraq to attack American forces. But does this exist? It exists and I assure you it exists." Mr. Malicki, most Americans are completely oblivious to these events and frankly they don't want the real world to intrude upon their Super Bowl Sunday with all its commercial hoopla and surrounding fantasy--

"But this country is at a grave crossroads. It craves leadership. When Mr. Webb
spoke on Tuesday, he stepped into that vacuum and, for a few minutes anyway,
filled it. It's not merely his military credentials as a Vietnam veteran and a
former Navy secretary for Ronald Reagan that gave him authority, or the fact
that his son, also a marine, is serving in Iraq. It was the simplicity and
honesty of Mr. Webb's message"--Frank Rich

Yes, Mr. Rich but it's too little too late because simply and honestly the time to act arrived years ago, and Americans self-absorbed by careerism and noxious entertainment and consumptively overweight refused to heed the warnings offered by men like Webb and Ritter and because those events, whose consequences prophesize such damning repercussions, now beyond our control show, 'Lost Time Is Not Found Again'-- Be Prepared

DESPERADO

President Bush this week gave US Troops stationed all over Iraq the a-okay to defend themselves against Iranian spies, guerillas or military trainers/Republican Guardians and any other Iranian badguys-- One has to ask 'why now?'-- Have our troops been bivouacing in the searing heat and dust there for nearly four years of insurgent guerrilla warfare, violent sectarian cleansing, criminal gangsterism and the complete breakdown of order physical and economic and moral .....I repeat, have our under-manned, under-armored and under-missioned troops waded through this insidious maelstrom for nearly four years without this okay??? Why wait until this week to give our troops the 'authority' to defend themselves against anybody who is trying to kill them??-- Why haven't they always had this micro-managed 'permission' ???--

Obviously this dog and pony command is more for the Iranian mullahs' ears than for the American Troops who from day one have served above and beyond the Bush/Rumsfeld mission they call Operation Provide Targets-- Bush has gone on record to deny that he is trying to start a shooting/bombing war with Iran on their turf-- Therefore some kind of provocation will be needed to incite such an outcome to the poisoned verbal sparring that has accumulated over 2006-- The Persian Gulf of Tonquin???-- Will Israel find first provocation???-- Or will Iran decide to pre-empt supply lines winding north from Kuwait??-- We can assume that, aside from Israel, no one, least of all Saudi Arabia, in the flame roiled region really welcomes a US /Iran war except maybe Osam bin-- The killer we somehow eluded at Tora Bora--

Meanwhile the sophisticated breach of American/Iraqi security responsible for protecting a government compound in holy city Karbala by insurgent special forces wearing American like uniforms, carrying American weapons, speaking English, and driving big black gas guzzling SUV's would be mockingly dismissed as fubar incompetence were it not for the four American troops kidnapped and later tragically executed in an insurgent controlled neighborhood-- After the attempted cover-up and/or denial began to fall apart American military authorities embarrassingly copped to facts-- There are still those who believe we are engaging in a war against anti-modern fifth century religious zealots who would surrender if more firepower were employed-- The neocons are full of this delusive strategy--

Softened by years of cushy perks and high salaried deployments in mahogany foxholes esconced in the hubris laden techno-suburban think-tanks of Empire the Neocon phalanx could not initially imagine that potential insurgents, if by faintly fat chance any should emerge, would have any fight remaining after the opening crescendo of Shock and Awe-- Shock and awe was a serious expenditure of high explosive ordinance, obviously of sufficiently high enough caliber total surrender would follow-- This would have been the point where these architects of a New American Century would themselves have capitulated were similar ordinance to have visited them-- They imagined Iraqis would surrender here because here is where they would have thrown in the towel--

The intellectual sting of having been proven drastically wrong on the ground by the at-first dis-respected tenacity of a tougher more cunningly astute and more deceptive people than dreamed possible seeks assuaging balm in the call for a more and heavier surge of firepower against an ever wider adversary..... fanatically redoubling efforts after forgetting their aim-- Escalation to contagion to 'creative destruction' as a defining goal now passes somehow for redemption-- At The Last Chance Saloon bitter whiskey all around.....desperation is the chaser-- Out the double door limps phantom Victory-- Tomorrow another Bad Day At Black Rock--

WEBB: ONE THUMB UP

James Webb sounded like a Democrat with a capital 'D' but that was too much 'd' for some critics on both sides of the aisle-- Most press accounts quoted Webb's charges that Bush went to war 'recklessly' because now everyone sees it and it is 'safe' news but Webb was there at the beginning with men like Scott Ritter and Joe Wilson when opposing this elective war was not safe and when doing so meant the risk of great injury to one's character and reputation by the smear mongering corps of Karl Rove-- Webb, and other courageous individuals not fooled by the phony intel and the mindless cheerleading pervasive to the pro-war mainstream media at the time, predicted the mind-numbing and truly unnecessary violent chaos now engulfing Baghdad and surrounding environs-- This ignominous and fully-evident fruit of Bush's colossally stupid decision to initiate an aggressive war against Iraq taints many of Webb's fellow demies including presidential hopefuls now desperately seeking to camouflage their earlier complicity--

Webb didn't mince his words in the rest of his response to the State of the Union speech but many media outlets did it for him-- Webb's criticism of exhorbitant CEO mega-pay at the expense of their workers and the phony way our economic health is measured was summarily scissored from many reports coming in from mainstream outlets-- Today the economic headlines listed below would back up Webb's challenge but none of the 'celebrity candidates' deigned to pick up on Webb's message and further the attack--

Months ago when Webb won his primary battle this blog called him a Bellweather candidate whose unvarnished decision to run on principle instead of vague posturing would separate him from the crowd but questioned whether he could attract enough money to challenge then Senator Allen-- Webb won a close decision against the self-destructive Repo incumbent who months earlier was being groomed and annointed by the vacuous press as a man of presidential timber-- Look how wrong they can be-- Fundraising, though, is the name of the game and the media will politically mythologize anyone it thinks has cash cow potenial-- Macaca!!!!!....indeed--

One should not doubt Webb's courage to challenge to the current corrupt one-party order but his direct contribution on the State of the Union response will go for immediate nought if his week-knee-ed compatriots in the little 'd' democratic party fail to ally themselves to his courage-- Webb will not leave the room when the fight starts, but how many of these poseur demies will defend his backside??-- If Webb asks 'How far?' my guess is too few if any demie incumbents will answer back, 'All the way'?????-- There isn't enough wind in a hurricane to cover all the wet fingers held skyward in the political air these days-- This is gut-check time...time to step up!!!!!-- Hemorrhaging support through inaction will sound the death knell for this new congress more quickly than one might normally think-- More than 50% of the voting public now consider themselves 'independent' before either democrat or republican-- The current mandate demands action and the fortitude to carry it out-- Be forewarned patience in the public body is stretched very thin--

Today the demies pulled the plug on working people failing to deliver the minimum wage increase as promised to those who haven't had a raise in ten bleeping years-- This bill was a centerpiece slam dunk on the new demie agenda-- None of the pols speaking and analyzing each other the other night saw fit to mention the current dire condition of the Housing market, the serious deterioration of the dollar's value on the international stage, the acute industrial collapse happening in the automotive sector, the realtime decline of oil production and the disrepair of the foremost mega-oilfields worldwide or the growing audacious build-up of war footing vis-a-vis Iran-- There is a huge job awaiting congressional action (none of it non-binding) and it was heartening to hear Webb confront some of those realities in the direct and fearless manner he chose-- The institutional smearmongers, George Will in particular, have sharpened their termite teeth and have in their crosshaired agenda the notching down of Webb-- How Far???-- We shall see!!!!

Ford Has $5.8 Billion Quarterly Loss, Worst Year Ever - Bloomberg (01/25/2007 10:34 AM)
Gulf states seen shifting away from U.S. assets - Reuters (01/25/2007 5:26 AM)
Bush plan won't end U.S. foreign oil dependence - Reuters (01/25/2007 5:28
U.S. December Home Resales Fall to 6.22 Million Rate - Bloomberg (01/25/2007 9:23 AM)
Calif. mortgage defaults up in 4Q - AFX (01/24/2007 4:29 PM)
Home sales drop in 2006 biggest in 17 years - Reuters (01/25/2007 2:38 PM)
U.S. Initial Jobless Claims Rose to 325,000 Last Week - Bloomberg (01/25/2007 9:56 AM)
Corn has deep economic roots as high prices create ripple effect - USAToday (01/25/2007 5:28 AM)

SOTU

On the day after the SOTU Speech at the local coffeehouse bakery on the island the Bush performance barely resonated among the denizens-- The pomp and pageantry of lowkey stagecraft served up an atmosphere of rapidly diminishing expectations amidst the ever burgeoning hallucinatory laundry list of what the delusional DC echelon always claims it can accomplish in the following year-- Last night's mega-promises fell on many a deafened ear--

Wednesday the house Demies saw their attempt to give the sinking dreams of working class Americans a boost in the minimum wage shipwrecked by Repo insistence on adding tax breaks for restaurant owners-- This bill wasn't supposed to contain any heavy lifting.....this was to be a slam dunk(George Tenet, the demies need you).... but apparently the new congress didn't get the word-- It isn't as powerful as it thinks--

The Canary in the mine shaft....the minimum wage increase....unbelievable-- Will giving some rumored loophole exemptions and perks to Aipac Lobby tarnish the nascent glow of an ethics reform bill already passed then lauded for its PR value and apparently swept hurriedly under the enforcement rug??-- Non-binding Ethics reform at its most cynical-- The Aipac Lobby fared better than the average American because on Thursday as the minimum wage increase bill deceased in the mahogany foxholes of the demie controlled senate the entire Demie agenda has suddenly but not unexpectedly become suspect--

If the minimum wage bill can be driven completely aground can a nonbinding resolution opposing the Surge of the 21Five into the bloody butchery of Baghdad be far behind??--Can we expect serious leadership from the majority party over the course of the next two years when so many of their so called heavy guns have their sights set on positioning themselves to campaign for the presidency??--Soundbites searching for any camera anywhere and everywhere substituting for legislative elbow grease???-- Can the ever disunited demie lesser lights hold their shrinking government agenda together while their self-important super-stars play American Idol on their self serving campaign trail??--Is personal ambition what our country desperately needs currently or have our 'leaders' become too narcissisticly self-indulgent to see the bigger picture beyond the beltway and how much trouble our nation is truly in??-- If our statesmen excelled at statesmenship perhaps our priorities would not be so possessed by the need to put so much energy into creating sillyass acronyms like SOTU-- Yes,....so too,.....the state of the union......

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, THE PRESIDENT....

State of The Union not exactly strong and not exactly good on the weekend before The Speech-- The American Majority agrees that the American Train is rolling down the wrong track and may have already tuned out in sufficient enough numbers that the State of The Union message will meet with fewer ears than needed to salvage our future-- Still, no one loves a political speech and its attendant theatre like former speechwriters but Peggy Noonan, after panning Bush's Surge oration of last week as 'something unnerving ..... from the jumpy beginning to the stumbles to the sound glitches....a jittery affair... some dusk hung over it.', waits uneasily perhaps with bated breath for Tuesday's redemptive attempt by an obviously flailing President--

Many once staunchly supportive Repo-men are skeptical and the Demies intent on rising to the level of non-binding profiles-in-courage now sometimes verbally oppose the Surge-- Noonan once one of the war's cheerleaders litanies a cross section of Beltway heavyweights in reaction to to the proposed Surge-- McCain impaled and sobered by Bush's weak and meager proposal-- Pat Buchanan, the inveterate hawk who opposed Shock and Awe from the beginning, gamely and statesmanly granting Bush his last chance without kicking him while he's down-- Dianne Feinstein another demie duped by the false intelligence canard feigning shock at the suddenly flimsy way forward-- Today speaker Pelosi emerged from the Bush bunker at the White House and whined (like she expected partnership) that Bush wasn't interested enough in her plan for Iraq to even enquire--

Noonan does sense something more important below the radar of most pundits going through the motion like jaded theatre critics covering another cliche-ed DC spectacle but she doesn't fall for the what-will-happen-when-we-leave scare scenario long bandied about by disingenuous DC insiders and irredeemed neocons as a rationale to stay the same defeated course-- Unlike most repo-men and demie apologists for continued occupational presence in Iraq she recognizes there is no shortage of hiding places worldwide for terrorists to meet to plan to practice and to proselytize jihadism and that the American occupation of Iraq fosters jihadistic recruiting and will continue to do so whether we are still there or not years hence-- Failure can't be an option because it has already occurred--

Noonan hints her antennae have picked up some scurrilous vibe that the current administration is collapsing and the void left behind must be filled by those wholly incapable of mustering the fiber necessary to fill the breach-- She describes them "unserious in their thoughts and approach... They seem locked into habits that no longer pertain, and absorbed by the small picture of partisan advancement at the expense of the big picture, which is that the nation is in trouble and needs their help. They are sunk in the superficial."-- Nothing written about the demies first 100 hours of strutting and fretting their hour upon the stage in the delusive atmosphere of what they can accomplish can possibly have captured the truly vacuous posturing of potential demie presidential aspirants-- In one of the phoniest presidential antes ever, Headliner Hillary is in to win !!-- Are we in good hands or what????--

Perhaps its Noonan's fear, perhaps a misplaced fear but nonetheless not overdone, of the demies' manifest foreign policy ignorance and incompetence (not to mention their corrupt financial allegiance to AIPAC which virtually dictates their feigned policystances) which, parenthetically, certainly rivals the neocon hubric and its fubar-naivete, and what that abscense of competence and its attendant host, willfull ignorance of the world beyond the narcissistic Beltway, means for the immediate, the intermediate and the long term prospects for America The Beautiful that allowed Mr. Bush's virtual declaration of war on Iran to slide by her uncommented upon-- Most of the impeccably vapid punditocracy seemed to revel most vainly in Bush finally acknowledging 'mistakes were made'-- Like, what does that prove??-- Is the mediacracy that cheerled this Neocon Aipac idiocy somehow vindicated??-- It is as if once Bush master of the stubborn denial cops to mistakes the national karma zeroing in on America's wounded culture and spendthrift society from those little infernal follies of aggressive war will somehow magically vanish???-- The piper won't have to be paid????-- The consequences can be refused??--Theme parks will glow in faux splendor again??-- Easy oil will expel all worry and debt???--Mickey Rooney will sing again in an instantaneously bounding and confident strut and the optimism of yore will drive up the street with Jimmy Stewart at the wheel???-- Yo, what's the frequency, Helen??--

Pat Buchanan did not look the other way refusing to ignore the potential disaster implicit in Bush's comments about 'addressing' Iran and Syria-- Success in Iraq which Bush still champions, even if it fails the definition of Victory, depends on it...on attacking Iran!!-- All the pieces to the military attack scenario puzzle are being put into place-- The Air Force and the Navy ascendant now and ever ready for the order but not skeptical of surgical strike capability and not owning up to the need for real boots on the real ground while the Army and the Marines still eat and sleep in the dust of Iraq doomed to repeat Operation Provide Target until their Senior Officers go to the real wall for their troops--The oblivious hipster media and the demie intelligentsia as well as Repo senators facing 2008 re-election all mutually assent to the mea culpa of being duped by false intel and mutually concur the Iraqi misadventure is lost-- Consensus among them spells disaster if Israel and Bush attack Iran therefore common sense dictates it can't or won't happen so why not just change the subject to the pretend world of eternal campaigning-- With the overheated Obillary frenzy and the toilworn faux 'politics of hope' seeking optimistic traction, some are desperately and maniacly attempting to repaint or recast their initial goose-stepping support for Shock and Awe into more palatable political light-- That they will find willing and able fellow travelers in the media to help them execute this fraudulent make-over is a given-- Both are running from the same demon-- This is clearly revolting to the many and disparate independent political junkies as well as concerned reliable American citizens but who up until now seem to have limited their civilly 'disobedient' duty to the blathersphere -- We all belong to this tragedy but the more we fail to face up to our responsibility the more tragic and chaotic this disorder will blossom into fire-- At the very least, pay attention!!--The professional politicians of both parties are failing you and the country and some with deliberate and mailicious intent--

However, all the while forging onward like the energizer Bunny, Bush still doesn't get it or better yet refuses to acquiesce to it-- To him and his dead-enders Iraq and the Project for a New American Century are not lost-- History some thirty years downroad will call him an American Churchill the fawning ziocon sycophants whisper into his tin ears only if he doesn't lose his nerve-- Bush still has to report for duty and finish the final tour of his enlistment in the Texas Air National Guard-- Manhood demands this attempt at baby-boomer redemption-- The Oedipal contest continues and Bush cannot bail out of his bomber too early like the critics of his Father claimed was done in World War II-- The only way he can redeem his father and himself is to fly this shot-to-pieces plane further into this abyss of American nightmare-- Face it!!-- Bush is desperate for some kind of victory and all he has left is Iran and a wing and a prayer and even half of that still belongs to Hollywood--Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States....

ROME DIDN'T BURN IN A DAY!!!!

How resolute is a non-binding resolution anyway????-- Is this just an opening skirmish in the demies' grand strategery to execute the will-of-the-people who returned them to congressional power after a twelve year hiatus ostensibly to terminate the insanity of this US occupation of Iraq??-- Clearly the demies less-than-resolute opening gambit bears none of the earmarks associated with the passionate power of principled political action with the exception of course of Repo Senator Hagel who clearly advocated a passionate antiphony to the 'dangerously irresponsible' Bush Surge litany but again he belongs to the party across the aisle from the meager demies who so far have managed to incite an embarassingly humiliating catfight between the inquisitional demi Senator Boxer and the ever fillibustible Sec State Condi Rice--That both sides delusionally seem to think they have mountainous oodles of time on their side is pathetically evident-- Rome didn't burn in a day but DC doesn't even smell the smoke!!

Court politics is of course more important than any cessation of the murderous bloodletting ever burgeoning in Iraq but the faint hearted demies now have another political marker to make them cringe even further-- Tony Snow-job is asking of the irresolute resolution 'How will it, (the resolution) show Support for the Troops??'-- The ultimate demies' dreaded political nightmare-- Whoa!!!!....They may have to actually defend their undefined position-- Maybe faux genius Rahm can calibrate an expedient soundbite or two but sooner, hopefully, rather than later, if they are interested in true leadership, they must emerge from under their well-made AIPAC beds and step into the fray-- The principled defectors from the Bush New-Way-Forward partyline like Voinovich, Hegal, Smith, Snow and others may have to supply some much needed testosterone to the weenie demies-- Granting James Webb the honor of first responder to the Bush State of the Union address next Tuesday might have a galvanizing effect but many of the DLC anti-military repo-demies didn't honor Webb's candidacy in the first place and probably won't go to the wall with him-- Opportunistic pro-Hillary DLCers missed this chance to put rival waffler and Lieberman-mentored Obama on the political spot-- Lost time is not found again--

Demie apologists all intone the canard that there is nothing the new congress can really do-- While this is a backhanded admission of their inherent weakness not to mention outright cowardice, political action without backbone is truly unattainable but the denial of legislative remedies is willful ignorance and artless dodgery-- Try, ...Rescinding the initial Iraq War authorization for starters....on second thought they can't do that because it would remind potential campaign donors (especially their AIPAC handlers) and young activist workers of their initial positive pro-war votes which had most of the 40 odd demie senators casting their lot with the Bush/Rove juggernaut and now they are simply too embarrassed to own up to their role in Mission not Accomplished-- Can you spell Meltdown????--

EVERYBODY'S GONE SURGIN'

The reviews are in and they are not pretty-- The internet is rife with condemnation and projections of defeat no matter what-- The Speech itself suggests Mister Bush's present tense is doing some serious lagwork in relationship to the tense of the current situation on the ground in Iraq-- 'Failure is not an option' is the shibboleth opening doors not limited only to the White House but everywhere in DC these days-- To profess this obligatory charade is a radical and ignorant denial-- a robust slogan devoid of reality and its comprehension-- American Failure in Iraq is currently an incontrovertible fact no ludicrous boosterism can supplant--Everybody's gone surgin' and almost everybody's unhappy about it--

Ask the Iraqi leadership resolutely deployed at the lobster fest in the GreedZone (oops!!!!):

Okay so the Prime Minister's zipped the lip at least publicly failing to pledge support for an attack against his own militia and the neighborhood that elected him even as the ever overconfident Bush blusters `This time(how many times???), Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter those neighborhoods,'' Bush said. ``Prime Minister Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.'' Talking and then Walking that talk are two halves of a different coin but Maliki did walk some talk of his own appointing his own man Lt. Gen. Abud Qanbar as the Military Commander in Baghdad and did so without consulting Bush or the American command echelon-- American intel on the new topdog is apparently lacking-- "Qanbar, a commander in the navy during Saddam Hussein's reign, has not worked with American military officials, who say they know little about him other than that he hails from Amara, a city in Shiite-dominated southern Iraq, and that he was taken prisoner by U.S. forces near Kuwait during the Persian Gulf war in 1991." Ratcheting down Qanbar's authority asap Maliki's US handlers added another bureaucratic level of command structure to buffer Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and any loose cannon fodder that might spring from the Iraqi desire to exercise said leadership... Government by Muppets--

Ask the Iraqis on the ground in the Middle East:

Bush "mismanaged and brutalized Iraq too long to even hope for stability while the troops stay," said Mohammed Sayed Said, an analyst at the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. "The reservoir of violence and bitterness and agonies is so huge that hoping for stability in the immediate future is self-deception at best."

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Ali Hosseini told reporters in Tehran. "America is trying to accuse and blame other countries for interference in Iraq to cover its policymaking mistakes in that country. The increase in the number of American military forces can escalate insecurity and tension in Iraq and work against solving that country's problems."

Vali Nasr, a Middle East analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, on why Bush's strategy fails to comprehend the legitimate concerns of Shiites who support both the al-Maliki government and their militias. "The Shia are petrified of the (Sunni) insurgents," he said. "When we talk about dismantling Shia militias, to the Shia populace it means dismantling their main line of defense without showing what are we going to do with the main threat to them."

Ask not Madame Sheehan but a few credentialed bigwigs on the DC homefront:

"The Shiite militias will welcome our assault and treat this as an opportunity to mobilize the entire Shiite population against us," said retired Col. Douglas Macgregor, an adviser to former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in 2003.

"The troop commitment announced still leaves us a long way short of what people normally... want to pacify a city the size of Baghdad, much less all of central Iraq," Biddle said. "You‘re going to have to rely very heavily on Iraqi security forces that have not proven up to this in the past and probably won‘t."

"I've gone along with the president on this and I've bought into his dream and at this stage of the game I just don't think it's going to happen," said Republican Senator George Voinovich, sounding bitter and resigned.

The morning papers had already scathingly dissected Bush's ideas about Iraq(but failed to focus on the hint of attacks on Syria and Iran, obviously lockstepping AIPAC's deluded agenda but more on this below--[Italics mine]), such as the one that "most of Iraq's Sunni and Shia want to live together in peace." The NewYork Times described the war (that it vociferously cheered at the schocked in awe phase)as a "disaster" and the new strategy as Bush's "epic gamble." The Washington Post called the plan "very risky" and predicted that U.S. soldiers "will die in larger numbers than before." USA Today wrote that the chances that the plan would "achieve a stable Iraq" are "a long shot." Even the Wall Street Journal (notorious neocon zionist shill)was (lukewarmly) critical: While it sympathized with Bush in general terms as usual, the paper acknowledged that convincing Americans to support a strategy of brute military force would be a "challenge."

The arbiters and implementers of this dubious surge into the butchery of Baghdad and its duplicitous overreach to ultimately include attacks on Iran and Syria in collusion with Israel are hardly couching the immediate plan in terms that resonate confidence--DefSec Gates ladled out the ubiquitous 'if' word (one eye toward future bureaucratic endeavors should some future President come calling) in his hesitating and waffling support--

President Bush's prime-time address according to Mackubin Thomas Owens a professor of national security affairs at the Naval War College acknowledged the shortcomings of past efforts to secure Baghdad and implied that this new effort to do so represents a final opportunity to salvage victory in Iraq. 'Failure in Iraq, he warned, would be a disaster(once more oblivious to the current situation as both failure and disaster already reside in that desperate country).. But Mr. Bush's plan can work,' said Owens soberly but not confidently enough to aver that 'it will work'-- Hedging their bets everywhere--

Meanwhile the demies are stepping up to the plate bigtime but still lower-case opting not for failure but for symbolism...unbinding symbolism, that is... planning non-resolutely to pass a resolution condemning Bush's new/old Iraq strategy redux.-- How many demoralized repo-men will join is anybody's guess but elections are not too many years away and positioning one's posture these days is so coin-of-the-realm-- Apparently the demies desire is to symbolically isolate the Grand Decider through symbolic humiliation...nevermind that around forty demi-senators hopped on board the Shock and Awe Express during the heady days of Mission Accomplished-- It took three funerals for former President Ford and a thousand allusions to the Resignation of Milhous Nixon to finally get meekly deluded demi-supporters to whisper again non-resolutely the dreaded 'I' word-- The specter of impeachment was already making the rounds on Thursday in somebody's imagination. If the mealy demies think Everybody's Gone Surgin' is impeachable wait until escalation becomes contagion and the immolation spreads to Syria and Iran--

William S. Lind aptly defines the conundrum awaiting the 21,500

Relying on more promises from Iraq's nominal government and
requiring more performance from the Iraqi army and police are equally empty
policies. Both that government and its armed forces are mere fronts for Shiite
networks and their militias. If the new troops we send to Baghdad work with
Iraqi forces against the Sunni insurgents, we will be helping the Shiites
ethnically cleanse Baghdad of Sunnis. If, as Bush suggested, our troops go after
the Shiite militias in Baghdad and elsewhere, we will find ourselves in a
two-front war, fighting Sunnis and Shiites both. We faced that situation briefly
in 2004, and we did not enjoy it.

That Bush and the Neocon dreamfactory fail to comprehend this basic paradigm makes extant the coming tragedy as well as the present one-- Failure may not be an option but Denial is the one they seem to have chosen-- Lind continues....

Second, the President not only upped the ante with Syria and Iran, he announced
two actions that only make sense if we plan to attack Iran, Syria or both. He
said he has ordered Patriot missile batteries and another U.S. Navy aircraft
carrier be sent to the region. Neither has any conceivable role in the fighting
in Iraq. However, a carrier would provide additional aircraft for airstrikes on
Iran, and Patriot batteries would in theory provide some defense against Iranian
air and missile attacks launched at Gulf State oil facilities in retaliation.To
top it off, in questioning yesterday on Capitol Hill, the Tea Lady, aka
Secretary of State Rice, refused to promise the administration would consult
with Congress before attacking Iran or Syria.

Meanwhile, neighboring Iran warned against boosting the number of American troops in Iraq while Tony Snowjob disavowed any war plans intent on striking Iran or Syria but the seed has been planted and energy both negative and positive will be applied like fertilizer-- Such a serious subterfuge in Bush throwaway line and the media sphere lays back in the afterglow of achieving a Bush admission, however passively, 'Mistakes were made'-- Its job for the night done--

Paul Craig Roberts warns cogently

Bush makes it clear that success in Iraq does not depend on the surge. Rather, "Succeeding in Iraq .
. . begins with addressing Iran and Syria." Bush asserts that "these two
regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in
and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American
troops." Bush says, "We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of
Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East. I recently ordered the
deployment of an additional carrier strike group to the region."

Maliki appears doomed especially if he commits suicide for Bush which is what will happen if he attacks his own homeboys-- Having grown up in gated communities and glitzy suburban enclaves Bush fails to comprehend mean streets....mean third world streets.... the mean tribal streets of Sadre City-- It is beyond the field of his prepster experience-- The tacit goal of this Trojan Horse Surge may just be Malicki's demise along with his government and the crucial tipping point it would supply the Neocon Bush and their final days philosophy an invitation to the contagion of war amongst Iraq's neighbors--Yet another Way Forward-- Surgin'USA

CHARLIE DOESN'T SURGE

The speech has been uttered not full of 'sound and fury' but a speech nonetheless told by a flailing man -- The President of the United States cannot comprehend the nature of the war he continues to ask America to fight inside Iraq-- Someone should inform Mr. Bush that there are more wars than one daily destroying Iraq and currently de-stabilizing the entire Middle East-- Soon, if Mr. Bush's new Neocon dream-induced half-baked plan (monikered by American Troops under the codename Operation Provide Targets) goes into effect, another war will erupt-- The Shia will join the insurgent Sunni in attacking American Troops but not in a collaboration with the Sunni--'Charlie doesn't Surge'!!!!!!--

Boogieman ascendant Moqtada alSadr and his estimated 100,000 man militia will begin to join the fray against the American Troops who under the new plan will deploy and stay on duty inside Sadr City providing even more and better targets....the stationary kind-- Sadr is unlikely to utilize frontal assaults against American firepower and fortified positions but Time and terrain in Sadr City belong to him-- The slum-dwellers provide the up-to-the-minute humint not available to the still underarmored and overstretched and yes overstressed US Army and Marines-- Casualties of higher caliber and frequency will follow-- Billions of dollars will be wasted piecemeal every week and Veteran benefits back home will still continue to be cut-- The 2 million dollar earmark for a 'Victory Parade' still sits in escrow with some repo-hack in DC-- Charlie doesn't Surge in Sadr City yet he's getting stronger every day, no question--

Some say the Surge has already begun but others, as in Def Sec Gates, won't give an exact timetable for implementation indicating the half-baked nature of the dog-and-pony run-up to The Speech-- Fredrick Kagan American Enterprise Institute Ziocon argued for 60,000 troops and an additional number of years in his grandiose plan-- Why this fellow wins Bush's ear while the likes of Neubold and Batiste and Eaton and Zinni and Webb and Abizaid with their decades worth of considerable ground-zero experience in combat theatres of all kind get short shrift is beyond the pale-- The daunting consequences of American Failure in Iraq that these genuinely fearful Neocon morons reverberate against repeatedly are truly their progeny-- What this monstrous calamity wroughts in terms of influence lost and economy drained worldwide belongs to them--The un-numbered dead march into eternity in vain to the music of this neocon hubris-- Meanwhile, into the butchery of Baghdad go the latest 21,500--

Or .....and this is a big 'Or if'-- If the situation in Baghdad is as hellishly close to collapse as the Daddy Baker Group has warned the question is whether the numerically meager surge(meager due to real time troop-availability rather than conceptual lowballing) a trojan horse designed to falsely fail thereby allowing Bush to save face, 'cut and run'(in his words) and give the Neocon Failure a fall guy.....The Iraqi people????-- Fifth century neanderthals incapable of appreciating the magisterial democracy the genteel 21st century self-flattering neocons attempted to bestow on them-- The Kristol/Kagan tandem says 'Eureka!!!....Let's blame the Iraqis!!!!-- Expedient???....So What?? ...Free-lunch is getting cold in the mahogany foxhole back at the think-tank.....---

More questions!!!!--Is AIPAC running our Foreign Policy carte blanche??-- Why are the little demies only posturing positions on the Surge??-- Are they duly capable of such stalwart principles as those embodied in 'non-binding' resolutions??-- And can that be raisson detre enough for an entire political party when confronted by the biggest not to mention the only elephant in the US living room??? Are the Repo-men the only ones who can stop the war??--Did the USS Stennis depart for the Persian Gulf (Aren't two carrier groups on station there already???--) to help enable an Israeli/American attack on Iran or has the situation in Baghdad so deteriorated that circumstance may demand immediate redeployment or withdrawal???-- Or Both??-- The White House denied vehemently any plans to attack Iran or Syria are in the works-- They have lied before--

THE BEAT GOES ON

Here we go-- On the threshold of a most pivotal year in American Politics-- Questions abound but let's be honest we already know the answers to most of them-- Bush can't retreat in Iraq especially after the inflamed flak he caught from the demies after not finishing his full tour of duty in the Air National Guard-- Bush will send more sons and daughters of the American working class into the butchery of Baghdad-- The Neocons want it, The demies want it, The Israelis and their omnipresent lobby want it, Fox News (as well as CNN) wants it and so, even, does Al Quaeda--

Those not wanting it are the duty bound American Military, a large block of American voters, a handful of faux peace-niks and, lest we forget, a huge number of Iraqi non-combatants though their numbers shrink daily as they are either killed or they choose to pick up their own AK-47 and let's not forget to include most of the entire Middle East and the rest of the real world--

The end of the road awaits as the deluded Bush stubbornly leads America and its flagging morale to its knees and the chicken-hearted demies, who won back the Senate and the House from the bribery and war-corrupted repo-men with a default strategy void of courage or strength of stated position, they don't have cajones enough to meet their match and serve the will of those who voted for them-- The future of the Republic is at stake but court politics and shameless posturing take precedence in the DC echelon over doing not only what is right but what is necessary-- The demies may not leave the dugout when the umpire hollers 'play ball'-- They don't even know what team they are on--

The over sold Madison Ave. ballyhooeyed Daddy Baker Study Group and their dismissed term paper has wound up giving the weenie dems the political cover originally intended for George Bush to seek an alternative to the incessant denial the Bushido cabal employed as an antidote to the ongoing reality of failure in Iraq-- Bush declined the opportunity for real change but did accept the new shibboleth the Baker Paper provided in its title 'A New Way Forward' and in so doing allows the demies to step back from the precipice of principled political action and embrace the same default strategy that garnered them victory a few short months ago-- Posture but don't commit-- So from 'cut and run' and 'stay the course' to 'A New Way Forward'-- Innocuous enough everyone can support it--Even little Harry Reed-- This rank cowardice is what passes for Leadership in DC?????--

'A New Way Forward', yes, there is plenty rope enough in these few words for Bush to immolate himself and hang his party out to dry before the 2008 run-up and enough cover for the weak-knee-ed demies to hide from the American voters who thought they were demanding immediate action-- The election of Webb and Tester among many others are in danger of being wasted by politics as usual like the media's slithery fascination with Pelosi's Armani wardrobe-- Word out Hillary apologized for her vote to Go to War With Bush and new finger to the wind opposes the Surge but the media underplayed it-- Get it out of the way like glitzy Obama's confessional to the Tabloid Gods at TIME,Inc. concerning his days of yore cocaine use-- Sweep it under the rug who remembers two years out??-- Who'll still be listening??? --The end of the road awaits more than Bush but the beat goes on.....Who'll stop the drain???

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