ACCIDENTAL VICTORY?

Strange week on the current affairs block-- Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Malicki who has publicly stated he is never allowed to move his own troops around Baghdad or even set up a checkpoint without first securing American permission, initiated invitations to all the major players in the middle east to join him at an early March round-table where the United States will come face to face with Iran and Syria and guess what....talk to each other-- Reconciliation???-- Too much to hope for given the extent of this incendiary conflagration???-- How deeply the toxicity of sectarian hatred has progressed???__ How many independent groups including intelligence agencies from outside countries are involved and the ease with which their unique agendas can derail even well-intentioned efforts??-- France agreed to attend but their I-told-you-so presence alone might be enough to scuttle the wounded pride of US options-- Bottom line, though....it's only the last place left to start--

Change of heart??-- Suddenly weak in the knees??-- The Decider in a grand stand-down??-- After failure upon failure upon setback upon setback in Iraq as well as Afghanistan did the improbable North Korean deal soften up the administration??-- His Feb. 15 speech to the American Enterprise Institute, the neocon think tank which supplied his rationale for initial Shock and Awe all the way up to the Surge which is more a reinforcement rather than a Surge in the classical sense, indicates that much of this failure has failed to penetrate his particular ideological paradigm-- At any rate, did what seems like an accidental/unintentional victory (or kow-tow?)by the diplomatic corps on the Korean Front and the ensuing praise it engendered world wide convince Bush to attempt another new way forward from the losing end of Iraq??--

A win is a win is a....... but meaningful tide-turning victories have been so few and far between during his Iraq war tenure--Having Malicki back-door the invitations is obviously designed to make it appear that the administration is only another interested party and not the desperado politico groveling for any way out of a disintegrating violent morass of his own making but the whole world knows better-- Bush doesn't really need to save face to ameliorate the world anyway-- What he needs is a Nixonian canard like Peace with Honor which allows the visage in his own mirror to appear less judgementally threatening to George himself-- He's the man he has to live with but that's really neither here nor there in the fluidity of this week's cascading events--

Interesting allegation last week that refuses to go away and hide, claims Karl Rove in receipt of an offer four years ago from Iran proffering to negotiate the whole nine yards... Nuclear options, Israel Palestinian peace ramifications, Hezbollah, Hamas and the compromises open to their government which the short sighted administration immediately dismissed out of hand in what.....a fear their hegemonic dreams might yield to some kind of contamination-- Sec State Condi Rice recently disavowed ever having seen the document ( but didn't disavow ever hearing about it)-- Such unnecessary dissembling which she shows no reticence in practicing with aplomb-- Iran as well as Syria have offered to start talks for years and the State Department, The DoD, The NSA, and the White House are all well aware of it--

Redundant reports all week concerning the inadequate training supplied our troops as they prepare to execute the Surge in another rush, the deterioration of our National Guard , and Joint Chief of Staff Peter Pace's unflinching public statements concerning the degraded condition of our overstretched under-manned under-armored troops in Iraq and the spent capacity to react to other trouble-spots around the globe should the need arise-- Apparently two full Army combat brigades were ordered to skip premier training for the shake and bake variety and just when the repo-men seemed to have turned the corner on portraying the lemming demies as a sniveling mealy-mouth crew who wouldn't support the troops out comes another scathing report illuminating the callous squalid treatment of wounded soldiers....our wounded soldiers... at the cockroach vermin-infested Walter Reed Hospital-- One top general has been axed while the Secretary of the Army tendered his demanded resignation-- Would that the mainstream media gets wind of the sordid treatment our volunteer soldiers receive from the careering Military (In)Justice System--

A disturbing question comes to the fore-- Are we needlessly sending thousands of ill-trained troops into the shrieking insurgent buzz saw while our diplomats cop to a surrender/cease fire/ withdrawal agreement in order to spin a canard that we were not defeated????-- Our Surge brought the enemy to the table and negotitiated a surrender on their part????-- Olmert attempted to similarly spin the Israeli debacle in Lebanon in such light last summer but was clearly and publicly rebuked by his own troops and their officers-- Dozens of Israeli reserve troops ill-trained and poorly fed were sacrificed on the final weekend even with the cease fire agreement already secured and in the pipeline-- Let us not even mention the material decimation including a relatively high number of tanks and personnel carriers or the damage to IDF's once vaunted reputation--

In Iraq General Petraeus reaped disconcerting news from his core team of PhD lauded insurgency specialists (serious academic achievers with critically impressive ground combat experience)-- Gen Petraeus' team reported after a country-wide survey of intel-gathering first-hand that the US lacks the troop count to credibly fight the insurgency-- British troops are cutting out in southern Iraq leaving massive potential for more violence in their wake-- Blair's Royal Empire has tasted its fill while less self-enamored Denmark opts to follow suit-- The coalition under-weighted as it once was appears now to be in full-fledged dis-repair before the real battle for Baghdad even begins --

Britain's troops are not going home to victory parades and Blair affirmed publicly his opposition to a Bush attack or, for that matter, anybody else's attack on Iran--No more monkey to the US organ-grinder, Blair's piecemeal troop pull-out is a vote of no-confidence and diminishes overall strength as it thins defenses in the simmering Shiite territory of oil-rich southern Iraq-- A chink in this armor strains relative insecurity everywhere else leading Petraeus himself to warn of a surge in American casualties in the months ahead-- Destination Walter Reed is not confidence-inspiring, to say the least, and in Petraeus own words, 'The stakes couldn't be higher.'--

Petraeus cannot stop the suicide martyrs, the car bombs or the roadside IED's anymore than Malicki can and his PhD crew warns of problematic morale issues emanating from the Green Zone-- There are less than a few remaining who believe in the efficacy of miracles-- Without ruling out a potential Vietnam-type endgame collapse in the not too distant future, perhaps in the not too distant present, the knell of each new car bomb punctuates the gloom with augury-- Perhaps the hapless Malicki's overture for talks signals DC's grim realization that imminent strategic defeat might be rearing its ugly head..........a leadening depressive possibility--

Referencing once again Seymour Hersh's The Redirection because it brings to light Bush's ace up the sleeve if the talks fail, or in a perverse and irrationally maddening light if they look like they might succeed-- Having asked the Pentagon for a battle plan to attack Iran with a massive aerial bombardment that could be ordered into execution within 24 hours, the word from Hersh's highly placed sources is the Pentagon has complied-- Not Gates, not Pace, not Blair, not Chalabi, not Daddy Baker, not Greenspan, not Woodward, not Giuliani, not Pelosi, not Reed, not Hagel, not Obama, not McCain, not Sheehan, not Cronkite, not Rodham, not McConnell, not Lott, and probably not even Rove at this juncture can stop it-- The Decider still holds trump unless........

THE PUTZ

"Iraq is going to be there — it's just a question of when we get back to it," said Harry 'The Putz' Reed the incapacitated demie leader backing down once more in a shrivelling show of abject disarray-- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi joined the retreat levelling Jack Murtha's plan at the knees-- Serious divisions inside the party have crippled whatever momentum last fall's elections had bestowed upon these demies-- Now they opt to cut and run from the American people whose flagging confidence in the ability of their government to act in their best interests increasingly demoralizes their natural optimism-- There will be no action to limit or repeal the Iraq war authorization or narrow the mission in Iraq-- The mission itself is now beyond Iraq and out of control, completely out of bounds, off the books and being run by rogue elements and private dual citizenry with whom the demies are too shy to tangle--

Indeed, reading Seymour Hersh's article "The Redirection" depicts a middle east in such pandemic corruption and complex rogue political intrigue involving such disparate energies as funding jihadist islamic Al Quaeda operatives with black money to oppose Hezbollah in Lebanon unbeknowst to the US Congress-- Correct, according to Hersh, the US via Saudi Royalty paying blood money to 9/11's Al Quaeda brotherhood to fight Hezbollah in Lebanon-- Or try this, Hezbolla's leader Nazrallah claiming in a personal interview with Hersh that Bush's real plan is a tri-partite divided state in Iraq and civil war followed by partite state in Lebanon-- The new Axis of Evil hideously playing with the desperate fires of doom.....The Bush Neocons, The Israeli Zionists and the Royal Saudi family -- The demies sadly evince no competence remotely capable of comprehending the internecine historical compulsion into which Bush and the Neocons have unwittingly coerced the American people and their government-- Aipac is working overtime behind the scenes in the once 'hallowed' halls of Congress-- Bush himself embodies pandemic confusion opting for darts launched at ever receding buzzwords--

Saudi Arabia pointed out to Bush and his war cabinet somewhere along the strange and twisted way this colossal mis-adventure unfolded that 90% of all Muslims worldwide are Sunni implying that our efforts in Iraq had aroused the enmity of Sunnis everywhere including their Kingdom-- An arousal of popular anger at such a level may be difficult to control to say the least and there's the lucrative importance of the oil business that might merit some of that more serious anger should the infidel bully in what's left of Iraq cross the wrong Rubicon-- Remember in the run-up to the war a week before D-day Bush inquired of his war cabinet what the difference was between the Shia and the Sunni-- The enemy as an afterthought, a clear admission he couldn't quite conceive into what kind of danger he was ordering America and her soldiers to march--

Not quite suddenly but so it might have seemed, the Bushies, having gambled and lost on transforming moderate shiite suits in Iraq into insurgency world-beaters, and running on empty to avoid the ignominious defeat described as imminent by the Daddy Baker group and all but assented to in acclamation by the world's scholarly foreign affairs punditry, underwent an epiphany of sorts and accepted the Sunni lifeline(replete with affiliations to the Muslim Brotherhood and the dreaded Salafis) that Saudi Prince Bandar offered in nebulous consort with Israel-- Choosing Victory, the idea which led to or at a minimum supported the Surge phenomenon, didn't have as its priority mission the decimation of the feeble self-imploding demies or their illusionary victory at last year's polls, but, point blank, did require the United States Forces to switch to the Sunni side of the mayhem adorned equation.....the sunny 90% side-- Not so cavalier a choice, mind you, considering that same Sunni side was and is still responsible for more than 90% of all American soldier casualties in Iraq-- This is a major defection impossible to understate but probably not the first time a major world leader of Decider status has taken his Navy and his Air Force and gone over to the other side-- Few Americans have any idea it has happened-- Probably even fewer in Congress-- Oh what tangled desperate webs we weave...

The Rubicon Bush now waits to cross is a full-scale aerial bombardment of Iran-- His Israeli and now Saudi handlers have convinced him that Iran is the new Dragon definitely in big urgent bold-faced need of slaying-- Iran's roughly half a million man standing army dwarfs the Saudi 75,000 and now that Iraq's army was virtually decimated by oblivion's Rumsfeld and his lackey Bremer, one can understand threadbare Saudi security hanging its bleep out in the breeze-- Hersh writes that the Saudis want Iran attacked but not by the US-- The duplicitous, or is it 'realist', Saudis want Israel to do the dirty deed because if the US does it the entire region will blame the Saudi Royals whereas if Israel wipes Iran off the face of earth the corrupt and degenerate Saudis can blame the degenerate and corrupt Zionists-- So if the vaunted Israeli Air Force wipes Ahmadinejad and his Shiite Mullahs off the proverbial map "vanishing from the pages of time" and if the Mahdi Army of Shia upstart Moqtada al-Sadr is 'taken out' by the Surge and the now US allied Sunnis capture Iranian oil fields and those in Iraq all financed by the Saudi oil revenue ....Voila!! .... Victory!! .... The New Middle East!!!.......Bush equals Churchill and the 3500 American Soldiers didn't die for nought-- Baby, you can drive my car, into the infinitude of cheap oil-- Such is fantasy............

Where Russian interests and where Chinese interests configure in all this should be a worrisome anti-dote but Reason is currently not coin-of-the-realm in this imbroglio-- Now that Bush has allied with the Sunni insurgency what happens if the alliance isn't returned??-- What if the insurgency decides to overthrow the unpopular Royalty and exile them to ill-repute in Las Vegas???-- And amidst all the questions surrounding this craven change of strategery, where do the hapless demies fit-- They are not even in the game-- They don't know what's going on-- They don't want to know-- Aipac is dealing their cards and doesn't want them to know-- All they've got left is Willy Loman's shoeshine and a smile--They may as well be watching American Idol-- They may very well be--- Hell's bells, ...........they may even apply to audition--

BLOOD IN THE WATER

Sectarian warfare in Iraq continues unabated .....pandemic car bombs, obliterated marketplaces, a series of shot down choppers and the paralytic Iraqi government shut down by a bizarre rape case the US command will now bafflingly investigate-- On the home front the pecking order of demi presidential candidates is becoming a scene of internecine verbal sniping bare tooth and talons-- The hissing Red Queen of the former co-presidency is losing her head rather frequently these days now angered and chagrined as Obama bin surreptitiously slipped into Hollywood pilfering campaign cash from her former mogul-donors.... major player in the past not at all reticent in his critique of her notorious consuming ambition, cavalier untruthfulness and the ruthlessly stale and boring team surrounding her-- The very kind of invective the gossipy media loves elevating to a feastly frenzy at the expense of real issue coverage--

With this self defeating narcissism and self-absorbed candidate myopia engulfing the frenetic blathersphere few of The Worst Generation's ill-esteemed leaders have the wherewithal to confront the savage dismemberment occurring up and down the food chain in the swiftly debilitating housing market-- Sub-prime lenders issued risky loans to broad schools of economic minnows some of whom began defaulting the day the first monthly payment arrived due--NovaStar Financial, one such company confessed to a surprise loss of $14.4 million for the final quarter of '06 and stood slackjawed as their stock price plunged almost 43 percent capping off the optimism by warning investors not to expect a dividend payout for at least a quadrennium-- Deadends can be reached from the middle of the road but No politician wants to do a photo-op here!!!--

Knowing that many subprime lenders were not mandated by the tougher regulations covering commercial banks doesn't make the gloomy statistics of rampant default and upwardly spiking foreclosure rates any less appalling-- Significantly serious warnings about the precarious nature of the sub-prime market have dappled the Internet for months and have met with little or no change in the behavior of those throwing their excess liquidity at the dartboards of excessive risk-- Tribal hallucination???-- Does a rising tide lift all boats if the tide becomes tsunami by default??--

As housing prices spiral downward those still solvent enough to make their next payment were slapped in the face today as oil prices barreled through the technical support ceiling of $62/barrel due to, on one front, fears that George Bush's only hope of a rosy glow to the outcome of the US invasion of Iraq is radical bombardment of Iran who ratcheted up the tension by refusing to back down on their nuclear programs-- World Politics for $500, please, Alex-- The answer is...the only country in the world possessing nuclear weapons to ever be militarily invaded--..........The question is 'Who is Nobody?.....Correct, proceed!-- Thanks, Alex-- With this kind of guarantee, Israeli paranoia aside, who wouldn't pursue Nuclear???-- Saudi Arabia???? Egypt???? Louisiana????

Ominous rumors out of the Royal Saudi Kingdom indicate oil shortages are imminent for a bevy of reasons with industry gloomslayers mining every innuendo for its silver lining to fend off mounting evidence of trouble's unquenchable drumbeat-- Some oil experts not on per diem to Aramco's Kingdom believe Saudi oil reserves incapable of increased production-- Saudi oil production is apparently down neighborhood of a million barrels a day from about 9.5 million barrels a day in 2005. and the quality of the production has deteriorated-- Saudi cutbacks began when oil prices were relatively high and their drilling efforts described as frantic and frenzied-- The Kingdom has publicly admitted its underground interest in nuclear capability-- Oil revenues have kept the simmering Wahhabi dissent kingdom-wide to a minimum but once that hush money diminishes far enough in value..... look out!!!--

Couple this with considerable depletion at Mexico's Cantarell field (production down 14% in '06 a larger downdraft than '05) and troublesome guerrilla activity in Nigeria(20% of production halted) and the ongoing periodical interruptions of Russian gas and oil destined for Euroville and the nationalization of Hugo Chavez' ego along with Venezuela's oil resources, it becomes quite easy to see how middle income home buyers in the US now fret and despair about the availability and the cost of oil to heat the now excessive square footage of their castles and the rising cost of gasoline to fuel their excessive suburban commutes to and fro' all the while staying one step ahead of default and foreclosure themselves-- Economic despair permeates wide swathes of our country and it never makes the evening news-- The government's numbers are not telling or facing the truth--

US production glitches and refining infrastructure breakdowns and fires have leveled several hits against US supplies that survived extreme cold weather in the mid-west and the northeast-- Many Peak Oil experts have warned for years of Saudi oil fields reaching decline but not with enough credibility apparently to warrant any action from the ongoing congressional stupor much less common sense type life-style changes of the voluntary kind from the degrading middle class-- Flimsy promotional canards about ethanol solutions by an American president in search of polling boosts have not only furthered consumerist illusions about singular motorized mobility ad infinitum but also ramped up the price of corn to inflationary levels Fed Chairman Bernanke and his number-fudgers sit in apoplectic fear of ever being forced to mesh the volatile food and energy sectors into their fictional CPI-- Remember, the Feds have a vested interest in denying any inflationary pressures ever exist!!!!!--

Corn prices have almost doubled since August as the US, king of the world’s corn growers, lowered its crop estimates following a dry summer--Rumors are swirling in last year's dust another dry one's on the way-- On the Chicago Board of Trade corn for March delivery rose more than 10 cents on the day......... to a 10-year high of $4.26 a bushel-- Stockpile inventories of US corn are at 12 year lows in absolute terms and relative lows at the quarter century milepost-- There doesn't seem any way for beef prices to compete with gasoline prices for the consumers diminishing dollar unless credit card interest rates make their cup of tea-- Raising cattle and finishing them on feed-lot corn coupled with the ever increasing costs of shipping them to and from those lots to market is double jeopardy threatening the entire livestock industry and certainly acting as a drag on the suffering trucking industry-- Corn being a heavy nitrogen feeder has already had its fertilizer input costs skyrocket with the upward ride of oil prices-- The silver lining here might be a decline in American obesity--

The surge for corn profits bodes ill for beer drinkers-- Barley and hops plantings will most likely give way to more corn plantings driving up their prices due to planned shortages thereby driving up the cost of beer-- Vegan tofu aficionados and barbecued soyburger buffs won't dodge the cost increases either as soybean futures contacted $7.81 a bushel on the CBOT, their highest level since July 2004..... up almost 50% since September. CBOT soymeal futures also hit $232 a tonne the highest tally since July 2004 and soybean acreage will also fall this spring as farmers make way for more lucrative corn plantings-- Wheat also kicked up the price charts which is not so troubling for those with wheat allergies but whole wheat toast won't get any cheaper-- Burning topsoil in our internal combustion engines sounds like desperation--Two more commodities jumped big-time as Nickel notched another record high at $40,300 a ton on the London Metal Exchange, before receding later in the day and tin followed suit with its record-breaking run topping out at $13,900 a ton--

The automotive industry collapses in steady freefall shedding tens of thousands of jobs with Chrysler hoping for some Big Brother's help-- The specter of war in Iran following the fiasco in Iraq has unnerved the markets and destabilized the future hopes of America-- Attacks on oil facilities in Iran or Saudi Arabia or Iraq or all three will decimate globalization and usher in a leadening depression-- The great emergency is nearly upon us--

The demi-led US Senators fresh from the second failure to pass a non-binding resolution against the Bush's trojan horse surge into Baghdad have vowed a flurry of relentless "resolution after resolutuion, amendment after amendment...just like in the days of Vietnam"-- So said New York's Senator Schumer-- Right, Schoomer, just like 40 years ago heavy on the nostalgia minus the intestinal fortitude--America's foreign policy lies in tatters-- Our position in the world has hit bottom-- Your team has less of a plan than the Bush team had in Iraq and more and more people are dying as a result while all your self-enamored 'charismatics' grovel and whore for more excessive funding --

While your team ineffectually blusters, the war coming to Iran proceeds apace on your watch right under your noses-- You can't see it and you can't smell it and you can't hear it and you can't run from it and you can't hide from it--Twice irresolutely drubbed on the Senate floor (not counting the minimum wage debacle) tired demie leader Harry Reed sounds the defeatist charge "We're going to move on to other things"-- To what other things, Mr. Reed, irrelevance or retirement?????-- Helluva job, so far, Harry!!--

THE DAY OF REBUKE

The day of rebuke that failed to happen....AGAIN!!!!-- Another flame-out for the demie-captain Harry 'hardball' Reed-- Senate demies, stymied once more by meanie Karl Rove's repo-men and the ragged retro-remnants of the vast right-wing-conspiracy, had the unmitigated gall to inconvenience their darling and precious presidential candidates dislodging them from the outland hustings of the perennial campaign's money-hustle and requiring their senatorial attendance to vote on a nonbinding dog-and-pony resolution-- Imagine that, asking the mega fundraisers to interrupt their hyperlific media swings and canned photo-ops to actually perform a required political duty...... Imagine that, asking the Obillary Frenzy amidst the campaign whirlwind to take, okay, a non-binding irresolute paper thin stand whose ultimate goal was an embarrassing paper rebuke of George Bush via the ever-sharp marshmallow-taloned floor debate when they knowingly didn't have the votes..... on a holiday weekend no less-- Talk about ratcheting up real pressure on a quaking lame-duck president-- Oh,boy,..... do these demies really mean business??!!!!!

Mark Twain once opined, "When in doubt, tell the truth. There's a lot less to remember." Such luxury so far avails itself somewhat to demie senator Obama who was against the war then and is now still against the war today though how much is open to political speculation but his record still categorically shows no votes for the war although there is one vote wishing to remain camouflaged from the light of day--Remember the Patriot Act???....legislation huge numbers (98 if recalled correctly) of senators assented to many if not a majority admittedly without even reading beforehand-- Smooth sailing though on the war-vote issue for the near term campaign future with one more caveat-- He's still chained to an inept wilting crew of senatorial cowards so incapable of resolute meaningful action as to refrain from even the attempt--The inspirational statesmanship of the moistened finger uplifted into the cyclone the imminent failure in Iraq bears menacingly down upon the said mis-shapen representation the Ship of the American State is now burdened with/by--

The campaign state of the inveterate ambition-driven demie Hillary Clinton continues charting rough waters as long time Democrat party stalwarts and activists repeatedly demand, and rightfully so, of Mrs. Rodham an accounting for her lack of courage in voting to enable Prez Bush's mad-neocon embarkation into the colossally mega-incendiary cauldron in what was formerly referred to as Iraq-- Her recalcitrant refusal to cop to her mistake here is reminiscent of her stumbling truth-challenged defense over her sudden dollar enrichment to the tune of a hundred grand one afternoon playing cattle futures with a bunch of Arkansan good ol'boys when it suddenly came to light-- An obliviously tin-eared defense even her strident femi-nazi supporters felt guiltily obligated to sweep under the rug of once 'right on!' sisterhood-- Parenthetically the same sisterhood from whom, hubcap Bill Clinton's bombing of civilian targets in the Kosovo squabble without United Nation's authorized consent, merited not so much as a protest's peep-- Oh well..........moving on back to the present stop-frame--

So the calculated adoption of the ridiculous canard of standing by her Iraq War vote because little Bush fibbed the intel she was so injudiciously gullible enough to gobble up hook, line and sinker is slowly sinking her credibility litmus card-- If the mendaciously felonious Ahmad Chalabi suckered Cheney and Cheney suckered Bush and Bush suckered Hillary just think what a field day cunning better-practiced masters of the duplicitous arts like say Bibi 'hollywood' Netanyahoo or the Pakistani Impervez Musherriff would have......with New York's 'original' Yankee-fan--

The boopsy demie twins Carvile and Beguila and other dissolute repo-lite regressives of the DLC seem sufficiently concerned about red-faced Hillary's self-inflicted boxed-in dilemma to flood the cancerous weekend media venues with a lack of professional spin feeble-full of obsecrated confetti-- Here it comes to the fore in the form of a lateral shift, if you will, a flip not yet a full flop but borderline obsequious enough to potentially open another battle line on the bona fides front and this one obviously derelict enough to have not been run through a stellar political focus group from either the left coast or the right but here it is anyway: 9/11's rendingly emotional aftermath clouded her normal political acuity, confusing her political antennae-- The families of 9/11 victims forced her do it ( but not before instigators led by a red-ass group of Irish firefighters boo-ed her off stage at a 9/11 memorial rally--.......Oooooops!!)

Trotting out this ludicrous 9/11 bridge to mountingly derisive feedback belies her basic credence-- Denial of her own responsibility for her vote on Iraq once again blaming the evil men in her life of which Geo Bush and (coming soon) Obama bin are merely the latest, and playing the petulant I'm-not-a-flip-flop card in such a rigidly stubborn manner only evokes, minus the legendary bookkeeper spectacles at the deadly lectern of course, the late Rumsfeldian certitude and its unvenerated recalcitrance--

An upright willingness to admit her mistake might for a New York minute cause her to appear a little swishy-washy but to emulate and echo Bush's refusal to own-up becomes a self-inflicted cudgel even minor enemies wield with enraptured glee-- Bush never had a plan to win the war and poor Hillary doesn't really have a plan either (even though she's promising like crazy to end it)-- Obama is asking her to put it on the table-- He wants the American people privy to its existence, not in 2009 but today-- One more assinine term-paper solution to the Iraqi inferno-- Oh, the humanity,......... oh, the infuriation-- But both Obama and Hillary lacking resolute conviction alike on a wide array of issues continue their search for a fresh traction-producing posture that has at a minimum Hillary's Campaign Central unnerved and tinged with a slightly desperate air of panic-- Hemorrhaging this much capital this early does not, long run, augur well.......for her, that is--

After all, Hillary (and Obama Edwards Richardson Dodd Biden Romney McCain Giuliani) it isn't about the posture of the initial mistake, its about how it actually affects America and its people, then and now, and what affects it will have on America's homeland and its place in the world-- Why we are going to have great serious difficulty simply paying for all of this and even more difficulty, if possible, resuscitating our national nerve to face the coming emergency when the spineless leadership refuse to even consider it fodder for debate-- So unaware is the current DC echelon, their flailing clout, this very day, engendered tragic laughter and sarcastic disbelief from real American people......once moderate American people........ and until Hillary or any of these non-binding chicken-spit demie downstarts learn this simple fact, not only are they unfit to lead they manifestly cannot-- They deserve the abject embarrassment of being witness to their own non-resolute Day of Rebuke once again going down in flames --

SPINNING DEFEAT

"We can afford a strategic defeat in Iraq, and a diplomatic reversal, but what we can't afford is a perception of a military defeat," Former Army intelligence specialist Ralph Peters says, "Given how our security is intertwined with the region, we must at a minimum make it clear that our military has not been defeated." That others in the region have long seen the inefficacy of applied military force in establishing democracy in Iraq as a serious strategic defeat incapable of being divorced from the military tactic or lack thereof employed in service to that strategy, it might only now be news to Mr. Peters-- How do we "make it clear our military has not been defeated"....annihilate the Sadr City slums??-- Emulate the Israeli thrust into southern Lebanon in the final hours of last summer's IDF defeat??-- Striking Iran with aerial bombardment seems more like petulant confirmation of the very defeat, perception cannot afford--Tasked to execute the Bush Neocon strategy of bringing ringing democracy to Iraq and thereby transforming the entire middle east has become impossible to achieve-- Maybe not a classic definition but defeat nonetheless and the whole region trepidatiously knows it--

Worrying about perceptions and appearances of military defeat instead of the actual defeat itself and what can be done to repair the real damage is a vain intellectual expedition to no good but a self-deceptive end-- The military defeat that Mr. Peters feigns acknowledging in no way reflects on troop performance-- They were committed to a situation they were untrained for and to a mission whose goalposts were constantly shifted for political reasons until the mission itself fell to irrelevance in the face of the sectarian war none of our esteemed leaders could ever figure out whose side if any they would join-- The camouflage of denial hides as well the blow our confidence must unavoidably suffer when a factual admission of technological under-performance couples itself to the military setback-- The strategery itself was built on using military coercion once it became clear the Sunni elements of Iraq especially after losing their military livelihoods and self respect were not keen to welcome our troops as the newsreel liberators American war salesmen had trumpeted them to be-- Unfriendly as well as friendly governments, tribal leaders and sectarian allies in the region would not kowtow in abject fear of the unmatched US firepower unleashed in the savage crescendo of Shock and Awe opening this Eternal War and would not cede control to the under-armored, under-equipped and under-manned US troops but would aid and abet the Sunni insurgents and the Shiite militias not to mention oddball psychotics like al-Zarquawi who seemed to appear suddenly and without warning proliferating mayhem everywhere like a violently a contagious fungus--

Every Iraqi with a grievance and there were manymany, legitimate or not, watched the blustery American President on worldwide television from the hubris laden security of the White House incite them and instigate them to vicious action and random murder-- "Well Bring It On!!!!"-- And On they have brought it but not at the tempo our amply skilled troops trained for-- and not on terrain our courageous troops expected and certainly not with any lack of courage and fight the cloistered Neocons once reserved only for those anachronistic Rumsfeldian 'deadenders' who couldn't quite get with the surrender program-- In fact there was never any surrender-- Just a rooster strut down an aircraft carrier in glowing hollywood twilight and a declaration of combat cessation before the war really began--The insurgency metastasized like cancer-- The Sunnis began to fight for their lives-- Without oil profits they are dead-- Why wouldn't they fight ferociously--

Mr. Peters, templates exist from the last half of the last century right up to the present day delineating how weak little insurgent guerrillas may stalemate powerful armies of rich and more techno-advanced states and in some cases expel them from their bases of occupation-- The deadender outcasts of the world know now as before lining up toe-to-toe with world power armies out in the open is a prescription for failure--Sometimes merely staying alive to fight another day acts as a military defeat for the Occupation even if a super knockout blow never arrives as in Afghanistan-- Sometimes the sophisticated media savvy these so-called anti-modern fifth-century fanatics employ inestimably out-performs a vaunted Abrams tank--Cunningly the insurgency frustrates the Occupier because the aggressor has to win quickly as the costs of continuing operations in men and material climb at least somewhat exponentially-- Two billion dollars a week now in Iraq nearly ten billion a month including Afghanistan--Sometimes it is better to bleed the enemy than kill him-- The first maxim of Guerrilla warfare is Never Be In A Hurry--

The aggressor/occupier must knock out the opponent as quickly as possible and in the case of Iraq the inability to arrive at the second stage of occupation where job creation and infrastructure repairs would give the iraqi undecideds an alternative to insurgency can't happen because lack of security won't logistically allow it-- Security crackdowns by foreign doorbusters that inevitably lead to revenge and basic physical hunger drive the decisions of those who climb off the fence starved of neutrality and join the mayhem--The inability to restore pre-war electrical capability alienated the relatively cushy Sunni middle class who awoke the next day to discover their employment in the Iraqi state-run industries had been dissolved-- With friends like Bremer why they would refuse to climb aboard the American Liberation train is inescapably obvious, little if any common sense needs PhD credentials to figure this out--

Not only did the Sunnis lose their jobs and their oil, they lost their government in tainted elections to their historical enemies, the Shiites-- That the Iraqi Shiites might be mutually receptive to help as in arms and money and intel and training from Iranian Shia somehow seemed lost on the Bush warcons-- An obviously de-stabilized Iraq not recently under a pro-Iranian rule but from the purple finger get-go of the elections Bremer and Bush forced on the Sunni and it seems Mr. Bush is only now becoming cognizant of the fact that our invasion and occupation actually elevated Iran into a position of huge regional influence-- Surprisingly now only to those neocons still not fully aroused from the slumber of their truculent illusions but the subsequent politically charged demonization of Amadinejhad only increased the Iranian power and middle eastern resistance to the US-- The best laid plans of mice and men...............

The deterioration of the oil infrastructure and failure to secure the pipelines eliminated a once lucrative source-potential to defray the redoubling cost of the entire mistaken enterprise-- All the while the Def Sec, the State Sec and the White House espoused a ham-fisted recalcitrant denial that an insurgency even existed-- Even amidst charges the Def Sec was excessively micro-managerial this almost paralytic refusal to acknowledge the insurgency enveloped the war cabinet in an air of acute denial from which it couldn't act (Even Mr. Rogers can say 'civil war'--)How can they alter failing tactics if they refuse to see basic problems in realistic light??-- Is this a strategic or a tactical failure??--Does it matter, if those tactically experienced boots on the ground tasked to implement a successful occupation, to "impose our will on Iraq"(Bremer) have to submit to inexperienced supervision from civilian hacks employed only because they correctly answered the "Roe Versus Wade" litmus test??-- How out of touch with reality is this??--The canard that we just didn't use our massive firepower in a brutal enough way or that our rules of engagement hamstrung our soldiers doesn't explain why the Russians with all their brutality and weaponry at their disposal and a willingness to use them freely (with the exception of nukes) have failed to thwart the Chechnyan resistance--

The fact is, Mr Peters, if the world perceives us as weak, it is not mis-perception because we are weak-- Explosive capability isn't the only measure of strength nor in many cases is it the most effective-- The Neocon architects and the Big Money behind their indulgent mahogany think-tanks and sycophantic cheer-leading media and all the professional go-along-to-get-along politicians and their elitist health-insured fund-raising staffs and the double-dipping palm-greasing defense industry moguls and the money grubbing lobbyists sitting this one out sipping wine in some stylish and richly gated community in a suburban enclave somewhere sunny did not see fit to engage any of their offspring in the quintessential Battle of Civilization in the most decisive ideological struggle in our history-- (The one honorable exception to my knowledge is Senator James Webb and I'm sure quite a number of others unbeknownst to me echo the risk of such sacrifice to which I salute)-- But when the only voices raised to protest the ugly treatment our individual soldiers experience at the careering hands of the military court martial system are the young men's families and the vigilant heroic work being done at http://jaghunters.blogspot.com/ something is seriously off-kilter here-- This is more than an affordable "diplomatic reversal".....way more--

Mr. Peters, by any other definition this inability to accept the idea of defeat still denotes weakness-- The urge to 'spin' defeat into something else is not strength in eyes of those you seek to fool-- The facts circulating even now worldwide concerning White House ineptitude coupled with similar readings about the DOD and State Dept. are open source for the world to see-- The current DC echelon (Congress or lack of it, included) can run from those facts but they can't hide-- The world knows we are not economically strong enough to finance this hysterical mis-adventure ourselves--US consumers haven't saved so much as a nickle over the course of the last two years and as a result foreign lenders have gained a much larger measure of influential power over our ability to act independently-- Veterans benefits and Veterans hospitals are being scissored and this isn't a defeat???-- Our culture is too weak, too decadent and too self-absorbed be attentive to world affairs or to fight for itself or its spoils-- While the lower class young men and women bleed out the primes of their lives defending the American exceptionalism and irresponsibility that allows middle and upper class kids to dis-engage from duty and struggle and self-defense through the hideous manufactured alienation of the likes of Ipods, ecstacy and heroin to name only a few-- Who wants to die for an IPOD of American Idol fantasy for Christ's sakes??-- Bread and circus has made us soft, indulgent and abjectly tuned-out if not autistically dis-connected-- Peril impending??...... Defeat???........ Call it.........??....... whatever!!--

PETULANT BENCHMARKS

Every benchmark achieved so far in Iraq whether it be toppling of Saddam Hussein and his statue and then for all the world to see allowing the new Iraqi Government's hooded henchmen to lynch him or whether it be the impositioning of a hurriedly constructed constitution or the purple-fingered elections adamantly demanded by Bush or the killing of the renegade Al Qaeda be-header al-Zarquawi or the destruction of Falluja or the rescue of Jessica Lynch or whatever other positive note momentarily struck for optimum public relations value, they have all failed to stem the sectarian violence, have failed win the hearts of Iraqis, have failed to secure the country, have failed to stop the increase of attacks against our troops, have failed to return Iraq to pre-war levels of electrical and oil production and have failed to stanch the hemorrhaging moral trust and confidence once accorded the US regionwide and worldwide-- Surging into Baghdad though will somehow achieve the success of repeatedly undefined victory even as it continues to slip through Bush's fingers???--

Even those who championed the Surge for postural and political reasons don't believe it can succeed especially after recently learning that the operations will be conducted under two separate sets of command-- A strategic blunder that will jumbo cluster every tactical decision, slow tactical agility to a snail's pace as well as fubar-ing its decrepit aftermath-- The goalposts have been shifted too many times in vain attempts to posit after the fact any success as DC's original goal-- The lackluster results so haunt the Neocons that outright desperation and fear of the pointed finger of accusatory blame initiates new plans daily more devoid of reality than the last-- America's political landscape will continue to be haunted by it for years to come if not decades-- This failure will not because it cannot be swept under the rug-- The consequences are beyond enormous --The rug itself may be repo-ed by the creditors who financed this doomed debacle-- Richard Nixon could deflect attention from the failure in Vietnam by opening a brave new diplomatic front with the dreaded Red Chinese but no such option avails itself to the diplomatic corps in DC today--

The deflection open to Bush, while his senatorial opposition dallies and dithers its political capital away in a dis-spiritedly obscene game of poorly played charades, is ever more war, this time in the form of aerial bombardment of Iran-- Bush is not sending a third carrier group to the region for a show of force-- A more robust redux of Shock and Awe in joint force aerial attacks featuring the freshly down-vaunted Israeli Air Force in the lead-- An understatement to say the least neither country or its leader being burnished by confidence from large sectors of their populations-- Too many reporters now publicizing leaked information from military and intelligence sources depicting ongoing operative war plans being put into place like a massive jig-saw puzzle only the more recent intel suggests the latest plan of attack may be of magnitude higher in caliber and larger in scale than earlier reports projected--

The frustration load the Iraq failure continues to burden the Bush psyche with demands a higher payload of retribution and destruction for these radical Mullahs and their hot-head prime minister who have added insult to injury by so audaciously sticking their middle fingers smack into the face of a politically-weakened strategically-challenged Bush and simply defying him time and again-- No American president has ever been so openly dissed worldwide as this struggling flailing man--Every avenue open to Bush leads to metaphorical and/or moral suicide-- He can't quit and he can't win-- Fate has him by the gonkers-- There are no miracles here--

To capitulate now and ask for dialogue with Iran is to lose face big-time in a much too craven retreat from the stupid tough talk that backed him into fate's corner in the first place-- To bomb Iran's suspect nuclear sites as well as all military sites and major industrial zones to debilitate Iranian regional influence and potential economic power far enough into the future to satisfy Israeli paranoia and save Prime Minister Ehud (14%) Olmert's questionable political future, severely and immediately jeopardizes the oil-addicted heavily over-indebted American economy and tangential business interests of Western Civ worldwide and unquestionably and profoundly endangers the overstretched under-armored under-appreciated American troops now operating in Iraq under Operation Provide More Targets-- Should the numerically superior Shia Militias with their jihad fortified morale join the insurgent violence in a big way by overtly increasing the tempo and caliber of attacks against American troops Bush could conceivably be the only President in our short history to preside over not only such a grave and excruciatingly demoralizing defeat but perhaps the complete destruction of that army-- Dire ain't a strong enough word here-- America, you should be worried!!!!--

Each new (actually recycled) think-tank theorem or strategy exits the starting gates tabula rasa blindly optimistic and promising success where the others have crashed and burned or simply failed to gain any relevant posi-traction-- The insurgency and the ongoing sectarian carnage control the terrain and the time upon which they battle-- The militias are capable of going to ground, disappearing from the arena, blending into the general population for rest, recuperation and re-arming and then emerging again to fight when conditions favor them-- New theorem and strict timelines can't alter this-- So far unable to wrest this tempo away from the insurgents the ensuing frustration wells-up correlative to the mounting casualties and financial costs and the diminishing support on the home-front and abroad--

Every idiot candidate who once supported this doomed misadventure now has an exit plan being bandied about the blathersphere-- Every imbecilic editorial board who cheer-led the opening assault of Shock and Awe and hailed the prospects of a five-day war as if it were a sporting event or a fox-hunt now has an exit plan and a blame-thrower aimed at someone else-- Every prize-winning pro-war bandwagon pundit who has jumped the Bush career-ship now has an exit strategery and has quietly removed the flag pin from his lapel-- Gone the glorius rapture of jingoism that now finds every mahogany-foxholed Neocon with imperceptibly accurate ground level intel still in the final throes of a grandiose ideological prescription for Victory-- Success so far still incapable of being defined in terms even extraordinary people can understand--

All of these plans from the wild-eyed optimistic to the heavily saturnian realistic to the bamboozled, the confused and frightened to those well intentioned and of good but flawed faith have thrown down the gauntlet of still more petulant benchmarks-- The way out of facing their own complicity for this tragic mega-blunder is quite easy.... simply blame the Iraqis!!!-- Their government isn't cutting the mustard-- It can't even buy a quorum with stacks of doubled-down shrink-wrapped dollars-- Give Malicki a binding deadline he can't possibly meet and if he fails to do what our Government has been manifestly incapable of achieving, give him the noose of a coup or threaten him with the loss of his American Cash Daddy-- Volunteers countrywide to succeed him in office number somewhere between the robustly slim and none-- Demand that he attack his own family, his own tribe and then his own militia in a vain act of suicidal sacrifice because the real responsibility for the (fait accompli) outcome of this ugly tragedy engendered by the blind hubris of exceptionalism and cool, won't exactly gleam from the pages of careerist resumes or polish Arlington's gardens of stone--

The narcissistic odor of this ultimatum frenzy alone will obviously guarantee painlessly successful action and rescue our leaders from there own camouflaged pap-- This from those who unabashedly witnessed the pathetic display of ineffectuality in the non-binding resolution flame-out on the Senate floor midweek last-- The heavyweight statesmen inside the Senate chamber sure know how to get things done-- Maybe John Warner who actually voted against his own resolution and Harry 'chicken' Reed should offer to train Malicki (the only one of the three actually facing real live bullets) in the delicate art of real fakery--

Perhaps we should give the US Congress a list of petulant spoiled impractical demands ala Shirley in a Templesque tantrum including an exit date for American troops, fully binding resolutions of real statesmen, stop the campaign fundraising while our country attempts to survive the imminent emergency, and see how focused these lazy slackers toe the line on such an obviously sure-fire road to victory-- Warn them should they fail the deadline of their mission a visit to Malicki's henchmen could be in the offing-- The weight of History is on the table-- Rough Music on the way--

DISSOLUTE RESOLUTION

What a pathetic feckless display of non-binding resolve in the Senate-- Demi leader Harry Reed shrewdly outfoxed into unpalatably down-toning the language of resolution his own party devised to cavortingly capitulate to a few repo 'moderates' in order to ostensibly gain the all important 60 votes needed to actually begin floor debate on this never-ending war in Iraq--Crushingly demoralizing their un-spined but practical strategy embarrassingly explodes in their craven faces falling to the senate floor shredded by a crew of canard carrying procedural tricksters oblivious to tomorrow's negative headlines -- The repo boys may have potentially lost long-term by winning this round but the demies still squandered big-time credibility by failing at such soft toss charades-- Blown completely out of the water--

Not only is there no debate there is no non-binding resolution...not even a toothless moderate reprimand--Contrary to their own contemptible self-estimation the inability to control the frame of the debate exposes the obvious demie deficit of practical media savvy but the truth is the wilting demies and the unearned momentum they garnered from the American voters last fall are simply imploding-- Rational articulation no matter how finely window-dressed doesn't lend the repo bullies susceptibility to moral suasion-- Few brains and most of those testosterone-challenged-- Dissolved resolve-- God Almighty if it ain't so goddamned ugly as to make even those truly stout-hearted genuinely concerned and reliable American citizens despair--

Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., opposed the idea of a resolution at a recent Foreign Relations Committee hearing and warned any debate would give comfort to the enemy and "confirm to our friends and allies that we are divided and in disarray."-- Lugar helped kill the debate and in doing so effectively confirmed that division and that disarray as well as the cowardly inability of our convictionless leaders to face up to and perform their now ever graver responsibility-- Does Lugar actually believe our friends and allies, those who haven't yet jumped ship, are somehow incapable of perceiving this division and disarray???-- Hell, even the insurgency in Iraq were it not so dangerous would probably laugh at this semi-conscious Senate's ineptitude and unwittingly vainglorious attempts to mimic their own ineffective Iraqi government-- How about a another senatorial junket to the Greedzone in Baghdad for Imperial Lobsterfest, mint-juleps and more Aipac sponsored re-education??-- Pelosi publicly craves a larger plane-- Unbelievable!!!!--

If the demies really expected bi-partisan comity it only underscores their naivete and accentuates their lack of fitness to serve as leaders of the American people-- Meanwhile out on the campaign hustings the professional campaigneers neglect their senatorial duties to sloganeer their faux promise across the daily blathersphere-- If the war ain't over by 2009 then Hillary will end it??-- Fat chance facho overreach??-- More than likely, but it fills bandwidth with another disposable dream cookie-- But two too-long years of this incessant soundbite babble and the seriously wearying possibly(by-then) recession-buffetted American people will contemplate revolution of the non-academic kind-- The disheveled end to this non-bi-partisan non-binding jumbo-cluster underscores the moral economic and intellectual bankruptcy spreading its tentacles every elsewhere-- Can our government do anything anymore??--

Why the disingenuous palaver about bi-partisanship anyway??--As Andrew Bacevich writes, "The true purpose of bipartisanship is to protect the interests of the Washington Party, the conglomeration of politicians, hustlers, and bureaucrats who benefit from the concentration of wealth and power in the federal city. A “bipartisan” solution to any problem is one that produces marginal change while preserving or restoring the underlying status quo." Try as wimpily as the demies might the school superintendent is just not going to allow 3.2 beer in the drinking fountains but making the initial promise sure made them feel good-- Power definitely has its limits but reaching those limits so early in the game can be utterly deflating-- Class, get out your drawing boards---

O'ER THE RAMPARTS WE WATCH.......

The rich little demie nabobs nattily scurry around the DC mediasphere seeking candidate-obligatory face time from any extant camera to non-delineate the difficult vagaries of the weak-willed and bogus attempts to construct a nonbinding resolution intent not on ending the fiasco in Iraq but in pelting Rover's boywonder George with a subterfuge of marshmallows by squeaking tangentially about mealy mouth Senator Joe prolix Biden's big little-dissing of the half-and-half candidate Obama all the while camouflaging behind their whimpering minutiae the lack of courage needed to confront The President and/or his/their own AIPAC handlers over the seriously ongoing buildup toward a military attack on Iran-- The demi window of opportunity is closing down fast and any hope engendered by last November's unearned but victorious-by-default election outcome is hemorrhaging support and confidence-- Deservedly so!!!--O'er the ramparts we watch.....

Iran a country whose economy totals 2% of the US'-- Iran a country with no aircraft carriers-- Iran a country of chronic gasoline shortages and debilitating oil fields-- Iran a country whose considerable dissidents rise to defend the very leaders they purportedly despise everytime emmissaries from the US State/Defense/Neocon White House complex engage Iran in undiplomatic and direct criticism under the pretext of somehow fomenting a phantom revolution from inside-- The same State/Defense/White House thinktank-complex that demonstrably professed little if any intel illuminating the sectarian tribal complexity of the Iraqi population except of course their overwhelmingly zealous desire to greet a misunderstood occupation as ...Liberation...is currently displaying a dismayingly similar but still unchallenged ignorance of Iran's social and political complexity except to say that they too would gain some liberation in the form of aerial bombardment and that that would somehow suffice to make the US and Israel safer and be the guarantor of success in the bloody cauldron once called Iraq-- Belicosity strikes deep...into the heart it will creep--

Bush claims the Iranians are supplying the weapons the insurgency is using to destroy our troops and their under-armored humvees-- Isn't the insurgency largely Sunni??-- Aren't the Sunni receiving their armaments and financial support from Saudi Arabian oil profits??-- Don't the Shiite militias have intra-sectarian battles among themselves ongoing in Southern Iraq??-- Def Sec Gates announced such this week so rest assured that at least one member of the administration is attempting to gauge the situation with factual intel--

Bush's off the cuff answers to media questions continue to dispel rumors his new strategery has caught up with rapidly surging events on Iraq's everwidening evermore chaotic murdering ground-- Outgoing commander Gen. Casey contortingly evinced a clueless bureau-speak confusion testifying before congress this week on his way up the Massengale ladder to the topjob of Army Chief of Staff-- Very few if any DC talking heads (demies or repo's) display with any convincing certitude a veraciously accurate view of what is really transpiring in Iraq beyond surface soundbite-- It is almost Hillaryous to hear the stalwart demie supporters of the early war copping to new positions, uttering intel culled from some think-tank briefing, and expounding newfound factoids of the inner workings of the Sunni and Shia as if they just learned the name of their team's QB after having watched eight or ten of their games-- The long awaited Intelligence Report yet another outdated term-paper ascribes to the Iraq situation once again the omni-present adjective...Dire!! --........Duh!!!-- Any Intelligence Reports relaying up to date reports on the dire lack of courage/leadership inside the DC Beltway?????--