Apologize?

Once again, the Democrats have shown themselves to be pathetic whores. As Juan Cole says:

Apologize? Apologize? Is that all the US Democratic leadership can demand from George W. Bush after it was confirmed that his key aides and those of Vice President Cheney planned a petty campaign of retribution against a distinguished foreign service officer by outing his wife, undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson? I should think not...

Unfortunately, we will see nothing else. The Democrats are far too interested in systemic stability (actually stagnation). Their brains are living proof of entropy in action (through a lack thereof). I seen blades of grass more interesting. In fact, we won't hear so much as an apology. Why would the administration fear such losers?

On Stupidity and Whores

If you're looking to bring the Federal Government to its knees you couldn't do much better than Bush and his cronies. Cockburn and Sinclair make a few amusing arguments along these lines by pointing out that these people are just plain stupid regarding the Plame scandal:

This is what CounterPunch gets from Plamegate, and what we always got from Plamegate. The people in charge of the nation's destinies these last five years are very, very stupid. Only really stupid people could have thought that outing Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA employee was a good way of undercutting her husband, Joe Wilson. Cheney is stupid. Rose is stupid. Bush is stupid. Libby, about whom we now have a heap of useful material, is very, very stupid.

It's only because we have a lazy and venal press that this hasn't been conclusively rammed into the public's mind years ago. But the press is lazy, venal and complicit.

The local TV news reported that Libby's lawyer was trying to excuse his alleged lying by stating that he forgot. So in other words, he is so incompetent that he did not think to review his notes before testifying before a grand jury.

Regarding the Democrats, Cockburn and Sinclair conclude:

There's no sign that the Democratic Party is gaining any traction from the Republican collapse. With good reason. Never has a party been offered so many opportunities and taken so little advantage from them. So far as the war is concerned, powerful Democrats like Joseph Biden and Hillary Clinton are calling for more troops. Greenspan's long and pock-marked tenure as the bankers' bulwark draws tearful cries of gratitude from Democrats like Senator Paul Sarbanes.

In 2005 it is impossible to link the Democrats with a single courageous stand or even constructive idea. This week the party's top strategists -- mesmerized by the twenty-first century's answer to the Framers, Dr George Lakoff's childish nostrums -- were wrangling over two possible slogans, "Together, we can do better," or "Together, America can do better."

Meanwhile over 100,000 older Americans lined up in mid October to file bankruptcy before the old wipe-the-slate-clean Chapter 7 law expired. More than half of these bankrupts have been ruined by health costs. The new bankruptcy law, written by the banks and credit card companies, made it through the Congress only with the help of Democratic votes in the senate, which were duly forthcoming as they always are.

If a Democrat, John Kerry, had captured the White House in 2004, would this have made a difference? Yes. The imperial machine would be probably be running more smoothly. The war in Iraq would have been given a new infusion of malign energy. You doubt this? It's hard to keep up with his somersaults, but listen to Professor Juan Cole, liberal Democratic guru on Iraq. He now says (in an interview with the Nation Institute's Tom Engelhardt) that for the US to "up and leave" Iraq would be to become an accomplice in genocide. He counsels the heightened use in Iraq of "special forces and air power". In other words, assassinations and saturation bombing. Come home Robert McNamara, all is -- yet again -- forgiven.

It's not the role of radicals to call for the election of a more efficient strategist and engineer of a bloodthirsty and rapacious empire, Kerry's only claim on the voters' attention anyone remembers. So let us give thanks that Bush is in the White House, and holding the Imperial fleet on a steady course to the rocks.

The Democrats are whores. At least the Republicans are just stupid crooks.

Unfair Comparisons

Can Dems Seize the Moment? Can a crack-whore quit crack? (Such statements are really unfair to crack whores.)

Not Be Going Better

The Prudent Investor makes the following observation:

Having woken up from a good sleep after my (too) stiff Gin and Tonic I find out the world has not changed that much since the nomination of Ben Bernanke for the Fed chair. All the other problems are still here. Yesterday's boost in equity markets is still a miracle to me as I have looked in vain to find an investment instrument that would reflect or anticipate the future performance of the Fed chairman (or can this be seen in - declining - bond markets?)
If I take the dollar as a substitute - which weakened against all other majors - I would have to conclude that the world shares my view that the major problem is not whether one brilliant economist with loads of academic credentials replaces the other one but lies much more with the future course of American policy and the results of it on its economy. To repeat my headline: The problem is not A(lan Greenspan) or B(en Bernanke); it is Dubya (and to a certain extent J(ohn Snow.))

George Bush is doing much to making things fall apart. I wish I had voted for him (not really). However, if one desired such results than things could not be going better.

"Jump! Jump!"

According to Asia Times, in US stocks: The visible hand of Uncle Sam, the US financial markets are being manipulated and stabilized by The US Government:

John Embry and Andrew Hepburn provide a valuable entry into the world of finance. The two analysts illuminate the shadowy trail of the "Plunge Protection Team" in its apparent mission to rig the American stock markets.

Their account is backed up by considerable indirect evidence, as well as statements by credible insiders. If their account is correct, it means that US markets look a lot like the Japanese markets that were long derided for being subject to repeated official manipulation. A more important conclusion may be that US markets are even shakier than many believe.

The trail that the two analysts follow is long, dating to just after Black Monday, October 19, 1987. On that day, the US stock market abruptly crashed. The Dow Jones average dropped by 508 points, to 1738. It threatened to do even worse the next day when, after a brief rally, it went into reverse.

The markets seemed on the edge of a meltdown, but the abyss failed to open up. This lack of a meltdown has generally been attributed to the Federal Reserve Board's (FRB) steady hand and promises of liquidity. But sophisticated research on the events of those two days indicates that a sudden and unprecedented rise in the Major Market Index (MMI) sparked a recovery across the board. There is good reason to suspect that this recovery was the result of concentrated buying by a few firms.

It was after this crash that the President's Working Group on Financial Markets was put in place to prevent destabilizing declines. The Plunge Protection Team was institutionalized in 1989 as a follow-up from this working group, and originally included the top public-sector financial authorities.

Its role was apparently tested with the Friday, October 13, 1989 stock crash. In this case, too, a sudden rush of aggressive buying of index futures contracts via the MMI saved the day. There appear to have been a considerable number of interventions in the wake of that, with the group expanding to include the heads of major banks.

Thus, for example, the markets after September 11, 2001, received a heavy dose of intervention. The need for this intervention was so great that its outlines emerged quite clearly in the press.

It likely means that when a crash comes that cannot be mitigated, it will be very bad. Too many will believe that their stocks are covered and be ruined as a result. Smiling, I'll be the one standing on a street corner chanting "Jump! Jump!"

Equally Screwed

Star Parker, in Lessons Never Learned points out the government ill serves the poor (whom often pay a disproportionate share of their income ti the state):

Just as the substandard levees in New Orleans were widely reported but ignored, so our bankrupt Social System is widely reported and ignored.

The system's own trustees report shows that in fewer than 15 years more funds will be going out each year than coming in. Simple arithmetic shows that the system is a bad deal for everyone and that the only way to keep things going as they are is to take a bad deal and make it worse by raising taxes and cutting benefits.

Yet, our politicians cannot find it within themselves to be straightforward with the very people who elect them and provide leadership toward a new and workable retirement paradigm for Americans based on ownership.

As in New Orleans, those who bear the brunt of the neglect are the poor. When Katrina was approaching, those with resources had mobility to flee. With our Social Security system, those with resources have alternative means for building wealth and a retirement nest egg.

Meanwhile, the poor must continue to take what might have been saved from their paycheck and pay payroll taxes into a bankrupt system that has no prospect of giving a justifiable return on investment. When these folks retire in dire straights, we'll hear that it is because of racism.

It doesn't seem to be doing much for the middle class either. The new proletariat is grows larger everyday. As in Argentina, the corrupt power elite will do one very final important service: almost everyone will be equally screwed.

Encased

According to Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad regarding Saddam's trial:

Three hours after it finally opened under the most intense Iraqi and international scrutiny, Saddam Hussein's trial came to a sudden halt for one simple reason - fear.

Some 30 to 40 witnesses to the killing of 143 people, allegedly on the direct orders of the former dictator, were simply too frightened of the vengeance of his followers to go to court yesterday.

The proceedings were very different from the Nuremberg trials of German leaders because in Baghdad it is the prosecution and not the accused who appear more terrified. Television was allowed to show the faces of only one of the judges. The identity of the others is a deep secret.

The trial so far is the opposite of the demonstration of unchallenged state authority that the Iraqi government hoped for.

Some idiot TV talking head called this media event "the Trial of the Century."

Juan Cole also points out:

Iraqis engaged in dueling demonstrations on Wednesday over Saddam's trial. In Dujayl, Shiites demonstrated against Saddam, who is accused of conducting a massacre there in 1982. Al-Zaman reports that counter-demonstrations in favor of Saddam were held in Tikrit, Baiji, and al-Dur. I really fear that a televised trial will produce further polarization and violence, with Sunni Arabs on the receiving end of reprisals by Shiites and Kurds.

So the Bush Administration, which is spinning down the tubes, has likely pressured the trial and the result will hasten their actual failure. They exist totally encased within their Verbal World. Bin Laden has to be laughing.

Semantics

Juan Cole has a few interesting observations concerning semantics worth checking out.

Don't Come on too Strong

John Robb, of Global Guerrillas, has written an op-ed piece for the New York Times called The Open-Source War. It's a good synopsis of this blog writing. Considering the publisher, with all due respects, I do believe it is a bit more optimistic concerning the prospects for US success than is usual for him. For example:

What's left? It's possible, as Microsoft has found, that there is no good monopolistic solution to a mature open-source effort. In that case, the United States might be better off adopting I.B.M.'s embrace of open source. This solution would require renouncing the state's monopoly on violence by using Shiite and Kurdish militias as a counterinsurgency. This is similar to the strategy used to halt the insurgencies in El Salvador in the 1980's and Colombia in the 1990's. In those cases, these militias used local knowledge, unconstrained tactics and high levels of motivation to defeat insurgents (this is in contrast to the ineffectiveness of Iraq's paycheck military). This option will probably work in Iraq too.

Of course, in Columbia the rebels are firmly entrenched. In addition, most of the countries surrounding Iraq have a much more vested interest in seeing the US fail. The Turks do not want a strong Kurdistan. Iran also have Syrian have significant Kurdish minorities, as well, in addition to obvious reasons to see the US bogged down. Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf states (not to mention Egypt) are probably finding the war an excellent means for ridding themselves of militants by looking the other way. Let them fight the US rather than cause trouble at home. In addition, a Shiite Iraq with ties to Iran, is something states with minority Shiite populations fear.

As John Robb has aptly shown over and over, the situation is just not the same. It would be interesting to see how heavily edited the final product was from the original. On the other hand, I suppose it might be better to not start too strongly. The concept of 4GW is an important one that gets too little attention. If one has a forum one should probably use it.

What is Missing?

America's nightmare: Becoming Britain By Jim Lobe, the author reports:

A combination of huge tax cuts, an insatiable appetite for foreign imports, especially oil, and record government spending is steadily eroding US independence and freedom of action, according to a "special report" released Thursday by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

The article goes on to discuss the twin budget deficits.

The report by Prof Menzie Chinn, a former senior economist for international financial issues on the White House's Council of Economic Advisers under both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W Bush, argues that the federal budget and current account deficits, which have deepened considerably over the last several years, increasingly threaten US sovereignty and influence. "Failure to take the initiative to reduce the twin deficits will cede to foreign governments increasing influence over the nation's fate," according to Chinn's report. "Perhaps equally alarming, it will lead to slower growth, escalating trade friction, and reduced American influence in political and economic spheres."

The report, entitled "Getting Serious About the Twin Deficits" calls for urgent measures to tackle serious challenges faced by the US economy, including reducing the government deficit by, among other steps, increasing taxes; reducing oil imports through the imposition of energy taxes or strict fuel efficiency standards; and managing a coordinated depreciation of the dollar vis-a-vis East Asian currencies.

One thing always worth noting about such reports is what is missing. In reality, there are a triplet of deficits. The third is of course consumer debt. Why is it missing? Because wall street is paying the bills and likes high levels of consumer debt just fine. So this report is incomplete and hence less useful for policy makers. Hence, their policies will be fatally flawed.

Don't Mess with Chávez

It appears that Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez is playing an interesting game by class and race baiting within the US itself. As Nikolas Kozloff points out:

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Chávez provided relief assistance to the poverty stricken and largely African American victims of the disaster. The head of Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela's state owned oil company, set up disaster relief centers in Louisiana and Texas in the wake of the hurricane and provided humanitarian to thousands of victims. Volunteers based at Citgo refineries in Lake Charles, Louisiana and Corpus Christi, Texas, provided medical care, food and water to approximately 5,000 people. In Houston, volunteers from Citgo headquarters provided similar assistance to 40,000 victims. What is more, Venezuela has provided hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil in energy assistance to the United States. Chávez followed up his bold initiative by announcing that he would soon begin to ship heating and diesel oil at rock bottom prices to schools, nursing homes, hospitals and poor communities within the U.S. The Venezuelan president has also offered to provide free eye surgery for poor Americans suffering from certain eye conditions. The firebrand South American leader, who proclaimed the plan during a recent visit to New York, will begin his oil program through an October pilot project in Chicago. There, the Venezuelan government will target poor Mexican Americans for assistance.

In fact, in these communities he is far more popular than Bush could ever hope to be. The administration had be best advised not to mess with Chávez, or he could have domestic troubles far greater than those idiots could ever believe.

Two Headed Snake

Yes, Democrats suck but sometimes I forget just how much. The focus is so much on the Republicans, that one forgets. One would think the opposition party might not be so lame, but that fleeting thought would be in error. They are simply feeble and illustrate well the illusion of political democracy in the USA. In many regards they are worse. At least the worst of the Republican party is unabashedly fascist. The Democrats pretend to be something better, but are obviously just fascist lite. As Werther notes about prominent Democrats:

Regarding Senator Carl Levin

In a piece entitled "Using Our Leverage: The Troops," Senator Carl Levin (D-MI), a presumed scourge of the Bush administration, argues that a subtle threat to pull out U.S. troops would be the inducement ­or sub rosa extortion to get the Iraqi politicians to settle their differences and ultimately defeat the insurgency. [2]

Clueless? Maybe not:

On one level, this is an outburst of unbelievable naiveté. One can only imagine that Senator Levin has been brainwashed [3] by his various Potemkin tours of the Green Zone so as to believe that the U.S. military occupation is actually popular. It is not. On the other hand, we can assume that the minority of Iraqis who have battened on to the occupation for their own position or profit already have their visas in order should the plug ever be pulled. Prospectively, they are just one more émigré group poised to drive up rents in Arlington, Virginia. The idea that the "threat" to pull out U.S. military forces leverages anything is an exercise in delusion. This is what Democrats concoct when desperation forces them to devise an alternative Iraq policy.

At a deeper, moral level, Senator Levin's thesis is even more dispiriting. Our troops, you must understand, are "leverage." Flesh and blood Americans are dying every day, but they are leverage: counters, pawns, bargaining chips in a game of Realpolitik. If the Democrats want to prove they are "tough enough for the job," i.e., as coldly cynical as the other party, they are off to a promising start.
Further clues as to the Democrats' thinking on Iraq can be gleaned from their reaction to the President's recent address to the National Endowment for Democracy. Enough criticism has been leveled at this address for its high-school Wilsonianism, Chautauqua tent revivalism, and geo-strategic mumbo-jumbo that further analysis here would merely be cruel.

Quoting Senator Joseph Biden:

Mr. BIDEN. "Mr. President, today, in his speech to the National Endowment for Democracy, President Bush gave a vivid and, I believe, compelling description of the threat to America and to freedom from radical Islamic fundamentalism. He made, in my view, a powerful case for what is at stake for every American.
"Simply put, the radical fundamentalists seek to kill our citizens in great numbers, to disrupt our economy, and to reshape the international order. They would take the world backwards, replacing freedom with fear and hope with hatred. If they were to acquire a nuclear weapon, the threat they would pose to America would be literally existential.

"The President said it well. The President is right that we cannot and will not retreat. We will defend ourselves and defeat the enemies of freedom and progress."

Quoting Richard Holbrooke, President Clinton's United Nations ambassador:

HOLBROOKE: "The Democratic Party is the party that has created . . ."
(CROSSTALK)

HOLBROOKE: ". . . the modern American national security system, from Woodrow Wilson right straight through.

"The Republicans have now adopted a lot of old Democratic rhetoric about values, democracy, freedom, human rights, while continuing to argue for a large defense budget. That is where the Democrats always were. The Republicans were more isolationists, or, in the Nixon-Kissinger period, Realpolitik people."

So in other words, the Democrats are pledging to be more efficient and effective fascists. Why vote?

Die Smurfs Die!

Unicef Belgium gets my vote for the most interesting propaganda involving cartoon characters. It shows the Smurfs being blown away by an air strike. I guess their day was rather "un-smurfy."

The Party is Ending Ugly

The Bush Administration is falling apart. It's not exactly shocking. They began to believe their own lies. Bush and his lackeys are simply too arrogant to pull it off. Arrogance is a form of stupidity. As Doug Thompson in Government by Temper Tantrum relates:

President George W. Bush’s temper tantrums are on the rise with White House insiders reporting increasing tongue-lashing of staffers, obscenity-filled outbursts and a leader driven to the edge by what he sees as party disloyalty and a country that no longer trusts him.

Conservative backlash over his latest Supreme Court nominee may, in fact, have pushed the President over the edge.

“He’s out of control,” one White House aide says privately. “There’s no other way to put it. His anger spills over in meetings. He berates anyone who brings him bad news but there's not a lot of good news we can bring the President right now. He calls other Republicans 'motherfucking traitors' and it is becoming more and more of a challenge to keep that anger from showing in public.”

Of course, this situation is really nothing new. As the article continues:

Stephans wrote that analysis on October 17, 2004, two weeks before last year’s election. In the same article he reported:

“A senior Republican, experienced and wise in the ways of Washington, told me last Friday that he does not necessarily accept that Bush is unstable, but what is clear, he added, is that he is now manifestly unfit to be President.”

That was nearly year ago. Since then the situation has only gotten worse.

Hopefully, he'll lose what little is left of his tiny mind. Meanwhile, his public lies have become increasingly pathetic. As Paul Craig Roberts observes in Natural Born Liars:

George W. Bush is a natural born liar. He lied us into a war, and now he is lying to keep us there. In his October 6 self-congratulatory speech at that neoconservative shrine, the National Endowment for Democracy, the President of the United States said: "Today there are more than 80 Iraqi army battalions fighting the insurgency alongside our forces."

Eighty Iraqi battalions makes it sound like the US is just lending Iraq a helping hand. I wonder what Congress and the US commanders in Iraq thought when they heard there were 80 Iraqi battalions that American troops are helping to fight insurgents? Just a few days prior to Bush's speech, Generals Casey and Abizaid told Congress that, as a matter of fact, there was only one Iraqi battalion able to undertake operations against insurgents.

What a loser. The only thing he is good for is hours and hours of entertainment.

Worth Watching

Doug Thompson pretty well sums up the situation:

Government in these United States looks and acts like a cable news talk show – all noise and no substance, all shouting and no reason, all hyperbole and no fact.

The difference is one is worth watching.

Chumps, Idiots and Fanatics

It appears that Osama bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri has written a Letter warning that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's tactics in Iraq may be alienating the broader Muslim World. If true, it underscores the fact that Al-Qaeda is not a centralized organization. It also appears that al-Zarqawi really answers to no one. Hence, the US government assertion that the war in Iraq had anything to do with the terrorism that brought down the World Trade Centers. Of course, only a Chump ever saw any connection.

It is also being claimed that Bush God comments 'not literal.' So he's not a religious wacko. He's just too stupid to be allowed to open his big mouth unscripted. Be that as it may, their support has shown Christian Fundamentalists to be nothing but a bunch of Chumps and suckers. Big business would never allow a real religious zealot to climb so high. The Miers nomination is another example. He only cares about his cronies and ass-kissers. A real fanatic is like al-Zarqawi. Christians don't have the stomach.

Common Ground

In Defense of Lew Rockwell By Joshua Frank, he discusses common ground between the left and right:

Any alliance between occasional political foes more than worries the pro-war gang; it scares the holy bejesus out of 'em. In their little, twisted, misinformed worlds, if the majority of America starts turning on Bush ­they must simultaneously be thumbing through the pages of the Communist Manifesto. That's hogwash, of course. All the new poll numbers indicate is that Americans realize they've been lied to, spit on, and slapped around by the Bush administration. And they've had enough of it.

The one-issue alliance of Rockwell and lefty folks like myself only means we see it as necessary to come together and oppose this brutal, illegal war. We aren't talking regulations, here. We're talking about misguided US foreign policy that's killed tens of thousands of people. And no matter what the FPM crew say, it's not Commie of Rockwell and his readers to say that this war must stop, now. It's humane of them.

Nothing brings people together like fascism. (Of course, one can be a left libertarian.)

Duh?

Apparently, in Iraq, Afghanistan and Central Asia western militaries are having a difficult time retaining the loyalties of local armies. The west does not understand the culture, and believes it does not need to do so. As they are learning, ignorance is not necessarily bliss. "What? This never happened before." So now they have succeeded in training their own enemies:

The US and British militaries have suspended their training programs for Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Ukraine and Azerbaijan after more than 800 troops from these countries deserted, and many reportedly joined militant groups, such as al-Qaeda and Chechen rebel forces.

According to intelligence sources quoted in the media, the deserters escaped with weapons, including M-16s, rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs), communications equipment, night vision goggles and other ordnance items.

Government really is that dumb.

Who'd have thunk it?

According to Juan Cole, the Buck stops at the top. What an interesting notion. I've never heard such a thing (at least on TV). Here's How:

It is fruitless to speculate about who dissolved the Iraqi army in May of 2003, and why. (This move contributed to the rise of the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement). Bush did it!

Who ordered the Marines, against their better judgement, to launch a reprisal attack on Fallujah after four Western private security guards were killed and their bodies desecrated there? Bush did it!.

Who authorized torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib? Bush did it!

Who appointed Michael Brown, a man with no experience in emergency management, head of FEMA? Bush did it!

Who let Bin Laden escape from Tora Bora? Bush did it!

Who completely destroyed the fiscal health of the US government and forced us into massive debt, squandering Clinton's surplus and endangering social security? Bush did it!

Bush is the president. He makes the decisions. If there has been a major bad decision, it has been his.

Who outed Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA operative? Bush did it!

Who'd have thunk it?

Death to the Fascist Pigs!

Paul Craig Roberts follows up with Yesterday's topic. He points out that Bush and Rice both seem to believe their own bullshit. Propaganda is most effective on those closest to its source. They are immersed in it. As he states:

No member of the White House staff wants to deliver news to Bush, because the news is bad. Bush demands sycophancy and equates bad news with disagreement and disloyalty.

Little wonder that Republican minority token Condi Rice was dispatched to Princeton last week to inform the university that democracy comes out of the barrel of a gun. US military force, said the secretary of state with a straight face, is required to force democracy down the throats of the Muslims in order to save future American generations from “insecurity and fear.”

Condi obviously doesn’t want Bush to put her in the “against us” camp. She told Princeton that she agreed with Bush “that the root cause of September 11 was the violent expression of a global extremist ideology, an ideology rooted in the oppression and despair of the modern Middle East.”

Every American should be scared to death that a secretary of state can make such an ignorant and propagandistic statement.

Of course, it's not the first time. One may only rise to such heights by being full of hot air. Rice just happens to have an ample supply.

He continues:

Condi Rice’s speech at Princeton has branded her as the greatest fool ever to be appointed Secretary of State. The same day that she declared, Mao-like, that democracy comes out of the barrel of a gun, Lt. Gen. William Odom, Director of the National Security Agency during President Reagan’s second term, a scholar with a distinguished career in military intelligence, declared Bush’s invasion of Iraq to be the “greatest strategic disaster in United States history.”

No one can impugn Gen. Odom’s patriotism. When I wrote on April 1, 2003, that “the U.S. invasion of Iraq is a strategic blunder,” the hate mail poured in from bloody-minded Bush supporters, who assured me that the war would be over in one week. Only a liberal pinko Bush-hating commie could fail to see that the war was won, they jeered.

Two and one-half years later with rising casualties and instability, no one can dispute Gen. Odom. As all news reports make clear, there is no trained Iraqi army. Consequently, says the US commander in Iraq, the hopes that some US troops could be withdrawn next spring is forlorn.

The vultures are coming to roost. The Stupid will pay. As Roberts concludes:

The Bush administration is the administration of deceit and hypocrisy. It is the antithesis of democracy. All democracy rests on persuasion, which implies disagreement. Yet, Bush and Condi regard dissent as disloyalty. They glorify coercion.

They believe in their will alone. Where have we seen that before?

Fortunately, history has means of dealing with fascists. Nothing else brings the world more together. Death to the Fascist Pigs!

Mark?

The Bush Administration is Falling Apart. (Via to herd or not to herd.) What will happen when its rotten edifice collapses? How many will be buried under the rubble? I suspect the economy may follow political collapse. Debt levels are too high. War and disaster are taking their toll. The American consumer saves nothing. Who will start the stampede? Who will capitalize? My bet is the Chinese government which certainly has enough dollars, even were the dollar to be devaluated, to buy up intellectual property for a song. I will take my check in Yuans. Do such arrows actually lead anywhere?

Stupid Is As Stupid Does

Paul Craig Roberts has this to say about US foreign policy:

By creating instability in the Middle East, the US undermines Israel's security. As a few thousand Iraqi insurgents have proven, American armies are not going to be able to sit over the oil in the Middle East. If we can't produce enough valuable goods or maintain a strong currency, we won't have access to the oil. There is no possibility whatsoever of the US pushing around powers like China, India, or Russia.

Bush's hubris makes him unrealistic. He greatly overestimates America's power. Congress and the American people must find a way to supply the judgment that is missing in the executive branch.

There would be no terrorism if the US would stop interfering in the internal affairs of Middle Eastern countries and if Israel stopped stealing the West Bank from the Palestinians. The Bush administration knows this, and that is why the administration spreads the propagandistic lie that "they" (Muslims) hate us and our way of life. This lie is the excuse for American aggression.

Stupid is as stupid does. You can count on this administration to do absolutely everything wrong. Of course, we don't see the Democrats capitalizing on it very well. Both parties are part of the same two-party system and support it. The Democratic party would not undermine itself. Accomplishment is the price of stagnation.