Okay, So He Really Was Crazy

Or, like so many before him, driven mad by prophecy. The Guardian is reporting that when GW Bush was trying to sell the invasion of Iraq to the French, the Shrub was doing it by using screwy biblical prophecy: Gog and Magog. To quote Andrew Brown:
In the winter of 2003, when George Bush and Tony Blair were frantically gathering support for their planned invasion, Professor Thomas Römer, an Old Testament expert at the university of Lausanne, was rung up by the Protestant Federation of France. They asked him to supply them with a summary of the legends surrounding Gog and Magog and as the conversation progressed, he realised that this had originally come, from the highest reaches of the French government.
President Jacques Chirac wanted to know what the hell President Bush had been on about in their last conversation. Bush had then said that when he looked at the Middle East, he saw "Gog and Magog at work" and the biblical prophecies unfolding. But who the hell were Gog and Magog? Neither Chirac nor his office had any idea. But they knew Bush was an evangelical Christian, so they asked the French Federation of Protestants, who in turn asked Professor Römer.
He explained that Gog and Magog were, to use theological jargon, crazy talk. They appear twice in the Old Testament, once as a name, and once in a truly strange prophecy in the book of Ezekiel[.]

And, of course, the story just gets stranger--as is typical when talking about the Bush II Whitehouse.

War Crimes

It seems almost minor compared to the news on global warming and climate change, but The Guardian reports:

Military commanders are expected to tell the inquiry into the Iraq war, which opens on Tuesday, that the invasion was ill-conceived and that preparations were sabotaged by Tony Blair's government's attempts to mislead the public.

They were so shocked by the lack of preparation for the aftermath of the invasion that they believe members of the British and US governments at the time could be prosecuted for war crimes by breaching the duty outlined in the Geneva convention to safeguard civilians in a conflict, the Guardian has been told.

The article is worth reading. I'd support prosecution, but hey, that's me.

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Human Smoke

Not the brilliant and horrifying book by Nicholson Baker, but the bodies stacked up in the streets of Iraq. According to a new study by ORB, a British research group, the violent death toll now stands at ~1.2 million dead. This is in line with the previous study by John Hopkins published in The Lancet. American soldiers are going through bullets so fast that the manufacturers can't keep up (seriously. you can check out the PDF report here).
The number of violently dead now puts Iraq in a class with Rwanda and is approaching the Cambodian killing fields.
But ask Americans how many dead there are and the numbers are so low as to defy belief. An AP poll showed the median estimate of Iraqi deaths was 9,890. The official number is ~54,000. Best epidemiological estimate is 1.2 million with ~56% of that due to American violence.

Unprecendented

Despite Fox’s whining about ABC’s upcoming special on health care reform which will include a town hall conducted in the White House, it turns out that when George W. Bush was President, Fox did exactly what they are accusing ABC of.

The Wrong Man

I remember being woken up by a frantic phone call.
Planes. New York. Buildings. War.
It didn't make a lot of sense, frankly. I had no frame of reference for what I was being told. I switched on my TV just in time to see the first tower fall.
Mouth agape, comprehension still elusive.
Eventually I arrived at work, and found co-workers huddled around computers streaming radio broadcasts.
"They have no idea what they just woke up," I said.
Turns out, none of us did.

The Presidency of George W. Bush is irrevocably tied to 9/11. At first he spoke with restraint and clarity in response to the attacks, but that only lasted about 24 hours. Then it became apparent that I what feared was actually being contemplated: Pax Americana -- American forces tearing a swath across the globe, making the world "safe."
The irony is that this is exactly the plan that Bush's neo-con advisers had wanted him to follow anyway, even without a 9/11-type tipping point, and this is exactly what bin Laden expected him to do.
Bush believed that he was a man destined to live out a defining moment of greatness, and he threw himself down this ruinous path chasing that moment.
But Bush was never great. Not at anything, except having a famous last name and falling in with people who were willing to exploit it. His moment of destiny was the moment that he became President, thus proving the old adage that anyone could become President, even a party-hopping ex-frat boy drug user who had failed at almost everything he tried.
The wrong place, the wrong time. The wrong man.

Pax Americana didn't succeed, mostly because the Neo-Cons, drunk on hubris and their own press clipping, believed they knew better than anyone else. I guess when your invasion of a foreign country is based on lies, soon you actually start believing them. They forgot that the mission was to get bin Laden.
In WW II, it took 2068 days for the Allies to get Hitler. Now after 2688 days, Bush is gone but bin Laden is still out there. A free man.

Those who like Bush perceive him as a strong leader. But he wasn't. He was so weak that he bought into every stupid and destructive idea his clique of Neanderthal advisers whispered into his empty head.
Perhaps his rigidity was mistaken for strength. But sticking to your plan no matter how far reality diverges from your hoped-for reality isn't strength, it's inflexibility. In Bush's case, it was a disastrous liability.
Bush didn't even come through for his constituent base, the people who actually like him and think he's done a good job. He failed the neo-cons, he failed the religious right. He failed everyone.

We all know that this is the century that the American Empire finally falters. Bush pushed that time frame up by at least a generation or two. He praised free market capitalism, but was forced to to use the tools of socialism to save the business elite. He denied there was a need for fuel conservation, and now there's no oil. He denied the need for financial regulation and now there's no economy. He denied that climate change existed, and now there's no time.

So, George, what are you going to do now? Start a new oil company and run that one into the ground too?
Or perhaps you'll be dealing with the creation of your "Presidential" Library. That should be an easy job -- you only read one book of any consequence while you were "President": My Pet Goat.
So long, Bush. And good fucking riddance, too.

Fool:
1: a person lacking in judgment or prudence
2 a: a retainer formerly kept in great households to provide casual entertainment and commonly dressed in motley with cap, bells, and bauble b: one who is victimized or made to appear foolish : dupe
3 a: a harmlessly deranged person or one lacking in common powers of understanding b: one with a marked propensity or fondness for something (a dancing fool) (a fool for candy)
4: a cold dessert of pureed fruit mixed with whipped cream or custard

That Didn't Take Long, Did It?

Available at Amazon...

Worst. President. Ever.

CNN and Opinion research Corporation released a survey Monday that shows that outgoing US President George W. Bush has now reached unprecedented levels of unpopularity--he is now more unpopular than Richard Nixon was when he resigned. Bush's disapproval rating has now gone over 70% three times this year--no other president has ever gone over 70%. Nixon was resigning from office in disgrace and was still more popular than the shrub. Heckuva job, Georgie.

Presidential Popularity

	% Disapproval	Date
G.W. Bush	76	Nov. 2008
Clinton	54	Sept. 1994
G.H.W. Bush	60	July 1992
Reagan	56	Jan. 1983
Carter	59	June 1979
Ford	46	April, Nov., Dec. 1975
Nixon	66	August 1974
Johnson	52	March, Aug. 1968
Kennedy	30	Nov. 1963
Eisenhower	36	March 1958
Truman	67	Jan. 1952

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Is the Republican Fix Already In...?

CNN is reporting that irregularities are already showing up in advance polling for Tuesday's US election. Mistakes by voting machines have already been reported in three states.

"You can be almost certain that there will be irregularities in some places around the country," said Rep. Rush Holt, D-New Jersey. "The problem now is that roughly a third of voters nationwide will use unverifiable electronic machines. So if there are uncertainties, there will be no way to resolve them."

CNN futher reports that:

For this presidential election, 55 percent of American voters are casting ballots via optical-scan systems, up from 49 percent two years ago. One-third of Americans are voting by electronic touch screen. The state of New York still votes largely by mechanical lever machines -- those curtained relics from the 1960s -- while several small counties in Maine and Vermont still use old-fashioned paper ballots, counted by hand.
Some observers believe this patchwork quilt of electronic, mechanical and paper balloting from state to state -- even county to county -- makes it more difficult to regulate voting systems. According to a joint report released this month by three nonprofit democracy groups, including Common Cause, 22 states use electronic voting machines that produce no voter-verifiable paper record.

You'd think that after the huge voting frauds in 2000 and 2004 that the United States, the so-called "Leader of the Free World," would adopt the easist and safest method to insure against voting fraud: the paper ballot. And an X. It isn't that difficult.

Oliver North Rides Again

An American raid on the Afghan village of Nawabad on August killed only 7 civilians, according to the US Army. However, both Afghan and UN officials say that 92 civilians were killed, including 60 children, making it one the biggest losses of civilian life in the war.
The US military continued to insist until September 7 that only seven civilians had been killed. They reconsidered their count when the video came out.
Why was the US count so low? According to the TimesOnline:

The US military said that its findings were corroborated by an independent journalist embedded with the US force. He was named as the Fox News correspondent Oliver North, who came to prominence in the 1980s Iran-Contra affair, when he was an army colonel.

Yes, Oliver North. Yes, that Oliver North.

McCaim Picks Aardvark as Running Mate

Once again, CNN shows its class with this headline. They trumpeted the news that Presidential candiadte John McCain had chosen Alaska Govermor Sarah Palin as his running mate with the a headline that read, "McCain picks Woman as Running Mate."
If McCain had picked, say, Mitt Romney as his running mate, would the CNN headline have been "McCain picks Man as Running Mate"?
Nice, CNN.

You Gotta Love Keith Olbermann....

Energy Crisis? What Energy Crisis?

Here's an interesting fact:
Each day, the US Air Force hauls 3.7 million pounds of fuel above Iraq and Afghanistan daily to refuel aircraft in flight.

Mirror, Mirror....

According to this CNN report, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is quoted as saying, "In any country, if you don't have countervailing institutions, the power of any one president is problematic for democratic development."
She added, "I think there is too much concentration of power in the Kremlin. I have told the Russians that. Everybody has doubts about the full independence of the judiciary. There are clearly questions about the independence of the electronic media and there are, I think, questions about the strength of the Duma (the Russian parliament)."
Has she looked in a mirror lately?

Cheney v. The Daily Show

As mentioned at In These Times...

"Cheney’s long overdue need for ridicule is why we should be grateful that so many young people get their news from The Daily Show. Cheney’s office made the preposterous assertion that he didn’t have to comply with the Executive Order mandating the annual reports to the National Archives because he wasn’t part of the executive branch. Unfortunately for a dignified correspondent like ABC’s Martha Raddatz, the constraints of her job confined her to reporting, with a straight face, that Cheney has used “the opposite argument in the past, citing executive privilege when asked for information about his travel and visitors to his office.”
Jon Stewart, under no such proscriptions, can provide the level of disbelief that matches the outrageousness of this latest Cheney gambit. What The Daily Show consistently does best is juxtapose video of administration officials making their bogus pronouncements with video clips from the past, showing them saying the exact opposite. So Stewart showed Cheney on tape emphatically asserting executive privilege because he’s in the, er, executive branch. Stewart then looked into the camera to tell Americans that Cheney has always meant “to come up to us personally and say ‘go fuck ourselves.’ “"

Surprise! The White House Backs Wolfowitz

According to CNN, "the White House came to the defense of the embattled World Bank president Tuesday, saying his behavior did not amount to 'a firing offense.'"
This shouldn't come as a surprise. Look at the source -- nothing that goes on in the White House amounts to a firing offense!

Majority of Iraqi Lawmakers Reject the Occupation

According to Alternet.org...

...[o]n Tuesday, without note in the U.S. media, more than half of the members of Iraq's parliament rejected the continuing occupation of their country. 144 lawmakers signed onto a legislative petition calling on the United States to set a timetable for withdrawal, according to Nassar Al-Rubaie, a spokesman for the Al Sadr movement, the nationalist Shia group that sponsored the petition.
It's a hugely significant development. Lawmakers demanding an end to the occupation now have the upper hand in the Iraqi legislature for the first time; previous attempts at a similar resolution fell just short of the 138 votes needed to pass (there are 275 members of the Iraqi parliament, but many have fled the country's civil conflict, and at times it's been difficult to arrive at a quorum).
Reached by phone in Baghdad on Tuesday, Al-Rubaie said that he would present the petition, which is nonbinding, to the speaker of the Iraqi parliament and demand that a binding measure be put to a vote. Under Iraqi law, the speaker must present a resolution that's called for by a majority of lawmakers, but there are significant loopholes and what will happen next is unclear.

Will the US ever leave Iraq?
Scarecrow doesn't think so.

"All this reminds us there is something seriously wrong with the Bush/Cheney logic and their strategic assessment. All that rhetoric about “them” “following us home” — what Richard Clarke calls the White House’s “puppy dog theory” — sounds pretty ludicrous, because it’s exactly backwards. Instead of worrying about al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia following us home, American policy should stop breeding wannabe terrorists here by what we’re doing there. We should worry that this Administration has an incoherent, and dangerously delusional understanding of the threat to America that bears no relationship to reality. And that’s the real danger to the country."

According to Think Progress, Condi thinks the US is staying.

In an interview last night on the Charlie Rose Show, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pointedly said, “[O]ur friends in the [Middle East] need to know and the Iraqis need to know that we are not looking to leave Iraq.” “Ever?” Rose asked. Rice responded, “We are not going to leave an Iraq that is not capable of defending itself and with a foundation for future reconciliation.”
Rose then asked Rice if she believed she’ll have the support of the American people to continue the war. Rice claimed the American people are looking for “progress.” Rose replied, “But nobody can answer the question: If it doesn’t happen, what?” Avoiding discussion of a Plan B, Rice answered, “Charlie, because as the President said to you, we’re focused on having it happen.”
In the interview, Rose also noted that Rice once worked for President George H.W. Bush, who was “famous for insisting there be an exit strategy. [But] no one seems to know what’s the exit strategy [now],” he said. Rice responded that Iraq is “a long-term proposition.”

Richard Clarke is not optimistic, either.

"For as long as I'm alive, there will be Iraqis who hate us," Clarke told about 300 people gathered in the Gaiser Hall Student Center.
In the "battle of ideas" crucial to U.S. success in the Middle East, "We're not only losing, we've never really started," he said.
In fact, al-Qaida terror cells have multiplied much faster since the 9/11 terror attacks and subsequent American offensive in Afghanistan, Clarke said. The United States let al-Qaida "off the ropes" to invade Iraq, he said.
That was one of many failures Clarke listed as he recounted steps before and after the Iraq invasion that have left many Americans numbed and millions of Muslims seething, he said.
"The question is, how quickly can we undo that mistake?" he asked.

There Is No Exit Plan...

...because the Bushies don't plan to ever leave.

"The United States maintains 737 military bases in 130 countries across the globe. They exist for the purpose of defending the economic interests of the United States, what is euphemistically called "national security." In order to secure favorable access to Iraq's vast reserves of light crude, the United States is spending billions on the construction of at least five large permanent military bases throughout that country.
A new Iraq oil law, largely written by the Coalition Provisional Authority, is planned for ratification by June. This law cedes control of Iraq's oil to western powers for 30 years. There is major opposition to the proposed law within Iraq, especially among the country's five trade union federations that represent hundreds of thousands of oil workers. The United States is working hard to surmount this opposition by appealing directly to the al-Maliki government in Iraq."

Colbert is The Man

Rice to Visit China

....via the Onion News Network....