-- Goood Moooorning, Viet Nam!!! --

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Some things, of course, are more important than the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, including, my country ('tis of thee)... today, a serious non-IBWO-related post:

Yada, yada, yada... Behold, looking like a deer in headlights, Bush has spoken --- if you pay close attention you can sometimes discern exactly when he is lying to the populace ('Don Rumsfield will stay on the job 'til the end of this Administration') by watching and noting carefully those precise moments when... his lips are moving. The oil-addicted Pretender-and-Chief, waterboy for Dick Cheney, seeks 22,000 additional troops for civil-war-torn Iraq --- oooh, oooooh!, I'll bet those insurgents are just shaking in their boots, now. Not so much new strategy, as new travesty; 4 years later, more of the same. Maaaaaybe 75,000+ additional troops could do the job Bush claims he wants done. But this is another Viet Nam style blip; more young men and women treated like so much paper towel to be wadded up and flicked into the fire; fodder for an enemy more skilled in guerrilla warfare, IEDs, and rope-a-doping America, than we are skilled at conventional warfare. The President, long aloof to the strata of society these sons and daughters are primarily drawn from, has hitched himself tautly to his own blind ego; not so much the Great Decider as the Great Delusionist. We, and our troops, deserve better.

We entered this war, as you recall, with the illustrious strategy of "shock and awe" --- a bombastic sham that, yes, would have scared the s__t out of OUR populace and OUR troops, but was little more than a cruel joke and lightshow for Iraqis jaded to war, terrorism, and brutality... it cost the taxpayer a pretty penny, like every day since, but the only one 'shocked and awed' was our own Defense Dept. at the sheer resiliency of the Iraqis. With further cultural/historical naivete and bravado, the Administration announced victory after Baghdad's fall, speaking (dreaming???) all-the-while of American occupiers uniformly greeted with flowers, chocolates, and kisses --- more armchair misjudgments and simplemindedness from nattering Neo-conservative nabobs who ironically lacked military experience among themselves or their offspring (in private industry they simply would've been fired, but, no, in this flunkie Administration they were rewarded and profitted handsomely --- expect Rumsfeld to receive the Presidential Medal (bribe) of Honor any month now).

...Now this lame(duck)-excuse-for-a-leader, surmises the Iraq answer is hidden in more troops. Deja vu all over again... Which part of Nam does he not quite remember? So the President, propped up on TV, addresses the American public as the herd of bleating sheep that Karl Rove informs him they are (...well, at least 51% of them). Some would like to know when Bush's "deep," "sincere" desire for democracy/freedom in the Mideast will translate into toppling that dictatorial regime in Saudi Arabia? (Oh, I forgot, if you lick our toes, you get a free pass.) Oligarchy, corporacracy, and puppet/muppet democracies are the forms of governance Bush respects. And though he won't say it out loud, everyone, including the insurgents, knows THERE IS a timetable to this war --- the 2008 American electoral races --- even with tampered election machines and hidden slush funds Republicans know they will suffer substantial losses at the voting booths if major progress in Iraq (and troop withdrawal) isn't made by then. If Bush is alive and in office in 2008 watch Republican candidates flee from him in Keystone Cops fashion.

As noted by others, our country has never before been so disrespected and distrusted by so many around the globe, including former staunch allies. Even George W. Sr. finds it alarming. In retrospect, and by comparison, our place in the world, as left behind by Bill Clinton, was idyllic.
No doubt Dick Cheney, irate over the dismissal of Donald Rumsfeld, will be looking to consolidate his power and influence over the next 14 months; the Negrapointe re-assignment may be the first sign of this shuffle. Meanwhile, Colin Powell has stepped tepidly away from the role of 'good soldier' and toward the role of good citizen, by speaking out a bit on what he knows of this Administration's modus operandi. He needs to say more... much more. The country/democracy he loves (at least as it once was), needs to hear from him.

There is NO good ending to the Iraq mess. We are a nation adrift, led by a ship of fools with narrow, sheltered, wealth-beholden interests; possibly the most deceitful, disreputable, preachy, unintelligent, untrustworthy, un-Christian, self-absorbed, money-grubbing, knuckle-dragging group of snake-oil salesmen and muckety-mucks ever to usurp and manipulate the presidency. May Thor help us!... as we try to escape the downward spiral toward worsening scenarios that careen our way, scrambling for the least bad ending of solely bad options. In 1966, J. William Fulbright published "The Arrogance of Power," and 40 years later his thesis is as fresh as ever. All hail the powers that be..., or,

Send letters, emails, faxes, phone calls... prayers, to anyone of influence (politicians, journalists, diplomats, the military, religious leaders...) who might carry some weight in determining our policy forward in Iraq, to fight Mr. Alfred E. Neuman's ill-begotten mad plans, as he prepares to stretch our already-impaired military even thinner leaving us further vulnerable at home and abroad. Maybe Mr. Bush's Machiavellian handlers can be shocked and awed into some common sense, by an outpouring/uproar of public opinion. The RESTORATION of America's place in the world will be disturbingly, painfully, excruciatingly, slow and grudging, but let it start NOW, and let it start with WE THE PEOPLE speaking up.


(...ohhh, and if you happen to disagree with this post, well then, n-n-n-n-n-nevermind.)

.... some additional reading:

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0109-20.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0105-23.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0105-22.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0109-24.htm

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0106-31.htm
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