So what are we seeing, this day after the 2006 elections?

First there’s Rumsfeld’s resignation — which honestly shouldn’t have been a surprise to anyone… when you have people calling from within the military for it, that stings more than any partisan attack.

But what do we see next? Oh-ho! Have we, dare I say, forgotten Poland? Lest we have, the newest news from our most-referenced ally of the 2004 election is that they’re saying they were misled into joining the war?

Warsaw decided to take part in the war with Iraq on grounds of untrue information which it received from the US administration – former President of Poland Aleksander Kwasniewski has told a German daily.

The resistance, those hiding, those biting their tongues for so long are now coming out of the woodwork. That Kwasniewski’s statement comes so soon on the tail end of the US elections I don’t think is a coincidence, and I think we’ll see a lot more, both from within the confines of American walls and outside.

Mr President, your arrogance in national and international affairs has been supported by deception, unsurpassed unitarianism and outright hot air. But this most recent news is just another whiff of the stagnant stench this administration has been trying to bottle up for six years now. I don’t think it will be the last, however… and perhaps your biggest problem is that you’ll no longer be able to sell it.

If anyone can find an English-translated copy of the German article above, that would be great.

A few of my less-malignant thoughts.

* Mr President, you’ve not only exhausted your political capital, you’ve maxed out your credit line and are a bit delinquent on payments.

* One of the talking heads on TV last night pondered how the next two years would pass for the GOP and the President. I hope they pass about as well as a kidney stone.

* I’d bet even money that Santorum ends up with a teaching job or some sort of lecture post at Patrick Henry College… it’s pretty damned close to his Virginia home.

When you’re the current administration, perhaps you can take a few of the punches as the tide turns on you over the years. You were able to take Pat Buchanan’s American Conservative lambasting you, around the time of the elections, for your “free speech zones”, and you were able to shrug off the criticism of Pat Toomey and the gang at Club for Growth for the reckless “conservative” spending. More recently, perhaps you could stomach the words of Richard Viguerie, only one of the founding masterminds of the modern Republican party, who called you on your betrayal of the Republican party.

But now, the traditional bastion of libertarianism, the Cato Institute, calls you on your (un)Constitutional arrogance?

Ouch. Just ouch.

Washington Times: Rumsfeld makes surprise visit to Iraq

Has anyone else asked the question, “how can these things be surprises anymore?” I’ve been wondering this for weeks, now…it seems not a week goes by and if it’s not Dubya, it’s Condi or it’s Rumsfeld, someone is always on their way over there to make a “surprise visit”.

How many “surprise” visits does it take before they turn “mundane”? How come these haven’t been called “routine” visits to Iraq? They occur often enough.

I want to know the real purpose… andI don’t mean that in a particularly conspiratorial sense. Let’s look at the options.

If it’s to pep-talk the troops, then they’re bound to have already run into the law of diminishing returns. If this administration is dropping the phrase “war on terror” due to the notion that most Americans, now war-weary, think the war was a mistake, I can only imagine that a quick BJ from BushCo. wouldn’t have that much of an effect for those on the front lines.

On the other hand, in the first article linked, it’s mentioned that Rumsfeld met with the Iraqi Prime Minister. For a meeting like that, one would think you’d call ahead for tea time, you know? You don’t just “drop in” to hang out with the local officials.

In my mind, it’s pretty evident the WH is fairly upset at the prospect that, after everything has been said and done, Iraq is looking more and more like it’s going to be another Islamic theocracy. Rumsfeld is over there to have a friendly little “WTF” talk with the PM. Smile, wave to the camera! Surprise! Look who daddy brought home!

Listen here, buddy, we expected a little more from you all than this.

Not that I think it will do much good… the war is going worse than everyone thought it would, and the task of “nation building” is going worse than everyone expected too. In fact, the only thing over there in a better state than initially expected is the status of WMDs. Sure aren’t any of those, buster!

Oh, wait. The WH knew that well in advance, too.

I keep focusing on these quotes from today’s address.

“Some may disagree with my decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power, but all of us can agree that the world’s terrorists have now made Iraq a central front in the war on terror,” he said.

No, Mr. President,

You made Iraq a central front on the ‘war on terror’.
You implied the links between Hussein, WMD and terror networks.
You falsified information and went against many well-respected people in Washington who told you it was a bad idea.
You took out the leader of an authoritarian-yet-sovereign nation, allowing the predicted power vaccuum to come to life.
You fulfilled, in their eyes, the prophecies of an American imperialism in the Middle East.
You threw the rocks at the proverbial hornets nest and got the swarm’s temper enflamed.

…and now the world’s terrorists are the ones who turned Iraq into a hotbed for terrorism.

Oh, well. yeah – maybe you’re right.

“This mission isn’t easy, and it will not be accomplished overnight.”

Does that mean you’ll be giving back the flightsuit, then?

So Gary, a US citizen living in Poland, over at matching tracksuits notes that he, like most people living outside the US, cannot access Chimpy McFlightsuit’s website. He muses,

There is just no logical reason for this blockage. If Bush’s team can’t “defend” his web site, what makes people think Bush and his gang can defend the country? Setting up a firewall is a lot easier than keeping out terrorists, I would imagine.

It was Darshu on #dailykos, however, who got the best quip of the day:
“are you saying that georgewbush.com forgot poland?”

http://youforgotpoland.com

Peace be unto their families.

But we’re making progress, right?

The QuadCity Times has an op-ed piece titled “What have they done with John McCain?“. Though not the strongest piece I have ever read, they are the first that I have seen, to ask the same question I have been wondering: Why is McCain beginning — or indeed, it seems, why has he begun — to stump for Bush?

It makes us heartsick to see Sen. McCain stand alongside the man whose supporters launched a racist smear campaign against him during the 2000 primaries. Bush supporters used push polling in South Carolina to insinuate McCain’s legally adopted African daughter was the illegitimate product of an affair.

I have always had a modicum of respect, if not more, for John McCain, whose statements regarding cleaning up the government paint at least a moderate veneer of statesmanship of which many of our public servants should at least pay lip service.

Instead…

* For reaching across the table, McCain is likened a “maverick”; he is, by some, considered something of a liability to the GOP.
* In 2000, as he is doing quite well, marked as a somewhat moderate and certainly more populist Republican candidate, he is smeared by Rove & Co. with the “illegitimate black child” poll.

McCain has been treated like pond scum by the neocons for some time now, for his attempts to at least try and maintain some sort of dignity for his party. He has continually been dragged through the mud and is, indeed, a poster boy for what happens when one bites the hands that feeds him.

This said, I am absolutely stymied at the reports coming out that the CRKB (Campaign to Re-elect King Bush) is ready to offer McCain a major role in Bush’s reelection efforts and of course, I would be galled to see McCain accept it.

No, I am not “mad” or “upset” at McCain refusing to “cross the picket line”, as it were, like Jeffords. The fact that he didn’t accept Kerry’s veep offer doesn’t surprise me, esp. when one considers that his vacated post would likely be filled by a Democrat. In this light, I can understand McCain not wanting to punch his party in the gut twice. Furthermore, I don’t know that I’d ever have expected him to accept it anyway, precisely because McCain is a politician who stands by what his party believes — or at least, used to believe — in.

It is for that last reason, however, that it would be terrible, terrible thing to see him stumping in a hardcore way for the Chimp.

I do find it interesting, however, that today Bush has apparently called for the attack ads to stop. My hunch isn’t going to go so far as others as to suspect that Bush will pull a last-minute switcheroo, but I can’t help but wonder if, in order to court McCain’s assistance, Bush will make some concessions.

…Not that this will help in the long run, be it him during his loss — or us, following his win.

CNN/AP: “Bush shrugs off a crash”

Bush offered a glimpse of his new pastime to an Associated Press reporter Monday, roaming the dirt roads and far-flung pastures of his 1,600-acre ranch. About halfway through, he sailed over the handlebars during a dangerous descent, but dusted himself off, picked up his $3,100 bicycle and kept riding.

For three grand, you’d think that bike would have gyro-stabilisers or something.

Maybe for an extra $15 or so, though, perhaps this minor addition would help

FrontPage magazine: The Saddam-9/11 Link Confirmed

Yep, she’s at it again, trying to lead on the American public, suggesting that Hussein had a role in the 9/11 attacks — and yet has little to show for it, in this article. Per the article,

Evidence is “something that indicates,” according to Webster’s. Proof is “conclusive demonstration.” The report of a well-regarded allied intelligence service that a 9/11 hijacker appeared to have met with an Iraqi intelligence agent a few months before the attacks is certainly evidence of an Iraqi connection.

She decides to quote Webster to define “evidence” and “proof” — and yet, when you read her article, the supposed meeting between al-Ani and Atta is, in no uncertain terms, a mesh of hearsay and circumstantial evidence. No need to quote them all here, go read the article for yourself.

Really, though, the bulk of this article looks more self-defensive in nature, and personally I am not surprised to see it, ever since Clarke’s book was published, and she was mentioned in it; indeed, she mentions Clarke in this article.

Former White House counter-terrorism czar Richard Clarke is a prime example of this phenomenon. Immediately after the 9/11 attacks, when President Bush asked him to look into the possibility of Iraq’s involvement, Clarke was “incredulous” (his word), treating the idea as if it were one of the most ridiculous things he had ever heard. On September 18, when Deputy National Security Adviser Steven Hadley asked him to take another look for evidence of Iraqi involvement, Clarke responded in a similar fashion.

Having been readily debunked, she resorts to personl attacks. However, again she makes arguments, in this case ad hominem attacks against Clarke, with no supporting evidence, simply making a blanket statement that Clarke “adamant refusal to even consider the possibility of an Iraqi role”, and makes some absurd, conspiratorial accusations that some shadowy “elite” refused to even consider an Iraq connection — and again, cites unnamed confidential documents.

Iraq was indeed involved in those assaults. There is considerable information to that effect, described in this piece and elsewhere. They include Iraqi documents discovered by U.S. forces in Baghdad that U.S. officials have not made public.

Seriously does anyone take this woman seriously anymore? Did they ever? For an author and scholar apparently so “well-respected”, I’ve never seen a more poorly structured article. If I were an editor, I’d refuse this on the spot — not because of the subject manner, but because it is so incoherent and poorly constructed.

There’s enough of an unseasonably warm front over Washington right now. We don’t need any more hot air, Ms. Mylroie.

Initially, the administration said an invasion was necessary to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction that Iraq possessed and was prepared to use. With none uncovered, the White House now says the war, in which more than 500 U.S. troops and thousands of Iraqis have died, was justified by Saddam’s alleged intent to build and use such weaponry.

“We are looking for weapons, we’re looking for production equipment, we’re looking for the decisions by the regime to sustain a capability … but we have not found existing stocks of weapons as some had expected,” Duelfer said.

Duelfer, appointed by the CIA in January, guides the on-the-ground hunt by the Defense Department’s Iraq Survey Group of about 1,300 personnel. He said they regularly receive reports of hidden weapons which are then checked out, “but we haven’t found any at this point in time.”

It’s been said from the beginning that the US was making Saddam prove a negative, prove that there were no WMDs… and now they’ve all but admitted there are none, so they’re now backpedalling and using the term ‘intent’.

Ergo, the criteria for initiating war was not met, and did not exist.
Ergo, Bush’s war cannot be considered bellum justum

This war was never a “zero-sum game”. It came at the expense of the Iraqi people and lives of American soldiers, and will have repercussions for decades.

“While this commandeering of a narrow segment of both intelligence production and American foreign policy matched closely with the well-published desires of the neoconservative wing of the Republican Party, many of us in the Pentagon, conservatives and liberals alike, felt that this agenda, whatever its flaws or merits, had never been openly presented to the American people. Instead, the public story line was a fear-peddling and confusing set of messages, designed to take Congress and the country into a war of executive choice, a war based on false pretenses, and a war one year later Americans do not really understand. That is why I have gone public with my account.”

Click for large version

Hey Dubya -

This war is your baby. So maybe it should come out of your pocket, at this point.

I’d almost recommend taking it out of your re-election campaign funds, except I’m still keeping up hope thinking there are some Republicans out there who don’t support the Iraq invasion. In that case, it wouldn’t be so polite to spend their money, either.

-Corey.

Another publication, The Washington Post, has published an article similar to the previously mentioned New Republic editorial.

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From The New Republic:

Why does so much of the world think the Bush administration has hidden, nefarious motives for its war in Iraq…The responsibility for these misguided, toxic analyses lies mostly with other societies and other governments. But there’s a third reason for the world’s radical distrust of America’s war effort, and, for this, the Bush administration has only itself to blame: It keeps saying things about Iraq that turn out not to be true.

Of course, quoting and linking this article will cause some parties to immediately cast The New Republic aside as a liberal rag, when, in fact, it’s pretty centrist. In fact, it might be argued that, historically, it has been fairly conservative with regards to foreign policy. Regardless – for people who make such rash assumptions, I need not trifle with trying to change minds.

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Per request…for spampy – an image for the movie Gulf Fiction, slated to come out this winter.

[I came up with this last night. Apologies to Quentin Tarantino]

SCENE: DUBYA and COLIN POWELL DRIVING DOWN THE STREET

“…you know what they call a B2 Bomber in Iraq?”
“They don’t call it a B2 Bomber?”
“Naw, man, they don’t use the Roman alphabet, they wouldn’t know what the fuck a ‘B’ or a ’2′ is”
“What do they call it?”

“Ji-had buster.”
“ji-had buster! What do they call a Tomahawk missile?”
“Tomahawk’s a Tomahawk, but they call it an ‘Imperialist Tomahawk’”
“What do they call a Patriot missile?”
“I dunno, I didn’t go to Israel.”