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SPECIAL REPORT: How Iraq is Being
Destroyed
"A
weak Iraq suits many." Three years after the US attack,
Iraq is breaking apart. Eyewitness report from Patrick Cockburn
in Irbil. One of the great
left journalists of his time, he was on the front lines in Korea
and Vietnam. Chris Reed on Wilfred Burchett, the man who made
Murdoch foam at the mouth.Katrina
washes whitest. Bill Quigley in New Orleans reports tales of
lunacy and hope. CounterPunch
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"All stories are written
backwards -- they are supposed to begin with the facts and develop
from there, but in reality they begin with a journalist's point
of view, a conception, and it is this point of view from which
the facts are subsequently organized. Journalistically speaking,
'in the beginning is the word.'"
Claud Cockburn,
born Pekin, April 12, 1904. Died Cork City, December 15, 1981.
"If the rest of the world
adhered to the 'Bush Doctrine,' they'd all attack us immediately."
--Steve Spahr
Steve's and my buddy Simon Scott views
civilization as a Darwinian dance between the Lizard Brains (LBs)
and common mammalian knuckleheads who view the world from higher
up the brain stem. The LBs, while some are not at all without
capacities for high reasoning (think G. Gordon Liddy, Rudy Giuliani);
when it really matters, all react from the fight, flight and
greed synapses. The LBs think that, when cornered, the best option
is always to strike --- witness the latest saber-rattling about
Iran.
Of course, we see Bush as Top
Lizard Brain. The Leaker-in-Chief can barely speak without notes
(often, even with them), unless in some sort of bullying snit
or that other smug "we can do and take anything we want;
we're the superpower and we're in charge; I've got political
capital" awfulness. Whenever the home team is on a losing
streak, the manager starts to get incoming from the fans and
the always slow-to-awaken, if not complicit rah, rah hometown
booster media (think Portland Trailblazers). Of course, even
as a Giant Lizard goes down, a lot of damage can be done by the
thrashing tail before it's forever silenced.
The usual outcome is Berlin
in ruins. But, here in America we have other options; unused
recently. But, the rust remover has been rediscovered of late.
That's why this week has been so entertaining and, dare I say,
hopeful.
Those "Liberal"
Media Polls
Bush is reeling and having
to actually face bracing questions from the media. A wide range
of the latest polls show an average Bush disapproval/approval
of 37.7% to 57.4%. Various on-line Impeachment polls are lopsided
in favor. A recent MSNBC poll with over a quarter million votes
is running 86% in favor of Impeachment.
It's refreshing to see Bush
and company squirm as they deal with it all. Take the Plame leak.
Do they really believe that anyone will fall for the "it
wasn't really Classified, cuz the prez can override that at will"
defense? After all this time of stonewalling? That's the best
they can come up with? Do they think no one remembers Bush's
indignant press conference of October 6, 2003? He boldly broke
off, "And if this helps stop leaks, this investigation in
finding the truth, it'll not only hold someone to account who
should not have leaked --- and this is a serious charge, by the
way.We're talking about a criminal action. But also hopefully
we'll help send a clear signal we expect other leaks to stop
as well."
Now it's not a criminal action because Bush himself
"authorized" it? As a means of getting back at a political
critic who told the truth about the same Iraq/Niger uranium claim
that Bush lied about? A falsehood used to justify an illegal
war. Wow! Bush has some 'splainin' to do. Guess it's up to the
usual compliant Senate to hold some show hearings and then make
it all go away.
Trailer
Trash
Then there's matter of the
Washington Post report that Bush knew that the two trailers found
in Iraq had already been found by a select Pentagon Defense Intelligence
Agency (DIA) team to have nothing to do with any biological WMD
program. Despite the team's unanimous report, which the White
House had in hand for two days prior, Bush rabidly declared on
May 29, 2003, "We have found the weapons of mass destruction"
--- a charge the administration kept up for an additional year
despite the report. Another lie used to justify the war.
Amazingly, administration spokesman
Scott McClellan's response when queried about the report was
to shoot the messenger. In yet another misfire that's sure to
boomerang, much like the revelation of massive illegal surveillance
served as a media, if not political opposition wake up call;
McClellan channeled Ron Ziegler, "You know, I saw some reporting
talking about how this latest revelation - which is not something
that is new; this is all old information that's being rehashed
- was an embarrassment for the White House. No,it's an
embarrassment for the media that is out there reporting this.
.I hope they will go and publicly
apologize on the air about the statements that were made, because
I think it is important given that they had made those statements
in front of all their viewers. So we look forward to that happening
as well."
Déjà
vu Iran
And, then there's Iran. The
very same untruths all over again and even more oil/gas at stake?
At least we're spared the "exporting
of Democracy" nonsense this time around now since an actual
democratic plebiscite here would easily come out against military
action. And obviously some large segment of the military has
no stomach for any such Iran escapade. The Seymour Hersh tale
of the deranged set of plans to take out Iran's nuclear facilities
with "bunker-busting mini-nukes" can only be seen as
a strong no-way statement out of the Brass . Of course, the
Pentagon undoubtedly has contingency plans for invading from
the Maldives to Malta, but such a leak has to be seen as "official."
And, Bush has had to really
squirm over this insanity. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
quickly upped the ante and announced that Iran had "joined
the nuclear club." (Only for electrical generation purposes,
wink, wink.) A bluff? Maybe. After all, Ahmadinejad may very
well be "not a rational human being," as Karl Rove
projected; but he can surely see what happened to Iraq and what
did NOT happen to North Korea...(a Lesser Evil Axis?)
Bush has had to actually field
questions about the attack plan. And, the smirk darkens every
time he has to resort to dismissing his mini-nuke wet dream as
"wild speculation." But as Gary Leupp noted last year
on CounterPunch, of course the
plan is for real. The lizards are cornered. Already we see shrill
headlines like this one, "Iran Could Produce Nuclear Bomb
in 16 Days, U.S. Says" Never mind that Iran would need 50,000
centrifuges to produce enough enriched uranium. The fine print:
it would take 13 years using the 164 centrifuges they currently
possess.
Of course, Bush makes no mention
of Iran's planned oil bourse, which would use Euros instead of
petrodollars as its medium of exchange --- a much more immediate
threat than those 164 centrifuges. For the Bushites, the petroEuro
heresy must be quashed like the Gnostics of old. (The line "Kill
them all, God will know his own" dates to the bloody repression
of that earlier Middle Eastern heresy.)
Things aren't going well for
some of the other top LBs, either. Robert Sheer reports that
"On Monday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told
me that he and his department's top experts never believed that
Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but that the President
followed the misleading advice of Vice President Dick Cheney
and the CIA in making the claim."
Not quite what Powell told
the UN.
And Cheney? Last we heard,
he came out of his bunker and was roundly booed at the Washington
Nationals home opener, where Dead-eye bounced up the ceremonial
first pitch. The Washington Post noted that he "drew boisterous
boos from the moment he stepped on the field until he jogged
off."
The "I"
Word. Are We There Yet?
Does all this mean we can expect
mini-nukes or relief or regime change at home? That the Iran
plans will indeed be scuttled like Social Security "Reform"?
Or will the LBs panic and blunder on with their destructive course?
Will the woeful Democrats who have done little on their own to
expose all these Bush crimes and missteps (in fact, facilitated
each and every one) actually find themselves in control of the
House and/or Senate come January? Will they have any idea what
to do if that does occur?
Or will it all come down to
a Democratic Senate holding those impotent show hearings and
applying the cover-up? As Steve Spahr also notes about the surveillance,
which actually pre-dates Bush, "They've got something on
everyone. That's the only explanation why there's no opposition.
Well, thatand money, ambition, lack of ethics"
No matter how bad it appears
now, it may only take one more "new Pearl Harbor,"
and a freshly acquiescent press to bail them out. They're counting
on it. Ahmadinejad certainly knows that and is recklessly playing
chicken. But, I'm betting that "fool me once, shame on you;
fool me twice, shame on me" bromide that Bush famously botched
in Fahrenheit 911 will kick in. The average American,
asked to swallow the same pack of lies again, may just answer
like a disbelieving Samuel L. Jackson in Jackie Brown,
"My ass may be dumb. But, I'm no dumb ass."
But ultimately, as the arch-lizard
Karl Rove ironically noted about Iran, "It's going to be
difficult. It's going to be tough because they are led by ideologues
who have a weird sense of history."
MICHAEL DONNELLY still believes that Cheney will resign
(for "health reasons") before the year is out and Bush
will be gone soon after. He can be reached at pahtoo@aol.com
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