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ndebord
November 19th, 2005, 12:38 PM
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/11/09/italy/index.html?sid=1411822

I was reading Salon today and saw that the niger yellowcake story still has legs and for some odd reason, an old street jingle started playing in my head:

"You wonder where the yellow went, when you brush your teeth with green cement!"

It made me reflect that this Bush Administration acts more like a Mafia crew than a political party. Enemies are routinely given cement overshoes (metaphorically speaking) and the crap is piling up to the rooftops. I read today that Haliburton, when they suspended Bacon, hired illegal immigrants from Central America to clean up after Katrina. Then fired them without pay!

http://news.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=us/7-0&fp=437fae653374a4e5&ei=MGp_Q5ydFc-c6wGSoY3IBQ&url=http%3A//www.salon.com/comics/boll/2005/11/17/boll/&cid=1102407732

Then I read that the Italian Prime Minister, disavowing any conspiracy on the part of his government or its intelligence agencies, whined that it looked like they (the media) were blaming Italy for providing the vera causa for the war in Iraq.

This from Salon:

"Berlusconi says neither his government nor the Italian intelligence agency had any part in the alleged scam. The La Repubblica stories threatened to damage the reputation of Italy, Berlusconi told the conservative newspaper Libero, saying, 'If they were believed, we would be considered the instigator" of the war in Iraq.'"

This from ABC news provides one timeline for the whole sordid saga.

http://abcnews.go.com/International/CSM/story?id=1312419

Anyhow, I remember way back when I was a teenager in a trade labor union town (Bay City, Michigan) and formed the very first Teenage Republican Club. We were Romney Republicans in those days and were determined to clean up state politics which had slid down the slippery slope of former Governor "Soapy" Williams' corruption in the Democractic Party machine out of Detroit. It was the last time that I was a Republican. By the time of Jack Kennedy, I was firmly a Democrat and despite LBJ and 'Nam, I remain one to this day.

The point is that in our club, we had a faction called "Yaffers" or Young Americans for Freedom, who were so conservative that we literally locked them out of public view in events we sponsored as we thought them way too radical to be seen in public. That was my judgment then and now confirmed, some 45 years later.

ndebord
November 21st, 2005, 01:08 AM
As I think more and more about Iraq, I read this from the Washington Post.

I never much cared for Graham before this, but since Murtha opened the gate, the floodgates of reproach have started to flow.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/18/AR2005111802397.html

The reverse is now true. The chickens have come home to roost and it is now time for the Emperor to consider the reverse: caveat venditor

Judy G. Russell
November 21st, 2005, 11:55 AM
I saw Senator Graham's piece... it surely puts paid to the "they knew what we knew" argument.

ndebord
November 21st, 2005, 12:20 PM
I saw Senator Graham's piece... it surely puts paid to the "they knew what we knew" argument.

Judy,

Yup. Lots of cherry picked intelligence by the so-called Feith "annex" which was Cheney's little handpicked agency to refute what the professionals were telling him. Of course, that wasn't enough for Cheney, who made all those midnight runs to Langley to "handle" the CIA analysis "properly."

Judy G. Russell
November 21st, 2005, 09:53 PM
I just wish people understood better what this argument is all about. I suspect all they hear is the noise level (Democrats yelling here, Republicans yelling there).

ndebord
November 21st, 2005, 10:44 PM
I just wish people understood better what this argument is all about. I suspect all they hear is the noise level (Democrats yelling here, Republicans yelling there).


Judy,

Unfortunately, as the casualty levels rise and the realization that the Reserves are in their 2nd and 3rd tours, along with the RA, the people are becomming more aware than the Beltway thinks.

If you saw Colin Powell on Charlie Rose the other day, you'll understand when I say he has become a disgrace to my alma matter, imo.

Judy G. Russell
November 22nd, 2005, 07:10 AM
Unfortunately, as the casualty levels rise and the realization that the Reserves are in their 2nd and 3rd tours, along with the RA, the people are becomming more aware than the Beltway thinks.I'd say that was fortunate, not unfortunate.

ndebord
November 22nd, 2005, 11:43 AM
I'd say that was fortunate, not unfortunate.

Judy,

Perhaps, but I never like to use the word fortunate when confronted with a cluster fuck.

MollyM/CA
November 29th, 2005, 12:05 PM
Both youse guys:

I got Bill Maher's "New Rules" for my birthday. I think you'd enjoy it. My relatives are now passing my copy amongst them. See if the library has it, or glance at a page or two in a bookstore. It's a new(ish) book and should be on hand.

Some material in the book is relevant to this discussion.

One of the attendees at the Family Fall Feast and Fun Fest (clustered Fs?) was my grand-nephew-in-law Nick, back for a while from his Marine unit's latest tour in Iraq. He looks about 15 from my lofty vantage point. It was a gut-twister to see him periodically sneak his hand under my grandniece's sweatshirt to reassure himself that there really was life in that expanding belly. (We all got to sign it!) Alan Alda says it a hundred times in M*A*S*H, he's repairing little kids so they can go back and get shot again --and that show was really about 'Nam, names changed to protect its viability-- but just get up close to one of them and feel yourself shiver with dread.

Wonder how many people in this country would vote for a constitutional amendment that said in case of war elected officials' offspring would go to the frontlines first, starting with the highest offices and working down.

Judy G. Russell
November 29th, 2005, 03:41 PM
Wonder how many people in this country would vote for a constitutional amendment that said in case of war elected officials' offspring would go to the frontlines first, starting with the highest offices and working down.Sign me up (says this cousin of several who've served in Iraq, one of whom -- I think -- may be headed back for another tour).

Lindsey
November 29th, 2005, 09:07 PM
Sign me up (says this cousin of several who've served in Iraq, one of whom -- I think -- may be headed back for another tour).
One of my childhood friends had sent both of her sons to Iraq, and one of them is getting ready to go back for a second tour.

There are some young men who are going back for third tours at this point.

I haven't yet read Seymour Hersh's latest New Yorker article, but I understand he is saying that Bush's plan for Iraq will be to draw down the troops on the ground, in response to intense political pressure, but to keep the war going by stepping up the bombing. Which of course will mean fewer dead and injured Americans, but more dead and injured Iraqi civilians. And I can't believe in the long run that's going to do anything to contribute to either country's security.

--Lindsey

Judy G. Russell
November 29th, 2005, 11:00 PM
I haven't yet read Seymour Hersh's latest New Yorker article, but I understand he is saying that Bush's plan for Iraq will be to draw down the troops on the ground, in response to intense political pressure, but to keep the war going by stepping up the bombing. Which of course will mean fewer dead and injured Americans, but more dead and injured Iraqi civilians. And I can't believe in the long run that's going to do anything to contribute to either country's security.And, dear Lord, if we keep using things like white phosphorous, it ain't going to do anything for anybody anywhere...

ndebord
November 30th, 2005, 09:01 PM
One of my childhood friends had sent both of her sons to Iraq, and one of them is getting ready to go back for a second tour.

There are some young men who are going back for third tours at this point.

I haven't yet read Seymour Hersh's latest New Yorker article, but I understand he is saying that Bush's plan for Iraq will be to draw down the troops on the ground, in response to intense political pressure, but to keep the war going by stepping up the bombing. Which of course will mean fewer dead and injured Americans, but more dead and injured Iraqi civilians. And I can't believe in the long run that's going to do anything to contribute to either country's security.

--Lindsey


Lindsey,

Do read Seymour Hersh's new article in the New Yorker. If you weren't scared about Bush before, you will be now. There is a lot there to chew over, but my sense is that Hersh has coalesced his observations into a devasting analysis of the weaknesses at the heart of this particular president. This one passage quote left me gasping.

A former defense officials (unnamed) said. "The President is more determined than ever to stay the course...He doesn't feel any pain. Bush is a believer in the adage 'People may suffer and die, but the Church advances.' He said that the President had become more detached, leaving more issues to Karl Rove and Vice-President Dick Cheney. "They keep him in the gray world of religious idealism, where he wants to be anyway." At the end of this paragraph, the official adds "Johnson (LBJ) knew he was a prisoner in the White House, but Bush has no idea." (the context being that both Bush and Johnson only visited friendly audiences in their pursuit of their respective wars and became increasingly isolated.

Lindsey
December 1st, 2005, 05:40 PM
Nick,

Hersh was interviewed (http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/29/1458235) on "Democracy Now!" earlier this week. You'd be interested in hearing that interview, I'm sure. I thought this statement was interesting:


AMY GOODMAN: Seymour Hersh, you also write about President Bush and how his closest advisors have long been aware of the religious nature of his policy commitments. In recent interviews, one former senior official who served in Bush's first term spoke extensively about the connection between the President's religious faith and his view of the war in Iraq. Can you elaborate on this?

SEYMOUR HERSH: Well, it's interesting about this particular person and others with whom -- all of a sudden -- it's weird, but in the last -- people that I've been talking to for years never discuss this. All of a sudden, within the last month or so, somebody, just in the middle of a conversation about somebody else, began to talk about how the President viewed 9/11 as a challenge and sort of as a divine challenge, and the election in 2002 he saw as a sign from God, a reaffirmation. If you remember, the Republicans did very well in the off-year congressional election. And then, of course, in 2004, this president ran, didn't give one inch up on the Iraqi war, did not back off an inch and won, another sign of guidance. . . .

But what's happening now is, I think, because he's so unreachable by common -- I think one reason the generals went to Murtha is you can't tell this to the President. I think people -- I don't want to use – I’ll just use the word, I think they're scared to death. I think some of the insiders are really scared to death . . .

Bush has been scaring me to death ever since he took office. None of this is any great surprise to me--I had sensed this early on from what I had read about him.

--Lindsey