Bush's satisfaction comes from having his way while we're powerless to stop him. A political rapist? In the last few weeks Bush seems to have recovered his balance. Has he been psyched up once again - this time by Cheney's agenda to hit Iran? The clues are familiar - the saber rattling, then the U.N. sanctions dog and pony show that prove to be a failure and then Town Hall meetings by necon Congressmen warmed up by promises to bomb Iranians and keep their seats in 2008.
Bush has the cards; sets the agenda. As Wes Clark keeps telling us, arguing over tactical distractions like troop strength in Iraq, won't hold Bush accountable for major policy changes to initiate a regional diplomatic offensive to stop the violence, and get our troops home and prevent an attack on Iran, possibly with bunker busting nuclear warheads.
The unthinkable has now become thinkable.
Wesley Clark: The military in Iraq are resolving nothing
There are more important issues than troop numbers and withdrawal dates. The US should take a lead in talking to Iran – now
The Independent | 09 September 2007
http://securingamerica.com/...
http://comment.independent.co.uk/...
Bush has people arguing about JudeoChristians vs Muslims but it's about him getting his way to reshape the Middle East for ExxonMobile et al.
In a February 11, 2003 speech, former Exxon CHM, Lee Raymond said
We also encourage those who have seen that a clear and stable framework governing legal, fiscal, and regulatory issues is essential to an effective market economy. Sanctity of contracts and predictable tax rates reduce investor risks and will encourage the large, foreign direct investment required to develop oil and gas resources. Where governments do not adopt or enforce a stable framework of laws and regulations, investments become difficult to justify.
http://www.dailykos.com/...
Bloomster wrote about hidden Iraq Study Group ties to privatization of oil:
http://www.dailykos.com/...
The thought that Alan Greenspan was being honest about the rape of the Middle East for oil is so shocking that even contemplating it seems to lead to denial and inertia at the highest levels in our Congress.
Why is the Congress not capable of saying:
WE WILL NOT PERMIT ANOTHER UNNECESSARY PREVENTIVE ATTACK ON A SOVEREIGN COUNTRY.
WE WILL NOT PERMIT THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF TO USE NUCLEAR WEAPONS IN A CAPRICIOUS EFFORT TO HIDE HIS FAILURES AND GAIN POLITICAL ADVANTAGE FOR HIS PARTY BEFORE AN ELECTION.
Republicans have the strategic advantage because they don't feel they have to account to anyone but their corporate masters who lack any moral constraints whatsoever. Democrats always seek permission.
One such corporate empire builder and triumphalist helped install Bush in the White House:
...George Shultz (is) the former Chairman of Bechtel whose assurances persuaded a skeptical business community that George W Bush was the man they wanted in the White House:
This Sunday in a book review on Vice President Cheney, the New York Times writes, "As the Republican Party was settling on its presidential nominee seven summers ago.....George Shultz was assuring skeptical conservatives that George W. Bush had the potential to be another Ronald Reagan. One reason for his confidence was the 'Stanford shuttle' between Palo Alto and Austin, which carried such Hoover Institution luminaries - and White House veterans - as Martin Anderson, Michael J. Boskin and Condoleezza Rice (Shultz's own protégé) on regular treks to Texas."
http://www.democracynow.org/...
George Shultz was so insulted by Amy Goodman's question:
AMY GOODMAN: George Shultz, who do you think is tougher to get on board on taking global warming seriously: China or ExxonMobil?
that after he stumbled around with his standard platitudes he refused to "bite" on what might be one of the most relevant question in the world today.
GEORGE SHULTZ: Well, I think people are seeing the problem more and more, and everybody is on board, but the question is how. You go to China, and you say, "Well, what am I going to do? You tell me it's terrible to burn coal. How am I going to get the electricity?" So you’ve got to have an answer to that question. And so, there are some answers that you can develop and you can get at it, but that's the way I would go about it. As far as your little provocative question about Exxon and China, I’m not going to bite on that. Thank you very much. And that’s enough.
AMY GOODMAN: And with that, the former secretary of state pulled off his microphone.
During the interview George Shultz denied that the Iraq War had anything to do with oil:
Bush is hell bent on attacking Iran.
Seymour Hersh, Sam Gardiner, Wes Clark, Jon Soltz, Jim Webb, Juan Cole and other military insiders, investigative journalists and academicians have expressed extreme concern about what appears to them, a very compelling case that President Bush is hell bent on attacking Iran, possibly with nuclear weapons.
http://www.newyorker.com/...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/...
http://www.globalresearch.ca/...
Jim Webb has introduced legislation that would prevent George W Bush from using money intended for Iraq to attack Iran but he had no cosponsors and his legislation/amendment went no where.
What could be more critical than stopping Bush from attacking a country of seventy million multicultural people in a region that is on the verge of exploding in sectarian violence, further inflaming the Middle East and endangering our soldiers and innocent civilians?
What are Democrats in Congress doing? Why isn't Nancy Pelosi saying that impeachment will be put on the table if Bush attacks Iran.
Why does it feel like we're being drawn into this nightmare and nobody in a position of power to stop it is doing anything about it?
Clark wrote a startling piece in the Washington Post warning us how the military attack on Iran would surely proceed:
Think another war can't happen? Think again. Unchastened by the Iraq fiasco, hawks in Vice President Cheney's office have been pushing the use of force. It isn't hard to foresee the range of military options that policymakers face.
The next war would begin with an intense air and naval campaign. Let's say you're planning the conflict as part of the staff of the Joint Chiefs. Your list of targets isn't that long -- only a few dozen nuclear sites -- but you can't risk retaliation from Tehran. So you allow 21 days for the bombardment, to be safe; you'd aim to strike every command-and-control facility, radar site, missile site, storage site, airfield, ship and base in Iran. To prevent world oil prices from soaring, you'd have to try to protect every oil and gas rig, and the big ports and load points. You'd need to use B-2s and lots of missiles up front, plus many small amphibious task forces to take out particularly tough targets along the coast, with manned and unmanned air reconnaissance. And don't forget the Special Forces, to penetrate deep inside Iran, call in airstrikes and drag the evidence of Tehran's nuclear ambitions out into the open for a world that's understandably skeptical of U.S. assertions that yet another Gulf rogue is on the brink of getting the bomb.
But if it's clear how a war with Iran would start, it's far less clear how it would end. How might Iran strike back? Would it unleash Hezbollah cells across Europe and the Middle East, or perhaps even inside the United States? Would Tehran goad Iraq's Shiites to rise up against their U.S. occupiers? And what would we do with Iran after the bombs stopped falling? We certainly could not occupy the nation with the limited ground forces we have left. So what would it be: Iran as a chastened, more tractable government? As a chaotic failed state? Or as a hardened and embittered foe?
.....the big lesson is simply this: War is the last, last, last resort. It always brings tragedy and rarely brings glory. Take it from a general who won: The best war is the one that doesn't have to be fought, and the best military is the one capable and versatile enough to deter the next war in the first place.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
http://securingamerica.com/...
My Senator John Cornyn just succeeded in snookering the Democratic leadership into allowing a debate over whether or not MoveOn was justified in calling General Petraeus a liar. When I called his office to complain that he should be using the Senate's time to end the war, I was told the Senate had just passed his anti-MoveOn bill. Shocked that our guys agreed to let the neocons distract the Senate while people are dying in Iraq, I said "a pox on both their houses". I could sense the smile on the face of Cornyn's aide...another successful effort to distract our Senators from their responsibilities to hold Bush accountable.
Wes Clark has been "running around with his hair on fire" about Iran. He's been beseeching us to get the Congress to pay attention and to limit Bush's further violence. Baker and Shultz won't stop it. The most powerful people in this country...the CEO's of the energy oligopolies who paid to make George W Bush president and their handmaidens, are sitting behind their desks, ready to cry out in anger over a suggestion that there's global warming but silent on Bush's violence. They've cleaned up from Bush's wars. The Bush's have done what's expected of them.
The James Baker institute at Rice University has a paper that calls the military costs of oil high but points out that the American public tolerates that cost. Senator Grassley, R. IA, said it's $200 per barrel and that was a few years ago.
George W Bush couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag but he is skillful at political manipulation and spreading the big lie. I see a renewed vigor these days as he humiliates the press corp with his "I'm powerful and you're not, so I can get away with lying" routine.
He seems to be feeding off the looming war with Iran. If the Congress can't or won't stop him we'll lose any shred of decency that remains and he will kill again.