A Coward Goes to Baghdad
by Doug Basham
OpEdNews.com
Forget "The eagle has landed." On Thursday, the turkey landed - on many Americans dinner plates, and on the runway of the airport formerly known as Saddam Hussein International.
The stupidity of conservatives never ceases to amaze me, as well as that of the media (and the majority of the American people, come to think of it). And to MY way of thinking, no-one has got this trip right yet.
Thus far, the focus has been on the secrecy surrounding the trip, the choice of Fox News to accompany the president, (which pretty much sums up his credibility level when he chooses the television equivalent of the National Enquirer to assist him in his chicanery). The focus has also been on whether or not it was a wise decision for the president to make (what? Like wisdom has been a staple of this administration thus far?)
When I first learned of this trip, a couple things came to my mind immediately.
First, the obvious Remember all the times Mr. Bush told us how swimmingly things were going in Iraq - much different than the "'perceptions" we were being given by the American "filtered" media - well except Fox News of course. (Which raises the question. I wonder if the anchors and hosts at Fox have to provide their own Vaseline, or if it's in their contract that Fox has to). Now... if things are so hunky dory in Iraq; if it's just a handful of rag-tag Baathist loyalists and remnants who are causing all the trouble - why all the secrecy? Why even take Air Force One? Why not just book your flight with 'Air Liberation', so that the overwhelming majority of the Iraqi populace who just LOVE our presence in their country, and think it's just so Mohammed when their 4 and 5 year olds are frisked - they could be waiting for you at the airport with flowers and chocolates.
While much of the focus of the president's trip to Iraq (rightly so, and primarily because it is so obvious) has centered on the fact that the very nature of the trip demonstrates how dire the security situation in Iraq truly is, there hasn't been as much mention as to how this "nature" undermines the administration's claims to the contrary.
But here's the other thing that came to my mind after learning of his secret trip to Iraq - and the part of the equation that no-one seems to get, or simply doesn't have the balls to articulate.
Listen to this first line in a story from London's "The Telegraph" on Friday "President George W. Bush was back at his Texas Ranch yesterday basking in the most adulatory coverage in months, as an admiring American media described his surprise trip to Iraq as one of the boldest ever presidential forays."
BOLD?!?! Doesn't anybody get it? Let's put the pieces together.
First piece... I remember this pathetic, cowardly little man in the White House standing before the cameras and saying "Bring 'em On". And I remember how his mindless boot lickers praised him for his bravado - too damn stupid to realize that a comment like this was putting our troops in FAR more danger than any 10 stories the media could report - the same media who essentially handed Bush his war on a silver platter - the same media this administration and their apologists now like to blame for the deaths or our soldiers.
Second piece... Last Monday at Fort Carson, Colorado the president said "The United States of America will not be intimidated by a bunch of thugs."
Third piece... During his visit with the troops in Baghdad, he said "We did not charge hundreds of miles into the heart of Iraq, pay a bitter cost in casualties, defeat a brutal dictator and liberate 25 million people only to retreat before a band of thugs and assassins." Now first of all What do you mean "we", Kemo Bushbey? The only charge you've led is the one against our values, intelligence, decency, reputation and civil liberties altho' you have been charging a lot to America's American Express card, haven't you?
Fourth piece... On the plane, just 3 hours from Baghdad, Bush said "I was fully prepared to turn this baby around and come home." Again - YOU were prepared to turn the plane around, Mr. Resident?
Is it starting to become clearer here what the main issue of this Iraq trip SHOULD be? Let me bottom line it plain and simple.
When the coward in chief is safe and sound in America, he says "Bring 'em On", or..."We will not be intimidated by thugs." Now don't you think a more appropriate time to say that - if indeed you were a man of courage, honor, conviction and "boldness" - would have been if you were planning to GO to Iraq, or when you were already THERE in Iraq?
But what did he say instead? First thing he said was "Shhhhhhh." The second was, "I was fully prepared to turn this baby around and come home."
Put another way - when it's the lives of our soldiers that are at risk, Bush says "Bring 'em on" or, "The United States will not be intimidated by a bunch of thugs." When it's HIS sorry ass that might be in peril, he says, "if anyone finds out I'm coming I'M turning this plane around and going home." And for this act of seemingly unnoticed cowardice, he's called... bold?!
Where's the boldness? Where's the bravado? Where's the "Bring 'em on", and "We won't be intimidated by thugs" when it really matters? Wouldn't THAT have been the time for the bra-a-a-v-e Commander in Chief to say "Hey, you want a piece of me? I'm coming to 'gitcha'. Gonna' smoke you out. Dead or alive. Take your best shot thug! Bring it on.. THUG!!
Nope. When there's a chance he might face the same kind of danger he himself has CREATED for our soldiers; and it's time for him to put action to words? No bravado and no courage at all. Instead there's "Shhhhh" and "I'll turn this baby around and come home."
And yet the "liberal media" (God, that's one lie I am getting so sick of) the "liberal media" absolutely gushes and slobbers all over this cowardly performance and calls it one of the boldest presidential forays EVER!!
And you wonder why the majority of Americans still support this arrogant little coward? I'll TELL you why they do. Because no-one is telling them he IS an arrogant, little coward, that' why. They're telling the American people he's bold.
And actually, he IS bold. He's bold with his LIES! That coupled with the fact that he lies so constantly - many people who ARE aware of how long his nose is are in such shock by how blatant and in your face many of his lies are - are left speechless with their jawbones dragging on the ground. Case in point - right after he went on television and admitted there was no evidence to support a link between Saddam Hussein and 9-11, he went back to his very effective "propaganda by segue" schtick, and the next time he tried to justify his misguided debacle in Iraq, he said it was important to learn the lessons of 9-11. RIGHT THERE - someone should have raised their hand and said "Uh, Mr. President? You're doing it again. You just said yesterday there was no link, but now by segueing from 9-11 into Iraq, you're implying there is. People with REAL values call that lying." But did anyone say that? Besides me? Not that I heard.
And you know why he was able to say again for the umpteenth time just the other day that the Taliban were gone forever? Because the very FIRST time he said it - right after a barrage of reports that the Taliban were reconstituting themselves - no-one raised their hand and said, "Uh, Mr. President, there is report after report coming out of Afghanistan that say the Taliban are not only resurging, they actually control several provinces in the country, and that we don't even completely control Kabul anymore. How can you in all good conscience - being a man of God yourself, in fact, the man God himself chose to lead this great nation" (and I guess that makes sense he certainly wasn't the first choice of the American people in 2000) "How can you stand before this great nation and "boldly" LIE to them?"
I would like to ask the president these questions. Is this your way of making us all pay for not electing your father twice? Is it your way of making us pay for not electing you even ONCE? How badly do you feel we need to be punished for just not being smart enough to realize who God himself wanted in the oval office in the year 2000? And is this how your sick mind has justified acting like a dictator and stifling democratic dissent - because you know you were never democratically elected in the first place, so like, what difference does it make?
"Bottom line is folks we're losing the battle. No-one seems to be able - or they don't have the GUTS - to look past the surface of this administration's shallow, deceitful crap and report what the REAL story is. Not one news show I watched on television, or one person I saw on any of the shows said "The main thing this trip proves is that not only is Bush a LIAR he's a GUTLESS liar as well!"
And here's one other element you can add to this story, just to use this administration's blustering bulls--t against them. By including a "turn around and head home" provision in his travel plan, could not a case be made that while he was verbally saying "We will not be intimidated by thugs", what he was insinuating was "I will be intimidated by thugs"? And then, using the president's own criteria for dissenter demonization, could not a further case be made that Mr. Bush provided aid and comfort to the enemy (now defined as anyone who disagrees with Bush's occupation or policies), by acknowledging how precarious the situation in Iraq really is by including a "turn around" provision?... and by demonstrating to the "terrorists" (now defined as anyone who disagrees with Bush's occupation or policies) how successful and feared their resistance is by the "Top Goon" in the United States? When any other American does this, this administration and their hit men label them unpatriotic and unsupportive of the troops, but when Bush does it, he's called... bold? Just food for thought.
Back to the real issue behind "the trip" - namely, cowardice. From "Bring 'em On" and "WE won't be intimidated by thugs" to I'M gonna' turn this baby around and go home". And yet the media - (even the British media for God's sake, who certainly should be able to figure this one out) - drops the ball once again, and calls this "one of the boldest presidential forays ever"? How insulting. All I see is blatant, 2 faced hypocrisy, and spineless, shameful cowardice. Verbal machismo backed by physical retreat do not equate with courage. But to anyone familiar with Mr. Bush's military record or his actions on that fateful day in September 2001, this is par for the course. And while Mr. Dressup in the White House's physical actions may be bold in their sheer audacity, they are certainly not bold in the positive context the media is framing them in now.
Where I come from, "boldness" must be rooted in honesty. And seeing as we cannot count on the media to inform the American people, let us never forget the one over-riding truth in this entire Iraqmire. Bush lied and our soldiers died. Period. Our men and women - our brothers and sisters - and our kids. And the only "boldness" in this equation are the repeated lies Bush, his administration and our compliant media keep shoving down America's throat with such force they would make Linda Lovelace herself gag. Bold.. my... ass.
Wag the Turkey
Surprise Thanksgiving Dinner at 6 AM?
By WAYNE MADSEN
Yes folks, we are now all bit players in a real-life version of the movie "Wag the Dog." President Bush and his GOP advisers are ecstatic that the president made a secret trip to Baghdad to be with U.S. troops for a "traditional" Thanksgiving dinner. His polling numbers -- which I contend are as fixed as a Florida election -- will undoubtedly receive a huge boost.
I may be a bit naive, and it has been a while since I served on active duty, but I can't recall ever sitting down to Thanksgiving dinner at 6:00 AM. Air Force One touched down at Baghdad International Airport, under cover of darkness, at 5:20 AM Baghdad time. Bush was on the ground for two and a half hours, his plane departing Baghdad at around 7:50 AM. Considering that it likely took some 30 minutes for Bush to disembark from Air Force One and travel by a heavily secured motorcade to the hangar where the troops were assembled, that means our military men and women were downing turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, and non-alcoholic beer at a time when most people would be eating eggs, bacon, grits, home fries, and toast.
But there on national television, when most Americans were preparing to sit down to their own traditional Thanksgiving dinners, we saw a tape of President Bush serving mashed potatoes and corn to American troops at a "traditional" Thanksgiving meal in the early hours of the morning. What's more, when a clearly exhausted Bush strode around a curtain -- after a "What's My Line" mystery guest routine by Iraq proconsul L. Paul Bremer -- 600 American troops were said to be "shocked and awed" by Bush's surprise appearance. I would have thought most of the troops, many of whom are support personnel who work relatively normal working hours, would have been more surprised when they were ordered to get up before sunrise to eat Thanksgiving dinner between 6:00 and 7:30 A.M.
And the abysmal and sycophantic Washington and New York press corps seems to have completely missed the Thanksgiving "breakfast dinner." Chalk that up to the fact that most people in the media never saw a military chow line or experienced reveille in their lives. So it would certainly go over their heads that troops would be ordered out of bed to eat turkey and stuffing before the crack of dawn.
Democratic presidential candidates will be scurrying to regain ground from Bush's surprise trip and previous indicators that the economy is on a rebound. Of course, economic indicators emanate from public and private institutions controlled by GOP political operatives. With an all time high of 4000 people in Washington, DC having their Thanksgiving dinners courtesy of DC's Central Kitchen for the homeless, those economic indicators seem as phony as Florida's vote totals. And you will never see Bush serving meals to the homeless. What would Bush's handlers do? Have the homeless applaud him? Bush's handlers could have propaganda signs in the background that proclaim: "Fighting homelessness through tax cuts for billionaires."
We should not be surprised or even "shocked and awed" that the Bush administration would resort to yet another manipulation of the media to craft public opinion. We all remember Bush's landing on the USS Abraham Lincoln with the banner "Mission Accomplished." We were told Bush had to fly to the carrier because the ship was too far off shore for a helicopter trip. Yes, the Lincoln was so far off shore that if the camera angles were different, viewers could have seen the San Diego skyline and the top of the Coronado Bridge.
Then there was Bush's State of the Union address in which he cited Iraq's desire to purchase uranium from Africa. We now know that allegation was based on bogus documents laundered by the intelligence service of the Italian proto-fascist prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
As political handlers like Karl Rove continue to remold Bush like a lump of Playdough, first from a Texas rancher, then to a Navy fighter pilot complete with a corresponding action figure, and now to a globe hopping "James Bond," let us not forget that the war against Iraq was a violation of international law. Even arch-neoconservative war hawk Richard Perle has conceded that point. Rove and company will be pulling more tricks out of their bags as the 2004 presidential campaign approaches. Intelligent Americans everywhere -- and there are many of them -- should pause and think about what they are hearing and seeing on television.
Meanwhile, anyone care for eggs and bacon with their turkey?
Well, let me stop kidding and be serious for a moment. <Not that I think you'll agree...>
If Bush had a regular visit, and it was publicised as such, his presence would endanger everyone near him. I'm sure you agree he would be a major target for al-Quaida and pro-Saddam Iraqis. Wouldn't it be stupid and careless for him to make such a visit?
Well, I guess if your goal is to see those people murdered you are disappointed.
I hope you will continue to be disappointed.
The moment was a stunning public-relations coup for an administration already deep in campaign mode.
(November 30, 2003 -- 02:03 AM EDT // link // print)
My posts have been sparse for the last few days in part because of the holidays but also because I am poring over a stack of books about empire for an upcoming essay. And with these various thoughts about empire swirling through head, reading this article about our ever-evolving Iraq exit strategy plan in tomorrow's Post is an exercise in sinking feelings and dark humor.
The essence of the story is that the plan for a political handover that we announced just weeks ago is already on the fast-track to dead letterhood.
And it's happening because the plan is being gamed by Iraqi political leaders who've clearly got more power on the ground than we do.
Our lack of effective power, as opposed to main force, of which we've got plenty, is what's pushing us to get out of the country in the first place. But our efforts to get out have further weakened our position, thus diminishing our ability to get out on our own terms. It's a vicious cycle, and as difficult to remedy as it is vicious.
Back on Wednesday the Post had a piece about how Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani was largely responsible for scuttling our original plan to appoint the drafters of the constitution, rather than have them elected.
Now he's come out against the new plan for electing these folks through a complex series of town caucuses and called instead for direct nationwide elections.
It's pretty hard to fault Sistani's positions on democratic procedural grounds. But the bigger point, again, is our impotence in the face of his expressed views.
He's calling the shots; we're not.
And then there's the Interim Governing Council, the IGC.
The greatest deceit perpetrated by the architects of the war turns out to have had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction or ties between Saddam and al Qaida. The profoundest deception was the claim that the IGC was designed to be a transitional governing authority when in fact, as is now becoming clear, its true purpose was to provide a sort of dark, Falstaffian comic relief to balance out the ominous backdrop of postwar Iraq.
Much of the jockeying we're now seeing involves efforts by the IGC to perpetuate its power into post-occupation Iraq even though -- with the exception of the Kurdish faction leaders -- few of its members have any serious base of political support in the country or, to put it bluntly, any armies on hand for when things really get fun next fall.
So, while the real players jockey for position and await our departure, these boneheads are trying to use the paper power we've given them against us in order to hold on to authority even after we leave.
That's just great.
Here's a prime example ...
Even if the United States can broker a compromise formula, council members are still trying to retain their leverage by arguing that the council should remain as a second legislative body, the equivalent of a senate, an idea likely to ignite further controversy, Iraq experts warn. Alternatively, the council could try to slow the process, hoping to preempt the latest U.S. plan.
Their leverage ... Like I said, dark comic relief. We can't even get our puppets in line.
Undemocratic or imperfectly democratic upper houses of parliaments usually justify themselves by their partial remove from the bustle of democratic politics or their identification with national unity or ancestral wisdom or some such thing. Think the British House of Lords or at the turn of the last century the United States senate. Such arguments are always strained. But why the council we installed in the first months of the occupation should play this role is a little hard to figure.
And then another nice passage ...
One way or another, key council members are vying either to shape the transition or ensure the council remains intact and a powerful body, as the U.S. plan envisions. Because many of the 24 council members probably would not fare well in open elections, they pressured Bremer to establish an indirect three-step system to select a new national assembly, which in turn would pick a prime minister and cabinet, a process so complex that many Iraqis and U.S. experts doubt it will work.
A former U.S. adviser to Bremer described the plan as "an insane selection system of caucuses, like the Iowa caucus selecting those who will vote in New Hampshire."
The U.S. plan effectively gives the Governing Council a kind of remote control because it will have the deciding vote in local caucuses that will pick a national assembly.
All of this adds up to the essential ridiculousness of the moment: On the homefront, the president is shaping his political campaign around the notion that we shouldn't show weakness and we can't cut and run. Meanwhile, it's clear to pretty much everyone in Iraq that we're doing both.
And they're acting accordingly.
-- Josh Marshall
The Japanese would have, in fact, preferred to have found Kimmel's fleet elsewhere, because ships sunk in deep, blue water cannot be raised and repaired or used for scrap. (Which is, by the way, one of the principle refutations of conspiracy theories about Pearl Harbor.)
Bad sign, I'd say........but that may simply be my partisan perspective.
Set
I know this is off topic but cant help asking a question.
Quote:The Japanese would have, in fact, preferred to have found Kimmel's fleet elsewhere, because ships sunk in deep, blue water cannot be raised and repaired or used for scrap. (Which is, by the way, one of the principle refutations of conspiracy theories about Pearl Harbor.)
Surely this is an argument sustaining conspiracy - that it was FDR's intention that some use could be made of the ships even after they were attacked. ? Was any such use made of the scrap btw?
More than three quarters, 73%, said they had no confidence in the Coalition Provisional Authority installed by the US.
More, 79%, said they had no faith in US and UK troops, with just 8% saying they trusted them.
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Shi'ite leads Iraq council
From correspondents in Baghdad
December 2, 2003
ABDEL-AZIZ al-Hakim, a leader of Shi'ite Muslims who objects to US-led plans for Iraqi sovereignty, has become the head of the US-picked governing council, a rotating position that will last until the end of the month.
Al-Hakim - who replaced Jalal Talabani, leader of a major Kurdish political party in Iraq - holds the presidency at a time when council members are rethinking an agreement with Washington for a power handover by July. The council has set up a committee to assess the best way to choose a provisional legislature.
On November 15, the 25-member council signed an accord with the US-led occupation authority that laid out a plan to chose the legislature through a series of regional caucuses. The assembly would in turn elect a provisional government to take power by July 1, when the occupation authority would cease to exist.
But the council appeared to backtrack after Iraq's powerful Shi'ite Muslim leadership objected to the transition plan. Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani, Iraq's most influential Shi'ite leader, demanded that the legislature be elected directly.
Al-Hakim, a leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution, the biggest Shi'ite political organisation, has complained that the council had been pressured to approve the plan too quickly and without sufficient deliberations.
Any delay or unravelling of the agreement would be a major setback for the US government and the coalition authority, whose forces are facing daily attacks by insurgents.
The governing council has the right to appoint cabinet ministers and formulate economic policies and is charged with producing a process to write a new constitution that would pave the way for a general election.
The Associated Press
Gel, this goes along with one of your posts refering to us hendering a more likely leadership in Iraq getting it's due opportinity. I don't know if Sistani is the leader that is needed right now, but it's clear we can't, and shouldn't continue to micromanage the beginnings of their new gov't. In some survey there, most said they would like a constitution similar to ours, I think that's the best we can hope for. To realize exactly the type gov't and leaders that this admin. wants, is dreaming.
Clerics get tough
They push to have their say in Iraq's future and are filling in the power vaccum
NAJAF (Iraq) - Grand Ayatollah Bashir Najafi and other senior Shi'ite clerics in Iraq have become the most influential figures in the country, filling the vacuum left by former president Saddam Hussein.
The conversation in the office of Mr Najafi, Iraq's most senior Shi'ite clergy in this holy city, revolves around religion and state, and the part clerics like him will play as leaders of the country's Shi'ite majority.
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'The grand ayatollahs will always be the highest spiritual guide in everything - economics, politics and social issues,' said Mr Ali Najafi, the ayatollah's son and spokesman. 'They will be the fathers, the leaders and the advisers.'
The elderly clerics in Najaf have started sketching out, for the first time in decades, the sharply contested role of Islam in the country's political life.
The most influential among them is Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, a once-reticent cleric who has taken on a far more activist role.
Last weekend, he made public his opposition to key elements of a US plan for a political transition in Iraq. That followed his edict in June that any convention writing a Constitution must be elected.
Together, they have secured a role for him and other clergy in helping determine the issues central to Iraq's future - the selection of a government, the shape of a Constitution and the nature of law.
'They are gaining momentum now,' said Mr Wamid Nadhme, a political science professor at Baghdad University. 'It seems that Mr Sistani is showing his teeth to the Americans, that he is showing his willpower to the Iraqis in the US-appointed Governing Council.
'It is as if he is saying to all those concerned that I am the man who is the last word.'
Mr Sistani and other clerics have insisted that their political role will be limited, and their influence will almost certainly fall far short of the clergy's domination of neighbouring Iran.
But the very challenge of drawing the line between Islam and government could have a broad impact in a country where officials of the US-led administration still hope a largely secular state will evolve.
It has sent a shudder, too, through the minority Sunni and Kurdish communities, which face the prospect of a Shi'ite-led country for the first time in Iraq's history.
'If we see something that violates Islam and our country's traditions, we will give advice,' said Mr Ali Waadh, Mr Sistani's deputy in Baghdad. 'People look to (Sistani) as the highest authority. People listen to him before they listen to a government.'
In a country long ruled by minority Sunni Muslims, Shi'ites were relentlessly repressed by Saddam's government, and the revival of Shi'ite ritual since Saddam's fall has emerged as one of the most startling displays of newfound freedom.
Streets, bridges and squares have been renamed after revered Shi'ite figures, as was Baghdad's largest neighbourhood. Shi'ite iconography - from green flags to portraits of its martyrs - has multiplied across the capital and southern Iraq, which is overwhelmingly Shi'ite. The holy cities of Najaf and Karbala, whose influence faded in the 1960s, have undergone a boom as they host tens of thousands of pilgrims.
Some have argued that Mr Sistani is being manipulated by Shi'ite political parties such as the Supreme Council, whose leaders had hoped his intervention would provide them more leverage in negotiations with the US authorities.
Another argument, more common, is that he believes he has a responsibility to make clear his opinion on the country's most pressing issues and, at the same time, revive the prominent leadership role played by Shi'ite clergy in the debate over Iran's Constitution in the early 20th century and the revolt against British forces in Iraq in 1920.
Those who have met Mr Sistani said he and the other grand ayatollahs are setting up an oversight role for themselves.
'If there's something that will affect the entire population and if there is any strategic point like the Constitution, he will pass judgment on it,' said Mr Mowaffaq Rubaie, a member of the Governing Council.
'He won't go for policy. He will go for strategic issues.' -- Washington Post
