James Wagner

See Barry’s post for Mark Morford’s latest, “THE LIE OF THE U.S. MILITARY
Tough gritty American soldiers protect freedom of liberal SF columnist?
Or the other way around?.”

I understand and value the need for a strong military. I appreciate the necessity. But the war in Iraq does nothing but denigrate the value and integrity of our military. Note to conservatives: Those soldiers aren’t out there dying for you, they’re dying for strategic political power, for some oil exec’s portfolio. They’re protecting the Americanoligarchy. Does that make you feel proud?

At a moment when truth and intelligence seem to count for nothing in our government, it may hardly be worth pointing out that Bush repeatedly lied last night when describing U.N. Resolution 1441 (not one reporter called him on them). But of course I’m going to do the pointing anyway.
Even in Colin Powell’s description the resolution passed on November 8 last year only required Iraq to disarm itself of its weapons of mass destruction and to disclose all of its nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs. It did not require Iraq to totally disarm, although that is what Bush repeated over and over again last night.

The world needs him to answer a single question: Has the Iraqi regime fully and unconditionally disarmed, as required by resolution 1441, or has it not?
. . .
Token gestures are not acceptable. The only acceptable outcome is the one already defined by a unanimous vote of the security council — total disarmament.

And for 50 minutes, and 30 times over, he hurled the word at the world in total disregard for the truth, and our intelligence.
He is abetted this morning by the lies in the NYTimes account of his appearance in the East Room last night.

Calmly, and at times solemnly, Mr. Bush repeated his arguments that Saddam Hussein has failed to disarm after 12 years of United Nations demands, and that he has failed to obey the explicit language of the last-chance resolution passed unanimously by the Security Council on Nov. 8, demanding total, complete and unconditional disarmament.

Can’t anybody read anymore?

The interests which placed the Bush administration in power have always wanted to destroy the U.N.
Last night in Bush’s statements they made clear that they would bring what would effectively be a resolution for war before the Security Council even though it is now certain that it would fail. In the past the U.S., when it could not get its way in the U.N., just went ahead and did what it wanted, including going to war. This time our government is determined to make the U.N. look impotent and irrelevant, if not actually evil.
And it certainly goes that far. Bush has told the world, “You’re either with us or against us in the fight against terror.” Last night and in the next days he intends to make France, Germany, Russia, China and virtually the entire world, all of which oppose his war, look like they are on the side of the terrorists.

Watching that stupid little fool, inarguably the most powerful man on the planet, propped up in the white House behind a podium with its modern speaking tube mumbling, and as if sedated, the same phrases over and over again may have been the scariest experience of my life. I have always tried to avoid watching him, and with great success until tonight. This time the prospect had something of the attraction of a choice seat for the proverbial train wreck, and I just had to be there, since it bode well to be a doozy. It was.
“Pay no attention to the man behind the curtains!”
When do Dorothy and Toto show up?

“How am I doing?” Ed Koch used to ask continually as he walked about a New York City smothered by his outsized personality.
George W. Bush doesn’t ask this question, and now he has a very good reason not to. A new poll by Quinnipiac University indicates that if an election were held now he would lose to anyone fielded against him, in other words, candidate Fill-in-the-blank is doing better than the man some call the incumbent president.
Polls are mostly useful for those who find their results agreeable, so this one will be ignored by the White House, especially since this is a regime which knows it is not going to have to depend on a free election to stay in power.

Too many are shutting it down.

The creator of a satirical Web site that took aim at Lynne Cheney, wife of Vice President Dick Cheney, said he felt a chill when the letter on White House stationery arrived.

The website, www.whitehouse.org, is overloaded right now because of its sudden celebrity.

Most of us hardly need to hear much more argument or even more real eloquence on the subject of an Iraq war and the murderous political cynicism behind it, but career diplomat John Brady Kiesling’s letter of resignation is exceptionally representative of both. An excerpt:

. . . this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to so to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo?

Later in the body of this letter to his superior, Colin Powell, Kiesling asks, referring to our reckless swaggering before the world, “Has ‘oderint dum metuant’ really become our motto?” A translation of Caligula’s words would be “Let them hate so long as they fear.”

Is Reuters making a cynical editorial comment, or just reflecting the reality of the fascist coup, by describing Bush as “taking power” in this report on tonight’s press conference?

Reflecting the seriousness of the situation, the 8 p.m. EST news conference will be only the president’s second such solo event in the White House East Room since taking power more than two years ago. The first was in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Also, two news conferences in two years? Hardly sounds like responsible government to me.

Mark Morford has a vision. No, it’s a nightmare. It’s our future.

These are the final days of peace in America. Please remember to turn off the lights and lock up when you leave.
These are the last days of relative calm before we start bombing and massacring hundreds of thousands of people and in so doing enter into what many believe will a very long, drawn-out, insanely expensive, volatile, destabilizing, completely unwinnable war against a cheap thug of an opponent who has negligible military might and zero capacity to actually
harm the U.S. in any substantive way. U-S-A! U-S-A!
. . .
War is at hand. America is about to turn a corner, sharp to the right. These are the last days of peace in America as you know it. And we will never be the same.

Doesn’t this say just about everything we need to know about democracy in the U.K., the U.S., or indeed, the world?

Until now, Blair has said he reserved the right to go to war without U.N. authorization in case a singular “unreasonable veto” was wielded.
But in a debate on music television channel MTV he appeared to extend that proviso to include multiple vetoes.
“If there was a veto applied by one of the countries with a veto or by countries that I [my italic] thought were applying the veto unreasonably then in those circumstances I [my italic] would,” Blair said when asked if he would go to war without a new U.N. mandate.

Baby Bush [who himself routinely speaks in terms of “I” will do this or that] and toady Blair each see war and peace as their personal decisions and do not even pretend to be representing a constituancy.