Tag: George W. Bush

Yesterday my aunt in Arizona and I got into our usual squabble about politics and world events.  She’s an nice woman, a retired nurse that sadly has drunk the kool-aid John Airbus McCain has put out.  Well today she sent me an email with the subject line “John McCain would handle Russia”.  You can pretty much guess what the whole email was about.  At first I thought I would respond with highlight the usual deficiencies in neo-con foreign affairs.  Then it hit me, what’s going between Georgia and Russia was indeed because of neo-conservative foreign policy!    

Appearing on “The View” TV show July 28th, Speaker Pelosi admitted that she did not know of a single crime that had been committed by the Bush Administration.  Joy Behar, one of the 5 co-hosts on the show, asked Pelosi why she had taken Impeachment off the table and continues to keep it off.  Pelosi responded by reiterating how important it is to stay focused on the many domestic issues requiring our attention and not to get distracted by such issues as Impeachment.  She went on to say that…

If somebody had a crime that the President had committed, that would be a different story.

You can watch a You Tube clip of both Pelosi on The View” and snips from the HOR JUd comm hearings “Shame on Pelosi”.  Be sure to watch to the end for a great surprise.

How sad!  Pelosi obviously needs our help; we must refresh her memory and the memory of “we the people”, who might have been confused by Pelosi’s lapse of consciousness.    

Compassion for her condition restrains me from being sarcastic when I ask, “Where has Madam Speaker been for the past 7 years?  Was Rip Van Pelosi asleep and therefore unable to read Kucinich’s Articles of Impeachment?”

The time is right; Ron Suskind has just come out with new allegations of Bush crimes and Impeachable offenses.  These can all come together by holding a Press conference to repair this dangerous-RIP-loss of awareness.

Suggestions for repair below the fold–

Appearing on “The View” TV show July 28th, Madam Speaker virtually admitted that she did not know of a single crime that had been committed by the Bush Administration.  Joy Behar, one of the 5 co-hosts on the show, asked Pelosi why she had taken Impeachment off the table and continues to keep it off.  Pelosi responded by reiterating how important it is to stay focused on the many domestic issues requiring our attention and not to get distracted by such issues as Impeachment.  She went on to say that…

If somebody had a crime that the President had committed, that would be a different story.

 This is most sad.  Obviously, Pelosi needs our help; we must refresh her memory and the memory of “we the people.”  

I don’t mean to be sarcastic. but it is very tempting to ask where she has been for the past 7 years,  

Original article, sub-headed A “flexible timeline” is not a timetable, and continuing the occupation is not ending it by Anthony Arnove via socialistworker.org.

THE WALL Street Journal reports that the “The Bush administration’s embrace of a flexible timeline for pulling U.S. troops from Iraq has accelerated negotiations between Washington and Baghdad over a long-term security pact.”

Rand Corporation has recently published a report which concludes that terrorist groups rarely cease to exist as a result of winning or losing a military campaign. To me it is mind-boggling that it took Rand, or anyone else, 8 years to come to this conclusion. Now the damage has been done. Hundreds of billions of dollars wasted, over a million lives lost, millions of people displaced, destruction of property and in the end we’ve only created more “terrorists” which in turn could be used as a pretext to continue the GWOT.

By analyzing a comprehensive roster of terrorist groups that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006, the authors found that most groups ended because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory.

These findings suggest that the U.S. approach to countering al Qa’ida has focused far too much on the use of military force. Instead, policing and intelligence should be the backbone of U.S. efforts.

Is our favorite little cowboy growing up?

In perhaps the weasliest fashion possible and using a newly coined weasel word….Horizon….Lil George has agreed to set a timeline for getting out of Iraq.

AND Flip-flopped on appeasing the terrurists in Iran!

Two total 180 degree turns on your cowboy foreign policy in the same week, George?

Well gol-leee, George! What happened to bring it on??? With us or against us? Dead or alive? They brought it, you killed a million people in Iraq and sank our nation and our troops into the quagmire for SIX YEARS, but NOW you agree to set a timeline? Wassup wit dat?

I’ve only caught some news snippets lately but I noticed what might be a pattern emerging.

The big immigrant round-up in Postville, IA was an exercise in mass processing of a large round-up of illegal immigrants. They were taken to a cattle auction fairground and batch processed through a rigged system that put them each in prison for five months prior to their deportation. There are some good diaries around on the subject. I’ll add some links if I have time, otherwise a google should do it.

My discipline is computer science and I have had a lot of management experience in a large organization (IBM after they bought Lotus out; I was and am a Loti, ex). This whole operation struck me as a trial run for a process that would be repeated and refined over time. The victims in this case were the evil brown people – the illegal immigrants. They’ve been getting demonized for years now so the collective working class sympathy for them is pretty low. After all, they’re taking American jobs. That those are jobs that Uhmericans won’t do doesn’t matter. They are part of the economic problem and therefore – no widespread outrage.

The second mass operation was the combined federal, state and local mass round-up of sex offenders. No big deal, they deserved it right? No one wants to defend that crowd. That makes it very easy to do a trial run on them, too. The feds made this happen by doling out huge sums of cash for lots of OT pay for state and local authorities. Everyone likes more cash in their pockets. One of the big benefits was building longer term relationships among the three governmental law enforcement levels. This was even touted in some of the press coverage. What a wonderful thing to see such cooperation on a multi-state, multi-locality effort.

So first the illegal immigrants and then the sex offenders. Nice, safely demonizable practice groups is what I see. The first run at Postville hit a single location and gave valuable feedback on how to process human beings through a carefully jury-rigged (npi) legal chute. (Check out the huge busing capacity in the first link up top.) It was just like cattle to the slaughter except the outcome was temporary imprisonment at just below the maximum sentence. Of course the immigrants will now be available as free prison labor for those five months.

The second run is more insidious. I’ve seen small rumblings here and there about the feds identifying state and local law enforcement types who would be willing to go so far as to shoot at Uhmerican citizens. I’ll have to research that a bit more. Maybe someone can link to any relevant bits in the comments. The pervert posse set up what can be a continuing and growing bond, well lubricated by federal funds, to develop a vertical enforcement structure that could, if it fell into evil hands, be used to round up any stray thinkers. Not that anyone would actually be so evil as to conceive of such a thing.

Separately, these two events seem unrelated. Add a huge dash of illegal, warrantless wiretapping and let it simmer for a bit. Smells like soup to me. What would be the next ingredient? Across Russia and Europe it would always be the Jews, gypsys and gays. I suppose Muslims could be next. I doubt they’d go after the drug gangs. They’re better armed and funded.

Oops, missed an earlier one in 2006 under Gonzo. They’ve been practicing longer than I thought. Bonus – illegal immigrant sex offenders!

OK. I give up. Here it is: Operation Falcon! Federal And Local Cops Organized Nationally. I guess I’m just slow tonight. That’s the official government web site touting its huge benefits.

I suppose the next move is outsourcing the wet work to Blackwater and Dyncorp. The last eight years will never be taught in American History classes. At least not the way they actually happened. File the American Dream under Nice-Try, No-Cigar.