Scarecrow,
Terrific post. Interesting stream comments.
Can hardly wait for the 7th question post. I say impeach the top two, now.
Poor Hamilton and Baker, trying hard to really make a difference, one hopes. Loved the quote from Gore. Blessings to the FDL family.

Good post, scarecrow. I like to see your bright light on the frontpage.

I must disagree with the commentor sometimes known as Jim, sometimes as fahrender: Friedman Unit is just fine. In fact, I like it better than plain Friedman.

i guess we can agree to disagree on that …….
and are you also sometimes known as Jim?

Thanks Rumi for filling in more info about the ISG and Carlyle in response to Wigwam’s question of who benefits. To me the corporate presence is the elephant in the room along with the 100,000 government contractors. I’d like to see lots more coverage and hearings into corporate fraud wrt Iraq.
rumi @ 18

The Carlyle White House

… Currently, Carlyle manages more than $44 billion in 42 different investment funds, which is an interesting fact in and of itself: Carlyle could lay claim to only a meager $12 billion in funds in December of 2001. Thanks to their ownership of United Defense Industries, a major military contractor that sells a whole galaxy of weapons systems to the Pentagon, Carlyle’s profits skyrocketed after the invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Some notable present and former employees of Carlyle include former president George H.W. Bush, who resigned in 2003; James Baker III, Bush Sr.’s secretary of state and king fixer; and George W. Bush, who served on Carlyle’s board of directors until his run for the Texas governorship. One notable former client of Carlyle was the Saudi BinLaden Group, which sold its investment back to the firm a month after the September 11 attacks. Until the October 2001 sellout, Osama bin Laden himself had a financial interest in the same firm that employed the two presidents Bush….

… A third member of the Iraq Study Group, former congressman Lee Hamilton, is the rope that ties this curious historical package together. During the Reagan days, Hamilton was chairman of the committee investigating the Iran/Contra scandal that nearly submarined Reagan’s presidency and haunted Bush Sr. until his defeat in 1992. In essence, Hamilton took Reagan’s people at their word when they assured the chairman that neither Reagan nor Bush were “in the loop” regarding the arms-for-hostages deal.

History and investigation have proven this to be quite separate from the truth, and Hamilton later admitted he should not have bought what Reagan’s people were selling. The fact remains, however, that Hamilton let these guys slip the noose during what was, at the time, an investigation into one of the most serious abrogations of Constitutional law in our history. It is worthwhile to note that the man who brought the most pressure upon Hamilton within Congress to be “bipartisan” and avoid a protracted investigation was then-Wyoming representative Dick Cheney….

The current bait & switch that the Dem party is pulling on the American people will come back to bite ‘em.

Thomas Pynchon dealt with similar equations in “Gravity’s Rainbow”.

What again is our mission? /end semi snark*g*

Does the ISG report recognize that the current overall Bush approach to foreign policy has made the task of regional diplomacy nearly impossible, and recommend an entirely new approach to the rest of the world?

# # #

this is the hard, sad truth. I fear we will never restart any kind of diplomatic approach as long as Bush is in power. You can’t turn this pickle back into a cucumber.

Mommybrain @ 136

Good post, scarecrow. I like to see your bright light on the frontpage.

I must disagree with the commentor sometimes known as Jim, sometimes as fahrender: Friedman Unit is just fine. In fact, I like it better than plain Friedman.

Not only that, it allows us to use the moniker F.U.

There’s that, too! Hadn’t thought of that one, (((RevDeb))).