Morning BT.

Anyone surprised?

Someone on FDL last night made the comment that it’s very possible Georgie & Pootie made a deal. One would get Georgia if the other could have Iran. Seems plausible.

`Who invited the trouble here? Who invited this arrogance here? Who invited these innocent deaths here?”

“Not only those people who perpetrate them are responsible, but also those people who failed to stop it.”

Condi stood next to “Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in a show of solidarity,” Without approving the text of the speech?
Is there no learning curve in the State Dept talk about Amateur hour.
By standing next to him when he says that it looks like Condi is accepting the blame which no Loyal Bushie has ever done even when they are guilty.

I would not be surprised if this is part of some ploy to keep Darth and W in office indefinitely owing to some trumped up “crisis”. W, through executive orders, has placed an integrated plan in place to declare martial law and continuity of HIS government in event of “crisis/crises” so broadly defined that most any pretext will serve.

Then kiss the Pole, Ukraine all ex Warsaw Pact and former Soviet Republics votes good bye.

Incompetence is the facade; the excuse stupid people buy.

How much money arms aid etc did we give Georgia and how much did they pay for already? Because I don’t think that they will make payments on weapons captured by Russia?
Will the tax payers get stuck securing the loans to American weapons companies?

I think a lot of votes supporting the US/Israel for anything went bye-bye once these nations found out about the machinations by the US in Georgia.

Shrub: When I furs come to the White House I cudn’t spel isolationist, now I are one.

Morning BT
They keep finding more and better ways to screw up

Well, the fact that Georgie & Pootie were at the Olympics together and acting like nothing was happening in Georgia at the time, it does make you wonder if these two did make some sort of agreement that neither would intervene when they illegally invaded/attacked the nation of their choice.

It’s all fun and games to the dictators.

No really they are stupid do you think Bush wants to risk having the DOW lower in inflation related terms than it was under Clinton a man he despises remember Bush is the first Harvard MBA president.
Do you think Bush wants to be remembered as failing to catch Ossama failing to win the war in Iraq, in Afghanistan?
Do you think Bush likes being reminded that his ally Georgia lost territory and that there was nothing he could do about it?
If anything Bush being stupid and now desperate for a win/legacy would seem to indicate that an attack on Iran is worth the risk in his mind because nothing is going right for him.
Bush is past betting the rent money now he is betting with borrowed money past his credit limit.

We’ve Seen This All Before

Many Shia feel that they were betrayed by the US administration who failed to intervene after appearing to endorse a popular rebellion.

In February 1991, as US forces were crushing the Iraqi army and driving it out of Kuwait, former US President George Bush broadcast a message telling Iraqis that there was another way for the bloodshed to stop.

“That is for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands, to force Saddam Hussein the dictator to step aside…” he said in the Voice of America broadcast.

. . .

Human rights organisations estimate that tens of thousands of people died during the crackdown, which lasted several months.

Given Israels invasion and trashing of Lebanon because of the capture of five israeli soldiers and Bushcos failure to intercede or stop the violence how can anyone in this administration stand there and say anything about Russias actions after the shelling of S. Osetia

Actually, they weren’t acting like nothing was happening. They were seen arguing in the stands about the conflict. That said, it didn’t seem like a big deal to George Bush and it took him days to send over Condi to give the appearance that they’re against the Russian’s move.

I don’t trust any of them.

Manchurian Candidate McCain is cetifiably insane, with a neo-con catylostrophic plan for perpetual world war. Ignorance is Strength!

“My friends, we have reached a crisis, the first probably serious crisis internationally since the end of the Cold War.”

“In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations,”

“For anyone who thought that stark international aggression was a thing of the past, the last week must have come as a startling wake-up call.”

“There’s going to be other wars.”

Bush’s legacy may very well be an anti Israeli backlash as well as the current anti Muslim backlash, a Pox on both your Houses kind of thing.

U.S. forces are pinned down in Bush’s vanity war in Iraq. And someone failed to make it clear to Shaky that we have neither plans nor the ability to come to his aid.

It is commonly the responsibility of the Secretary of State to make sure that our intentions are understood in such matters.

Sorry, she wasn’t thru shopping for shoes

Everytime McCain My friends I flash to this

William Shakespeare – Friends, Romans, countrymen (from Julius Caesar 3/2)

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury

http://www.artofeurope.com/shakespeare/sha10.htm

I blame Sakashavili for the disaster. Anyone with half a brain in his head should have known that American promises aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. He was dreaming in technicolor to believe he would be bailed out.

Mornin’ Blue Texan and Firedogs -

BT, what are you doin’ quoting Saakashvilli from some hippy run, fact based newspaper ferchrissakes ?!?!? WaPo and NYT – “Russia Sets Georgia Withdrawal”

indicate that an attack on Iran is worth the risk in his mind because nothing is going right for him.

The problem with that is the military has made it quite clear they’re not behind such action. Shrub has used and abused the military, particularly the Army and Marines, to such a point that I think support for further military action is non-existent.

It should have been obvious that we were in no position to deploy forces to his region.

From Brother Dave Gardner:

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.

Whatcha got there?

Sack fulla ears.

Yes but Condi was shoe shopping again I bet and not even African Americans drowning during Katrina could pull her away from her Ferragamo shoes.
John McCain seems to have the same addiction.

John McCain caught in $520 Ferragamo loafers—he’s just the kind of guy the upscale retailer is targeting

http://www.236.com/news/2008/0…..r_8049.php

Knut – ’cause they kept sending him flowers and candy(military toys and advisors) with increasingly fancier romantic candlelight dinners in Yalta and DeeCee – he was right to anticipate a bended knee proposal and a big fat ring

I hope you are right and that the Armed Forces will stand up to Bush this time. Still deep in Bush’s heart you know that he wants to invade Iran if its possible.
Gulf of Tonkin anyone?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G…..n_Incident

bayh and pawlenty
good and plenty
on face the nation rigtht now.

Scheuneman et al may be pretty good salesmen

If BushCo wasn’t notorious for being super incompetent, you might assume this whole thing was some ingenious Machiavellian scheme to accomplish other goals in the region (Poland’s missile shield, e.g.), or even more sinister, a ploy to help McSame in the presidential election. The latter is especially plausible.

But given their record, it just looks more and more like another fuck up.

That’s what I thought too — this looks like a classic BushCo cock up, another “no one could have predicted” that encouraging Georgia’s belief that NATO was on the way would lead to this disaster.

However — there is one person that has the malice and brains to plan something like this — jump starting a new Cold War, for the benefit of John McCain. That person is KARL ROVE.

Marcy’s post reporting that both Karl Rove and Condi Rice were in the Crimea on July 9th, and Rove may have met with Saakashvili after Rice spoke with him. Very suspicious, but no smoking gun.

The most damning bit of evidence was reported by McClatchy last week –

Pentagon officials said that despite having 130 trainers assigned to Georgia, they had no advance notice of Georgia’s sudden move last Thursday to send thousands of Georgian troops into South Ossetia to capture that province’s capital, Tskhinvali.

Not only did the U.S. troops working alongside their Georgian counterparts not see any signs of an impending invasion, Georgian officials did not notify the U.S. military before the incursion, a senior U.S. defense official told McClatchy. …

U.S. officials said that they believed they had an understanding with Russia that any response to Georgian military action would be limited to South Ossetia.

“We knew they were going to go crack heads. We told them again and again not to do this,” the State Department official said. “We thought we had an understanding with the Russians that any response would be South Ossetia-focused. Clearly it’s not.”

My comment on this last night — Mark Kleiman’s post, with a full reprint of the McClatchy article.

Before anyone sheds too many tears about how the bad old Russian bear is beating up poor little Georgia, we need to remember how this started — Georgia launched an artillery and missile barrage against the capital of South Ossetia, that killed between 1,500 and 2,000 civilians.

No one could have predicted . . .

Somebody’s getting poxed

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1011396.html

Brother Dragon, I of course, pray you are correct -

got very nervous about a month ago when we removed the last carrier from the gulf – thinking Cheney wouldn’t want to lose a perfectly good carrier in the event of an “incident” X~o

ps to any firedogs – is it complicated to explain “screen grabs” ?

from your link -

A former Zionist leader who speaks fluent Hebrew, Yakobashvili credited Israeli defense companies with “enabling us to train our army and giving us the possibility to withstand the Russians,” but termed the Israeli government’s decision to stop arms exports to his country “a disgrace.

jeebus, is that news ? did we already know this ?

Gulf of Tonkin anyone?

Was there, done that. Funny feeling having been part of something that started a war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brother_Dave_Gardner

Not bad

Or that would the Air Force and/or Navy. The up coming naval blockade of Iran, an act of war,is on the screen.

OT does anyone over fifty ever remember thinking that the elections might not take place?

You were there there at the start?

Why did Israel stop selling them weapons?

well… why not? why shouldn’t we expect shrub to FUBAR this thing beyond belief, ending his long list of historic accomplishments with the re-ignition of the Cold War? One should recall that oil pipelines are involved here, and shrub never misses an opportunity to start a war over oil.

I doubt that very much, for the simple reason that the US never had any way of intervening in Georgia in the event of a Russian invasion/occupation. Putin didn’t have to give anything up to get what he wanted, and Russia has no interest in seeing the US bomb Iran. In fact their interest is just the opposite, which is why they have been hustling in anti-aircraft defence systems as fast as the Iranians can accept them. I don’t think there was any deal. The only deal is probably Rove’s deal with Sakaashavili, which was intended to set up McCain’s campaign. S. swallowed the bait hook line and sinker.

“looks more and more like another fuck up.” well, EXACTLY, and only because it is.

Dowd did a good job in today’s NYT.

How different it feels to be American in these post Bu$h [sic] days.

sorry, Dowd

Is this going to be a great year for Republican dog catchers or what??

I haven’t the link, but IIRC there were 1000 Israelis there working on military security. Links would be at BBC, The Guardian, The Timesonline about the time the attack by the Georgians began on South Ossetian capital. Sorry I did not make a bookmark.

reply isn’t working

cbl2 at 26–
and riga-check out the attnndees-banks, telcos, oh, and scheunemann.
http://64.233.167.104/custom?q…..#038;gl=us

OT
http://www.progressivepatriots…..use-v.html
another round of feingold’s progressive patriots contest–winner gets $5,000 toward their campaign.

here’s page with candidates and info about them–vote at the bottom.

Bennet, Doherty, Feder, Shulman and Taddeo are Blue America candidates.
read what happened to heather ryan(?) from kentucky .

and here is a montage of blue america candidates campaigning and other stuff se tto ’the bodeans-closer to free’
click on the ’downwithtyranny1’ name to see more videos-music and politics clips-is howie’s youtube page.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHHR7j3avdc

Yeah, I go with just another Bush major fuckup. I’d be more concerned with Russian intentions to divert our attention from some other destructive aggressive behavior of our own. IOW, I’d be asking more why Russia chose this issue to rattle our cage at this time?

Yep. Four destroyers, operating in pairs, rotated patrolling the North Vietnamese coast protecting incursions by South Vietnamese commandos into the North. MADDOX and C TURNER JOY operated together, rotating with MORTON and RICHARD S EDWARDS. MADDOX allegedly had the first encounter and returned to Yankee Station with C TURNER JOY. Three days later MORTON and EDWARDS engaged what was later termed a flock of geese and became known as the Flock of Geese Incident. Some days later MADDOX allegedly engaged in third encounter after relieving MORTON and EDWARDS. The three incidents were combined into one and sold to Congress as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident. You know the rest. I was on USS MORTON (DD 948).

Per that article:

[Yakobashvili, a “former Zionist leader” (from Georgia)] ascribed Georgia’s feisty military ability to Israeli training, and said that Russian experts had told him “they never believed Georgia has such an army and that they would encounter such resistance.”

Yakobashvili claimed the Georgian forces had destroyed Russia’s 58th army and downed 17 planes and three helicopters (data unsubstantiated by other sources). Eventually they had to retreat, he said, because “Russia deployed 30,000 soldiers and a thousand tanks. Our people are not suicidal – we don’t want our soldiers to remain in the field and be killed by Russian planes.”

Damn ingenious of them, ain’t it? Almost as if there’s a deliberate escalation of the incompetence. Hmmm…

After eight years, the president’s gut remains gullible. He’ll go out as he came in — ignoring reality; failing to foresee, prevent or even prepare for disasters; misinterpreting intelligence reports; misreading people; and handling crises in ways that makes them exponentially worse.

He has spent 469 days of his presidency kicking back at his ranch, and 450 days cavorting at Camp David. And there’s still time to mountain-bike through another historic disaster.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08…..ref=slogin

Holy Crap 469 + 450= 919 paid vacation days
I think Americas workers would love to get half of what Bush gets as far as vacation and healthcare!

cblw–i’d like to know about that too, i can’t count how many sites have been scrubbed since last sunday that have to do withthe baltic region…..wish i would have had the screens saved.

saaaaaskkavili on cnn right now……

This was one of the more humorous reports on zionist support that I’ve seen.
Israel Trains Quad Bikers?

Jewish Georgian Minister Temur Yakobshvili on Sunday praised the Israel Defense Forces for its role in training Georgian troops and said Israel should be proud of its military might, in an interview with Army Radio.
…
Yakobashvili, Georgia’s minister of reintegration, added that this training provided Georgia with the know-how needed to defend itself against Russian forces in the clashes which erupted last last week in the separatist region of South Ossetia.

Yakobashvili said that a small group of Georgian soldiers had able to wipe out an entire Russian military division due to this training.
Jewish Georgian minister: Thanks to Israeli training, we’re fending off Russia , Aug 11, Haaretz

—

The Georgian Army was in complete disarray last night after troops and tanks fled the town of Gori in panic and abandoned it to the Russians without firing a shot.
…
The retreat from Gori, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, was as humiliating as it was sudden and dramatic.
…
Soldiers left by any means available. Dozens of troops clung to cars on the back of a transporter lorry, while five other soldiers fled on one quad bike.
Georgian army flees in disarray as Russians advance, Aug 12, London Times

links in the original post

You have seen his story before, I hope the ending is different this time.

Didn’t some US diplomat say “We thought we had an agreement that Russia would only crack heads in South Ossetia”?

The implication of that was that the told Putin that he would have a “green light” if the Georgians went ahead and did something there. But did they tell something different to Saakashvili?

I don’t think he would be too happy to learn that the US told the Russkies they could “crack” Georgian heads open as long as it was kept to South Ossetia.

And even if they drew the “line in the sand” at the erstwhile Georgian province…I wonder what Saak thinks of that threat to Russia. Clearly even that wasn’t something the Bush Administration was about to back up.

There does seem to be a wide discrepancy about what really happened any word from the BBC?

That incident put paid to my application for navigator training, was clearing base chaplain, a Lt. Col. IIRC, was talking about vote in congress and disparaged the opposition to which I replied that the “opposition” may know something that was being overlooked in the rush to battle. That ended that, for the best it turns out.

Well, I hope folks learn faster than I did. I went back in 67 and spent until 1970 with the Mobile Riverine Force out of Dong Tam with stints operating with the Swift boats out of An Thoi, Phu Quoc Island. From blue water Navy to brown water Navy. Young, dumb and fulla cum.

My question: Why would Putin want to give a huge oil-rich country like Iran to a toothless tiger with clipped claws. I think it’s far more likely that Russia was saying that if we decide to play rough, they are prepared to play rough, too, and their resources are not exhausted from six previous years of war.

headed out to work . . .ah the fundies, my favorite tippers – NOT!

dmac – will have to hit the google later and learn the screen shot thingy

snoboysdrift – 707! you come sit next to me :D

BBL

mad progressivearch liberal love to all dogs

365 X 8 = 2920
2920
- 919
______
2001

almost a third of total days he was on vacation.

keep in mind that at camp david, they don’t have to register guests/visitors.wonder how many meetings were held that we don’t know about.
“only darth really knows’.

I’ve had a lot of people over the years ask me if I had ill feelings for those who went to Canada or otherwise avoided Nam. I’ve always said no. I can’t disparage folks who were smarter than I was.

If this is right then the State Dept meaning Condi was playing a game that went wrong sure starting a new cold war would help the GOP come election time.
But that assumes that after the failure in Iraq the GOP still owns National Security as an issue Karl might think that they still do but his “math ” is shaky to say the least.

keep servin’ up that great ’soul’ food cbl2-you’re nourishing both mind and body while you work..hope they tip ya big. i would.

Iran has more oil than Georgia does, right? Seems both Russia & the neocons in America would benefit from such a deal, no? ;-)

I thought it seemed plausible that Pootie & Georgie would make such a deal after I read the comment here on FDL last night.

This could be a great campaign issue now how many days was the Senate in session this year and McCain was on vacation running for President?
Didn’t Bob Dole resign as Senate Leader so that he could devote more time to running for President Responsibly.
I hope that now that MoDo has counted Bush’s vacation days the rest of the MSM will take notice.
Plus Bush still has time for more vacations I’m sure he can beat the 1/3 mark!

When I was sent the draft notice, that month the KC Star reported either 14 or 18 people known to be in Canada because of the draft. In my years, there has not been a moment of begrudging them their integrity (so it turns out). I am currently weeping for Canada’s rejection of asylum for a US Iraqi protester. How far removed from an ethical government, their neocon Prime Minister has led them. I hope the courts there will adhere to their better selves.

i think bush and co were completely out of the loop on this one…see my riga attendees list i posted for cbl2

this is a neocon op, far too important to let bush have anything to do with it…..millions invested and years of planning.

richardson on cnn about georgia and russia.wolf pushing should russia be eliminated from the g8, his meme lately.

kinda sums it up well, Don’t Know Much About History…

They obviously don’t teach cold war history at the law schools at Columbia in New York or George Washington in the nation’s capital, otherwise Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, who attended both institutions, would have thought twice about encouragement from the US for his ill-fated attack on South Ossetia a week ago. Saakashvili could have read vivid accounts of broadcasts, via the CIA-controlled Radio Free Europe, encouraging the Hungarians in 1956 to believe that if they rose against the Soviet occupier NATO troops would race to their aid.

As usual, FTN was pretty nauseating. Pawlenty was spinning McCain’s recitation of his stump speech last night as “crisp and decisive.” Obama’s considered responses as “hesitant and wandering.” Bayh wasn’t very good on his counter-attack.

I hate to focus on minutiae but in the unfortunate event that Bayh gets the nod for VP, everybody should chip in to get him a big-boy haircut. I know it’s still the height of fashion in Indiana but for the rest of the country, the Alfalfa look went out at the same time as Our Gang.

a month or two ago, heis numbers were 51% for votes…missed votes–hillary was 18% everyone else fell in the 30’s and 40’s except kuchinich, he was there most of the time, too, maybe in the low 20’s.

Georgia doesn’t have any oil, but it does have a pipeline from the Caspian Sea — it is the only transit route out of Central Asia that isn’t controlled by Russia or Iran. That’s why Georgia is a big deal to the USA and Western Europe — that’s why Russia wants the Georgians to know who’s the boss.

The Annexation of South Ossetia: Russia’s War For Control of Oil

http://outtheotherear.wordpres…..ol-of-oil/

Good commentary, and a map of the oil pipeline.

skipping ahead in the comments for an OT -

Tom Daschle, on George Stephy, appearing “for Obama” whiffs on a softball accidentally lobbed by Mitt Romney – oh now Romney’s lobbing another one – about how quickly and easily McCrazy has stepped into the Georgian situation.

Daschle says “Well, that’s pretty goddamned easy when your foreign affairs advisor was the top Georgian lobbyist in the U.S. for years and years.”

Nah – I’m just projecting what he *should* have said. What he actually *did* say – heh, I’ve already forgotten.

Scratch Daschle as a desirable Veep Candidate. Obama SO needs a bulldog running-mate, who knows “how to play this game.”

“Apparent Incompetence” OR “Incompetence By Design” is NOT the same as “Incompetence.” If fact, it is JUST the opposite.

For those keeping score, seemingly everything that has gone wrong since Bush took office has been explained by some degree of incompetence.

THAT IS THE STRATEGY.

Understand the game for what it is, and the rules for what they are. Stop attributing Coincidence Theories to every action and result.

EVERY ACT IS INTENTIONAL…planned years in advance, if not decades in advance, by those behind the curtain.

Start with Ledeen, Rockefeller and GHW Bush.

yep..

ohio is at least three years behind new york, indiana seven. or more.

i remember being in new york with my mom in the early e80’s,. right when the wearing tennis shoes and carrying your work/dress shoes thing started.,….years later, it hit cincinnati.

What is it with these Dem Senators and former Senators? With few exceptions, Kennedy being uppermost, these guys brains seem to turn to mush after the 1st year in the Senate.

Wasn’t Daschle The Senate Majority Leader that shit his pants and passed the Patriot Act.

An Irish wit: doG created war to teach Americans geography. Maybe history too

Now that is an issue we can run against and tie to Bush’s vacations.

Scratch Daschle as a desirable Veep Candidate. Obama SO needs a bulldog running-mate, who knows “how to play this game.”

Skip the metaphor, he needs a real live, actual, bull-dog, snarling, slobbering, straining on the leash… We’ll see how well the Republicans remember their talking points then.

Ding.

That was supposed to be for tw3k at 76.

Senate Minority Leader.

The Neocons are end running Bush and the State Dept? That means Darth is calling the shots on this one.
No wonder Georgia attacked Condi, Bush eh, but if Darth gave his support for an attack then that explains why Georgia felt confident about invading and now feels betrayed.
I’m surprised that Darth didn’t start WW 3.

Obama SO needs a bulldog running-mate, who knows “how to play this game.”

Obama SO needs a bona fide experienced CEO/Chief Executive as a running mate. Someone who has the backbone to accomplish things that need doing. Anything else, will be asking for defeat. No Senator, no Congressman is qualified to do this without first having been a successful Governor of a large state. I haven’t much hope of seeing such a candidate. Nixon had Agnew, Kennedy had Johnson (CEO Senate), Reagan had GHWB, Clinton had Gore(CEO material).

We are not saying that this wasn’t all planned years in advance we are saying that everything they have done has failed.
No country pulling a “Shock Doctrine” tactic on its own people wants their army the source of their control humiliated or tied down in a long war.
Military success must be quick to instill feelings of competence in the army and the government.
Bush might have had secret plans but the execution was faulty. Hitler by comparison had much higher popularity levels.

I think that would probably be Biden. He’s tough.

ah, yeah, thanks. I guess he became leader after it passed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Daschle

So who do you suggest Rod Blagojevich?

Spines don’t forget the mush Spines.

Ian in his splenderific best is above

I guarantee all eyes would be on Rod at the Inaugural Hair-Ball.

Everything they have done has actually succeeded.

My point is that your view of “success” and theirs are diametrically opposed. You perceive that success means quick victory, and they perceive that it means quagmire and forever occupation. I have it exceptionally good authority that the goal for Iraq from the very outset was to “not win.” That doesn’t mean “lose,” it means the circumstance that presently exists in Iraq. These RESULTS are not coincidental.

They are happy that you think this is all the result of incompetence and poor planning. This is precisely what Rove wants you to believe. They have created a no win situation, with no way out…BY DESIGN!

You think they are incompetent and stupid because that is what they WANT YOU TO THINK. We are in opposite world. LITERALLY NOTHING is as it appears. NOTHING. Get your head around that and stop assuming that these people are anything less than pure evil. It is a grand conspiracy. Admitting it is going to save you a whole lot of ranting and raving about how stupid and incompetent they are.

Bush is just the front man for a very well orchestrated plan to alter your sense of reality.

Remember this from Ron Suskind?

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn’t like about Bush’s former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House’s displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn’t fully comprehend – but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were “in what we call the reality-based community,” which he defined as people who “believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.” I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. “That’s not the way the world really works anymore,” he continued. “We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality – judiciously, as you will – we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/101704A.shtml

DID YOU THINK HE WAS KIDDING?

Anybody who’s read the early writings of the neocons had that figured out. The incompetence part comes from the administration’s inability to carry out the neocon imperial agenda. Had any of their plans been successful we wouldn’t see the political shift we’re now seeing. If those plans had been successful it would be another couple generations before the Dems could dream of control of Congress.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/…..01797.html

Rumsfeld Forbade Planning For Postwar Iraq, General Says

Long before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld forbade military strategists to develop plans for securing a postwar Iraq, the retiring commander of the Army Transportation Corps said.

Brig. Gen. Mark E. Scheid told the Newport News Daily Press in an interview published yesterday that Rumsfeld had said “he would fire the next person” who talked about the need for a postwar plan.

Scheid was a colonel with the U.S. Central Command, the unit that oversees military operations in the Middle East, in late 2001 when Rumsfeld “told us to get ready for Iraq.”

“The secretary of defense continued to push on us . . . that everything we write in our plan has to be the idea that we are going to go in, we’re going to take out the regime, and then we’re going to leave,” Scheid said. “We won’t stay.”

Planners continued to try “to write what was called Phase 4″ — plans that covered post-invasion operations such as security, stability and reconstruction, said Scheid, who is retiring in about three weeks, but “I remember the secretary of defense saying that he would fire the next person that said that.”

And now a word from Pravda:

http://english.pravda.ru/opini…../106094-0/

Ouch.

things–all i know is, the names that keep popping up are not bushies…conference attendee lists-un and eu foreign relations and others , baltic associations, policy papers, news clips, etc,

neocons.

lobbyist neocons.

and banks and telcos. and middle-eastern interests.

i posted the riga 2006 conference link because it had the most well-rounded list of the ones i have seen…. or should i say most wide-spread.

just reading the conference lists over the bush years kinda says it all. whomever (country and corp)is there, that’s that the ’news’ is two years later.

i’m gonna read the next post and sign-off for now, bbl, browser is not cooperating today. print types one at a time, slowly.

Are you implying that the Dems control Congress now? Congress has been totally neutered. Congress controls nothing.

Nice! I wonder if we can the rooskies on boad to send bush to the hauge?

“We are heroes in error.”

Ahmad Chalabi

“So!”

Dick Cheney

EXACTLY… i am weary of hearing how stupid bush is…. obviously he is not stupid; he has achieved most of his objectives and is busy setting the stage to ram home the rest… how stupid is that??? he has been very effective at his real objectives. he only looks stupid if you believe the lies.

What’s So Funny ‘Bout Bush, Lies and Torture Memos?

My point is that your view of “success” and theirs are diametrically opposed. You perceive that success means quick victory, and they perceive that it means quagmire and forever occupation. I have it exceptionally good authority that the goal for Iraq from the very outset was to “not win.” That doesn’t mean “lose,” it means the circumstance that presently exists in Iraq. These RESULTS are not coincidental.

They are happy that you think this is all the result of incompetence and poor planning. This is precisely what Rove wants you to believe. They have created a no win situation, with no way out…BY DESIGN!

These comments mirror those of another commenter here in the past, who also claimed sources of good authority but could never provide any substantiation or documentation. The neocon agenda for empire is more than adequately documented in their writings over the years. Nowhere in them do I find your interpretation. Kristol and others have continually berated the administration for not being able to bring their dream to life. Success to the neocons is, and has been all along, control of the world’s economy and resources backed by the military power of the US. If more people in government in the US and Europe had read Mein Kampf WWII might not have happened. Churchill, who was not in office, seems to have been the only one paying attention. The same is true of the writings of the neoconservatives. There were those of us paying attention but were ignored.

You miss the point. They are in the majority, hence they “control” Congress. Nobody has said anything about their effectiveness. If the neocon agenda was progressing as envisioned the Dems would not have been elected in 06.

Uh oh. No one was outside the Saddleback Church in support of Johnny McCain:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLyHSrXMRng

Seems the two candidates the crowd did support was Barack Obama and Ron Paul. Ooopsie.

I understand your point. They have adapted, and what you perceive to have been an end result, they perceive to be “half time”

The False Flag horror they have planned will completely change the dynamic, to say nothing of the freedoms we once enjoyed.

This is “Wild Cornered Animal Stage,” and the closer we get to exposing all their criminality, the greater the likelihood they will behave as though they have nothing to lose. Did they intentionally hand Georgia over to Russia in return for a pledge of non-interference for the pending invasion of Iran?

These are exceptionally dangerous times, and the Masters Of The Universe have depopulation as one of their goals.

It would be interesting to see what the history books will write about this era. Might also be stomach-turning.

There is no reason to believe that Russia would interfere with the US if we invaded Iran. Why would the Russians waste their money and resources while we burn ours at unheard of levels? Saddam couldn’t beat the Iranians using biological warfare. The Russians would be more than pleased if we got ourselves bogged down in Iran, where the resistance would be even greater than that of the Irakis.

Na man, in 2012, at the end of the Maya calendar when the tectonic plates flip the earth will be depopulated/recycled. Humanity and technology will survive with the in the international space station and reseed the planet once the planet surface settles.

funny?

with the in the

what you perceive to have been an end result, they perceive to be “half time”

I don’t see an end result anywhere. Hopefully I’ll live long enough to see the end of this ideological struggle. The neocons had amassed a huge amount of influence and power in the last 40 years. The struggle with them and their agenda is just getting started.

i think so.

edit – The neocons had have amassed

Preview is mah fren

Invading Iran and bombing them are two different things. The term “tactical nukes” is the operative consideration (as if there were such a thing – used with no consequences). Aerial bombardment with nuclear bombs in what’s in the cards. The comparison to Russia’s experience in Afghanistan assumes a ground war. Israel would be more than happy to simply depopulate Iran.

Have you studied Ledeen? Likely the most evil operator behind the scenes. The AEI just cut him loose – distancing themselves for some reason.

If Israel used tactical nukes during a pre-emptive strike in Iran that very well could spell the end of Israel. Israel would have to get everything it needs from the US. Everything they can’t make for themselves. Can you name one country, other than the US, that would support Israel after such an action? The EU is trying very hard to play hard line over nuclear enrichment but a pre-emptive nuclear strike by Israel would tell the world that every country needed nukes to protect themselves against the US/Israel cabal.

I’m very familiar with Ledeen’s writings. It looks like he’s gone off the deep end. AEI is trying to clean up it’s act. Kristol’s father works for them and Kristol has an office there as well, I think. Kristol isn’t a great thinker but he’s good at putting other peoples thoughts together. Ledeen has, imo, been a nutjob all along. Definitely one of the more radical neocons. I think one of the things that didn’t work out too well for them is Israel is now coming under increased scrutiny and people are beginning to speak out about its excesses in Palestine. The neocons certainly didn’t want that to happen. Their support and advocacy of Israel has been prominent since day one and they openly support a pre-emptive strike on Iran, although I’ve seen no mention of nukes in that respect. They’re certainly not against the use of tactical nukes.

Why Bush Will Nuke Iran

By Paul Craig Roberts

09/26/06 ” Information Clearing House”

excerpts:

Bush is incapable of recognizing his mistake. He can only escalate. Plans have long been made to attack Iran. The problem is that Iran can respond in effective ways to a conventional attack. Moreover, an American attack on another Muslim country could result in turmoil and rebellion throughout the Middle East. This is why the neocons have changed US war doctrine to permit a nuclear strike on Iran.

Neocons believe that a nuclear attack on Iran would have intimidating force throughout the Middle East and beyond. Iran would not dare retaliate, neocons believe, against US ships, US troops in Iraq, or use their missiles against oil facilities in the Middle East.

Neocons have also concluded that a US nuclear strike on Iran would show the entire Muslim world that it is useless to resist America’s will. Neocons say that even the most fanatical terrorists would realize the hopelessness of resisting US hegemony. The vast multitude of Muslims would realize that they have no recourse but to accept their fate.

Revised US war doctrine concludes that tactical or low-yield nuclear weapons cause relatively little “collateral damage” or civilian deaths, while achieving a powerful intimidating effect on the enemy. The “fear factor” disheartens the enemy and shortens the conflict.

University of California Professor Jorge Hirsch, an authority on nuclear doctrine, believes that an American nuclear attack on Iran will destroy the Non-Proliferation Treaty and send countries in pellmell pursuit of nuclear weapons. We will see powerful nuclear alliances, such as Russia/China, form against us. Japan could be so traumatized by an American nuclear attack on Iran that it would mean the end of Japan’s sycophantic relationship to the US.

There can be little doubt that the aggressive US use of nukes in pursuit of hegemony would make America a pariah country, despised and distrusted by every other country. Neocons believe that diplomacy is feeble and useless, but that the unapologetic use of force brings forth cooperation in order to avoid destruction.

Neoconservatives say that America is the new Rome, only more powerful than Rome. Neoconservatives genuinely believe that no one can withstand the might of the United States and that America can rule by force alone.

Hirsch believes that the US military’s opposition to the use of nuclear weapons against Iran has been overcome by the civilian neocon authorities in the Bush administration. Desperate to retrieve their drive toward hegemony from defeat in Iraq, the neocons are betting on the immense attraction to the American public of force plus success. It is possible that Bush will be blocked by Europe, Russia and China, but there is no visible American opposition to Bush legitimizing the use of nuclear weapons in behest of US hegemony.

It is astounding that such dangerous fanatics have control of the US government and have no organized opposition in American politics.

So let’s look at what the human costs of dropping a tactical nuclear weapon on Iran might entail.

They are astronomical.

“The number of deaths could exceed a million, and the number of people with increased cancer risks could exceed 10 million,” according to a backgrounder by the Union of Concerned Scientists from May 2005.

The National Academy of Sciences studied these earth-penetrating nuclear weapons last year. They could “kill up to a million people or more if used in heavily populated areas,” concluded the report, which was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Physicians for Social Responsibility examined the risks of a more advanced buster-bunker weapon, and it eerily tabulated the toll from an attack on the underground nuclear facility in Esfahan, Iran. “Three million people would be killed by radiation within two weeks of the explosion, and 35 million people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India, would be exposed to increased levels of cancer-causing radiation,” according to a summary of that study in the backgrounder by the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Even if these estimates are off by a factor of two or three, I think we have unquestionably entered genocidal territory. We can only pray that these scientists are profoundly in error. (A much lower estimate is provided by the Oxford Research Group: up to 10,000 immediate deaths, although their report also predicts a much broader and protracted regional war to follow. That would obviously lead to many additional casualties.)

And please remember the overwhelmingly critical fact: we are talking about a threat — if it is one at all — that still lies five or ten years in the future. All these deaths, whatever their number, would result from an attack predicated on a potential threat that does not exist at present, or that will exist in the near future. Many Americans might still look to our “good intentions” and our “exceptionalism” to save them from identifying the savage and inhuman barbarism that the United States would then embody — but much of the rest of the world would not be forgiving or delusional on the required scale. There can never be any kind of forgiveness, even in the smallest degree, for this kind of act.

http://powerofnarrative.blogsp…..ation.html

interesting discussion. to offer a thought regarding ideology vs individual. To frame the discussion, I am in the social services field and have followed some of the recent writing on the role and numbers of sociopaths in our country. This writing also addresses certain advantages held by people with sociopathic or anti social personality disorders in their ability to seize and hold control and power, unhindered as they are with empathy, shame, guilt, or need for honesty, honor, or integrity. Estimates of % of population are at 7%; thats a lot of people.

With this frame, consider who is drawn to the neocon philosophy, who is interested in world domination, who is willing to value the seizing of power and resources over human and humane considerations. Although they form a group who can recognize common goals, they are also people with a proclivity for acting in their own perceived best interest, without regard for yesterday’s group think. Problems sharing and internal dissent seem likely, but their own awareness of the ruthlessness of their “partners” keeps the shield up around the camp.

since you introduced the word, to what are you referring?

which word?

Here’s the Wikipedia page explaining screen capture.

I use a “free for personal use” application called SnagIt.

The Washington junta is as bloody-minded as they are very expensive cock-up artists.

Who’s talking to the American ‘advisors’ on the ground in Georgia, that’s what I want to know. These facilitators of atrocities need to be read their rights.

funny

Excellent. I think you’d be hard pressed to find more evil embodied in an individual than Ledeen. His total disdain for the common man (and humanity) is unparalleled. His alliance with Rockefeller is a perfect fit.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new…..o-war.html

U.S. supplied photos showing Russian tank movement that panicked the Georgians.

I thought my Maya calendar doomsday story was funny. There is very little I find funny about what the government has done.

Sadly, it’s NOT a screw up from their perspective. Their mindset and problem solving paradigm remains unchanged. Until a better model of how the various components of security and economic well being interact, especially between bottom half workers and top one per cent of property right appropriators interact, we will continue to get “screw up results”. It is insane to keep repeating the same experiment and expect different results, a process taking us back to a stone age concept of GOD.

The missile shield, full spectrum dominance, new WMD programs, working to increase energy demand rather than decrease energy supply, failure to understand that BOTH private AND Public goods exist, demonizing other cultures, are all conclusions that will continue to be suggested by a false construct of how the worlds works.

Or a correct concept, where the major game is to transfer as much wealth from the public to an elite few,ot to the the Pharaoh, Emperor, Tsar, Dictator, Vice-President,Don, Pope or whatever name given to the focus of the wealth flow. After all Cheney, and most of the neocons, military establisment, oil corporations, bankers, stock dealers, have done extremely well. The bottom 40%, however, have lost significant wealth.

Thank you BT for your post. I think the Russian crackdown in Georgia was precisely what the Neocons were hoping for in order to justify finalizing the missile shield deal with Poland. They encouraged Sakaashvili into making his move on separatist South Ossetia, then they cry in outrage when Russia responds to a military skirmish in a region that until now was undisputably within USSR/Russia’s zone of influence. They are using their old Cold War argument that Russia’s aggression must be contained. Yet another example of the Shock Doctrine at work – opportunistically using a crisis to implement a long-held desire to place a missile defense system on Russia’s borders. This set-up has the bonus value (to the Neocons) of providing their candidate, McCain, with a platform for showcasing his military rhetoric. It looks like the McCain camp has been prepping for this moment for months (or else it’s a heck of a coincidence that one of his main advisors is lobbyist for Georgia, and is BFF with Sakaashvili. Not to mention that McCain “vacationed” in Georgia (And Cokie Roberts that thinks that Obama’s choice of vacation destination is exotic!! Sheesh!)
Oh, and on the topic of who is the least exotic, most “bonafide” American, where was McCain born, again? Oh, yeah – Panama Canal! Not that there is anything wrong with that, but I wish the MSM pundits would be consistent in their xenophobia.

McCain says we must “defeat it [evil]”, so I wonder when he’s going to denounce and fight George W. Bush and the neocons.

His heyday was the 1960s and he was a zealous Reaganot in the 1980s, but those days are long gone and now he’s just an old man who doesn’t even grok the Intertoobz. McCain is the past.

Obama is The One!