Donald Trump Actually Talks Sense For Once in REEP Debate #5

Let's first be honest and point out that - as Guardian UK columnist Richard Wolffe put it, this fifth Reepo “debate” was "about as convincing as the gondolas gliding along the supposedly Grand Canal outside the  (Venetian) casino."  If you've ever been to the Venetian you know what Wolffe's talking about, including the faux blue skies and the whole artificial setting, e.g.


A Venetian gondolier - from our trip to Vegas in 2006.

So it was almost to be expected this debate would reflect the artifice of the environment. We beheld Trump, for instance, "ambling in like the character he plays on 'The Apprentice': the judge on a reality show."  And where other candidates embraced the audience as potential voters, "Trump weakly applauded them as apprentices aspiring to his hiring." You had to admire his chutzpah.

But the main takeaway is that most of these guys believe the American people (or at least those who actually vote) are a bunch of whiny little 'fraidy cats or infants, e.g.

"Pwotekt me, Mista Goopa!"

 And can be drumbeaten into the GOOPr fold by manic, unhinged rhetoric spewed out in a hawk fest more appropriate to the meeting scene in 'Dr. Strangelove'. (Google to learn the connection if you never saw the flick.)

There was Jeb! boasting how he wanted to "increase defense spending" to fight ISIS despite the fact we are now spending $667 billion a year. WTF does he want? Another $3 trillion squandered like his dumb bro pissed away in the Iraq War?  In any case, the last thing we need is another Bush in the White House to complete the descent of this country into 2nd class nation status. And then there was Cruz who intended to "carpet bomb" Raqqa - the HQ for ISIS -  but which actually is a city of over 400,000,  with mostly civilians. Collateral damage, anyone? How about intentional genocide?

We also had the really immature dolts going after Russia, which nation I guess they really believe is a "paper tiger" as one deluded WSJ poppet put it a week ago in an op ed. There was John Kasich (who I once took to be the GOP "adult") bragging he intended to "punch Russia in the nose". Good luck on that, pally, but you are going to have to go through Vladimir Putin first, and somehow I don't think you're up to it against the former KGB head who walks with a "gunslinger's gait". (As noted in a report on the news last night, from having his weapon at the ready on that right side.)

Then we have the heavyset (putting it mildly) turkey,  Chris Christie,  who actually wants to outdo Gen, Curtis LeMay (from 1962's Cuban Missile Crisis) vowing he would effectively  start World War III if he had to by shooting down Russian pilots over Syria - if he put up a no fly zone. He even defended it this morning, essentially insinuating if he put up such a zone the Russians would not dare disobey it, "if they knew the consequences". One wonders what manner of marijuana edibles or candies this fool was ingesting.

Amidst all this huff and puff it was therefore gratifying to at least see Trump separate from the hawkathon and especially inveighing against the insane GOP yen for 'regime change". We've already seen in Iraq (ousting Saddam), Libya (ousting Muammar Ghadaffi) how this game plays out and now also the eagerness to supplant Assad in Syria. Mincing no words, Trump emphatically stated that the $4 trillion blown on those regime change operations would have been better spent here at home for roads, infrastructure, schools, etc. He also added that any future trillions that the interventionists might wish to blow, would be better spent here in the U.S. To which the harpy-witch Carly Fiorina responded he was "talking more like Obama". Actually no, you ignorant misfit, he was talking sense!

By contrast, the odious slob Chris 'Crisco' Christie instantly disqualified himself by asserting that he'd have no qualms shooting down a Russian plane over Syria after installing a dopey "no fly" zone. So, he'd risk incinerating billions in a third world (nuclear) war to prove his security bona fides and that his Pillsbury doughboy frame really had the balls to do it. (Recall in 'Oct. 62 JFK had to restrain Gen. Curtis LeMay who wanted to bomb Cuba into the stone age, despite the fact there were 93 fully armed IRBMs  aimed at the eastern and central U.S.)

What Christie really showed is how easy it is for one's ass to occupy one's brain, when bravado supersedes common sense and intellect.

Christie, while lamenting the sense of fear gripping the United States,  then ended up stoking as much fear as possible, talking at length in dog whistle style about the bomb threat that closed the Los Angeles Unified school system on Tuesday. But somehow ignoring that the New York authorities in his backyard decided the same threat was a hoax. (The reason given by the NYPD Police commissioner is that the email sender referred to "allah" and not Allah.)

By contrast to Christie and the other warmongering, take 'em all out Reepo yahoos,  Trump showed forbearance and sound judgment- at least by his stated unwillingness to intervene and overthrow yet another Middle Eastern state and for nothing.  (Of course, he later more or less neutralized the quantum of rationality displayed then by his stance on killing the families of terrorists. As Rand Paul asked: "Ever heard of the Geneva Convention?")

Let's recall the Bush bunch are the original regime changers so no surprise Jeb! had to butt in to do an indirect defense of his incompetent brother.

Late in the debate, for example,  Jeb! jabbed at Trump for "getting his national security advice from retired generals on cable TV.". But Trump simply stepped out of the exchange to critique his rival and the moderators – retaking his role as judge rather than participant.

At one point Jeb clearly lost it,  barking:

“You’re never going to be president of the United States by insulting your way to the presidency,”

“Well, let’s see,” said Trump, “I am at 42 and you’re at three,” he added citing recent polls. “So, so far, I’m doing better.”

Meanwhile, Ted Cruz tried to talk with a certain Texan swagger on how he'd "wipe out ISIS" and basically do everything Obama "isn't doing"  now. Except Obama is, including sending in more strategic ground forces for support. But as I noted before, it's easy for imps like Cruz and Rubio to try to out swagger each other with empty rhetoric when they hold no real positions of power. It's likewise easy for a pompous porker like Christie to vow he'd shoot down Russian planes when the only really nasty thing he's done up to now (as NJ Governor) is shut down a key bridge backing up traffic in his state for miles- and hours.

The most important aspect of last night's debate was to show that the Reeps -most of them - can only "win" by instilling fear. Fear of the terrorists and fear of our own shadows, if we let the lizard brain take over the prefrontal cortex.  People need to bear in mind the only political leverage the Reepos hold is the terror card. And if they can get enough of us to submit, and believe terrorism trumps all else - then we will have truly fucked ourselves to a far thee well in next year's elections.

The facts speak otherwise, that this era and period is nowhere near as terrifying as many in the past, including the Cuban Missile Crisis which I lived through when we came within a hair's breadth of WW III. Our much bigger fear ought to be of the millions of assault weapons in our midst which too many seem to be quite content to leave alone, at least their regulation, out of a misinterpretation of the 2nd amendment. Meanwhile mass murders go on daily, not by terrorists or ISIS sympathizers but by fellow Americans too ready to settle things or act out with their AR-15s. There've been 200,000 slaughtered since 9/11 by these weapons in the hands of fellow citizens, vs. 45 killed by terrorists. Do the math! And if you are still terrorized by ISIS,  or any other random jihadi terror,  you don't deserve to call yourself an American - or at least claiming that you belong in "the home of the brave".

And if you believe Chris Crisco Christie is the answer- as some expressed in an MSNBC focus group this morning-  you definitely don't know which end is up or what WWIII would look like. So I suggest you get the movie 'Threads' and watch it - maybe several times - to let it sink in.

If this fifth debate did anything it showed the Dems still are the adults in the room, and the party most likely to feature a sane and temperate leader in a world too overrun by fear, panic sand over-heated rhetoric. But, of course, the election next year will ultimately depend on adults - not fearful infants - to make the decision that best serves the nation.

And when one writes that Donald Trump was (relatively speaking) the most rational on the stage tonight, you have some idea of just how fucked up the GOP really is.

Marco Rubio - Another Reepo Buffoon - Falls Into the Iraq Trap

Rubio pouts after mucking up an Iraq question from FOX's Chris Wallace.

What is it with these mentally deficient Republican presidential candidates that even after they behold the alleged "front runner'" stumble over an Iraq question ('if you knew what you do now would you still have invaded?') they still get tongue tied and end up spouting a dopey, half-assed response? The latest chowderhead is Marco Rubio, a junior Senator from Florida and Tea Party gadfly who somehow fancies himself another Obama. He isn't.  He barely qualifies as a 'Barney Fife' wannabe. (Google the name if you don't know it.)

Asked  on Sunday by a Fox anchor (Chris Wallace) a similar question, Rubio could only sputter:

"I still say it was not a mistake because the president was presented with intelligence that said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, it was governed by a man who had committed atrocities in the past with weapons of mass destruction.”

Bull Pockey! You dodged the question, you putz!

When Wallace pushed him to say whether he’d call it a mistake, even knowing about the faulty intelligence, he responded in classic 'Barney Fife' fashion:

“The world is a better place because Saddam Hussein is not there…” .

Uh no, Barney, errr....Marco. In case you haven't noticed, a bunch of vicious terrorists called ISIS are running amuck - pillaging, murdering and raping- unleashed by Bush's folly - barging into a sectarian Muslim nation using a total BS ruse.. (More on this below)

When a CBS News political analyst was asked this morning what he made of these stumbles, he replied: "Well, none of these guys want to second guess the signature event of the last Republican president".

Which is beyond pathetic, given how 75 percent of the country now believes the Iraq invasion and occupation was not worth it - according to polls.  It also leaves open the possibility that any one or all of these losers would re- invade (Lindsey Graham calling for "10,000 troops" this morning to secure Anbar province) and make the situation even worse. I suppose one ought not second guess Reepo insanity - which is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result"

The brutal fact none of these monkeys can grasp? That Bush Jr. ought to have left Saddam alone, and not invaded to satiate little Georgie's pique that the "bad man" threatened his daddy. That is what it was all about after all, and the "WMD" bullshit was just an elaborate ruse and cover to justify invasion of a sovereign state.

True, Saddam was no angel, not one bit. But the Bushies'  2002 exploitation of the false "al Qaeda-WMD" narrative to justify an American invasion actually back fired, because now an even more malignant force - ISIS -  has taken up residence in the chaotic vacuum left behind. What the invasion did, which had been controlled up until then, was unleash the sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shi'ites which Saddam had controlled by his anti-religious, secular power. Once Saddam was removed from power, the Sunnis and Shi'ites were free to go at each others' throats - and all the American occupation did was delay it.

When the American phony program for Iraqi  democracy spawned a pseudo-dictatorship run by the Shia - the stage was set for a Sunni spinoff bunch of terrorists to wage bloody onslaughts - as they are now doing in Ramadi  - on the verge of taking it over. No one but a certified idiot could believe any of this shit would be going down if Saddam was still around and in control.

So this is what Rubio, Jeb Bush and likely some of the other Reeptard clowns don't get, and why they make mince meat of what should be straightforward answers to simple, direct questions. Which elicits the question of why anyone would want any of these dolts occupying 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  I mean, are voters really that stupid to want the country expending more vital resources in Iraq Showdown II? I would hope not, or I'd have to seriously consider moving back to Bim.

But by all standards of reason and processing of history, there's no going back now. We already wasted $4 trillion there, which we could have better used to repair our crumbling infrastructure here at home. What one does hope is that in the case of both Iraq and Afghanistan - we finally re-learn the lessons we ought to have learned after Vietnam. That is to stay the fuck out of places where our immediate domestic security isn't threatened.  Were all those troops" fighting for my freedom"? Hell no! They were fighting for Wall Street, the Bushie opportunist Oil imperialists and their privateer companies (like Halliburton and Bechtel) and the advance of Amerikkan Neoliberalism.

If you don't understand that then you don't know recent history and aren't paying attention.

The rich humor of it all is that at the time the Bushie PR and propaganda machine actually compared Saddam to Hitler! Never mind that Saddam was the one being pounded by the most devastating shock and awe attack since the Blitzkrieg launched by Hitler on Poland in 1939. But this sort of human evil had been strenuously reasoned and formally justified by Bushie Neocons like William Kristal, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney!  Most of whom Jeb Bush wants back on his "team" if he should become President. (He finally declared his candidacy in NV last week.)

In addition, the U.S. corporate media acted as a willing accomplice, fully complicit in spreading the WMD hysteria that led to the Iraq invasion on March 17, 2003.  Hence each and every one of these actors, agents  (such as then NY Times troll Judith Miller) share blame in manifesting and accommodating human evil, including the devastating costs exacted on Iraqi civilians. (Which the World Health Organization add up to 600,000 deaths or one hundred times more than even Saddam would have wrought if left in power)

A final bit of historical reference to jog the brains of the remaining Reepo herd re: Iraq. Its invasion didn't emerge all of a sudden but was planned as long ago as 1992,  This was as part of the Project for the New American Century" (PNAC) which had originally designated Iraq's seizure and Saddam's ouster for 1993 after an expected Bush Sr. election win. This plan had been originally designed by the likes of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld to extend American power in the world starting in the Middle East, namely Iraq and Afghanistan. Oil also figured mightily into the planning, and no surprise a big Oil honcho like Cheney would be humping and pumping it to the nth degree. A secondary aspect was to oust Saddam which George Sr. stopped short of doing in the Gulf War.

All the best laid plans went askew after Clinton won the 1992 election, and so the PNAC plan had to be put on hold, specifically its plan for an Iraq invasion and occupation.  The plan sprung to life anew after the Bush Jr. win in the 2000 general election (though Al Gore won the popular vote). Cheney, Wolfowitz et al knew they needed an excuse for invasion, however, since "Americans are still suffering from Vietnam hangover" as Wolfie once put it.  The event for springing into action occurred with 9/11 - and all the Bushies needed was an invention (WMD) to link Saddam to it - even if it was all bullshit.

Will the Reepos learn from their mistakes? I doubt it as they haven't yet. Nor will they if elected. As Joan Walsh points out in a piece on Rubio at salon.com:

" Rubio’s been trying to challenge Bush for neocon support. Check out his campaign tagline — “Join Marco’s Fight For A New American Century!” – which suggests homage to the Project for a New American Century, peddlers of the Iraq war (Jeb Bush signed their founding document.)"

One can only hope voters next year will be brighter than these dim bulbs!

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/tina-dupuy/62255/the-bush-years-an-explainer

Cheney & Other Neocons Ought to be Keeping Silent - Not Trashing Obama

"Never mind the fact that the perpetrators of this enormous fraud, this smash-and-grab robbery, this looting of the Treasury, this act of first-degree murder on a massive scale, all walked away scot-free to pursue new careers and live lives of comfort. Amazingly enough, that's not the worst part. The worst part is that they're all on my television again, trying to blame President Obama for the circumstances created by their own feckless, murderous decisions." - William Rivers Pitt, in 'They Belong in Prison, Not on TV' on smirkingchimp.com

I still have my mouse pad given to me as a gift some years ago: it shows Dick Cheney's snarling mug on one side and that of his spitting image - a snarling "Satan" on the other, e.g.
Given this piece of filth was largely the Maestro of the Iraq invasion, one would have thought he'd be keeping a low profile, as opposed to actually having the nerve to pen an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal daring to insinuate Obama committed "treason" for "betraying the future of our country". What the fuck is he talking about? He and his fellow Neocon vermin betrayed the country by destabilizing Iraq and opening the doors to real terror. He and the necons were actually WAR Criminals, who ought to now be rotting just outside the Hague - but because of the overly good graces of Obama, these scum were never prosecuted or turned over! One must question where the thanks are now. Have they no shame? No they don't!

Let’s recall here (for the memory-challenged) that it was Cheney who originally had a plan underfoot to bogusly attack Iraq from 1992  (under the banner of the 'Project for the New American Century') operating under the presumption that Poppy Bush (George the First) would be re-elected. Well, he wasn’t.  Clinton took the election thanks to Ross Perot splitting the ‘puke vote. This meant Cheney’s plan had to be put on hold until another Bush could get in, and that wasn’t until 2000 – when five treasonous Supreme Court justices interrupted a Florida recount to hand the election to Junior, aka Dumbya.

Even then it wasn’t a done deal, a pretext still had to be found for invasion and occupation. The gift fell into the laps of Bush, Cheney and their Neocon warmonger cohort with the devastating 9/11 attacks. People will argue over 9/11’s real origins until their dying day but one thing we do know: the Bush Criminals profited handsomely in the wake, with Bush’s approval rating shooting up into the 90s (from below 35%) even as the national security state and military –industrial complex got the go ahead for the biggest spending in 60 years. At the very least, while many of us don’t believe these vermin deliberately blew up the Twin Towers, we do think it highly probable they KNEW what was coming and sat back and did nothing. In other words they let it happen.  It was simply too great a benefit ‘plum’ to do otherwise. See also: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/09/how-responsible-was-bush-for-911.html

It also finally enabled the original Cheney Iraq invasion-occupation plan to be put into motion. All the Neocon memos surfacing from just after 9/11 (many from Paul Wolfowitz & Cheney) showed repeated underscored emphases like: “TIE SADDAM TO 9/11! HOW?” Indeed, how? Since Saddam was a resolute secularist who had no tolerance for religious extremists of either the Sunni or Shi’ite Muslim stripe. But the traitor Cheney and his Neocon ilk were determined to make the connection and have the corporate U.S. media coopted to assist in the PR blitz that lasted from October, 2002 until March, 2003 when the Cheney-bred dogs of war were unleashed. To that end, the Cheney-directed Neocons employed every sort of ruse - from 'yellowcake' to aluminum tubes and alleged claims of WMD (from an Iraqi traitor rat named 'curve ball') - to pump up a bogus case for invasion just like Hitler and the Nazis did (using faked imagery of German fraus being raped by Poles) to justify an invasion of Poland in 1939. Once he had the U.S. corporate media on his side it was merely a matter of drum beating a sheep-like American public into giving him the poll numbers he desired to launch an invasion in March, 2003.

If there was one prime Nazi I'd compare Cheney to it would probably be Rudolph Hess, but the malignancy of Hess pales besides that of Cheney.  While Hess likely was directly responsible for the deaths of thousands, Cheney's Iraq interference machinations led to a wasteful occupation that in the end cost us over $3 trillion and more than 4400 American lives as well as 600,000 innocent Iraqi lives (according to WHO, the World Health Organization). Meanwhile, the bloody Nazified takeover as well as hyped rhetoric (“Axis of Evil”) drove the other two members of that defined “axis”, Iran and North Korea, to develop their own nuclear weapons – realizing this would likely be the only deterrent to the crazed Amerikkan pre-emptive warmongers. So, if Iran and North Korea do have ‘x’ atomic bombs today, you can lay the blame on Dick Cheney’s lap as well as his accomplices, aka the Neocon rats like Paul Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Richard Perle et al.

 Make no mistake that Cheney is the real traitor, whose costly pre-emptive war will cost us well into the future, including the brain-damaged vets needing aid, and benefits. But at the same time Cheney's is only one dastardly head belonging to the multi-headed Hydra Neocons. This Hydra is now raising its voice in the media to try to brand Obama responsible for the current Iraqi turmoil - as opposed to pointing the finger at themselves. For they were the architects of one of the worst geopolitical disasters in living memory.

Make no mistake I wanted all of them brought to account, especially for their torture and rendition practices - as well as launching  a pre-emptive war. I had opined at the time (just after Obama's 2008 election) that he needed to prosecute them with the full force of law - using all the resources of the Justice Dept.-  and if not hung as war criminals, then tossed into assorted slammers here in the U.S. to rot. But Obama was too gracious by far insisting we must "look forward, not backward".  Did he have any notion then of the ingratitude these degenerates would show now? Not bloody likely!

When next the neocons are tempted to go off on Obama, they need to visualize just where they'd be right now had he not been so generous and forgiving five years ago.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/william-rivers-pitt/56519/they-belong-in-prison-not-on-tv

Can We At Last Admit the Iraq Occupation Was A Waste? Have We Finally Learned the Lessons of Vietnam?

These questions bear asking as we behold  all the effort of 8-plus long years of Iraq occupation evidently all for naught as thousands of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq in Syria)  militants rage across the country - taking Mosul, Tikrit, Samara and bearing down on Baghdad. In the meantime, the $100m the U.S. spent prepping an Iraqi Army appears to have been wasted, along with the $150b reported wasted in Afghanistan this morning,  on equipment never used - only stored.  This, as we beheld images of the Iraqis cutting and running even tearing off their uniforms

Let us go down memory lane and recall here that every manjack with a brain knew Saddam was no angel, but at the same time no one would be stupid enough to displace him - given it was his strongman secular stranglehold that was in fact preventing Muslim factionalism and civil war between Shi'ites and Sunnis. Let us also recall, lest memories have become ossified or lost, that the U.S. actually cultivated Saddam as its own 'creature' (in the 1980s)  to leverage against the Iranians. (A video still exists from the media, likely found on Youtube, showing Donald Rumsfeld praising Saddam for his efforts.) In addition, the U.S. supplied Saddam with billions of dollars in weapons to carry on the fight against the Ayatollahs - some of which were believed to be the "WMD" the Bushies used as a pretext to launch the Iraq invasion. See e.g. http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-scheer/56466/up-close-and-personal-with-george-w-bush-s-horrifying-legacy

After being shoehorned into the Oval Office by the five conservo Supremes in 2000, Bush was now in position to implement the "Project for the New American Century" (PNAC) which had originally been designed for 1992 after an expected Bush Sr. election win. This plan had been originally designed by the likes of Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld to extend American power in the world starting in the Middle East, namely Iraq and Afghanistan. Oil also figured mightily into the planning, and no surprise a big Oil honcho (Halliburton) like Cheney would be humping and pumping it to the nth degree.

All the best laid plans went askew after Clinton won the 1992 election, and so the PNAC plan had to be put on hold, specifically its plan for an Iraq invasion and occupation.  The plan sprung to life anew after the Bush Jr. win in the 2000 general election (though Al Gore won the popular vote). Cheney, Wolfowitz et al knew they needed an excuse for invasion, however, since "Americans are still suffering from Vietnam hangover" as Wolfie once put it.  The event for springing into action occurred with 9/11 - and all the Bushies needed was a means to link Saddam to it - even if it was all bullshit.

The Bushies did a well known propaganda two step, first perfected by Hitler ("If you repeat a lie often enough, most people will believe it.") . They started by using the Reepo-friendly FOX bunch to keep repeating a link between al Qaeda and Saddam. As this specious crap kept being repeated the Bushies became elated as watching pro-intervention poll numbers increase. Now, they needed another more believable Act Two.

They attained it via a dog and pony show after enlisting  Colin Powell to be their stooge in front of the UN. Using every sort of ruse - from 'yellowcake' to aluminum tubes and alleged claims of possible "weapons of mass destruction" (from a rat named 'curve ball') - the Bushies pumped up a bogus case for invasion, just like Hitler and the Nazis did (using faked imagery of German fraus being raped by Poles) to justify an invasion of Poland in 1939. Once he had the U.S. corporate media on his side it was merely a matter of drum beating a sheep-like American public into giving him the poll numbers he desired to launch an invasion in March, 2003.

Those of us who knew history, watched the hijinks in disbelief, wondering how or why so many - especially in the media - could believe it. Some tried to head it off, like Joe Wilson in an op-ed in the WSJ, pointing to the fact the whole "yellowcake in Niger"  thing was a ruse. But Wilson was crucified by the Bush bastards in a vengeful media onslaught (mainly on FOX) and in addition they outed Wilson's wife  (Valerie Plame) as a CIA agent.  Not one damned thing was done to the putative bastard who did it, which is why I don't get exercised now when the same weasels insist Edward Snowden is a "traitor".

Let's also bear in mind that congress was the last bulwark to stop the Iraq invasion and they punted. Though yes,   Bush and his craven neocon slime confected an "Iraqi War Resolution" enough courageous congressmen could have killed it - but they were yellower than the yellowcake link the Bushies claimed- as most signed on to it. So even if Bush and his cohort designed the plan, congress as the last bulwark to preventing an outlaw act could have stopped it. They didn't.

And it indeed was an outlaw, illegal act - invading a sovereign state under a pretext to launch a pre-emptive war. Bush’s aggression then exposed other unsavory aspects about ourselves as a nation:  a willingness to violate Nuremberg Article IV to actually launch a pre-emptive, aggressive war just as the Nazis did when they invaded Poland in 1939. The rich humor of it all is that at the time the Bushies actually compared Saddam to Hitler!  Some 'Muricans actually swallowed this shit up and took it as gospel!

Again, to those of us who know and RECALL history, it also disclosed disturbing similarities to Vietnam.  For example, LBJ employed the ruse of the North Vietnamese firing on the Maddox and Turner Joy in international waters in August, 1964 as the basis to ramp up the Vietnam War. Later documents released under the freedom of information act showed it was all based on deceptions and lies.

 In 2005, an internal National Security Agency historical study was declassified; it concluded that the Maddox had engaged the North Vietnamese Navy on August 2, but that there were no North Vietnamese Naval vessels present during the incident of August 4. The report stated regarding August 2:

“At 1505G, Captain Herrick ordered Ogier's gun crews to open fire if the boats approached within ten thousand yards. At about 1505G, the Maddox fired three rounds to warn off the communist boats. This initial action was never reported by the Johnson administration, which insisted that the Vietnamese boats fired first”

and regarding August 4:

"It is not simply that there is a different story as to what happened; it is that no attack happened that night. [...] In truth, Hanoi's navy was engaged in nothing that night but the salvage of two of the boats damaged on August 2"


In other words, the U.S. aggressors used it as a pretext to demand the Gulf of Tonkin resolution and launch a war that killed nearly 58,000.

In the aftermath, the more sober heads believed the U.S. had finally learned its lesson not to intervene in other nations on the basis of false pretexts. The losses, in blood and treasure, were just too costly. Vietnam rang up a loss of $269b compared with $ 4 trillion in Iraq.  The sad part is that our unjustifiable meddling in Iraq showed we never learned the lessons of Vietnam.

Worse, through all the years of military waste and intervention - in both Iraq and Afghanistan - we could have better used those trillions to  attend to our own nation's needs: repairing our crumbling infrastructure, bolstering our social insurance programs and providing money for students in affordable loans. What one hopes now, in the case of both Iraq and Afghanistan -  is that we finally re-learn the lessons we ought to have learned after Vietnam. That is to stay the fuck out of places where our immediate domestic security isn't threatened and not to invent bogus pretexts to make war on others. 


Were all those troops that went to Iraq and Afghanistan "fighting for my freedom"? Hell no! They were fighting for Wall Street, the Bushie opportunist Oil imperialists and their privateer companies (like Halliburton and Bechtel) and the advance of Amerikkan Neoliberalism. Believe it! (Some, of course, loved the 'high' of 'war' - as professed yesterday morning by the guy who did the recent documentary 'Korengal' and fought in Afghanistan. He claimed on CBS Early Show he got "addicted" to the "brotherhood" and the "action".)

It's about damned time future troops understand what they're getting into before they enter some hyped- up "freedom crusade" - and they also understand that when they sign onto a "volunteer army" (even for later supposed "benefits")  they become de facto mercenaries in the service of war capitalists.  As for getting "high" on the fighting, and "brotherhood" - I suggest they join a gym, take up amateur boxing, and sign on to a club volunteering in positive ways to assist their communities. You don't have to blow up villagers and kick down their doors to get "get high". Or shoot them dead.

To that end, all citizens also need to understand how Bush has recently  tried to whitewash his crimes in Iraq using the venue of his Bush Library. To see Rachel Maddow's  take down of this nonsense, go to one of my previous blog posts here:


http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/05/rachel-maddow-exposes-bush-library-for.html

When the militants finally get to Baghdad, as they will - and the media will show the imagery non-stop-  let's remember all the above and how we really only have limited control over our own plot of the planet. Let's mind that before we fuck around with others in the future! The Neocons, their puppets in the media (like the WaPo's Trudy Rubin) and other miscreants will scream for "boots on the ground" but that ain't an option! Besides, with a backlogged VA,  where will all the additional wounded go for care?  If the Reepos aren't going to fund the VA they have no right to call for any more wars, or ground troops!

See also:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/56347/blaming-obama-for-iraqs-chaos

and:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/chris-floyd/56373/hell-s-gate-the-iraqi-blitzkrieg-and-the-cult-of-violence

and:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/gary-leupp/56399/no-peace-and-no-democracy-two-occupations-ending-in-hopeless-disasters

IRAQ WAR An Unnecessary Waste? Of Course!

It was sad yesterday morning watching the CBS Early Show to see a number of former American troops bemoan what's been happening in Iraq - with apparent "terrorists" and "al Qaeda" affiliates re-taking towns such as Fallujah. They decried the current events, and what they were seeing and even expressed some reservations about the value of invading in the first place. It is indeed good that they did so, because the entire operation was a sham and illegal from the get go.

As I observed in previous blog posts, evil predicated on an intent to "do good" is one of the mot virulent forms. It is virulent because it can operate as evil under the guise of a good cause, or a moral crusade. Such was the basis for the whole sordid Iraq invasion.   Bush and his minions truly believed they were doing good at the time they demanded congress vote on The Iraq War Resolution in 2002, never mind what we later discovered[1].

Bush’s aggressive foreign policies also exposed unsavory aspects about the U.S. as a nation.  For example, one willing to violate Nuremberg Article IV to actually launch a pre-emptive war by invasion as the Nazis did when they invaded Poland in 1939.  In the case of Fallujah, just over nine years ago, in November 2004, the United States military carried out an atrocious war crime at the behest of its civilian leaders. Having already committed what America's chief jurist at the Nuremberg trials called "the supreme international crime" -- aggressive war  (under Article IV)-- the American military now declared a whole city full of innocent civilians to be a "free fire zone" and proceeded to pulverize the town with bombs, missiles, chemical weapons and finally a ground attack by thousands of troops.

Is this anything to be "proud" of? On the contrary, it's enough to make a sober observer and true patriot  ( as opposed to the paper variety) - VOMIT.  Especially as the orders came  after the American military had cut vital supplies of food and water to the city -- another brazen war crime.  And by the way, let us bear in mind here that any given soldier has as his duty to FIRST follow his conscience rather any orders or commands from superiors. This was in fact, one of the higher injunctions in Article IV and was applied to all the Wehrmacht troops, as well as SS riff raff rounded up after World War II. They were informed in no uncertain terms that "following orders" could not be used as an excuse for what they did because they had the higher moral  duty to disobey those unlawful orders and heed their consciences.

But in the case of the Iraq "war" (actually an occupation, as contrasted with WW II which was a REAL war, the one my dad fought in, including several REAL battles such as the Battle of Buna (New Guinea) all the above applied with special force.

The rich humor of it all is that at the time the Bushie PR actually compared Saddam to Hitler! Never mind that Saddam was the one being pounded by the most devastating shock and awe attack since the Blitzkrieg launched by Hitler on Poland in 1939. But this sort of human evil had been strenuously reasoned and formally justified by Bushie Neocons like William Kristal, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney! In addition, the U.S. corporate media acted as a willing accomplice, fully complicit in spreading the hysteria that led to the Iraq invasion on March 17, 2003.  Hence each and every one of these actors, agents share blame in manifesting human evil, including the devastating costs exacted on Iraqi civilians. Far from malignant human evil emerging without rationality or reason, it instead erupted as if from multiple cancerous cells becoming malignant.


We the citizens also played along by being cowed, afraid to speak out lest we be deemed unpatriotic or even "terrorist sympathizers."  Many of  us also allowed ourselves to be too uninformed, even ignorant of the issues, thereby allowing ourselves to be played. Susan Jacoby, for example, references “two thirds of us can’t find Iraq on a map and many members of Congress don’t know a Shiite from a Sunni[2]”  In a nutshell, too many Americans have “become too lazy to learn what we need to know to make sound public decisions.[3]”

Back to Fallujah: So many of the former grunts seen on the CBS segment saw it as their stellar, singular "saving" battle,  in a glorious crusade against them terrible 'terr'ists  - and in addition, the
"most iconic moment" of their righteous , god fearin' campaign (now tainted because heir conquest hadn't held). But  they might want to attend to the facts of the event  - ass opposed to the Pentagon pushed PR and malarkey. So it is well that they see these facts detached in time from all the bravado and hype of the moment. In this case, they'd do well to pick up on  an eyewitness report of the attack from a BBC reporter in the city at the time:

Excerpt:

"There are more and more dead bodies on the streets and the stench is unbearable. Smoke is everywhere. It's hard to know how much people outside Fallujah are aware of what is going on here. There are dead women and children lying on the streets. People are getting weaker from hunger. Many are dying are from their injuries because there is no medical help left in the city whatsoever. Some families have started burying their dead in their gardens."

Is this something to be proud of? No, not at all. No more than the Nazi mass killings of Polish Jews in Warsaw and other ghettoes, or the slaughter of Russian Jews during Operation Barbarossa. The sad fact, and it's a brutal one for many of these troops to process - is that Iraq was a totally useless and wasteful exercise. Not only that, it was illegal under Article IV of the Nuremberg laws. It was another sordid example of what transpires when a people are driven by ideology and militarism into a conflict in which they have no business. Much like LBJ used the pretext of the Gulf of Tonkin incident to drive the country into Vietnam and the loss of 58,000 lives.

True, Saddam was no angel, not one bit. But the Bushies' exploitation of the false "al Qaeda" narrative to justify an American invasion actually back fired, because now the real al Qaeda likely has taken up residence in the chaotic vacuum left behind. What the invasion did, which had been controlled up until then, was unleash the sectarian strife between Sunnis and Shi'ites which Saddam had neutralized by his anti-religious, secular power. Once Saddam was removed from power, the Sunnis and Shi'ites were free to go at each others' throats - and all the American occupation did was delay it.

Of course, there's no going back now. We already wasted $4 trillion there, which we could have better used to repair our crumbling infrastructure here at home. What one does hope is that in the case of both Iraq and Afghanistan - we finally re-learn the lessons we ought to have learned after Vietnam. That is to stay the fuck out of places where our immediate domestic security isn't threatened.  Were all those troops" fighting for my freedom"? Hell no! They were fighting for Wall Street, the Bushie opportunist Oil imperialists and their privateer companies (like Halliburton) and the advance of Amerikkan Neoliberalism.

It's about damned time future troops understand what they're getting into before they enter some hyped- up "crusade" - and they also understand that when they sign onto a "volunteer army" (even for later supposed "benefits")  they become de facto mercenaries in the service of war capitalists.

To that end, all citizens also need to understand how Bush is now trying to whitewash his crimes using the venue of his Bush Library. To see Rachel Maddow's  take down of this nonsense, go to one of my previous blog posts here:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2013/05/rachel-maddow-exposes-bush-library-for.html

 

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[1] We now know an Iraqi (codename ‘Curveball’) made the whole WMD baloney up in order to trigger regime change to replace Saddam, oblivious to the human costs.

 

[2] Jacoby, Susan, The Age of American Unreason., 310.

[3] Ibid.

Rachel Maddow Exposes the Bush Library for the Sham and Farce It Is

Rachel Maddow in her show last night outdid herself again, exposing the newly opened Bush Presidential Library as the total sham it is, especially certain parts (e.g. the "Decision Points Theater") which tries to lead the unwary toward the insane path of accepting the Iraq invasion and war. As Rachel put it last night:

"This whole library area is a museum designed to make you think the Iraq war was a great idea".

Maddow then noted the Library gave MSNBC permission to film, and her crew went directly to the ‘Decision Points Theater’ with its interactive, push-button displays. You get to select advice from assorted Bush lackey knotheads, warmongers and fellow Neocon travelers - interrupted only by ominous "breaking news" developments. ("We have just learned Saddam now has ....blah, blah and blah" etc.)

When you approach the console you have the option to seek advice before making your choice on what you'd do if you were in Dumbya's place. There are three options to choose from when the time comes to render your decision:

Seek another UN Resolution

LEAD an International Coalition

Take NO Action

Obviously, for any intelligent and well-read person, the last is the superlative option - which also would have avoided a wasteful occupation that in the end cost us over $3 trillion and more than 4400 American lives as well as 600,000 innocent Iraqi lives (according to WHO, the World Health Organization).  But woe betide you if you choose that option in the Bushie Decision Theater!  At that point, a dopey Bush avatar appears to lecture you on why you made the wrong choice.


Bush then spouts off for ten minutes on why invading Iraq was the right answer. This includes all the usual baloney sold like pig shit at the time, including: Saddam’s “WMD”, and association with terrorist organizations. Bush notes 25 million Iraqis having the chance to “build freedom” but doesn’t mention the 600,000 killed by Amerikkan shock and awe, Nazi-style 'blow em up and let God sort 'em out' tactics. As Maddow describes it the choices are ludicrous: Be a “man” and “LEAD” or a sissified wuss and “take no action” thereby accepting Saddam remains in power.

An especially remarkable wake up call for those who buy the whole world was behind us, was when -to  make a glaring graphic point-  Maddow displayed a map of the world with all the nations supporting the invasion(red), and those that didn’t (in blue). Easily seen is the map is awash with blue regions and the red are relatively small and isolated - occupied mainly by the U.S. and a few outliers.(Australia, Poland).


Of course, in the next televised imagery we see Texas school kids standing in line, waiting to be brainwashed by this 'Decision Theater' and gobbling up the history......errrr....horse manure. Maddow bluntly references this travesty, before declaring that -  in line with the kids being mesmerized by the display - the Iraq war was a “ hoax perpetrated on the American people. All cooked up and a national scandal”.


A national scandal indeed! But incredibly too many Americans lack the historical memory or education to be able to see through this crap. Why is the Bush Library selling this bunkum? Because it can! Because they know a majority of Americans have limited historical memories.  Col. Lawrence Wilkerson then discussed how “fast we rehabilitate things” in America. He referenced a national security turkey like Phil Mudd who ought to be unemployed, but is “still around”


Why should all this matter? Well, because we ought to be awake and alert enough as citizens not to allow ourselves to be led into another bogus war! Col. Wilkerson then cited Iran and all the officious bloviation we keep hearing now about "red lines" and other horse shit. But, he warned, if we allow ourselves to be manipulated like we were 10 years before with Iraq, we will have another $1 trillion war and more enemies than we can possibly imagine.

There is also the issue of evil - real human evil - at work. One of the canards circulated about human evil over the years is that it’s irrational. If the person only knew better, or reasoned properly, he’d arrive at the generic good. Fortunately, philosopher John Kekes disposes of this myth quite forcefully in his book, The Roots Of Evil (p. 168).As Kekes observes, abundant historical examples disclose that people often robustly justify their actions on the basis of a good perceived in their minds, but which in retrospect turns out to be evil. Therefore it’s not the lack of reason or rationality that infuses their actions but instead the false beliefs that supported the reasoning!

In the case of Bush's justifying the Iraq invasion and butchery we behold a perfect example. Using every sort of ruse - from 'yellowcake' to aluminum tubes and alleged claims of WMD (from a rat named 'curve ball') - the Bushies pumped up a bogus case for invasion, just like Hitler and the Nazis did (using faked imagery of German fraus being raped by Poles) to justify an invasion of Poland in 1939. Once he had the U.S. corporate media on his side it was merely a matter of drum beating a sheep-like American public into giving him the poll numbers he desired to launch an invasion in March, 2003.

Bush’s aggression also exposed unsavory aspects about ourselves as a nation:  a willingness to violate Nuremberg Article IV to actually launch a pre-emptive, aggressive war just as the Nazis did when they invaded Poland. The rich humor of it all is that at the time the Bushies actually compared Saddam to Hitler!  Some 'Muricans actually swallowed this shit up and took it as gospel!

So, all this being considered, Rachel Maddow rightly called out the Bush Library for what it is, a National Disgrace - even if only one part featured the Iraq  meme makeover.

The most incredible and unsettling  thing of all? A dirt bag,  nose- picking moron like Dumbya Bush can be walking around rehabilitating his criminal history – launching a pre-emptive Nazi style war that killed over a half million and spawning rendition and torture methods-  while Bradley Manning sits in federal stir somewhere accused of simply ‘leaking’ documents that exposed the Iraq invasion and occupation as the fucking travesty it really was. Now, how fucked up is that? A lot!