We are engaged in an illegal war of aggression in a foreign land for the sole purpose of controlling a primary resource: oil. Although wrapped with the trimmings and trappings of rhetorical propaganda to make the dish more palatable, it is nothing more than an ongoing bloodbath and international theft.

That's all.

The proponents of this -- the architects of death and dissembly -- are still in charge, free from any degree of accountability to date. An intervention in the form of the ISG paved the way toward a few potential solutions, but the Administration has all but rejected it. The spin machine says we are planning a new way forward, but don't be deceived. The only "forward" thinking is how to get the national dialogue on to another topic. Forget the ISG and the temporary "surge" solutions. Here's how to extricate the nation from Iraq. It's not going to make any friends in the Beltway, as it requires adherence to the "Pottery Barn" rule, applied as it should be: through the sacrifice of a sacred cow and the conscious effort to restore the true mantle of American leaderhip. Make the jump...

C'mon everyone, I think you've heard this tune before!

Crossposted from Town Called Dobson


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Yesterday he blew off Senator Gates' critique of the Iraq War as "immoral" and "possibly criminal" by joking about challenging someone to a duel (shades of Zell Miller).  

Today, Snow asserted that the majority of the American people believe we can win in Iraq, and are patiently waiting at home for President Bush to articulate a new strategery for victory ... whenever.  Not now.  Not before Christmas.  Maybe not even before the State of the Union address.  

The transcript of the presser is here. Follow me below the fold for details....

What do parasites and the Bush neo-cons have in common?  Both think they can suck the life out of the host, whether it's a leach on an animal or humans devouring the resources of a people, a country, or the whole earth. Which is what we and most of the developing world are doing "hog wild in the wrong direction."
More below...
 

I'm slow.  It took me a while to figure out that President Bush had two meetings on Monday: Day One of the week-long New Way Forward Dog and Pony Show.  The morning meeting was at the State Department; the afternoon meeting was at the Oval Office.  Only the second meeting mattered (we'll see why later), so naturally the White House played up the first one.    

Okay, I made up the above caption.  Here's the real one (you can skip this):

White House's Photo Capition: President George W. Bush stands with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney as he speaks to the media following a meeting Monday, Dec. 11, 2006, with senior U.S. Department of State officials on Iraq at the State Department in Washington, D.C. White House photo by Eric Draper

Well, it’s settled. The Decider has decided that rather than take the vanilla-flavored advice of daddy’s CYA commission (oh, I’m sorry, I meant to say the ISG, Iraq Study Group), which was dispensed last week in a report titled The Way Forward—A New Approach, he instead is going to unveil his own initiative titled The New Way Forward.

Prez George’s “New Coke” of a rebranding strategy is, of course, indicative of a dearth of imagination rivaled only by its surplus of cynicism. And, I am not the only one who has noticed with raised eyebrows and a hardy chuckle that these phrases are shockingly reminiscent of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, a program that was as unmitigated a disaster in its time and place as Bush’s Iraq policy is today.

This tone deafness should not have surprised me—again. This is, of course, the brain trust that gave us countless permutations of “Homeland”—as in “homeland security, department of”—a word that instantly reminded me of apartheid South African Pass Laws and Bantustans, and Nazi Germany’s Heimatland.