Double Talk

Who wrote this?

It was a shameful thing to ask men to suffer and die, to persevere through god-awful afflictions and heartache, to endure the dehumanizing experiences that are unavoidable in combat, for a cause that the country wouldn’t support over time and that our leaders so wrongly believed could be achieved at a smaller cost than our enemy was prepared to make us pay. No other national endeavor requires as much unshakable resolve as war. If the nation and the government lack that resolve, it is criminal to expect men in the field to carry it alone.

This was the forward to Halberstam's The Best And The Brightest written by Republican Presidential presumptive nominee, John McCain. As a blogger, I understand McCain's proclivity to flipping and flopping to politically pander. But our Beltway Insider Village Press Corps have dubbed the Senator from Arizona with the kewl name of Maverick.

Would it be too much to ask for some stenographer (aka reporter) to ask Mcthusala about these comments? Does he truly believe it is criminal to continue a war that lacks "unshakable resolve" especially in light of The New York Times story of the Pentagon's propaganda campaign, Scott McClellan's new book and the Senate findings that the Bush administration was deceptive in its use of intelligence presented to the American people prior to the war?

Is he also "shameful" and does he "wrongly believe?"

Please, someone, ask the question.

H/T Digby

Escalate For Oil

Looks like Big Oil is getting close to getting their greasy paws on Iraqi oil. Via The Independent:

Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity

The 'IoS' today reveals a draft for a new law that would give Western oil companies a massive share in the third largest reserves in the world. To the victors, the oil? That is how some experts view this unprecedented arrangement with a major Middle East oil producer that guarantees investors huge profits for the next 30 years

[...]

Now, the cliff notes on this story revolve around "production sharing agreements" or PSA's. Usually a company that has the expertise in developing reserves retains a share of the profits for their work.

Nothing wrong with that. But these agreements nearly double the standard amount developers keep, both in the initial investment phase and in the later, easy money phase. Also these agreements are reportedly for thirty years in length, and all disputes would be settled by international law.

It raises the question of corporations taking advantage of Iraq's weakened state, and flies in the face, once again, of rightwing talking points:

[...]

"Oil revenues, which people falsely claim that we want to seize, should be put in a trust fund for the Iraqi people"

Tony Blair; Moving motion for war with Iraq, 18 March 2003

"Oil belongs to the Iraqi people; the government has... to be good stewards of that valuable asset "

George Bush; Press conference, 14 June 2006

"The oil of the Iraqi people... is their wealth. We did not [invade Iraq] for oil "

Colin Powell; Press briefing, 10 July 2003

"Oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50bn and $100bn in two or three years... [Iraq] can finance its reconstruction"

Paul Wolfowitz; Deputy Defense Secretary, March 2003

"By 2010 we will need [a further] 50 million barrels a day. The Middle East, with two-thirds of the oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize lies"

Dick Cheney; US Vice-President, 1999

Okay, so shooterfaceguy was actually shooting straight. But while they try to exploit the oil we did not fight for in Iraq, what is the plan for oil coming out of Iran? From Kim Murphy at the LA Times:

[...]
The efforts by the United States and its allies over the last few months to persuade international banks and oil companies to pull out of Iran threaten dozens of projects, including development of Iran's two massive new oil fields that could expand output by 800,000 barrels a day over the next four years.

"Many European banks which had accepted financing some oil industries projects have recently canceled them," Nejad-Hosseinian said.
[...]

American Imperialism at work. Dollar Diplomacy has come a long ways.

(h/t to DPD)

Downing Street Memo; Side B

The recent reshuffling of the deck chairs on the mid-termed renamed Administration vessel, the SS Minnow, telegraphs the much vaunted and delayed Best Plan Evah for Success in Iraq.

Or as has been said before, the intelligence is being fixed around the policy.

Since most of America lives in a Democracy and the Executive Branch floats in a sea of authoritarian fascism, they understand the importance of talking points.

There never was any doubt what this administrations shiny new plan would entail. The "listening tour" and the Baker plan was nothing more than finding the arguments they would need to address.

Bush is a war President.

The Republican party and neocons are very adept at messaging. By way of evidence, note the bowl of potato(e) salad they installed as President. American troop escalation in Iraq has less popular support than nearly every social disease, and yet, this is the dessert they serve after turning our noses up at the potato(e) salad.

This delay in announcing his new plan is to provide time to carefully craft the talking points to support it. Critics will be obliquely attacked as staining the memories of those who have fallen, and we must defeat the terrists. 9/11 will be mentioned a record 47 times in 22 seconds.

Rightards always know what they want. It is just a matter of a sales job to the American people. Now, the selling points may bear no actual resemblance to what they are actually trying to accomplish, you know, like:

[...]
today the wealthiest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent...The CEOs of large corporations today earn more than 500 times what their employees are making...the Nation's 13,000 wealthiest families, which constitute 1/100th of 1 percent of the population, receive almost as much income as the bottom 20 million families in the United States.
[...]

We can scrub the face of our country clean of the middle class just as long as homo's can't be getting married and wimmens don't control their not-man parts and we unrelentingly kick some serious brown ass, both here and abroad.

Yes, the rightards have an agenda, and it has nothing to do with the well being of the 300 million people living in America. They use the fundies and their rightardlets peopling the media and the rightwing bigotsphere to get votes, just like a station wagon is used to get groceries. Just a useful tool to enact their greedy ambitions of self-enrichment, the seed wrapped in a foul wrapping of hate, bigotry and hypocritical moral relativism.

Of course the real agenda of this escalation is not the vanquishing of Iraq, but to fortify our position for the military engaging of Iran. I could be wrong. In fact, I hope I am way wrong.

Nuclear Flub

In the rear-view mirror of the Gestalt theory of wartime rationalization, the Cheney Administration hastily agreed with wingnut bloggers to post on the internet documents seized during the invasion of Iraq. Somewhere in there, they surmised, must be the reason why we invaded Iraq. They felt confident someone with the 101 fighting keyboards, armed to the teeth with cheetos and mello yellow, would find the proof that Osama and Hussein were mutual fans of Judy Garland.

But buried within the pile of docs were the directions on how to build a nuclear bomb. Wups. According to The New York Times:

[...]
But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.
[...]

Swell. Bush and his Republican chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence (and I use that word vuuury loosely) committees handed over the instruction manual on how to build a nuclear bomb to the entire world, because they hate doing homework and prayed somewhere in the pile of unread captured "intelligence" someone could find what we are doing in Iraq.
Lefty bloggers are hammering these idiots for selling out America. Citizen Hardin Smith is on fire. Atrios on the backgrounder, as is Sadly, No! and Attytood wonders out loud.
Before I hear a bunch of whining on "civil discourse", which a dog whistle phrase for Republicans which means, "yeah, we screwed up, but can't we all just sing kumbayaa?" I need to point out this little story:

A bird flying south for the winter left too late, and his wings froze up. He crash-landed in a barnyard, landing right behind a cow in the process of a bowel movement. The bird, quickly thawing out in the warm cow shit, soon began chirping. The barnyard cat, hearing this, quickly uncovered the bird and devoured it.

There are three morals to this story

Not all those that shit on you are your enemy.

Not all those that remove the shit are your friend.

If you are warm and happy in a pile of shit, you better keep your mouth shut.

U.S. Led Iraqi Regime Change Part II

It looks like number twelve in the situational reasoning for invading Iraq is nearing euthanasia. Via hard-right newspaper, The Washington Times:

[...]
Leaks from a U.S. task force headed by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III are contributing to the widespread sense that the Bush administration is preparing for a "course correction" in the coming months.
The options cited most frequently in Washington include the partition of Iraq into three ethnic- or faith-based regions, and a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops, with some remaining in neighboring countries to deal with major threats.
Another scenario is being discussed -- and taken seriously in Iraq -- by many of Iraq's leading political players, under which the U.S.-trained army would overthrow struggling Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and replace him with a strongman who would restore order while Washington looks the other way.
[...]

(emphasis mine)
After each reason got exposed for the lie that it was, some Republican hack would pop up with a new one, while simultaneously using criticism for Republican failures as a blunt instrument on Democrats. Like some sort of morbid whack a mole game, the philanthropic venture of "bringing democracy to the Middle East" is being seriously considered tossed aside, and replacing it with a ruthless dictator. Never mind all the preaching about purple fingers and all.
I hear Saddam is available.