originally posted 2008-09-03 03:50:30 - bumped - cho

Ideology—that is what gives evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.

--Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago

Vladimir Putin, who promoted himself from being Russia's president to being Russia's Dick Cheney, says America's Dick Cheney orchestrated the Russia-Georgia conflict to benefit the presidential bid of the neoconservatives' next white hope, John McCain. I've googled high and low and can't find a whisper of denial of Putin's accusations from our Dick Cheney or any of his henchmen.

Maybe the Cheney Gang has given up bothering to deny anything. Maybe they realize that by now, any time it's the word of Russia's Dick Cheney—or for that matter anybody else's Dick Cheney—and our Dick Cheney, the world population makes the safe assumption that our Dick Cheney is lying. Or it could be that they're simply so used to telling earth shattering untruths and getting away with it that they don't even bother to tell them any more.

No Kidding?

U.S. army study says Iraq occupation was understaffed
DENVER - A nearly 700-page study released Sunday by the army found that "in the euphoria of early 2003," U.S.-based commanders prematurely believed their goals in Iraq had been reached and did not send enough troops to handle the occupation.

FULL STORY

More below...

You can rest easy. Political pundit and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan predicted on Sunday that there is a "fifty-fifty chance of U.S. air strikes on Iran by October." I just love the all out commitment involved in making a fifty-fifty prediction: there’s a hundred percent chance you’ll be right. Of course, the very fact that Pat Buchanan mentions something might happen means the odds are that it won’t.

Don’t get complacent, though. Just like the cataclysmic natural disaster that strikes every century or so, once in a blue moon it turns out that Pat Buchanan knew what the hell he was talking about.

Similarly, we might expect that the Bush administration knows that attacking Iran would be the worst imaginable thing they could do—for the Bush legacy, for U.S. foreign policy, and for stability in the Middle East. A strike on Iran would be an act of sheer lunacy; so the Bush administration might just try it.

originally posted 2008-04-13 16:50:56 -0500' bumped and promoted again by carol white because I think JH has said a lot of important things here.

“I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” – from the U.S. military officer oath

In an April 10 speech at the White House, Mr. Bush stated that, “two of the greatest threats to America in this new century” are “al Qaeda and Iran.” For once in his presidency, Mr. Bush is probably right. Al Qaeda and Iran, in fact, may be America’s only two remaining foreign threats.

Russia and China won’t try to beat us militarily; they’ll take us down economically. Europe doesn’t even need to take us down economically because it already has: The European Union’s gross domestic product surpassed ours by about $600 billion in 2007. Australia’s happy the way it is; Japan won’t rock the boat. South America is too corrupt. Africa is far too hot and Canada’s too cold, as the song by Randy Newman says.

Yep, as far as significant foreign enemies go, Iran and al-Qaeda are about it: a country with an gross domestic product and defense budget barely six percent of America’s, and an “organization” with no economy or navy or air force at all, and no proper army to speak of.

Mr. Bush was telling us, in the Freudian fashion he so often utilizes, that the enemies we really need to worry about are of the domestic variety.