A Cheney/Rummy cabal in the White House?
Topic: Bush Administraiton

Colin Powell's former chief of staff has said Bush administraion policies are run by a "cabal!" He said, "What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues." Before you go saying Lawrence Wilkerson a yapping dog of liberalism, keep in mind he is retired Army colonel and former director of the Marine Corps War College and thinks W.'s daddy was, "one of the finest presidents we've ever had."

Wilkerson feels the government is totally dysfunctional and warns that,"if something comes along that is truly serious, truly serious, something like a nuclear weapon going off in a major American city, or something like a major pandemic, you are going to see the ineptitude of this government in a way that will take you back to the Declaration of Independence." This is a pretty stark warning coming from someone who worked in the administration and has solid military and Republican credentials. Not that this is a big shocker, but he also says, Bush "is not versed in international relations, and not too much interested in them, either." [NYT][Transcript of speech]

Of course, Wilkerson isn't the only person who has said this administration is incompetent, but coming from such a high level official with a solid military record and Republican pedigree, he ought to be taken very seriously. From the Chinese/EP-3 incident in April 2001 to 9/11 to Iraq to Katrina; there is undeniable proof that this presidency is a danger to all of us. Whether you're a Bush hater or a Bush lover, you have to admit honestly that it's critically important that the leadership of our country is actually capable of doing their jobs. I don't think this bunch is. If there were ever a better time an impeachment, I can't think of one.

Yes, I loath Bush & Co. and the Republicans in congress, but if you've read this blog for a while you know I'm not necessarily overwhelmed with the Democrats either. Hillary and her band of "centrist Democrats," in particular, are pretty high up on my shit list, too. So, lets have our debates on social issues and whether the war has made us more or less safe, but lets at least agree that as Americans we can do a lot better than George W. Bush and his puppeteer Karl Rove, who are apparently the only ones at this point that think the emperor has a stitch of clothing on.

Our perfect little war with Syria: Who knew?

In the second to last paragraph of a story in the NYT on the pentagon's very dubious estimates of foreign fighters being held in Iraq, Dexter Filkins writes, "The United States military is considering plans to conduct operations inside Syria, using small, covert teams for intelligence gathering." Not that I'm particularly surprised by this, I'm sure we've been going into Syria since the beginning, but what I am stunned by is the revelation that, "A series of clashes have occurred between American and Syrian troops in the last year, including prolonged firefights this summer that killed several Syrians." That's interesting; we've killed Syrian soldiers in combat? Why haven't we heard more about this?

It would seem if Rummy is signing off on these covert missions and is aware of fairly significant battles going on between our troops and the Syrians, he ought to be hauled up in front of congress and be made to explain why we're operating in another country, why he hasn't told anybody about it and what the plan is if things don't go according to plan and we get sucked into a regional conflict. Before you start sending troops into a sovereign nation, especially in that crazy neighborhood, you'd better have thought it through and if we're to judge by Rummy's stellar track record so far, you just know he hasn't. In order to prevent another potential disaster that could go on for decades and destabilize the Middle East----and our energy supplies!---Rummy must be held to account, right now, before he's allowed to go off half cocked on yet another military adventure, which will, no doubt, lead to more untidiness.

In other Rummy news:

This Saturday on his way to Lithuania, Rummy said he wanted this Taliban burning story cleared up as soon as possible, because this bad press going on for weeks over an "unverified allegation" could hurt our standing in the world. [Reuters] An "unverified allegation?" That's a funny way to put it. The pictures seem to be pretty clear.

By the way, the Australian journalist who took the video of the burning corpses, Stephen DuPont, said in an interview that he thought the soldiers involved were simply acting on orders and had no idea they were doing anything other than disposing of some decomposing corpses. (The bodies were returned to the Afghans and buried afterwards.) I'm sure that's true, so the very questionable actions of the Psy-Ops guys should be the real focus of the "investigation," which I'm sure will be very thorough and hard hitting, like all the other pentagon investigations that never find any wrongdoing.

If these Psy-Ops characters are so good at their jobs, being trained in cultural sensitivity etc., why didn't they know that employing the dubious tactic of trying to smoke out some Taliban fighters by taunting them with the bodies of their fallen comrades was destined to backfire? In terms of winning the hearts and minds of the villagers who had to endure the loud rock music they bombarded them with and the crudity of the language they used, I should think this mission was pretty much not accomplished. If this is how our most experienced officers are behaving, I can see why the Taliban are finding it so easy to operate effectively pretty much everywhere in the southeast of the country.

Do I think this is a huge deal, by the way? No, not really; I think, though, the same bunch of lunatics who can always use more recruiting tools will milk this for all its worth, which is why Rummy ought to come down hard on these Psy-OPs idiots, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I feel bad for those poor suckers who were standing around the bodies and will doubtless wind up paying the price.

Harriet Miers and her big Texas payoff:

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, it appears Harriet Miers got 10 times the market value for a piece of Superfund land she owned. The judge who appointed the panel that would determine how much the state would pay for the land had taken thousands in campaign contributions from Miers' law firm and he went ahead and picked a business associate of Miers and a fanatical anti-emminent domain advocate. And wha tdo you guess happened? She got $5 an acre when the land was only only really worth about .30 cents an acre. The Inquirer article writes that some feel "Miers handling of conflicts of interest doesn't bode well" for any future entaglements she might have will administration policies that might go before the Supreme Court. Another odd thing about this story is that the state later decided it had paid too much for the land, $106,915, and asked for $26,000 back from Miers. This was back in 2003 and Texas is still waiting. There has been no explaination by the White House as to why she hasn't paid the state of Texas what she owes.