Bush's latest nomenclature

George W. apparently will never run out of new names to try to justify his disastrous Iraq war and occupation. Now, as all the world has heard, the name is Fascism or the impressively hyphenated "Islamo-Fascism."

Well, Wikipedia's article on Fascism starts with this definition: "Fascism is a radical totalitarian political philosophy that combines elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, extreme nationalism, militarism, anti-anarchism, anti-communism and anti-liberalism."

Let's see now. Elements of...."corporatism" (so what former oilman is the patron saint of the worst vampires of corporate America?), elements of "authoritarianism" (and who calls himself The Decider and raises himself above the legislative branch by declaring a "unitary" presidency?), elements of "extreme nationalism" (and who has scorned a long line of allies around the world in the process of his warmaking?), elements of "militarism" (so who declared an illegal, immoral preemptive war and now hovers over a vicious civil war in the same arena?)

Enough already.

In the meantime, down in New Orleans there remains another kind of devastation....

Question of the week

What on earth will it take to get His Royal Highness The Decider to face the music about Iraq?

How many more Republican honchos will have to defect from Bush's war camp before he comes out of his trance? (Even the Un-Decider John McCain has at least pointed out the lunacy of pilot Bush's "Mission Accomplished" show and Rumsfeld's description of the insurgents as a bunch of thugs on their last legs.)

And when will the approximately 40% or so of Americans who still hover around the throne in obeisance face the fact that Iraq has been at civil war for some time now. (Somebody should point out to them that 17,000 Iraqis have been killed in the last seven months.)

Connecticut's Senator Christopher Shays has been a strong supporter of the Bush war/occupation since Day One, even as he visited Iraq 13 times. Returning from his 14th visit, even he is now calling for a time frame for withdrawal of our troops.

What more will it take?

Catching up

As those on my j&p list already know, I have been away for a week. Now that I'm back, I hope to post more frequently to this site.

The first web site I checked upon my return was www.antiwar.com/casualties/ As of yesterday, the number of US service men and women killed in Iraq is (updated 8/25: 2,609.) There was another terribly sad military funeral here in Tucson today, a young sailer and only son, killed by an IED. The official number of US wounded is (updated 8/25:19,890), but the casualty site reports that estimates run as high as 48,100. Yet George W. Bush has just done another re-run of his hip-hip-hooray presentation about staying the course.

The casualty site's main page has a quote from G.K. Chesterton at the top:

A man who says that no patriot should attack the war until it is over...is saying no good son should warn his mother of a cliff until she has fallen.

Will somebody please pass the word to the commander in chief?

Much worse than just a quagmire

Here in Arizona it is almost Monday, and countless people in Lebanon and Israel and around the world are hoping the nascent cease fire will take hold. So far it looks quite shaky, but a failure will just accelerate the Mid-Eastern descent into total hell.

Some unintimidated U.S. journalists are now telling the story like it really is.
* Bush has neglected real diplomacy in the Middle East for five years - with the Palestinians, the Iranians and the Syrians.
* The majority of Americans now realize that Bush's attack on Iraq was senseless and the occupation is disastrous.
* Iraq is already in a civil war.
* The Iraq and now Lebanon situations are stoking the fires of hate and the recruitment of terrorists.
* Some Bush buddies (e.g., Kristol and Perle) now want to attack Syria and Iran.
* The Taliban are making a strong comeback in Afghanistan.
* Turkey's military is extremely nervous about the possibility of the Kurds of Iraq becoming an independent country.
* India is considering retaliating against Pakistan over train bombings.

Richard Holbrooke wrote last week that "the combination of combustible elements poses the greatest threat to global stability since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, history's only nuclear superpower confrontation."

So here we are, looking into the pit. And George is still at the helm. Pray for a miracle.

The Lieberman signpost

I hope today's defeat of Senator Joe Lieberman points to a national voters' surge against any more support of The Bush War by anybody, period.

There is something very sad about the Lieberman story. Here is a guy who has been voting very progressively (I think the most recent count gives him an 80% score) for all of 18 years. But then he hugs the Conquistador In Chief--and I'm not referring to last year's much-published hug-or-kiss-or whatever-the-hell-that-was. Lieberman's stubborn embrace of the Bushite Iraq disaster is simply its own disaster. (Yes, I know he has differed over operational stuff, but that's a hiccup in the midst of an embrace.)

Tonight Lieberman condemned all the "partisan bickering" and confirmed that he would now run for Senator as an independent. But if standing up against a global outrage like this war is simply bickering, we all might as well shut the door on reality and go watch the Fox channel.

Hooray for today's electoral defeat. May it be the first of many like it.

Supreme arrogance here & there & everywhere

I have arrogance fatigue from listening to King George's blather ever since the Lebanon tragedy began to unfold. But today I made myself listen to Princess Condi, and she outdid her boss. His blather was trumped by her gobbledegook.

But arrogance apparently is not reserved for this side of the Atlantic. In today's Toronto Sun, Eric Margolis reports on what Doron Rosenblum, a columnist for Israel's Ha'aretz newspaper, wrote last week about the cause of the Lebanon war. According to Rosenblum, the real cause was a speech by Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who sneered that Israel's new triumvirate of PM Ehud Olmert, Defence Minister Amir Peretz, and Chief of Staff Dan Halutz were "small'" compared to Ariel Sharon. Margolis writes: "According to Rosenblum, 'bad-tempered' Olmert, Peretz, and 'arrogant Halutz' flew into rages at this grave insult to their manhood, and sought to prove they could out-Sharon Sharon by turning a minor skirmish into an all-out war."

I won't go beyond mentioning the incredible arrogance of the third party, Nasrallah himself, who proclaims he will eliminate Israel.

The arrogant rant. The children die. The rest of us keep too much silence.

Rumsfeld The Pathetic

There he was again today, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was asking his rhetorical questions about Iraq. "Are people dying? " He answers his own question, just in case there is one person in the world who does not know the answer. "Yes," he says. He goes on. "This is not a classic civil war." Let's see. The Shias and the Sunnis are cutting each other's throats and blowing up each other's children. About 100 Iraqi civilians are killed every day. So how many have to die in a day to merit the title of "classic?" And just how did Rumsfeld sum up this bloody mess today? "It is unfortunate," he said.

Meanwhile, not so very far to the west, Lebanon -- so praised not long ago in Washington for becoming a Syria-free democracy -- is falling apart. At least 40% of the country supports Hezbollah. Comandante Bush, who for so long seemed almost paralyzed in the face of the endless Israeli-Palestinian standoff, continues to stall while the rest of the world clamors for a cease-fire. Today there was acceleration on both sides, with Hezbollah firing a record number of rockets into Israel and Israeli soldiers and tanks massing at the Lebanese border for a huge land invasion. And that voice in the background? Condi sounds almost as pathetic as Rummy.