The mule stays the course

This is what "unitary president" George Bush said yesterday, Nov. 28, 2006: “I’m not going to pull our troops off the battlefield before the mission is complete.”

Fade back to May 1, 2003. The same president descended from the skies and stood beneath the ever-more-infamous carrier banner that proclaimed to all the world "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED." Since that day, 2,745 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq.

Fade a little farther back to March 19, 2003, when the war built on lies began. Since that day, 2,883 US troops have been killed in Iraq. (I won't repeat the stratospheric numbers of dead Iraqis that I've reported in this blog in the past.)

Most of the conscious world has known for months that Iraq is ripping itself apart in a Sunni-Shiite civil war. (Again, that's spelled C-I-V-I-L W-A-R.) Surely this has been the fact at least since the February bombing of the Shiite Askariya mosque in Samarra. Today even the former Iraq war supporter Colin Powell said that this is a civil war. But not the mule in the White House. Yesterday he blamed the relentless massacres on Al-Qaeda, even though almost all analysts are in agreement that Al-Qaeda makes up less than 10% of Iraqi insurgents.

What a pity that there could be no impeachment on March 20, 2003.

The immigration scene

The House and Senate turnover in January should get us a little farther away from xenophobic blather and maybe a lot closer to a comprehensive immigration plan. In the meantime, meanness continues to metastasize in one town after another across the land. The latest crusade: to turn renters into criminals if they rent to undocumented people.

But there are blessed signs of hope too, the latest one popping up here in Southern Arizona. This week a Superior Court jury in Cochise County -- long home to a bevy of racists -- declared rancher Roger Barnett guilty on a number of charges including unlawful imprisonment and assault. The civil judgment demands he pay almost $100,000 in damages. In October 2004, Barnett, his wife and his brother stopped Arturo Morales and four others (all US citizens and the youngest only nine years old) on property he leases from the state. He yelled racist obscenities and pointed his loaded assault rifle at them, threatening to kill them.

Roger Barnett, who claims he has detained 10,000 immigrants, is a hero to border vigilantes. His kind of vigilantism has been carried out in Cochise County for years, but local authorities have shown little interest in prosecution. This jury decision -- they deliberated for three hours -- just might put on the brakes and save some lives.

All but Bush & Cheney

Today Tony Blair admitted in an interview with Sir Robert Frost that Iraq is "a disaster."

Today Associated Press-Ipsos announced that their latest poll found just 31% of Americans approved of Bush's handling of Iraq. That is the lowest percentage ever.

The Democratic takeover of both the Senate and the House of Representatives is clearly due to Bush's war and occupation.

As of yesterday, 2,865 US troops have been killed in Iraq.

At least 1,000 Iraqi civilians are being killed each week.

But Bush and Cheney are still saying stay the course and full speed ahead.

Is it blindness, or stubborn madness, or both?

Civil war, civil insanity

When I checked the BBC's web site this morning, it said 100 Iraqis had been kidnapped from a Baghdad education center headed by a Sunni. That number declined during the day, and by evening the last 40 were freed by police action. But the question remains: How could a convoy of 20 vehicles carrying men in stolen uniforms get by all the roadblocks at 10 o'clock in the morning in a city that is patrolled by over 60,000 (this is NOT a typo) U.S. troops? While the education ministry is headed by a Sunni, the interior ministry (which oversees the police) is headed by a Shiite. The national police force is known to be thoroughly infiltrated by militiamen.

While today's mass kidnapping dominated the news, the fact is that there are 30 to 40 kidnappings every day. Many are carried out to obtain ransom money. But many are just the prologue to murder, often after the worst kind of torture. Bodies bearing signs of torture are regulary fished out of the Tigris river which flows through Baghdad. It is insanity.

And still there are big mouths in Washington who continue to insist that Iraq is not in civil war. That in itself has to be a sign of home-grown insanity.

Past. Present. Future?

The recent past and the present:
The lies and wounds and deaths and financial cost of the mad Iraq war and occupation --Katrina -- 45 million Americans without health insurance -- Obscene tax loopholes for corporations and sweet tax breaks for the richest -- Catastrophic job losses -- An almost unimaginable national debt -- Government by lobby -- Thousands of migrant deaths along our southern border -- The rogues gallery of hypocrites, e.g., Foley, Abramoff, Cunningham.

Then the House turnabout. And now the Senate turnabout. And Rumsfeld has gone bye-bye.

So what does the fairly proximate future hold? Here are my bets:

Heavy pressure on Bush to start troop withdrawal from Iraq and a beginning of that withdrawal -- Talks with Iraq's neighbors, especially Iran -- Renewed attention toward the Palestinians -- More cooperation between parties in Congress (no more locked doors and midnight chicanery) -- House investigations into the Iraq debacle -- Real oversight -- A real ethics committee -- Renewed environmental protections -- Minimum wage raise -- Use of government purchasing power to get prescription meds -- A less-ferocious border policy and defunding of "the wall."

I hope I'm not hoping too much. But this week sure has let the light shine in.

The Garbage People

OK, the final days of campaigning before an election are always frantic, largely ridiculous and often downright mean and demeaning. But this time, in the face of a likely huge loss for the Bushites, the barrage of garbage has gone way, way beyond vile. It is depraved.

Think candidate Tammy Duckworth, who lost both legs in Iraq. (Don't forget how the same school of television terrorists went after Kerry-booster Max Cleland, who lost both legs and a forearm in Vietnam, by picturing him with Bin Laden.) Think Michael J. Fox (and the grotesque on-radio-and-on-screen antics of Limbaugh The Mad.) Think of the dragged-out hype over John Kerry's clumsy joke about Bush. Think of that anti-Ford advert with the winking white tart at the end. Think of all the Dem candidates who have been called pro-terrorist, i.e. "If you vote for them, the terrorists win."

But enough already. Everybody in the country who has at least one television set has seen and smelled this stuff. A prediction: it ain't gonna work this time.

And when the tide has changed....why don't we just deport Karl Rove? Is there room on the International Space Station?