Bush's grand new Iraq

The fog of White House spin continues to dissipate. First, Oxfam and Iraqi NGOs reported that nearly a third of Iraq's population needs emergency aid. Then this morning the BBC reports on what it has learned from Stuart Bowen, Congress's chief auditor of the $44 billion paid out for Iraq's reconstruction. In sum:

* Bowen says economic mismanagement and corruption in Iraq is equivalent to "a second insurgency." One example: the Doura power station, rebuilt with tens of millions of US dollars, fell into disrepair once it was transferred to Iraqi control.

* The Iraqi parliament has adjourned until September 4, despite US calls for it to remain in session and pass already-delayed legislation.

* The Oxfam-NGO survey recognizes that armed conflict is the greatest problem facing Iraqis, but finds a population "increasingly threatened by disease and malnutrition." Their report "suggests that 70% of Iraq's 26.5m population are without adequate water supplies, compared to 50% prior to the invasion. Only 20% have access to effective sanitation. Nearly 30% of children are malnourished, a sharp increase on the situation four years ago. Some 15% of Iraqis regularly cannot afford to eat. The report also said 92% of Iraq's children suffered from learning problems."

The latest plate of Bush baloney

Today Bush The Decider again went on stage with his "fighting Al Qaeda in Iraq so we don't have to fight them here" fandango. This time he mentioned Al Qaeda 93 times--yes, that is NINETY-THREE TIMES--In 29 minutes.

It seems Bush cannot stop raving about this very small part of the insurgency in Iraq. CNN's Michael Ware, who has lived in Iraq almost continuously since before the US invaded and occupied the country, points out that Al Qaeda "would be lucky to make up...3 percent of the total insurgency."

Apparently the President-In-Denial cannot bring himself to accept the fact that US troops have been dying--as of tonight 3,637 of them--in the midst of an insane, home-grown civil war. Nobody is going to deny that Al Qaeda jihadists are a part of the insurgent mix in Iraq, but again, their number is small. And their number was zero until Bush and Cheney lit the fire.

Let us end the nightmare

The impeachment of George W. Bush must come out of the House of Representatives. Why has House Speaker Nancy Pelosi consistently brushed impeachment aside? Concern about distressing the American people makes no sense; impeachment, followed by conviction in the Senate, would remove from power the very man who has been distressing the nation and the world since March 19, 2003.

Impeachment of course is as old and sacrosanct as our Constitution; it is our representatives' response to "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." The high crimes here are the illegal invasion of Iraq (including the lies about WMD, the discarding of the Geneva convention on torture, secret detentions, and the denial of Habeas Corpus) and the illegal spying on U.S. citizens. (This, my friends, is the short list.)

Of course it would make more sense to impeach Dick Cheney first, but that would probably be more difficult, since he could be considered as merely advising Bush, who made the final decisions.

A mere handful of House members have joined Dennis Kucinich in calling for impeachment. The US public is way ahead on this; according to a survey last month by the American Research Group, 45% want to impeach Bush and 54% want to impeach Cheney. Those percentages are almost certain to grow as congressional investigations continue and the spin-generated fog continues to diminish.

Get to it, Nancy and colleagues. Let us end the nightmare.

Words worthy of Rove

On Monday, the Maliki government's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, said about a US withdrawa from Iraql: “The dangers vary from civil war to dividing the country or maybe to regional wars. In our estimation the danger is huge. Until the Iraqi forces and institutions complete their readiness, there is a responsibility on the U.S. and other countries to stand by the Iraqi government and the Iraqi people to help build up their capabilities.”

Hello? A civil war has been raging there for a long time. This "country" is already divided, with the Kurds flying their own Kurdistan flag and the Shias and Sunnis hating and killing each other on a daily basis. The"Iraqi forces" are not really an army; they do not show up when needed, and many are really militiamen with their own sectarian loyalties. The "country's" institutions--starting with the parliament--are dysfunctional, and Maliki is liable to be dumped by his own government. In the meantime, two million people have been displaced within Iraq's borders and another two million have fled to Syria, Jordan and beyond.

Zebari's Rovian statement sounds like it was emailed straight from the White House.

Bush the Magnanimous

Let's clear away the fog and get to the nitty gritty.

The White House offices of George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney jointly make up the most powerful inner sanctum in the world.

Lewis "Scooter" Libby was in the top echelon of that inner sanctum, simultaneously holding three positions there.

Libby was convicted by a jury on one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and one count of making false statements to federal investigators. He was sentenced to 30 months in prison, plus two years of supervised release, plus a $250,000 fine.

But George W. Bush--who presided over 152 executions in six years while governor of Texas and gave just one death-row pardon--commuted Libby's prison sentence at the last minute.

The nitty gritty stinks to high heaven.

A lunar military-industrial complex?

Bruce K. Gagnon coordinates the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He has been writing about the US goal of establishing mining colonies on the Moon to extract helium-3, which can be used for fusion power on Earth. "Scientists have long been saying that the profits from helium-3 extraction will make the money made from oil exploration on Earth look like nothing in comparison."

Gagnon continues: "The Army has had plans since the early 1950's to set up military bases on the Moon. Scientists have long known that there exists an Earth-Moon gravity well. Whoever sits at the top of the well, with bases on the moon, will be able to literally control who can get on and off the planet Earth. So military bases on the Moon play a key role in the space 'control and domination' program outlined in the U.S. Space Command's 1997 document called Vision for 2020. It's hardly a coincidence that the NASA goal for establishing manned bases on the Moon is set for 2020."

And how to pay for it all? "The aerospace industry publication, Space News, years ago editorialized that they know they must come up with a funding source for their expensive space programs... They said they are sending their lobbyists to Washington to defund the 'entitlement programs.'" (That's Social Security, Medicaid, Medicare.)

Gagnon concludes: "The space industry has declared war on the poor and the working class. Which will it be, folks? Social progress or bases on the Moon?"