The Plot to Attack the United States, er Iran

Bad news America -- bad news world. Dick Cheney's thirty-year priopism for attacking Iran is closer than ever to coming to a climax. He wants this so bad, he can almost smell it with his lizard tongue.

Generally, it's more of the same from the Bush Crime Family and the Cheney neocon-men: we know Iran has nuclear intentions, we know they are supplying weapons and training to insurgents in Iraq, and we know they have designs on your teenage daughters. We have no tangible proof we can show you, but we have plenty of talking heads that will get up and make the unsubstantiated claim. Basically, trust us, would we lie to you?

And just like the run-up to the Iraq war, Administration officials are getting increasingly frustrated with sanctions and other UN methods for dealing with international conflict. So they are looking for some way to justify military action. Make no mistake, justification will be found. More like, justification will be manufactured -- this war is going to happen.

The terrible twosome have been steadily ramping up their anti-Iranian rhetoric for a couple of years now -- from painting Ahmendinajad as a nutball (takes one to know one), to accusations of providing the materials for IEDs, to empty UN resolutions, to hypocritical accusations of state-sanctioned terrorism, to constant lying about Iranian nuclear intentions, and even a super-groovy retro Gulf of Tonkin hoax -- with frustratingly (to them) little to show for it.



Just last month, President Bushmill got up in front of the country and the world and unashamedly claimed that Iran wants "a nuclear weapon to destroy people." Well, maybe he was a little ashamed, but only because the elite liberal press made such a stink out of it. Jeesh, John McCain gets to totter on about "bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran" and nobody bats an eye, but danged if those elitist liberal pinheads committed to defeat in this here war on terra don't get their drawers in a wad when the President says it.

Of course, it doesn't help when dumbshits in the intelligence community publish naive National Intelligence Estimates that contradict every hyperintuitive bone in Bushmill's one-dimensional world. Or when traitorous, disloyal bastards like General Erik Shinsheki and Admiral William Fallon refuse to be used as puppets in Boom-Boom Cheney's bloodthirsty theater of vain.

Earlier this month, Bushmill sent reliable Administration schills, General David "Betray us" Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan "What a crock" Crocker up to Congress to stall for more time on the Iraq issue. Never ones to pass up an opportunity to get a jump start on the next war, Bushmill and The Dick made sure to have Petraeus and Crocker lob Iranian fear bombs whenever possible. "They spoke of Tehran's 'nefarious activities,' its 'malign influence,' and how it posed 'the greatest long-term threat to the viability' of the Baghdad government."

Ever since pronouncing them as a founding member of the Axis of Evil, the Bushmill Administration has had Iran in their sights. The festering sores of Afghanistan and Iraq have kept their murderous passion to a slow burn, but with Dumbya's catastrophe nearing a hard stop in January 2009, it's go time.

Meet the new lies, same as the old lies. Now, just like they did with Iraq, Bushmill and Cheney are strategically positioning their game pieces in advance of the green light for War III: the Iranian Debacle. This week, Admiral Fallon dispatched the aircraft USS Abraham Lincoln -- you remember old honest Abe, right? -- to join the USS Harry Truman in menacing, er "reminding" Iran that as soon as the bloodthirsty cowards of the Bush Administration get their ducks in a row, it's their ass!



Also this week, Pentagon officials are trying to claim that Iran, a Shia state, is providing support for the Taliban, a devout Sunni organization. That'd be like what, Republican members of congress actually supporting legislation proposed by the Democrats? Yeah, right. Predictably, that bullshit has met with some skepticism from anybody with half a brain, but that ain't going to stop Bushmill and The Dick from their bloody ambition.

Public opinion has no relevance to the Bush/Cheney junta because they have no regard for the public. However, low public opinion does make it tougher to run roughshod over the country and the Constitution because it often leads to nagging questions about details (where are the WMD? where is Osama? Will we again be greeted as liberators? How much is this going to cost? Do you have any kind of plan for after the invasion? Do you have any actual evidence of anything?).

Despite the gaping holes in logic and common sense, Bushmill and The Dick still have their media enablers to help make the case for them.

And yet, still nothing. Daaaaamn. What does a corrupt, war-mongering, intentionally incompetent Administration have to do these days to gin up a fake war against a sovereign country that has done nothing to harm or threaten the United States? Oh for those heady post-9/11 days when all Bushmill had to do was hunch his shoulders and go "boo" and he'd have every legislator in the land falling all over themselves to get a piece of the wartime action.

Some like Mother Jones, Dan Froomkin, and Olivier Knox see the process but don't yet see the mechanism. What they need to realize is that the American public and even this weak-kneed Democratic congress won't back any attack on Iran based solely on Administration say-so. No amount of evidence or statements from military officials or hand-wringing or terra'-baiting can overcome this Administration's credibility gap. So how will they do it?

There is only one card left for Bushmill and The Dick to play, and it's the ace of spades: a massive domestic terrorist attack. Hell, it worked once before.

Think back a few years. Despite all the phonied-up evidence about WMD, would America have supported an invasion of Iraq based just on the warmongering of Bushmill and The Dick? Probably not. But supercharged with the emotion of an event like 9/11, and well, the American public will buy anything. So here we go again.

Stock up on your duct tape and plastic sheets Bay Area, because President Bushmill and The Dick have a shitstorm headed your way.

At the danger of being framed by the NSA as a patsy for Bushmill and The Dick's craven plan or winding up an unfortunate "suicide," based on close observation of the right-wing sound machine and a nasty gut feeling, Page A-26 fears the following:

• There will be a large-scale terrorist attack in the United States this year. Like 9/11, it will be an inside job intended to frighten the American public and American politicians into such a frenzied state of panic that they will agree to anything Cheney's neocon-men want. Fox's pompous pompadour John "Kim Il-Jung stole my hair" Gibson has already acknowledged as much on live TV. (When we say "inside job," we don't necessarily mean that American agents actually carried out every detail of the attack. We mean that there was some direct assistance from US operatives, there was some intentional negligence, and there was some strategic inaction -- all designed to "allow" such an attack to occur.)
  
• It will target a major US city. Bill O'Reilly already let slip that the lunatic fringe would be more than willing to sacrifice the other "blue" capital of the country, San Francisco. It will target an iconic yet low-population-density target in the Bay Area such as Coit Tower (O'Reilly's suggestion), Alcatraz, or the Golden Gate Bridge. For maximum effect on morale, we suspect it will be the Golden Gate Bridge -- think of the anti-Olympic flame protest there in April as a test run on the bridge's security.
  
• It will involve a "dirty bomb" in order to substantiate both the Administration's scare tactic of a nuclear Iran and the necessity of the so-called War on Terror.
• It will occur this summer, most likely after the Democratic National Convention in late August and before the Republican National Convention in early September. Such timing will give McCain the Main Stream Media's (MSM) undivided attention and effectively put him in the middle of the action, compared to the Democratic nominee who will have no access to the decision-making process or the associated spotlight.
• As with 9/11, immediate and irrefutable "evidence" will surface linking the attack to Iran, most likely the elite Al-Quds brigade, which despite being a unit of the Iranian military, is still somehow considered a terrorist organization.
  
• Suspects in the attack will be quickly identified, almost too quickly, but we will soon learn that they were either killed in the blast or have somehow already left the country. Dead (and make-believe) men tell no tales, right, so no use looking for anybody.
• As with 9/11, the boisterous choir of jingoistic vitriol from the right-wing sound machine will make any quest for the truth not only impossible, but treacherously unpatriotic.
• And like 9/11, there will be an immediate flood of emergency wartime legislation designed to give Bush and his Republican successor free rein to act unilaterally in response.
  

Such an incident will accomplish the following for the Bush/Cheney neocon-men and their corporate collaborators.

• It will ensure the election of a Republican president in 2008.
• It will fulfill Cheney's 30-year boner for revenge on Iran.
• It will open up the Iranian oil fields for corporate plunder.
• It will further enable the neocon-men's dream of a "democratic" Middle East by making it possible for the US to establish yet another puppet regime in the region.
  
• It will further expand US military presence in the Middle East.
• It will take all public and MSM attention away from all the other crimes and constitutional depravities of the Bush Administration.
• It will continue indefinitely the plunder of the US Treasury by the Bush Crime Family's profiteering cronies in the military/industrial complex.
  

So there it is. Unless the Democrats in Congress grow a sac or the American people pull their heads out of their jingo-holes, we will have ourselves another unprovoked invasion of a sovereign Middle Eastern country and another interminable war for profit and pride.

As Bushmill and The Dick tried to tell us before they invaded Iraq, we cannot wait to attack because the final proof could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. So for War #3, they are going to combine the last two steps in the run-up to this new fake war: a mushroom cloud to prove their point.

Heads-up America, the writing is on the wall.

Incompetent Design

In yesterday's Washington Post, fellow traveler Dan Froomkin posed the worthwhile, if not after-the-fact question, "What has Bush done to the government?"

His point being that various failures of the last seven years -- Katrina, Iraq, political appointments, et al -- have been the result of government incompetence. It's a logical and totally correct assertion, but it fundamentally misses the point.

It's not about whether the government is incompetent, broken, fucked up-- and it's not even about how. We know the answers to both of those questions. It's about why.

With this Administration, it boils down to this: as bad as you think it is, you haven't even scratched the surface.

That's because their nefarity is almost beyond the scope of rational thinking. To understand what the modern-day Republicans are doing and why, one must contemplate conspiratorial scenarios. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean it isn't true.

Why has the government become so incompetent so quickly and so thoroughly? Because that's exactly what the Bush corporatists and the Cheney neocon-men want. It isn't an accident or bad execution or the passive dumbing down of America over centuries. This is premeditated, partner.

Over the last seven years, government incompetence has been an intentional objective of this administration, to be used as leverage to drive people into the waiting arms of private industry (as well as to consolidate executive power, but that's a story for another day). That's where the profit's at, and that's what it's all it about. That's the only thing that matters. That's what is driving US policy -- all of it -- immigration policy, foreign policy, health care policy, environmental policy, energy policy . . .

Remember Bush's privatization kick for social security (it's baa-ack), health care, and even education? These are all federal government-level issues that Bush's handlers want to hand over to the profit-producting private sector, and they're using broader policy goals like tax deductions, the War in Iraq, and intentional government impotence to force the issue.

This whole incompetence strategy has been about redistributing the wealth and power of the federal government into the hands of C-level executives, board members, and the private corporations they control and which in turn control American policy. The whole ownership society and privatization of social security schemes are about tricking the American population into thinking that they can get inside the velvet ropes with the real fat-cats. It is about getting us to invest in individual securities, mutual funds, and sketchy mortgages so that we will be compelled to support the corrupt policy decisions of our profitocracy by voting for candidates who support corporate largesse at all costs. But the reality is trickle-down theory. The general public might get a few copecks that fall through the fingers of the rich and powerful, but the rich and powerful are the ones making all the money, as well as all the decisions.

The conservatives, who've been chewing on the welfare state since the New Deal, used to advocate small government based on libertarian principles of privacy and rugged individualism. Now their small government rhetoric is just talking points from the Chamber of Commerce. Modern conservatives, such as Grover "the bathtub" Norquist, see the federal government as a foolish annoyance blocking their access to the gold mines of the US Treasury.

The war in Iraq is about oil, revenge, power, and delusions of grandeur, but it's mostly about looting the US Treasury -- and so is the conservative incompetence campaign of the last seven years.

A dysfunctional government serves as confirmation of the corporatists argument that private industry is more efficient and innovative -- not to mention profitable. It's a beautiful self-fulfilling prophecy the conservatives have set in motion. Set horribly short-sighted, greed-driven policies that intentionally benefit the rich while at the same time destroying the very structure of the government, then turn around and point to the crumbling government as justification for passing more intentionally destructive legislation. Then just repeat, re-elect, and repeat

Money is like matter: it is neither created nor destroyed, it simply changes hands. The conservatives want it to change hands from the public coffers (where it benefits everybody) to the private sector (where it benefits primarily the elite). Figure it out America.

The war in Iraq is costing about $12 billion a month. Where do you think all that money is going? Why are there more mercenaries making $1,000 a day in Iraq than there are US government soldiers making $1,000 a month? Why can't the federal government or the US military account for millions of dollars in cash and weapons that purportedly went to Iraq? Why was there zero oversight of war spending from 2003 to 2007? Why haven't the Bush warmongers ever given any clear idea of how much they envision spending on Iraq and the War on Terra'?

The conservatives have been working on their redistribution of wealth strategy since the Reagan years. Trickle-down economics, supply-side economics, tax cuts upon tax cuts that benefit primarily the wealthy while starving the federal government of the very funds that would make it vibrant and consequential, massive deficits (who holds those notes and who profits from that debt? Who has a concerted interest in seeing crushing deficits and who are their enablers?), systematic incompetence.

It's all come to a head in the Dumbya administration, which is the perfect conservative storm. Wielding all three branches of government and the battle ax of 9/11 above the heads of a cowed and disinterested American public, the conservatives have spent the last seven years in an intentional, targeted, selfish, and greed-driven effort to destroy the federal government. It has been orchestrated by the conservatives who have ingeniously used a defenseless federal government as the patsy in its own assasination. (Playing the role of the Warren Commission: the Democrats.)

Bush bears some responsibility, but mostly for being lazy. The confident, resolute, sure-as-shooting, happy idiot has been the perfect front man for the conservatives' incompetence ruse. It makes perfect sense. Bush is an idiot. He barely speaks English, surrounds himself with unqualified yes men, and can't find his way out of a paper bag. While the corporatists that really pull the strings of the Republican party are anonymously counting their money, the poor hayseed American public, who just realized that the Music Man made off with their monorail money, is bumbling along behind Bush with pitchforks and torches babbling about incompetence.

In his piece, Froomkin references author Jonathon Chait, who writes in his book, The Big Con, "lying has become a systematic necssity . . . integral to the Republican economic agenda." Exactly. Yet still, legitimate seekers of truth and accountability like Froomkin are unable to think outside of the box and realize that the incomptence is just an act, a shiny object, a red herring, misdirection intended to disguise the real enterprise.

Until journalists expand their minds and start questioning current events in the three-dimensional universe of ulterior motives, greed, and conspiracy, until they realize that Hilary and Dan Rather are right -- that there is a vast right-wing conspiracy -- the "news" will continue to be nothing more than a propaganda vehicle for those who have the power and conviction to use it for their own dark agendas.

The Band-Aid Analogy

In a speech yesterday to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City, President Bushmill had the gaul to compare Iraq to Vietnam in an effort to attack critics of his war. It would be laughable if so many people weren't dying because of this idiot.

Basically the entire Bush Crime Family and Cheney neocon-men argument for staying in Iraq boils down to this: if we leave, things are going to get worse.

And you know what? For once, they are right about something. Of course things are going to get worse -- at first. If and when the United States leaves, there will be a vacumn of military power and control, and chaotic violence will follow as various competing groups grapple to fill the vacumn.

Relatively quickly, however, a pecking order of power will be established, and once that happens, the violence will start to subside. Al Queda will be rooted out by sectarian forces and then those sectarian forces will claim and clean out their own cities and territories, and probably within two years, Iraq will have reached a point of functioning equilibrium. Just like Vietnam did.

Here's the simplest analogy Page A-26 can provide:

Getting out of Iraq is going to be like pulling a band-aid off of an open wound: you can pull it off slow, or you can rip it off fast. Either way it's going to hurt, but if you rip it off fast, the pain is over in an instant and the process of feeling better can begin immediately. If you pull it off slow, it draws out the pain and often makes a huge, bloody mess. If you leave it on indefinitely, the wound festers and gets worse.

The bottom line is that Bushmill and his lying enablers are simply trying to confuse and bully the American public into believing that the surge and Bush's larger Iraq strategy are working. In 2004, when Ted Kennedy likened the Iraq conflict to Vietnam -- and not in a good way like Bushmill sees it -- the Bush Crime Family and Cheney neocon-men were appauled that Kennedy would dare invoke the haunting specter of Vietnam.

It really is hard to keep up with these immoral, lying bastards, but we have to keep trying. Otherwise, they will completely rewrite history with their disgusting, distorted views.